Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
CoolHandMike wrote:
Let's go with completing all the discs. But what does that actually entail here? I would like to tas from beginning to end, from the start of the first disc all the way to the end of the third disc. So as far as a stopping point when switching discs should it be the very next frame after I press fire to defeat the last enemy in the first disc? Should it be the very frame after the last save point? Or should it be after the credits? And yes, each of these discs has its own credits as though they are individual games.
1) Are each of these discs individual completable games?
2) If not and if these should all be considered one long contiguous game, then at what point should I switch discs from 1 to 2, and from 2 to 3?
What's the minimal required action in the previous disk that would properly continue in the next one? Is there any in-game prompt to swap a disk?
I think it makes sense to play them individually as separate goals, and then one continuous play as yet another goal since the game lets you carry over your stats.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
IgorOliveira666 wrote:
One question: for some reason, would this hack be accepted here? https://youtu.be/29C6oJp9CNA
In short, this is a hack made on top of Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii and it has the levels/map of Super Mario World. It's basically Super Mario World for the Nintendo Wii. However, version 1.0 (the original, which I have no idea who made) was full of bugs and weird things. So, I decided to create a version 1.1 of this hack myself, fixing everything I saw that was bad in the hack and it turned out quite interesting. Unfortunately, I couldn't change a lot of things, including the bosses and many other things, due to lack of knowledge.
We rely on third parties when judging hacks: ideally they need to be hosted on some well-known hack database (romhacking.net was an obvious option, https://romhack.ing/ is the successor). If you can submit the patch to them and they publish it, we will most likely accept a TAS of it.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Let's go with completing all the discs. But what does that actually entail here? I would like to tas from beginning to end, from the start of the first disc all the way to the end of the third disc. So as far as a stopping point when switching discs should it be the very next frame after I press fire to defeat the last enemy in the first disc? Should it be the very frame after the last save point? Or should it be after the credits? And yes, each of these discs has its own credits as though they are individual games.
1) Are each of these discs individual completable games?
2) If not and if these should all be considered one long contiguous game, then at what point should I switch discs from 1 to 2, and from 2 to 3?
What's the minimal required action in the previous disk that would properly continue in the next one? Is there any in-game prompt to swap a disk?
I think it makes sense to play them individually as separate goals, and then one continuous play as yet another goal since the game lets you carry over your stats.
Since each of them can be played from start to finish independently it makes sense to me to treat them as separate games, and then create a multigame like Mega Man 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 that allows for a run of all individual games with saves transferring between them.
It might be a good idea to formalise that more generally too. For example, we already have runs of Golden Sun GBA. As it stands, we could have a run of Lost Age without an existing save file and a run using a GS1 save with presumably max level characters and all items. But no combination of movies for the two games would be representative of how quickly it's possible to beat both games - even assuming the first game's route doesn't change at all, the second game would be faster than the no save run, but slower than the "max level" save run; and it's likely that doing some extra levelling or collecting some extra items in the first game would reduce the overall time taken (depending on goals etc.)
Wizardry (at least the Apple II versions) and Ratchet and Clank both have this kind of mechanic too, and that's before we even get into more modern series where this becomes more common.
Does debug left over unintentionally is considered a glitch in the context of glitchless?
More context:
Link to video
If you press triangle on the second controller the bridge breaks, saving quite some time over doing it the "leggit" way.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
arukAdo wrote:
Does debug left over unintentionally is considered a glitch in the context of glitchless?
More context:
Link to video
If you press triangle on the second controller the bridge breaks, saving quite some time over doing it the "leggit" way.
It's still just an in-game code. It's only a glitch if you access this functionality without entering that code but through a glitch. Or of someone looks at decompiled game code and explains why it's actually unintended.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
The source code is indeed available, the most logical reason that it wasnt intentional is that all others debug features (in the code) are not accessible/deactivated.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
That's not what I mean. We don't need to try to guess whether the input code was deliberately or accidentally left in. Looking at executable code for this trick is the way to know if the trick is even there. If the game checks for that specific button and breaks the bridge explicitly, then it's a debug/cheat feature. If the game is not supposed to do it but it happens due to some mistake in the programmed logic, then it's a bug.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Oh sorry, yes its in the source code, it checks you press the button (with second controller) and it break the bridge then.
Is this allowed for glitchless?
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
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In-game codes that don't add gameplay don't belong to standard branches (which glitchless is), but are allowed in Alternative.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
improvements must be in gameplay to warrant obsoletion.
Cutscene are definitly not gameplay, does that mean theres no merit to avoid a cutscene in the end?
Say a cutscene last a minute, and you implement a technique/glitch that takes 30 seconds, and consenquently save 30 seconds of non-gameplay.
Did you save 30 seconds or lost 30 seconds of "gameplay"?
Taking this by the letter sound like just watching the cutscene would obsolete skipping it, which I suppose is not what you want for counting frames/differences.
Say a cutscene last a minute, and you implement a technique/glitch that takes 30 seconds, and consenquently save 30 seconds of non-gameplay.
Did you save 30 seconds or lost 30 seconds of "gameplay"?
I think you would go for saving 30 seconds gameplay, even if you lose it in cutscene. Cutscenes usually are skipped/removed so it is pointless to ruin actually gameplay over skipping a cutscene in-game.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
arukAdo wrote:
Cutscene are definitly not gameplay, does that mean theres no merit to avoid a cutscene in the end?
Ending input sooner has merit as long as the game still ends properly eventually. Another traditional approach is making that proper game end happen as soon as possible even at the cost of longer input. Cutscenes or not, doesn't matter what exactly you optimize and how, it's just up to you which ending metric to use.
arukAdo wrote:
Taking this by the letter sound like just watching the cutscene would obsolete skipping it, which I suppose is not what you want for counting frames/differences.
If your new movie is shorter or it makes the ending happen sooner, then it's a legitimate improvement regardless of cutscenes. But taking someone else's movie that ends input early and switching it to fastest ending or vice versa is not an improvement. Improvement must apply using the same ending metric as before. Then if it's faster that way, you may change your ending metric on top of that legit improvement.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11635
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
arukAdo wrote:
Cutscene are definitly not gameplay, does that mean theres no merit to avoid a cutscene in the end?
arukAdo wrote:
Yeah sorry, I did not mean a cutscene at the end of the movie, I meant in the middle of playtrough.
Please decide.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
In this movie [2541] PSX Castlevania: Symphony of the Night by ForgoneMoose in 18:40.08, there is a couple cutscene that you have to go trough, because its baseline it does not use sram, which mean you cannot skip cutscenes by pressing start.
The first cutscene is unavoidable (maria).
The second cutscene is cleverly skip by going outside bounds with glitches and completly skip the trigger (richter cutscene), it saves some seconds compared to watch the cutscene.
-it is possible to go trough the trigger, and still keep going trough the second part of the game, wanted to make sure doing that mean loosing time, not saving, since its longer than going outside bounds. (and technically its not "gameplay").
The third cutscene happens right before dracula with shaft boss; I wanted to make sure that if I manage to skip that cutscene trough a glitch (like I did in the recent pacifist), it saves time compared to just wait the cutscene is over.
Now on a different matter and where it starts to be complicated is, the glitch is for jp version only, in us version you get to skip the FMV at the game start, in jp you cannot skip that, but, you can skip the cutscene right before you switch to alucard, while in usa you cannot skip that one.
Cutscenes ingame in jp are also ironically, slightly longer than their us counterpart, at the very least for prologue and shaft.
Bottom line, what I would hope is, the intro and fmv doesnt matter, but skipping the dialogue for shaft does really save time/valid for obsoletion (its at least 40 seconds compared to wait the cutscene to end).
