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feos wrote:
If I publish a playaround that is the only current branch, it is also any% for you?
Nope. As has always been done, you would publish with the branch name "playaround" and give it the "Playaround" tag.
feos wrote:
What if I then publish 100% that is SLOWER?
Then you would publish with the branch name "100%" and the tag "100% completion". I don't know why you act like we have a problem with the way the site has always separated playarounds and 100% runs from any% ones. But why would 31 movies with the tag "Best ending" not have a branch name at all, and 4 additional ones have a branch name that doesn't have anything to do with best ending? Probably because there was no need to label those runs "best ending" since there weren't published any% ("bad ending") runs to distinguish them from. Also, despite your signature, any% has always meant "the fastest possible completion" on this site. And yes, that's according to adelikat, who's quoted as saying that in the first post of this thread.
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Changing branch for 31 movies is worse than changing all the "not fastest" branches each time something is done differently in the fastest one? Alright.
CoolKirby wrote:
Also, despite your signature, any% has always meant "the fastest possible completion" on this site.
So what? Tier system did not exist on this site for 9 years, does it mean it's bad?
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.
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feos wrote:
Changing branch for 31 movies is worse than changing all the "not fastest" branches each time something is done differently in the fastest one? Alright.
So you're saying you don't think the branches should be changed?
feos wrote:
CoolKirby wrote:
Also, despite your signature, any% has always meant "the fastest possible completion" on this site.
So what? Tier system did not exist on this site for 9 years, does it mean it's bad?
What do tiers have to do with this? We have always had any% runs on this site, since the first published movie. Its definition has never changed.
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CoolKirby wrote:
What do tiers have to do with this? We have always had any% runs on this site, since the first published movie. Its definition has never changed.
Glitched branch existed since 2005 and all understood its meaning. Suddenly it became evil.
CoolKirby wrote:
So you're saying you don't think the branches should be changed?
They should be changed in a completely different way. But my opinion on that way doesn't perfectly match the others'. Before applying mass changes a single person requested you should have consulted on IRC. A few days ago all that matter was discussed, but somehow none of those people was interested enough to post. But the current flow is wrong.
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.
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"Glitched" doesn't have a meaning. Any movie marked "glitched" was an any% run since it completed the game as fast as possible without restrictions (therefore, no branch name needed). Anything slower is any% with restrictions, including playing for entertainment instead of speed (playaround), getting all items (100%), or taking the time to collect the fewest items possible (low%), and that practice also dates back to 2005.
feos wrote:
Before applying mass changes a single person requested you should have consulted on IRC. A few days ago all that matter was discussed, but somehow none of those people was interested enough to post. But the current flow is wrong.
I did not mass change those 31 runs. 30 of them have had their branch names unchanged since they were published (I only removed Cave Story's branch to make it fit with the other 30). I haven't done anything to those runs because there hasn't been any real discussion on this matter. Once something gets decided, I'll help by changing the branch names to something different if needed.
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I'm referring to what happened to branches like this. [1898] SNES Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island by Carl_Sagan in 1:33:40.18 Even adelikat disagrees with that. But no one cares enough to post (!), so I won't be insisting on anything either.
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.
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feos wrote:
I'm referring to what happened to branches like this.
That is still more correct than "no memory corruption", which is what it was before one user had a big problem with it.
feos wrote:
Even adelikat disagrees with that. But no one cares enough to post (!), so I won't be insisting on anything either.
If he or anyone really cared, they would have suggested or changed the branch name with something better. Or even invited me to IRC to discuss it because I had no idea such a discussion was taking place. But they didn't, so that's what we're stuck with until someone cares to change it. I would love to see a better branch name for that movie, but I've already tried to think of something more fitting and have come up with nothing. But again, at least I tried.
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Thinking over the "best ending" discussion, I believe it would be most consistent to do use "best ending" in the branch name even if it's the only branch for that game, as long as reaching the best ending is indeed slower than it would be to reach some other (non-game over) ending, which it usually is. I'm basically agreeing with this quote:
Derakon wrote:
The default branch choice for this game (i.e. "any%") would not get the ending that this run gets, ergo the "best ending" label is required. At least, that's my understanding. If we only have one run for a game, and that run is a 100% run (where an any% run would be faster), shouldn't the run be labeled as "100%"?
I've found several games on the site that have only one branch which is unlabeled (on the principle that if there's only one branch, it doesn't need tagging), but this would lead to confusion as soon as as second run of the same game is made. Therefore I believe it would be more valuable to be consistent with what is done for games with multiple runs, i.e. that an unlabeled run means "any%". In the particular case of Cave Story, at about 2/3rds of the game an escaping NPC asks you to come with him, and if you do, you get an ending. It's a sad ending, sure, but it's clearly not a game over, so an Any% run would end at that point and be several minutes faster than the current run. Note that there are some sidequests you have to do earlier in the game to reach the best ending (as the current run does), so an Any% run could skip those. This hypothetical run would likely end up in the vault. As far as I can tell, "good ending" means the same thing as "best ending" and it would be nice to use the same term here, but that's not really a big deal.
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feos wrote:
Glitched branch existed since 2005 and all understood its meaning. Suddenly it became evil.
I've always found "glitched" tag annoying. IMO its used as an excuse to make TASes like this publishable. Also I never got why people want a less glitch run when they could simply watch a let's play that shows more of an otherwise boring game, but that's offtopic.
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jlun2 wrote:
feos wrote:
Glitched branch existed since 2005 and all understood its meaning. Suddenly it became evil.
I've always found "glitched" tag annoying. IMO its used as an excuse to make TASes like this publishable.
BAD JLUN2, BAD. That is a terrible example. The TAS demonstrates what it would be like if you did not have the capabilities to break the game. There are other TASes which can fall under this category. WHAT NO EXAMPLE? Well I'm on a tablet and I don't want to generate the examples (if I do it will be an edit).
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Spikestuff wrote:
jlun2 wrote:
feos wrote:
Glitched branch existed since 2005 and all understood its meaning. Suddenly it became evil.
I've always found "glitched" tag annoying. IMO its used as an excuse to make TASes like this publishable.
BAD JLUN2, BAD. That is a terrible example. The TAS demonstrates what it would be like if you did not have the capabilities to break the game. There are other TASes which can fall under this category. WHAT NO EXAMPLE? Well I'm on a tablet and I don't want to generate the examples (if I do it will be an edit).
Well, my thoughts is that the tag is stigmatizing "glitch" runs by branding it a needless title to pander to video game "purists". Now I know of certain games that can produce entertaining runs that abstain from certain glitches (Yoshi's Island, SM64, etc), but there's still the fact that people seem adamant on labeling certain runs as glitched so they can get a less broken run to remain is what I mostly disagree on.
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Boy, things got a bit heated around here didn't they? I think one thing that the camp in favour of restoring the "glitched" label hasn't done yet is define what should and should not count as "glitched". In many cases, "glitched" was associated with memory corruption, but this was not always the case. Many "glitched" movies did not corrupt memory and some "any%" runs did. At the moment the only decent definition of "glitched" seems to be "this movie was judged not to obsolete the previous any% movie". This then makes the "glitched" branch different to every other branch in that the branch name is not determined by the gameplay itself. I'm suggesting a compromise: go back to "normal" runs having no label, while their "glitched" counterparts have a "uses [X]"-style branch name (instead of just "glitched"), which has these advantages: Advantages over having "no [X] glitch" branch names - People looking for "normal" TASes, particularly newcomers who are often put off by glitched runs, do not find themselves watching a glitched run. - Non-gamebreaking runs do not have distractingly esoteric names. I agree that stuff like "No L+R, no null egg glitch" is horrible, whereas calling the shorter run "L+R, null egg glitch" is less bad. Advantages over having "glitched" branch names - We avoid the vagueness of the term "glitched". - We can still have multiple glitched runs if a game has multiple possibilities for a glitched-type run (they have the names "Uses [X]", "Uses [Y]", etc).
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^THAT Is purrfect
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thatguy wrote:
I'm suggesting a compromise: go back to "normal" runs having no label, while their "glitched" counterparts have a "uses [X]"-style branch name (instead of just "glitched"),
So how do you define a "normal" run? I don't see how this is a compromise, really; the current traditional system is clear and unambiguous, and your proposed system is not.
particularly newcomers who are often put off by glitched runs,
First, I haven't seen any evidence that newcomers are put off by that. And second, we specifically have a category "Recommended for newcomers" already.
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Radiant wrote:
thatguy wrote:
I'm suggesting a compromise: go back to "normal" runs having no label, while their "glitched" counterparts have a "uses [X]"-style branch name (instead of just "glitched"),
So how do you define a "normal" run?
Crash Bandicoot 2. Any% minimum level requirement Glitched% obtaining the minimum requirement in a level 100% max requirements Glitches 100 - would be boring so let's not talk about that. That's one example.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Crash Bandicoot 2. Any% minimum level requirement Glitched% obtaining the minimum requirement in a level 100% max requirements
Well, I've never played this game so I'm really not sure what you mean, but it seems to me that your definition of "any%" here is the same as that of "glitched%": "minimum level" (that said, a minimum level run of a game would really be low%, not any%). Given that any% means "fastest", do we have a definition of "glitched" or "normal" that's meaningfully different from any%?
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I normally define "glitched" as "sequence-breaks the overworld", a definition which applies to probably more than half of games, if not all. For instance, a run of Super Mario 64 is "glitched" if it opens a star door without enough stars, gets to a new level of the castle without the key, etc.. (By this definition, a non-glitched run is 70 stars, and a particular set of 70 that requires no sequence breaking in the castle itself.) Likewise, a non-glitched Pokémon run would not be allowed to enter the Elite Four without obtaining eight badges, because that's the officially stated (in-game) requirement for unlocking the endgame. I'd also classify anything that collects items or other collectibles required for the category without physically performing the action that's intended to collect them as disqualifying you from the category. Thus, if you use RBA to gain medallions in Ocarina of Time, that's "glitched" not "any%"; the purpose of the medallions is to unlock the final level, so if you don't get them via the intended mechanism, you don't count as having them for categorization purposes. On the other hand, glitching behind the boss doors and getting them that way is perfectly legitimate for any%. Likewise, if you're doing a 100% run of Metroid Prime 2, you can't just collect 98 items and one missile tank twice (= 100% by the game's counter); you have to collect 100 different items (and may if you wish collect a missile tank twice and end up with 101% on the counter). This also works fine for the Crash Bandicoot 2 example ("glitched" = reach the boss via collecting all the gems, "any%" = reach the boss via collecting each gem from the level in which that gem resides). SDA uses the terminology "large skips" for this sort of thing, which is pretty much the same, but more descriptive. "large" = you're skipping part of the game as a whole, rather than just part of a level. I don't think this definition will work for all cases, but it can do a pretty good job of distinguishing "glitched" from "normal" for a majority of games. Anyone have some edge cases for the definition that they want to debate?
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But this is TAS. Sequence breaking is normal for a TAS, and indeed any% runs use (and are expected to use) sequence breaking wherever possible. (edit) Here's the thing: why would we want to use the term "glitched" for sequence breaking? There's already a clearer and more straightforward term for sequence breaking, and that term is "sequence breaking".
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Having skimmed through this thread once again, I'm leaning towards changing my earlier opinion (which was that it's ok to use a branch name in a descriptive manner, even for the "default" fastest completion.) (Now) I think it would a good idea to name publications in a consistent manner. In other words, either: game in time by author or: game "alternative branch" in time by author The first form would indicate the "official world record" version, ie. the fastest completion of the game by any means, within the rules of the site. The second form would be any other TAS of the same game. The branch name in quotation marks always uniquely and unambiguously defines that particular branch (such as "100%", etc.) and its presence indicates that it's not the "default" WR. (It wouldn't be impossible for an alternate branch to be actually faster than the "official WR". It just means that it uses something that disqualifies it from being the official WR, eg. starting from a savestate.) Descriptive tags ought to be limited to the movie classes.
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ais523 wrote:
I normally define "glitched" as "sequence-breaks the overworld"
A nice idea, and one of the better objective definitions. However, for me, this is still a little unsatisfactory - it labels SM64 "glitched", when all it is doing is exploiting physics, while Megaman is not "glitched", despite the fact that it manipulates RAM values into forcing the game to set the "end level" trigger (but it still plays all the levels, so no overworld sequence breaking), in addition leaving the graphics horribly broken. If you watched those two runs, while they are both broken fairly hard, I reckon you would struggle to argue that SM64 was glitchier. It's also nothing like how the word was applied in practice, since if it were it would probably apply to the majority of games that featured anything more complicated than a level select screen for an overworld. What about games that are all overworld like Super Metorid? Are you suggesting they must be played - gasp - entirely as the developers intended? Personally I feel that, if we wanted a definition for "glitched", it would be for any exploit that pertains to the game's programming itself, rather than the level design or physics. This still isn't an ideal scenario, since there are various tricks that corrupt memory (or at least abuse it) but don't entirely destroy the game with it, but it would be a start.
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Warp wrote:
Having skimmed through this thread once again, I'm leaning towards changing my earlier opinion (which was that it's ok to use a branch name in a descriptive manner, even for the "default" fastest completion.) (Now) I think it would a good idea to name publications in a consistent manner. In other words, either: game in time by author or: game "alternative branch" in time by author The first form would indicate the "official world record" version, ie. the fastest completion of the game by any means, within the rules of the site. The second form would be any other TAS of the same game. The branch name in quotation marks always uniquely and unambiguously defines that particular branch (such as "100%", etc.) and its presence indicates that it's not the "default" WR. (It wouldn't be impossible for an alternate branch to be actually faster than the "official WR". It just means that it uses something that disqualifies it from being the official WR, eg. starting from a savestate.) Descriptive tags ought to be limited to the movie classes.
I agree with all of this! And I would be interested in which edge cases cause problems for this naming convention.
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It does not matter what way it (breaking the game) is done. Glitched is a run that breaks something in the game and forces it to admit it was completed while it wasn't. Glitched SMW does exactly that - makes the game admit it was completed and run its usual ending. Same with Contra 3, Battletoads, Kirby. Crash Bandicoot breaks it in the middle, it makes it think all gems were collected (the only way to access the final boss) while none of them was. You don't complete the game without gems, but you cam make it think all gems are there. So its completion state is false gameplay-wise. But it's technically legit since it's the same as usual. Super Metroid breaks the game to think all bosses were defeated while none of them was, and you don't beat the game without beating Mother Brain at least. The glitched run just sets some triggers somewhere and that's all. In Megaman, the game completion state is gameplay-wise valid since you only skip some levels to their ends by manipulating lag, and play the very game level by level, beating bosses. But I'd call that a borderline case, which is not yet "glitch to game end". It's similar to "2P Warps" Battletoads, where you skip to level end by TASing the luck (this level skips to its end in real time consistently). SM64 abuses game physics to pass a checkpoint/whatever, the very game is untouched. So the definition is pretty easy: Is the game actually being completed, or soft-hacked into completion state? It's like, "I'm tired of playing it, let me just set certain bytes and drop it". Normally it can be done by hacking, but TASing allows to hack it in the legit way - input only. Another difference: TAS as a superplay is to complete the game with superhuman precision, what makes it interesting to follow. TAS as a speedrun is to reach the end as fast as possible, technically interesting, but might be absurdly boring to watch. We don't want to mix those up or substitute one for another, because these 2 are independent and interest people in their own ways. We as a site want to showcase both ways of superhuman play. Oh yeah, and the branch name itself. Glitched is used since 2005, it was introduced with Zelda games. There are 54 published submissions for that branch. So this is traditional. It's not as traditional as any% or 100%, since those root back into console speedrunning, and you can't skip to game end consistently on console (only with some side abuse, like savestate+reset, which seems to have separate branches on SDA). But the term is well-known. Why some certain term for all "game end by soft-hacking", not mentioning the exact glitch that causes it? Because once you have a good bunch of things having something similar but applied the hard way, you can abstract it and apply the soft way (optimization). Why name out each when they really have something common? Moreover, when naming the exact glitch, you easily stop having the clear branch. It may be a chain of 10 obsoleting publications each abusing a different glitch to end the game. So what, have 10 branch names? Having 1 branch for all of them is clear and consistent within that game, and consistent to the whole site's branching.
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feos wrote:
It does not matter what way it (breaking the game) is done. Glitched is a run that breaks something in the game and forces it to admit it was completed while it wasn't.
1. So, you're saying glitched == memory corruption? How about the previous warped Yoshi's island TASes? Does that mean they honestly warrant a separate branch with the current TAS just because it beats bowser despite being "absurdly boring to watch" after pretty much every other TAS was like that? 2. Why the heck was my Starfi run labelled glitched then?? Yes, the current version messes with the save file, but it, along with the previous versions that don't, all beat the last boss!
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I didn't even say "memory corruption" once. It doesn't matter HOW it's done. But to be a separate branch it must be different enough from the "no game-breaking glitches" run, otherwise they would just obsolete one another. And then we determine HOW it is different and branch 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.
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feos wrote:
It does not matter what way it (breaking the game) is done. Glitched is a run that breaks something in the game and forces it to admit it was completed while it wasn't.
...and that's not objectively defineable. For some of the runs you list, glitched means "skip the final boss". For others, it means "mess with the collection of plot coupons". For yet others, it means "skip midbosses but not the final boss". And for another game, it means "abuse game physics". These runs have basically nothing in common with each other. So the definition for glitched is "uses some glitches but not others". And while you might claim these movies are "absurdly boring to watch", our ratings disagree. Bottom line is that this is really not a term we should be using for runs. If by "glitched" you mean sequence breaking, as AIS suggests, then use the term sequence breaking. If you mean "memory corruption", as Jlun suggests, then call it memory corruption. (incidentally, TAS'ing a game has absolutely nothing to do with "soft hacking", which is a about breaking security protocols to obtain illegitimate access to data; yeah, that's really not a term we should be using for runs, either - many forms of hacking are a crime, and TAS'ing is clearly not :P )
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