Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
feos wrote:
What would be the potential duration of a movie that gets 100% starting from initial game start as it's designed? And of NG+ hack?
RTA times for reference: https://www.speedrun.com/vagrant_story
I'm pretty sure the NG+ times don't include the postgame content though, so it's hard to compare exactly, not to mention factoring in things like TAS precision and manipulation and the stat differential. At the very least, "normal" 100% would require two playthroughs, and I'd estimate a 3+ hour run time for it, whereas the NG+ "hack" would likely be upwards of an hour faster, if not more, just by cutting out the whole first playthrough. I'm not an expert on this game by any stretch though.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
I checked the link Samsara posted. Both NG and NG+ are any% and they are following the same strategy. Both fought the minimum number of bosses and at no point accessed any content that doesn't contribute towards finishing the game as fast as possible. Since the NG+ content is peppered across the entire game you'd have to do any% NG and then 100% NG+. I would say a super optimized TAS NG following the current world record from RTA would be around 1h30m. I'm currently experimenting with strategy that utilizes TAS but not sure how far I can push sub 1:30 if possible even. Add around 45 minutes for the NG+ content and you're looking at around 3:40 ~ 4:00.
To define the 100% here are in-game verifications I aim to achieve by the end of the run. They are in the form of achievement titles:
1) Seeker of Truth (finish the game once)
2) Successor of the Legacy (loot every chest in the game)
3) Finder of Dark (100% map)
4) (various titles specific to NG+ bosses including the game's superboss)
5) (various titles specific to key items)
6) Conqueror of time (beat all time-trials with an Excellent rating)
Additionally, just to give you an idea of what's locked behind NG+ doors here is an example:
Fairly early in the game you enter "Undercity West" where you find enemies like Ghast (125 HP) which is a rehashed version of the garden-variety zombie you meet in the first 5 minutes of the game. By accessing the NG+ content you come in contact with Death (350 HP). It might not seem like much until you realize it has very high affinity (resistance) to multiple elements, it can teleport to anywhere in the room, and it has access to level 4 magic (some of which you only get in NG+2). The best part? There are TWO Deaths in the same room. You need ungodly level of magic power to kill it with a spell and you need to exploit the AI to be able to kill it with a melee attack. Furthermore, you need to equip an adequate weapon and it needs to have the exact affinity of enemy type and opposite affinity of element type. Otherwise, you'll be inflicting zero damage or the probability of landing an attack will be zero. I don't need to mention you can kill a Ghast with your bare hands with your base character.
If you want a list of NG+ content and why it can categorically be listed under hard mode to allow a "hard mode hack" entry I can do it. I'm still on the lookout for help to locate the hex address for the Rood Inverse to see if the game will behave weirdly if toggled on in a fresh save.
So asking in the event a Gen 2 Glitched Catch 'em All TAS ever happens, I'm just going to pose the question: would ASE (Arbitrary Script Execution) be allowed?
I'll explain: ASE is different from ACE; for ACE, you're executing whatever machine code you want; for ASE, you're executing whatever script you want. Games sometimes have a scripting system which acts like a pseudo high level language (often to handle cutscenes), and thus achieving ASE would be controlling this scripting system. The limits of a scripting system would also be based by the game. Some games might have a very expansive scripting system which may be useful in a TAS if able to be controlled (Gen 2 happens to be an example of such a game), or some games might just have some garbage scripting system which barely can do anything (or possibly just no scripting system at all). It could arguably be compared with arbitrary items (including glitch items), some might have some interesting effects, some might just literally be ACE, but it ultimately it ends up being a per game basis, and is allowed (provided you're not just doing ACE and whatnot; also assuming items don't correspond to completion anyways). With ACE, the theoretical limit is just with whatever the machine can do, and this theoretical limit is equal across any game using the same hardware.
For the main practical implication for Gen 2, the scripting system happens to have a command called givepoke. Which means you can just make a script to give yourself a Pokemon. Repeatably. Would this be allowed? And this isn't even all, there's also commands to do arbitrary wild battles (which would arguably be similar to the currently latest published Gen 1 Catch 'em All TAS). Would that be allowed? I guess it should be also be mentioned there are a few commands which are literally just ACE/ARE/AMC. Although I don't think there's a question whether those particular commands would be allowed (obviously not).
There are ways to do such a TAS without ASE, but ASE would be much faster than the current methods, so I'm wondering whether a TAS should use ASE (if it is allowed) or not (if it is disallowed).
I generally think Catch 'Em All should be defined in such a way that it's entertaining, clever and whimsical, and that the obsoletion of the RBY Catch 'Em All TAS by one that just catches every pokemon in the same way was a mistake in the first place, to throw in my two cents.
I generally think Catch 'Em All should be defined in such a way that it's entertaining, clever and whimsical, and that the obsoletion of the RBY Catch 'Em All TAS by one that just catches every pokemon in the same way was a mistake in the first place, to throw in my two cents.
http://tasvideos.org/3134M.html
Glitched Catch 'em All is full completion, and thus it is vaultable. And with the advent of mass farming glitches it ends up ultimately becoming ultra boring (I should mention lucky and I have a new CEA TAS which cuts the old one with an even faster mass farming glitch and using save corruption to easily set it up, it's also even more boring, but that's not going to come til later). If you want something Moons worthy, Diploma (ie glitchless Catch 'em All) is the closest thing you got.
I guess anyways for Gen 2 the entertainment likely wouldn't change by much whether ASE is banned or not; if ASE is banned, then the main glitch to use to get Pokemon is literally just using bad clones and the daycare to glitch in a ton of eggs which are then hatched to fill in dex entries.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
heysamesam wrote:
I would say a super optimized TAS NG following the current world record from RTA would be around 1h30m. I'm currently experimenting with strategy that utilizes TAS but not sure how far I can push sub 1:30 if possible even. Add around 45 minutes for the NG+ content and you're looking at around 3:40 ~ 4:00.
What was the estimate for "hacked/hard 100%" again?
heysamesam wrote:
If you want a list of NG+ content and why it can categorically be listed under hard mode to allow a "hard mode hack" entry I can do it. I'm still on the lookout for help to locate the hex address for the Rood Inverse to see if the game will behave weirdly if toggled on in a fresh save.
It will definitely be needed in submission text when it's done, but since we're discussing the fate of that submission in advance, it makes sense to have a list in advance too, and have people assess it.
Forgot if I asked but is there any kind of an in-game cheat code or a password to unlock NG+ right away?
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: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
So asking in the event a Gen 2 Glitched Catch 'em All TAS ever happens, I'm just going to pose the question: would ASE (Arbitrary Script Execution) be allowed?
How do you achieve ASE?
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.
So asking in the event a Gen 2 Glitched Catch 'em All TAS ever happens, I'm just going to pose the question: would ASE (Arbitrary Script Execution) be allowed?
How do you achieve ASE?
You would modify an NPC script so it points to RAM. This is a achievable with out of bounds moves manipulation.
Arbitrary code execution of ROM data, and memory corruption tricks to write to arbitrary memory are also not allowed.
Will gaining ASE involve writing to arbitrary memory?
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.
Arbitrary code execution of ROM data, and memory corruption tricks to write to arbitrary memory are also not allowed.
Will gaining ASE involve writing to arbitrary memory?
No. Out of bounds moves manipulation is a memory manipulation glitch, but it is limited and can't write to arbitrary memory (if you want a comparison, look at underflowed bag/pc items in RBY; they are also memory manipulation glitches but they can't write to arbitrary memory).
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Overall it sounds like ASE can dramatically break gameplay and result in all sorts of events that may or may not be able to directly spoil the completion criteria. Most likely it won't be allowed, but to actually spark a rule discussion (since the technique is so new), your best bet is making an any% run that uses 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.
Overall it sounds like ASE can dramatically break gameplay and result in all sorts of events that may or may not be able to directly spoil the completion criteria. Most likely it won't be allowed, but to actually spark a rule discussion (since the technique is so new), your best bet is making an any% run that uses it.
There's no actual use case for Any% in Gen 2 (the fastest way in theory to get ASE is just ACE, which ends up just being suboptimal usage of ACE; outside of ACE it takes too long to setup, and would likely be slower than forgoing ASE anyways).
There is however a game which might have potential for this. TTYD recently now has a potential credits warp, and this credits warp also uses ASE (they called it Arbitrary Evt Code Execution, but Evt Code is just this game's scripting system, so it's really ASE). That could perhaps end up sparking some rule discussion on this.
EDIT: Also sidenote, there is some documentation on the script commands able to be used for Gen 2: https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/blob/99e66c25577e367d6c7ca75fea8b466b54c3317a/docs/event_commands.md and here https://github.com/pret/pokecrystal/blob/master/engine/overworld/scripting.asm
What was the estimate for "hacked/hard 100%" again?
It will definitely be needed in submission text when it's done, but since we're discussing the fate of that submission in advance, it makes sense to have a list in advance too, and have people assess it.
Forgot if I asked but is there any kind of an in-game cheat code or a password to unlock NG+ right away?
1) An initial estimate is in the range of two hours maybe. However, it might be less if better strategies were discovered along the way.
2) Okay I'll prepare it.
3) AFAIK there is none.
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 929
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
This may turn into a larger discussion, because I'm really not sure how to ask this. So let's start with the follow:
I'm having trouble identifying the possible categories of a TAS I'm working on.
Some argue that IGT is more important, but RTA also delivers "Fastest Credits". Additionally, IGT and RTA could be broken down into OoB categories. My question is, what branches would be accepted. (Note, that I'm being vague on purpose...knowing that I might have to spill the secret of what I'm working on).
Actually, more specifically...what situations can branches co-exist without obsoleting each other.
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
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
RTA means real-time attack, it's not a TAS. If you mean 2 TASes, one aiming for real time and one for in-game time, Super Metroid is the only game where I remember them co-existing, but even then IGT was obsoleted by a run aiming for real time. You can pick whatever timing you prefer, just know that
Vault rules wrote:
Movies that aim for in-game time instead of real-time are only allowed for Vault if that goal makes game-play shorter. If optimizing for the in-game time makes actual game-play longer, such a movie is not eligible for Vault.
Also hard to tell about OoB without knowing the differences between 2 runs. What would the estimated times be for out-of-bounds and for in-bounds? How much direct content overlap will be in them?
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: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
Replacing submission files is only intended for small changes that won't impact the judgment of a submission. It is not supposed to be used to reverse a submission judgment.
Make a new submission instead.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Hi. A few years ago I, EZGames69 and illayaya TASed Donkey Kong Country 2 for the GBA. A complaint I remember seeing a bit is the warps make the first two worlds incredibly repetitive. I had the idea that maybe I can do Any% like I was already doing, but I also do the entirety of worlds 1 and 2 completely warpless, for the entertainment purposes.
Now, if I do that, is such a run eligible for publication? And if so, would it obsolete the current published run or would it end up being a new branch? For reference, the only thing that changes is the first two worlds, so it adds maybe up to 5 minutes of extra gameplay. The rest of the run is entirely unchanged and is completely comparable to the Any% branch, aside from slightly different RNG. It would however make the first two worlds a lot more entertainment, especially in the fourth level which has a glitch that can only be demonstrated in a "Warpless" run. 102% can not demonstrate it unfortunately.
Edit: It should also be worth mentioning that it is resyncable to an Any% run, in case people would prefer to watch the Any% run as a secondary encode if such a Warpless run were to be accepted. Don't really know how that goes, but I would at least post a secondary encode in the submission text that has the Any% version of the TAS.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
That sounds perfectly publishable, but we can't predict obsoletion without having a discussion with the audience after the submission arrives.
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.
Is it even possible to obsolete a vaultable category (that being current publication) with with warpless? which afaik is not a vaultable category since it isn’t fastest completion.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
Vault is meant to guarantee that if the game only provides for boring runs, it still has a chance to be published as a speed record. But if its Moons content, we allow various speed/entertainment trade-offs in otherwise vaultable branches. The most known example is Super Metroid 100%, which bans OoB because that'd make it much less entertaining, even though that would become vaultable.
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.
That’s fair, it’s just for GBA DKC2 specifically, I don’t think the warps in worlds 1 and 2 take up so much of the run that it would make the TAS any more entertaining, showing off these stages would probably be more beneficial in a 102% TAS
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
What's more "legit"? Sorting from slowest to fastest.
1. Trigger the ending sequence, which while longer due to dialogue, sets up the end game flags
2. Setting up boss complete flag, probably some post game credit flag, then load credits.
3. Trigger the credits, ignoring game completion flags.
I want to obsolete:
[2225] GBC Keitai Denjuu Telefang: Speed Version "warp glitch" by jlun2 & MisterChess in 07:12.50
using ACE. That movie is impossible, since it uses a VBA bug where opcode 10 10 STOP is ignored. Does the very 1st old movie become a new category despite vault due to rules on ACE now?
