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Habreno wrote:
The point is that when you have to take significant precautions to avoid glitching your way OOB, perhaps said glitches shouldn't be in a "no major glitches" category in the first place.
Why? What's your reasoning behind this?
Judging by what you just said, I assume you're fine with inbounds xray climbing, because you don't have to take "significant precautions" to avoid going OOB. So the issue is that superjumps are hard to control? That's the problem that makes them banworthy?
What if tomorrow someone found an easy way to stop a superjump at any point along its path and avoiding going OOB became trivial? Is that all it would take for the glitch to be OK?
Habreno wrote:
In regards to your comment about shinesparking, shinesparking alone is not a glitch. Neither is pausing, as someone else mentioned. I am explicitly using the word glitch and explicitly talking about glitches, not normal gameplay mechanics and features. When you are using glitches and need to take precautions while using said glitches to avoid going OOB (once again, in a no major glitches category), then perhaps the glitch itself is the problem and shouldn't be allowed in a no major glitches category.
OK - replace shinesparking with mockballing. Hypothetically, if you could mockball over a door, would we ban mockballing? Or would we just not mockball over doors?
EDIT: Upon rereading the discussion, I realized I misunderstood your first post I replied to. When you talked about being able to say "I didn't technically go oob doing X", that gave me the impression that you were talking about reassuring people who were concerned that a particular glitch may have gone OOB, but I realize now you were talking about control of the glitch all along. Apologies.
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Habreno wrote:
The example more appropriate was the elevator spark, because that one Sniq actually did have to do in a specific way that he did not go OOB.
Can you clarify why that matters? I don't see how that's relevant to your argument that I initially responded to, which was that it's problematic for something to "look OOB." Are you saying that the elevator spark "looks more OOB"?
Or are you arguing something else, that we should be banning "inbounds but almost not"? It looks to me like Sniq made sure that the superjump touched the room transition tile whilst barely being inbounds... just like every other inbounds door transition that has ever been taken in a Super Metroid TAS, human speedrun, or casual playthrough.
Maybe you could argue that this instance is different from a typical door transition because he could have just skipped right through it. You can also shinespark through doors into OOB by pausing. Is shinesparking through doors bad because you have to "do it in a specific way" so that you don't go OOB?
Or perhaps as I said earlier, we should be banning OOB specifically and not glitches that can lead to OOB.
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Habreno wrote:
When you're actively taking precautions with your glitching so that you can say "I didn't technically go OOB doing X" that's a bit much, don't you think?
Is it, though? Should we be banning glitches because people might misunderstand and think it "looks like" OOB?
If someone thinks the backward LN entry was OOB, then is that a problem with the glitch itself, or is it a problem with the person's perception of the glitch? And should we be categorizing glitches based on facts, or based on Average Andy's beliefs about the glitch?
Let's muddy the waters a little. The reason why the backward LN entry could be mistaken for OOB is because a scroll PLM doesn't unlock that portion of the screen when touched, and people have associated the camera failing to follow Samus with being OOB. If the exact same glitch was used in a case where the screen was allowed to scroll, would that application be OK -- but not otherwise -- because nobody could mistake it for OOB?
No, that's silly.
(I know you didn't explicitly mention the reverse LN entry. I'm just using it as an example.)
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Eszik wrote:
I don't know much about X-ray glitches, but how does this compare to the "cloud" issue in Super Mario World? RTA runs of SMW use the cloud for "low glitch" runs but the possibility of TAS doing that has been ruled out several times because grabbing the cloud is the starting point of ACE runs. Is this a similar run? Is there any point in the run where an ACE-potential gltich was used in another way?
No, nothing remotely related to ACE happens here.
I think inbounds xray climbing has been left out before because it has the potential to be used to go OOB, and you could make the same argument about superjumps here, but that's something I disagree with entirely. I don't think glitches should be banned because they can be used in a more gamebreaking way. If OOB/ACE are the things to avoid, then ban OOB/ACE, not things that can lead to OOB/ACE.
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scrimpeh wrote:
yo what's that fall speed in the vertical corridors god damn
The fall speed cap no longer applies if you jump while MOONWALKING!!!!!
It's pretty weird, and I refuse to believe it hasn't happened to someone by accident at some point.
Also noteworthy is that this is probably the largest single improvement to Ceres since, like, armpumping or something.
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Sniq wrote:
Saturn wrote:
The 0 HP timer stopping glitch shouldn't be taken into account IMO, as it's simply a form of cheating that has nothing to do with optimization, since one could delay the run infinitely in most places without affecting the timer.
If you disallow this for IGT TAS, you also disallow gravity statue skip and 13% maridian mountain reserve spark strat.
Does a major glitch for one category have to be considered a major glitch for all categories? Pause abuse is extremely destructive for an IGT run but totally irrelevant for realtime. I don't think it should be treated the same.
The real problem with Saturn's argument, the more I think about it, is that he's unable to justify IGT by itself as an interesting goal choice. By resorting to "it has a different route" or "it uses different strats" -- things that are true just by coincidence -- you're basically saying the point isn't IGT; the category would be more aptly named "Any% but different." Any% but different is probably not a publishable category.
That doesn't really bother me, but if the point of a category is something totally unrelated to its stated goal, you run into a problem when those things that are true by coincidence are no longer true, which is where we're at now. There's not enough to differentiate the categories anymore. So, you can either acknowledge the potential future problem and refuse to publish the category on that basis, or publish and replace it when it no longer fulfills its hidden purpose.
EDIT: Actually, I should acknowledge that this run and the published IGT run are certainly still very different from one another, but the optimal any% route that will be used in the future will take the place of both runs either way. The reason for the difference now isn't IGT vs RT, but just because the runs are out of date.
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Aran Jaeger wrote:
As in the IGT run would be by far more not an IGT run anymore than the RTA run wouldn't be an RTA run anymore.
I guess you're right, yeah.
For those who don't understand, an IGT as low as 2-4 minutes or so (I forget) can be obtained with pause abuse, so it's a far bigger tradeoff than usual.
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By that logic, couldn't you say that a realtime run that contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs fails to minimize the run's realtime frame count and should be rejected for failing to meet that goal? For example, this run loses some time to make the gravity statue skip visible, and if I remember correctly, 13% did the same thing for a Maridia shinespark.
It seems to me that you're presenting a general argument against speed/entertainment tradeoffs but only applying it to one category.
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Aran Jaeger wrote:
Saturn can you go into more details and elaborate your understanding of ''more precise movement''
I think this comes from the idea that different movement to avoid lag or door transition scrolling might look sloppy to someone who doesn't understand why it was done. For example, jumping through the door two rooms before speedbooster has raised questions a few times before. Laying powerbombs in rising lava rooms also looks a bit odd. Just my best guess at the kind of thing he's talking about.
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Sniq wrote:
Ingame-oriented run's point isn't to save IGT? What? All currently published tases couldve used pausing much more, whether it wasnt even the 00 energy abuse, but for other things. If you're going for IGT then whats the point of not optimizing it fully?
Saturn often makes the case that aiming for IGT has entertainment benefits. Whether you agree or disagree, it makes sense in that case to forego the exception to the rule that has severe entertainment drawbacks. Sure, it might sound arbitrary to say something like "IGT without pause abuse", but I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Saturn wrote:
* greater mobility, more variety
I assume that you are referring to item collection differences here, so things like HJ or SJ that usually only an IGT run would consider.
It's worth noting that the route used by this run is known to be improvable. The KRDP route, to the best of my knowledge, would have the exact same major item collection and boss order for an IGT or RT category, or underflow/no underflow (except that underflow would skip plasma in both cases). It's that good. So while what you said is correct in general, it will no longer apply to vanilla any% if that run is ever made, as it completely destroys every other possible route regardless of goal choice.
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Underflow changes very little in this category, and probably nothing that you haven't noticed.
In my previous post, I wasn't trying to support giving underflow its own category as much as I was just pointing out that keeping IGT and RT as two separate categories makes little sense to me as an end result of this judging decision since a better option exists to split any%s by. In other words, I was arguing against keeping IGT and RT as separate categories; I was not supporting a no-underflow category. Sorry I didn't make myself clear there.
I share moozooh's concerns about underflow. Publishing this run is not a big deal by itself, but it is worrying to me that it would signal this glitch should be used in all categories and hacks even where it may have larger ramifications.
However, I don't think that should affect how this run is judged. It's just a personal concern I have, and I recognize that rejecting this run or giving it a separate category on that basis would be ridiculous. Differentiating between underflow and no underflow runs should be left to Super Metroid communities. Within the context of this site's goals, I think this run should be published as the sole any% category. Anything else feels either nonsensical or contradictory to the site's goals.
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feos wrote:
So what do you guys think now? I'd say it makes perfect sense to obsolete the in-game-time run now, that its time has been beaten.
I agree.
IGT by itself is not a particularly interesting goal choice, and I suspect most people would probably agree with that. The only things it really *guarantees* will be different are door transitions and laggy parts. It just so happens that back in the day it also resulted in significantly different any% routes, which helped justify them being separate categories. That is no longer the case, and it has not been the case for a long time, so I think the category can be put to rest.
At the very least, I'd say that underflow and no underflow categories make more sense than IGT and RT at this point.
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Hetfield90 wrote:
How is it that you are able to shinespark before obtaining speedboster? Is that also a side effect of the Draygon underflow glitch?
It's a side effect of having a crystal flash interrupted. Being grabbed by Draygon is one way of doing that. The same thing happens in the currently published RBO.
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This is a fantastic run in terms of technical quality. Although it's true that each new submission should be the best TAS to date, you have really gone way beyond any reasonable initial expectations I could have had. It's been a joy following progress on this run over the past year or so. Well done.
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I stopped working on it for a few months, so it's only at the LN exit. Draygon is actually what's holding it up at the moment; I want to prove that the strategy I have planned will work before moving forward, since alternative strategies would probably change ammo requirements. The idea is the same as Saturn's RBO - shinesparking to the top and killing draygon with a wave SBA - but much quicker and much more complicated.
EDIT: I should also note that the public WIP was improved quite a bit. I found a way to skip Kraid's etank in favor of Ridley's and still make it through Norfair/LN around 70 frames faster despite having less energy.
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Cpadolf wrote:
Do you know if it'll end up being useful for the any% run? I know it has significantly less use since it'd be after Ridley and you're more well equipped for MB, but it'd still end up saving considerable time on MB or allow you to skip Plasma beam.
The fact that I don't have enough supers to CF is a bit of a problem. I suppose the best option would be to collect Spore Spawn's supers on the first visit to Brinstar, which would also speed up Ridley a bit, but I don't intend to go that far back.
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To me, the fun of low% has always been about watching an extremely underequipped Samus struggle her way through the game in situations that should barely even be possible. That results in creative, unique strategies being used all throughout the run to overcome the challenges that that presents. Given that description, it's easy to think that the challenge of fighting the bosses with virtually no equipment is part of the fun of the category as well, but frankly, Ridley and MB are just boring. There is absolutely nothing good about them in a low% run.
For that reason, I'm not opposed to ammo under/overflow being the sole published version of 13%. It would make the relatively minor sacrifice of less intense energy/ammo management to remove what have always been the two largest detriments to the category's entertainment.
Regarding a glitched RBO run, it's worth keeping in mind that xray/reserve glitches would most likely be used to avoid taking heat damage while fighting Ridley, along with a few other things like reverse LN entry to skip a large number of the heated rooms including the lava dive.
Initially, I was opposed to the idea of a glitched RBO for that reason - it'd defeat the purpose of the category and seemingly remove any entertainment-related reasons to actually kill the bosses in reverse order. I realized, though, that putting Samus into that daunting situation and then laughing in the game's face as every major obstacle is not just overcome, but completely avoided in nonsensical ways would give it a strong WTF-feeling that gliched runs should, of course, have. So I'm not sure how to feel about it yet.
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amaurea wrote:
What is the purpose of jumping through the door when entering the Speed Booster passage? It doesn't look like you get through the door any earlier, and surely landing slows you down? Is it lag reduction somehow?
Yeah, like Garrison said, it's to get the screen in a good position for the transition. Ingame time is lost to that in tons of rooms throughout the WIP, but that is one of the more obvious cases. Another is the jump before entering minikraid's room.
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though I imagine the way back might be tough as well unless you're forced to take Ridleys E-Tank.
The current plan is to dip below 30 health and get health bombed by Ridley. It takes around 30-80 frames to collect his refills (depending on how many are collected) and there are enough refills along the way that I should still be fine ammo-wise for Maridia.
I noticed in a few spots (Kraids E-Tank and the entry to gold pirates, maybe more) where you used the down+back walljump check at a door transition, which I've found usually adds several frames of lag during the fadeout. Did it save enough to make up for that/was used for luck manipulation? Also I know that it's possible to remove the last bit of scrolling on the transition at ~9:16, although maybe that was slower/equally fast to what you did.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. In the case of Kraid's etank, it turned out equally fast either way iirc, so I went with the faster ingame option. As for elite pirates... you're right, that was pretty stupid. It's not like I need to be super lucky so fixing it should work out. Good catch, I'm not even sure how you noticed I used it there.
Also I know that it's possible to remove the last bit of scrolling on the transition at ~9:16, although maybe that was slower/equally fast to what you did.
If I remember correctly (maybe not) it was equally fast. I'd have to check again.
I also know that some realtime speedrunners have used a strategy in the red Ki-Hunter room where they use a shinespark to kill two of them with speedechoes, which supposedly removes enough lag to be faster in realtime, but I don't know how that translates in TAS-conditions.
Well that's interesting, I'll look into it. I have exactly 1 hp to pull off that spark with :) If I need 1-3 more I can just use a few frames slower lava dive strategy though. This gave me another idea to try too which could be really cool.
Your energy management is so good in fact, you could have performed the entire run with only 2 energy tanks and the only slow down would be the kago through the spike in the pre-elite pirate room. Dropped 100HP on those suckers. Do you know what the total loss in time would be if you just waited for the spikes to drop down instead of passing through them?
Far longer than it takes to collect Ridley's refills for sure. An interesting question, though, is whether it would be worth doing this to collect Ridley's tank instead of Kraid's to shinespark through post-ridley, collect ammo refills from Ridley himself, and still leave with more energy than I'd have from collecting health refills. Still, I'd feel pretty bad about doing it unless at least spike damage can be taken to pass through the first platform like in Saturn's RBO. I'll definitely think about it, though; when I made the decision on which etanks to collect I didn't expect energy management to work out nearly as well as it has, so it might be worth reconsidering.
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Helloooooooo!
I've been working on an improvement to the realtime any% for a little while now (it's about time, I know). This will be the first (and probably only) public WIP prior to completion.
WIP
The most important thing to note is that this run will use a new route proposed by hero of the day which kills Phantoon last, completely skipping gravity suit along with the entire upper portion of Wrecked Ship. That obviously raises the question of how I'm going to deal with Maridia, as it will basically be done under RBO conditions. Eye of the Beholder, Sniq and I have discovered a lot of new techniques and strategies that massively improve the area to the point that this route is actually feasible... but I'll keep most of that secret for now, so you'll just have to trust me.
This TAS will go Kraid --> Ridley --> Draygon --> Phantoon and enter Wrecked Ship through the back entrance from Maridia, just like any RBO. Eye and I have determined that the best thing to do for realtime is to face Ridley with only two PB packs, finishing him with missiles and charge shots (as I don't have WS super missiles to make it a clean kill like in the published any%s), then collect plasma for MB. Also important to note is that HJ is collected out of necessity rather than by choice, as a major improvement planned for Maridia doesn't seem possible without it (and having it should save tons of time anyway in this new route).
A third missile pack is collected early to help with Ridley. The obvious choice would be the HJ exit pack, but I actually collected the missiles by charge beam because the convenient refill and increased max missiles help immensely in Kraid's lair and should be faster in the end, combined with a new lower route HJ exit strategy by Eye of the Beholder (which has probably been overlooked for way too long).
There are a lot of tiny improvements to the best known frame counts for several rooms scattered throughout the WIP; some noticeable, others not. There are also a lot of rooms where ingame time is sacrificed for lag reduction, screen positioning, or luck manipulation, so be careful comparing this to other runs that aim primarily for ingame time (so, like, everything). If it really looks like I messed something up, though, please let me know.
Anyway, enjoy (hopefully). Comments, criticism and suggestions for improvement are all welcome.
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amaurea wrote:
I think these new glitches look entertaining, and I don't think they should be forbidden. We can have as many categories as we want, so we could easily have "game end glitch", "any%", "inbounds", etc. The "inbounds" (or whatever) category would be the current "any%", and would qualify for a moon because the current one does. The new "any%" sounds like it will include lots of new forms of fast movement and new paths, so it should also be fun enough to qualify.
Basically, if new tricks would obsolete a fun type of TAS, just make a new category for that type of TAS. It's absurd that we should abstain from making interesting new TASes due to category/obsoletion worries. Categories are supposed to be a tool to help us classify TASes, not a straightjacket that prevents us from TASing!
Personally, I agree that if this new glitch does turn out to be abusable enough to make a TAS feel significantly different, it would be worth evaluating whether it should get its own category. As I've been inactive here over the last few years, I have no idea where the judges currently stand on multiple categories; I know the restrictions have been relaxed a bit since back in the day when 4 categories was considered borderline excessive (and thank the super metroid gods for that), but I'm not sure what is/is not considered acceptable nowadays.
(Of course, that doesn't stop a tas from being made anyway :p)
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Aran Jaeger wrote:
3. Edit: Extremely important remark: It seems that Samus in a TAS can via Slope-X-Mode and a following shinespark during X-Mode obtain extremely high speed values outside of the realm of any so far known speeds!
SUPERMETROIDFTP demonstrates that in this video:
Link to video
Furthermore, Tewtal looked somewhat into this (and I hope we will get some more information on this in the near future), and it seems that the speed with which Samus moves after X-Mode is released depends (proportionally?) on the frame-wise lenght of the shinespark during X-Mode. Tewtal said that he got up to 440 speed, i.e. moving 440 pixels per frame, and continueing with roughly this speed.
Further research on this matter definitely needs to be done!
I think this needs to be discussed -- the glitch itself, not just this single application of it. Should it be allowed in non-glitched run categories? Should it not be?
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Sniq wrote:
Great job for finding even more details about that glitch , total. I cant watch those smvs right now but im curious: Does that slope spark also work suitless underwater? Or suitless slope x-mode?
A normal slope spark doesn't work in suitless underwater, unfortunately. Dunno about with x-mode.
