I'm not so sure of that. I fear that it will have the same status as the reset button. Once it was discovered that you could abuse the reset button to corrupt savestates and whatnot, it came to stay (IMO ruining all TASes where it's used.)
I fully admit that hacking the game into running arbitrary code is a thousand times more impressive and admirable than abusing the reset button (and if I had to choose between the two, I would definitely have the former), but that doesn't mean I like it as a technique for "true" game completion.
I don't see any problemes with having more ACE runs‚ since runs without it will always exist. Do you really think that people will say : 'Ok‚ we have a 1 minute run where normal gameplay has totally disappeared‚ I don't think we need any other runs for this game' ? I don't think son.
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
To be completely honest, that's exactly what I fear, and was the major reason why I started the thread. (Yes, the fear may not be completely justified, but still...)
Just pointing out that the latest Super Metroid run is another argument that total control should be its own category; I think this is the first case we've seen where a total control run has been beaten by a non-total-control run. The debate is, should the total control run be obsoleted?
I'm inclined to say yes because it doesn't do anything with the total control over than winning, but I can see reasonable arguments for no.
As far as I can tell you're saying it's an argument against total control as a seperate category (remember that cross-category obsoletion isn't normal), at least when it's only aiming for game-completion.
The argument is that if TC is its own category, it can't be obsoleted by a faster game completion via other methods, so the people who want the TC run to stay on their site would get the wish.
I'm a little confused about my own opinions on the subject, though.
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That is why I believe only glitchfest/playaround total control runs should be actually a separate category with "total control" as a label. Because once total control is a slave of fastest glitched completion, it doesn't matter was it used or not. And it doesn't need to be in a branch name either, only "game end glitch", so that total control GEG could obsolete or be obsoleted by a non-total control GEG.
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.
@feos: Is there a Game End Glitch run of Super Mario World that doesn't involve Total Control? I think it would help explain the differentiation between the two categories better if we have concrete examples, and I haven't been following the TAS scene long enough to know of one off the top of my head or with a cursory search.
I disregarded that one because the description says "a glitch allowing Yoshi to eat "nothing" enables players to manipulate memory and code", which sounds like it could be another avenue into Total Control. Still, yeah that one is a good example of non-TC Game End.
Even that method involves CPU jumping into WRAM and executing stuff that it should not.
AFAIK, there's also third way to perform credits glitch. I have no idea if it invoves CPU jumping into RAM.
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Manipulating memory and code is basically the very thing one needs to do to glitch a game to the ending. But it doesn't mean one has total control on the game's execution. Only the run that obsoleted 1945M used total control explicitly. Otherwise, most game end glitch runs we have just confuse the execution pointer to jump to the ending routine, not command it entirely.
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.
AFAIK, 1945M poked a routine that triggered the credits (and it was substantially more complex than just jumping to one address) into OAM mirror and then caused the game to jump to it.
Not sure if this might be relevant, but i think i encountered ACE while glitching S3&K, completely useless for anything other than randomness in this case, but potentially beneficial.
Just for reference, i've linked it, since you guys might be able to make more sense of it.
If you could do this without debug, it would be handy, since theres no transformation animation triggered, it would save a few frames...huge drawback of being made super-normal, however, is that loops apparently get broken, and knuckles' climb ability gets broken also.
Really wierd method of how to trigger this, but the glove fits, its ACE, game executes something that shouldn't happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_TIHdlOVrk
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
The new Rockman submission might end up proving that my fears are not, after all, completely unjustified...
Runs that jump to the end early on via arbitrary code execution / CPU jump table corruption are marvelous technical achievements and really cool, but not if it comes at the cost of not seeing the game being actually played anymore (especially when we are talking about games like Rockman, which are just marvelous to look at when TASed "normally". Remove all that and you end up with... nothing. All the marvel and awe is gone.)
I dont' know that i would classify the 12 minute movie as having megaman "gameplay" anyway.
Especially considering in two stages it uses a very similar/same (?) glitch as the ACE one, but uses it to end two stages instead of beating the game.
I think it should definitely be obsoleted. As it stands... you have a run that uses the glitch to skip two stages or a run that uses it to skip the rest of the game? Why keep the former?
It'd be like keeping a Pokemon Yellow TAS that, instead of using ACE to beat the game ASAP, disables random encounters, enables walk-through-walls and disables trainer battles to get to the Elite Four and beat the game.
A "zipless" memory corruptionless (no Magnet Beam zipping/premature endings of the game/stage) TAS would likely be the better companion.
I hope this doesn't come across that I dislike glitches or ACE, as I find both entertaining. But glitchless/"low glitch" (avoiding warps, memory corruption or other relevant forms of glitching) TASes also have high potential to be entertaining.
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Dyshonest wrote:
I think it should definitely be obsoleted. As it stands... you have a run that uses the glitch to skip two stages or a run that uses it to skip the rest of the game? Why keep the former?
Because it's a Star content. The "skip to end" run doesn't obsolete the content the run got a Star for. I'd say, content overlap is about 5%. How can other 95% be obsoleted by a run that doesn't even contain any alternative, let alone better optimization?
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=356300#356300
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.
I think it should definitely be obsoleted. As it stands... you have a run that uses the glitch to skip two stages or a run that uses it to skip the rest of the game? Why keep the former?
Because it's a Star content. The "skip to end" run doesn't obsolete the content the run got a Star for. I'd say, content overlap is about 5%. How can other 95% be obsoleted by a run that doesn't even contain any alternative, let alone better optimization?
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=356300#356300
It also skips the majority of the game through other means such as zipping.
Content overlap would be about 25%, actually. Two stages get skipped of the available ten, instead of ten stages getting skipped, that's not even including the fact that almost every other stage isn't even played but zipped through.
The more important thing to note though is that they both utilize the same glitch.
I think my Pokemon Yellow example above is still a good example. The same glitch(es) being utilized to prolong the game compared to an alternative, but it's still the same glitches in the end.
Do Stars runs have an exemption from being obsoleted?
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Have you looked at the post I linked? Battletoads 2P warps was "obsoleted" for the same reason you're suggesting. And unobsoleted back, because of the reasons from that thread.
Also, how can 23 seconds be 25% of 12 minutes?
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.
Have you looked at the post I linked? Battletoads 2P warps was "obsoleted" for the same reason you're suggesting. And unobsoleted back, because of the reasons from that thread.
Also, how can 23 seconds be 25% of 12 minutes?
Did it use the game-end glitch in a less-efficient manner, or did it just use a different form of warp glitch? I know little of the more recent Battletoads glitches like the game-end one, so I apologize if it's a common thing that several levels have access to weird RAM corruption like that.
Also, this: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=376224#376224
In particular, he says the movie before the current one (so the one by Deign, which DOES complete all stages) should be the current record while the ACE run obsoletes the currently listed one.
You're right, it's not exactly 25% as not all of Wily Stage 2 is skipped, but the majority of it. The point still stands though. Even though the Wily Stage 2 glitch is a different one, to the viewer it isn't.
Regardless, Bomb Man's stage in that one ends the stage via the exact method that's triggering the ACE ending in the current runthrough. It's using the same glitch less efficiently.
I thought of a better comparison for this: if the fourth and final Light World dungeon in A Link to the Past and one or two Dark World dungeons were entirely/mostly skipped (the latter can happen if you trigger the Crystals to appear in other dungeon's already-completed boss rooms), and have it coexist with the current 2-minute run.
The only way any of the above could happen is if it used the exact same multidirectional glitches to warp around, just in a far less efficient manner.
The same glitch is featured in both runs. It's just used in a less efficient manner. Should Masterjun's "11 exit" ACE run of SMW be allowed to coexist because it used the same glitch as the less-than-two-minute run, but less efficiently?
EDIT: Yet again I was wrong. After a rewatch of both Deign's run and the current one, the glitch leading to ACE is actually used three times.
Deign's run is the one to feature a quirk involving Cutman, the current one published doesn't. The RAM corruption that leads to ACE is used three times to skip three stages (two entirely, one it skips the last half + boss). I really don't see why it wouldn't get obsoleted.