Venice Beach Volleyball

While reviewing ShesChardcore's submission of this game, I found some major improvements that yield a savings of 1460 frames 2258 frames.
This submission is that improvement.

TAS Notes

  • ShesChardcore found that serving on the last possible frame yielded an ace serve every time.
  • I discovered that serving on the first possible frame also yields an ace serve every time. EDIT: Actually the first few possible frames.
  • The Crab....and RNG Manipulation
    • The Crab is based on frame count RNG. If the framecount is in a certain range when a point is awarded, the crab will steal the ball and the player will be able to serve earlier.
    • I varied timing of serves as needed to make sure the crab would show. Even when delaying a serve was necessary, the crab shortened the time getting to the next serve enough that the delay was warranted.
    • Further, how far the crab had to travel was also manipulable. Delaying the hit on the serve by a frame or two changed the opponent's motion. It was often possible to get the ball to stop directly when it hit the feet of the opponent instead of bouncing by them. Doing this with aimed serves allowed for very brief thefts by the crab and further decreased time until the next serve.

Improvement Possibilities

*Even though the input timing of the serve itself is almost always identical across all serves, I did notice that the timing between points/serves is not consistent. I don't yet know why this happens.
    • There is a little crab that occasionally pops out and steals the ball after some points. This seems to coincide with the shorter wait times to serve the next point.
  • If I or someone else can figure out what triggers the faster serves/crab. Improvement may still be possible.
  • I feel that this run is very solid now, but I won't say that improvement can't be made if someone finds even better service options for RNG manipulation and Crab thefts.

Attribution

  • I did not include ShesChardocre as author on this submission as all the gameplay inputs were done from scratch. If the judges/staff feel that ShesChardcore should be added to this submission, I am ok with that.
Embeded Encode updated.
Someone with the power, please update this submission with this updated version.

feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Updating with an improvement and accepting.

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8044: DrD2k9's NES Venice Beach Volleyball in 01:38.95
nymx
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Expert player (2255)
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 933
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
Dude, that team you beat...they ain't making it to the playoffs. You made them look so stupid. LOOOOL Yes vote.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Editor, Expert player (2080)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3284
I didn't expect this kind of game to have competition in optimizing it. Or that anyone would start talking about RNG manipulation and crabs. By the way, I noticed in the submission text that DrD2k9 is requesting the submission to be replaced with the improvement which finishes in 1:38: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638122989199432688
TiKevin83
He/Him
Ambassador, Moderator, Site Developer, Player (155)
Joined: 3/17/2018
Posts: 358
Location: Holland, MI
I concur with nymx, it's hilarious how bad this TAS makes the other team look!
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5150] NES Venice Beach Volleyball by DrD2k9 in 01:38.95