(Link to video)
Submission Text Full Submission Page Publication Page
Game objectives
  • Emulator used: BizHawk 2.2.2
  • TAStudio
  • Multi-disk bundler
  • Require more ROM: Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Demo Disc 14
  • Firmware: SCPH7003 (U)
  • Aim fastest
  • Luck manipulation
  • Game information
  • My recommend basic tutorials at here and here
  • Skills damage data
  • Other TAS for compare
Advanced Information
  • RNG manipulation: most in them is depend time or how input buttons. Most time I need back to last scroll text, do something for change RNG
  • Change pet's like/dislike data: when create a new pet, it use RNG to create pet's data. I have make pet like Nuts Oil for my strategy.
  • Get more loyalty: when pass a week, it have random can get/lost 1 or 2 loyalty points. It need control for get little help in battles at early and mid game
  • Pet' raise up stats control: pet raise up what stats is depend RNG. My strategy is main target to Int stats, sub is Skill stats
  • Get/avoid events: before they happend/will come, just need change time it come
  • Reduce meet hard competitors: change time join tournaments can change some competitors. I make reduce monsters have high Life and Defense stats. But this's not work after get S cup
  • Give up unneed battles: for save time, I have give up/avoid to unneed battles.
  • Setup battle: before join any battle, change time for change first AI think in battle, this's help control AI actions after ready
  • Change AI think in battles: it's depend my actions/moving. Sometimes I can't avoid bad results, I need move out of range AI's attacks
  • Critical attacks: it's depedend time make attack. But this's still depend other things (example sussces call pet attack, hit rate, damage attack,etc)
  • Avoid AI can revival: some monsters can revival after got zero HP, for avoid this need change time attack to it
Notes
  • This time is my first time try do multi-disk in a TAS. For setup before start, must setup Monster Rancher 2 at disk 1, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Demo Disc 14 at disk 2
  • I'm not good with this games. This game have many ways can do. I'm alway worry my strategies, headache when planning, not sure it's best or not. I have remake 5th times for find best strategies, even try use Gut glitch of Fairy Hare in Monster Farm 2 (J version)
  • I have pick Pixie monster because it have high attack damage, fast Gut recovery and avaible at beginning. Subtype Pixie/Dragon will help have hight Int at start and can learn Fire Breath skill
  • With Errantry, just need go there for learn skill, not important for get success or failure
  • Avoid get new house for save time. If remember not wrong, it just help get more events. That's why with TAS, it's unneed
  • I think this run look like tutorial more than, didn't have any bug/glitch to do
  • With game Japan version can help make battles faster because it have a Gut glich but it can't skip trainning scenes, at tottaly it's slower English version.
  • Not target to get Great in trainning for save time. It can help more little points but maybe will lost alot frames to find it. In my run, just need it few times for get praise to pet
  • Praise pet for avoid make pet have Worst nature, avoid must learn evil skill, more chance to learn need skill (this's my logic, not sure it's correct or not)
Thanks
  • KurasuSoratobu in gamefaqs for need info
  • あすとろ第二代目 in nicovideo for compare run
  • someone shared skills data info, helped me should pick what skill to do
feos: This judgment either sets a precedent or introduces new policies. Judging...
feos: Delaying until the extra image that syncs with this movie is made.
feos: It's been a long journey, and a lot of things happened to make this submission acceptable. And it is acceptable in principle. But to be actually accepted, we need an extra image to be created by hand so that it's not anything copyrighted. That would allow us to reproduce such an image freely anytime, as many times as needed, now and in the future, for the sake of replaying this movie. Even on console such an image would spawn the same monster as this movie uses.
The only problem now is that no one has spare time and dedication to actually generate such an image. It's unfortunate, because in the end I have to reject this movie for breaking the rules we all agreed on. If at some future day such an image is finally produced, I can unreject this submission, and finally properly judge how it's played.
feos: Hey, look
feos: Yeah so the last 2 posts in the thread explain why it should be unrejected, and unlike me, Samsara knows the game, so I'm unclaiming this.
Samsara: Hi! I'm Samsara! I knows the game!
Samsara:
Alright, I think this one's gonna need some explanation.
In a vacuum, the original decision makes sense: If we strictly treat the second disk as a means of verification, then yes, we can't exactly legally provide it in the same way we can provide a verification input file. We can synthesize the same result in a legal manner, of course, but it leaves one particularly large elephant in the room, and that's simply "isn't any game image a means of verification?" Well, to answer that question, yes! Yes, that is exactly correct. No run can be verified without the right ROM or ISO, so... Why should that apply here? Sure, this is a unique case where "Disc 2" can be Literally Any Disc, but at the end of the day it's still just disc 2 of 2. I think for the sanity of the Judges, though, it's best to limit this freedom to just other game images. As, uh, """"fun"""" as it would be to track down an ISO of Wheatus's self-titled debut album, featuring hit single "Teenage Dirtbag", I don't think that's really reasonable or sustainable for us.
...Yes, for those of you who are wondering, that album does generate the Pixie/Dragon monster used in this run.
I don't really see the other issue (optimality of the approach) as an issue at all, given that the game itself is pretty RNG-heavy and has tons of room for potential improvement regardless of what monster is generated or what strategy is used. If anyone wants to put in the work to try other game images, other monsters, other approaches in general, I don't see why we should stop them or limit them.
Personally,
I'm well aware of how fickle Monster Rancher can be in its battles, and this TAS makes an absolute mockery of them. While I do feel the menuing could be a bit better in places (I'm aware some of it's RNG manipulation, but there's a lot of autofiring so I imagine there's some frames being lost at times), it's not nearly enough to reject over, and the real meat of the run (the battles) far more than make up for it. Just... If you're not familiar with the series, trust me when I say the battles are astoundingly fast.
Just in time to be 4 days late for the 5th anniversary of this submission, accepting!
fsvgm777: Processing.

Show more

Hide
1 2 3 4 5
Posted: 8/23/2018 8:14 PM
Quote
Omnigamer
Player (37)
Joined: 2/16/2012
Posts: 282
The game image is not input. Input is not the game image. Using the hardware parts that connect us with the game image, as a source of user input, is objectively not usual. Not giving the user direct control over the outcome is even less usual. This way to obtain user input is unpredictable for a regular user. And this approach is overall moot when it comes to classifications. Moot scenarios are not for Vault.
I don't agree with this characterization. The game image is the program, and yes, it is not seen as user input. It is the medium on which user input is exercised. Using an interface of the hardware to gather other data is itself unusual compared to other games, but not unusual in the context of playing the game. Playing the game should not be inhibited because it exercises unique functionality. I don't view the secondary images as different from games that rely on polling RTC, or have embedded enhancement chips. They are unusual in the broad view of games, but are accepted because special effort has gone into making them work with the tools we have. In the case of RTC, a typical user also doesn't have direct control of it and doesn't have much indication of how it is used by game software, but it is still required input to make a consistent movie. A TASer can (and should) control that value to create optimal outcomes. I don't think this case is different. The user does have control over the outcome of monster generation, for all practical purposes. A consistent input set will lead to consistent results. The fact that it doesn't give the user direct knobs to tweak to their liking should not be limiting here, as those knobs can be studied and crafted, much like anything else in the game. Once they've sampled an input set once, they understand that outcome and it will remain the same.
Another important point is that the rule already lists exactly our case ("unlock a special character"), and only then generalizes ("or otherwise play the game in some unusual way") for cases that are similar in nature, but different in the details. There's no point in speculating about usuality when it's already namely covered.
With the way the rest of of that rule is written, I don't believe the vast majority of monsters unlocked from discs to be "Special Characters." They are typical characters, generated from individual pieces of the secondary input data. There are "special" monsters in the game that correspond to pre-defined input sequences - rather than being generated, the input sequence is matched against a table that defines an exact monster with fixed (possibly superior) stats. Such monsters were tied to promotional giveaways or as secret rewards for owning developer-designated discs. Exercising that table would qualify as a special character for the purposes of the rule, but the general case does not.
This is only true for this particular game. When setting precedents, we should foresee possible ways to shoot ourselves in the foot that may be discovered if we don't account for enough aspects. If we allow this for this game, tomorrow someone finds a game that uses arbitrary CDs in infinitely more cryptic (creative) ways, and it'd be impossible to simulate having them for real. And it's impossible to build a rule around real world possibilities you have literally no control over. "Arbitrary" means that it might as well be absolutely anything else, and we won't be able to draw an objective borderline.
I agree that care should be taken when deciding precedent to cover as many cases as possible, but I don't think an overabundance of caution should prevent setting new precedent. It is possible that some other software might challenge any recommendations decided upon here, but such a game software may not and may never exist. Should such a software turn up in the future, I don't see a problem with opening new discussion on how to handle that particular software as well, much as we're doing here. For this game and similar titles though, I think there is enough to define an objective boundary that does not conflict with past submissions.
Posted: 8/23/2018 11:32 PM
Quote
Omnigamer
Player (37)
Joined: 2/16/2012
Posts: 282
There was a longer discussion on IRC recently, but I think the current debate boils down to these two questions: 1. Is the CD drive an acceptable path for nonstandard input for vault submissions? 2. Are the monsters that result from the generation process considered "special" with respect to the current rules on vaultability?
Posted: 8/24/2018 2:16 AM
Quote
Habreno
Joined: 5/23/2014
Posts: 162
I would dare say that in normal circumstances, the CD drive is not an acceptable path for anything but the game image. However, I would also make a written exception for games that explicitly request using the CD drive for things other than the game image, which includes MR and MR2. Furthermore, for games which this exception applies to, any image used in addition to the game image should be stated explicitly and a hash provided - if there's multiple versions, an attempt at defining version should be made. As to where that applies in regards to vault, I feel it should still enable the run to be vaultable, though I can understand the hesitation with not wanting to do so. For the monsters generated from the process, I would consider these normal, much like monsters generated from RNG in, say, Pokemon or such. I'd only consider them special if they were explicitly called out (as using the MR1 disc in MR2 does). Now, normal monsters I'd consider still fine for vault, but special monsters might not be.
Posted: 8/24/2018 4:43 AM
Quote
Xaiter
Joined: 8/29/2006
Posts: 13
Reactivated my account to throw in my two cents here. First, I agree with the idea that in this particular case the image data is considered user input. After all, the game is prompting the user to provide a different disk. This is the very essence of user input! Second, because this is such a ridiculously unconventional input... special rules are definitely required. Something like packing the image data read that affects the game in the movie file seems appropriate. This shouldn't even raise copyright concerns since copyrighted content shouldn't even typically be required to proceed. A rule banning copyright content as the image content seems completely fair here, just to keep things safe. That does mean the TASer will need to either reverse engineer the game's usage of the image data read to craft a precise, non-copyrighted input... or write a program to generate random non-copyrighted garbage input to feed the emulator until they find the value that provides them with their desired result. Which doesn't seem like a problem here, the game's usage of image data is well understood.
dot dot dot EXCLAIMATION POINT
Posted: 8/24/2018 4:16 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
I'll boil this entire problem down to a few clear and objectively verifiable points.
  1. This game explicitly asks the user to use the CD-ROM drive as an input device.
  2. We have to agree that for this game, sending specific input through the CD-ROM drive is usual, and this is similar to a special controller.
  3. Input that the user ever sends to the game is just bits of data, and the game interprets them as it wants.
  4. Sending input data to advance through the game, doing certain actions and getting certain outcome gradually, or via glitches, is the usual way of playing games.
  5. There may be specific input combinations that spawn new characters not present from the start, without having to get them the usual way (see the previous point).
  6. If the game does not explicitly tell you those combinations (during gameplay or in the instructions), using them in Vault is not allowed.
  7. Such uncommunicated inputs are treated as secret codes, and if they unlock such new characters, they are only allowed for Moons.
  8. It is possible for a game to have a password system instead of input combination system, and to use that to spawn such new characters.
  9. It is possible for a game to never communicate password examples, in which case they all become secret codes.
  10. It is possible for a game to allow loose experimentation with a password system, where every password would spawn some randomly arranged character.
  11. If such a game can be completed without spawning new characters, then they are not required, they are optional.
  12. If such a game is made to be unplayably boring without such passwords, players may refuse to play it without passwords.
  13. In that case, in real life, passwords may become a usual way to play this game, from the real human perspective.
Finally, the question. Should the above scenario justify accepting for Vault a movie using passwords to spawn new characters not present from the game start, and not otherwise obtained during the movie? And why exactly yes or no?
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.
Posted: 8/24/2018 6:02 PM
Quote
Omnigamer
Player (37)
Joined: 2/16/2012
Posts: 282
Points 5, 6, and 7 in your list are the main points of contention. You lay out in 1 and 2 that data from the CD-ROM is usual, and part of the data set a user sends to the game. 4 establishes that advancing the game in a usual way is sending that data to advance state. Again, no distinction is being made between controller data and disc data. The flaw or ambiguity in 5 though is asserting that the content resulting from using the input is not available at the start. It is available from the start - exactly through reading the nonstandard input. This is no different from the content that can be accessed from game start through controller input alone. There is gated content from game start - many monsters are not allowed to be used without meeting other in-game requirements, such as upgrading ranch facilities, hitting a specific trainer rank, or obtaining special items. From a new game, that content is locked away and not usable. I will also challenge that the input sets used to determine a monster are "specific" for most cases. Using a specific data will lead to a specific effect, but that's not functionally different from having a specific bit in controller data correspond to jumping. The data given is arbitrary, and it handles a broad range (if not all) possible data values. "Specific input combinations," as it relates to rules for playing a game in an unusual way, needs to be scoped appropriately, for example exercising sequence matching to enable gated content. For numbers 6 and 7, I don't see these as reasonable or enforceable limitations. Plenty of games have content that is not explicitly detailed in-game or in user documentation, including special moves, secrets, and otherwise. Are all such content also not vault eligible? Or looked from the other perspective, if a developer explicitly lists a cheat code in a game manual, can using it be vaultable? There's nothing wrong with 8 and 10 by themselves. 9 I believe is scoped too broadly, as the definition of "secret code" is overly broad. 11 is not a clear concept. What is the functional difference between a set of inputs to generate content and a set of inputs to select pre-formed content? For MR2 specifically, it is not required to obtain a monster from the Market (pre-formed) to complete the game. It is optional to visit it at all, as you can obtain similar outcomes from the Shrine (generated). The only difference is that one method requires nonstandard input, while the other can be accessed with only controller data. If the nonstandard input is already regarded as part of the input set, the cases are identical. I don't think 12 and 13 really matter for the purposes of discussion.
Posted: 8/24/2018 7:04 PM
Quote
Habreno
Joined: 5/23/2014
Posts: 162
I get the analogy being made here. I would state that you're missing one piece, in that, not because the game being unplayably boring is why "passwords" are used, but because the game explicitly wants you to input "passwords" to get randomly created characters, with a few special discs providing special characters. I cannot say if MR or MR2 are "boring" to play without generating a monster via a CD, as I have never played them nor ever will. However, I can tell just by reading this thread that they are certainly intended to be played by inputting "passwords" for new, randomly-generated characters. Given that is a major point of the game, I'd definitely consider allowing an exception for Vault in cases like this.
Posted: 8/24/2018 8:06 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
Habreno wrote:
I get the analogy being made here. I would state that you're missing one piece, in that, not because the game being unplayably boring is why "passwords" are used, but because the game explicitly wants you to input "passwords" to get randomly created characters, with a few special discs providing special characters. I cannot say if MR or MR2 are "boring" to play without generating a monster via a CD, as I have never played them nor ever will. However, I can tell just by reading this thread that they are certainly intended to be played by inputting "passwords" for new, randomly-generated characters. Given that is a major point of the game, I'd definitely consider allowing an exception for Vault in cases like this.
There are tons of games that are very fun to play without passwords, so using passwords in them feels like a special addition. No one demands their SRAM-anchored or password based movies should be vaultable. Because without those, such games have their merits. This game is useless without this feature. And this feature still introduces ridiculous amount of subjectivity, ambiguity, exceptions. And in the end, even with the feature, the game is still totally boring! I would go as far as to say that this game is just bad. It's poorly designed, if even playing it in the ways it wants to be played, it's still absolutely not entertaining to the general audience. I explained in details why such cases do not belong to Vault in principle: the Vault requires clear cuts, standardized goals, simply verifiable and objective definitions for everything. This badly made game fails to provide Moons value entertainment, and it fails to provide Vault clarity rules. I fail to see why anyone even wishes its CD-monsters to be vaultable. People fail to understand what Vault is, and what it exists for. They simply set themselves a goal that the game just has to be published somehow, no matter how, with extra CDs. No one has ever tried to prove that this game has any vaultable qualities. Because it doesn't. I'll reply to Omnigamer later.
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.
Posted: 8/24/2018 8:27 PM
Quote
Omnigamer
Player (37)
Joined: 2/16/2012
Posts: 282
Subjectivity and ambiguity are faults of the rules as they are currently written, not of the game. The game is simply an example that highlights shortcomings of the current rules, so they can be more clearly defined, added to, or amended. Hence the reason this discussion is occurring at all. Only after that ambiguity is resolved does it make sense to discuss whether the gameplay is outside of those clarified rules. It is possible that no exception is required at all.
Posted: 8/24/2018 8:38 PM
Quote
Memory
She/Her
Site Admin, Skilled player (1558)
Joined: 3/20/2014
Posts: 1767
Location: Dumpster
GBA TASer of 2020 GBA TAS of 2020 GBA TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
This game is not badly made because it does not fit to TASVideos standards. It is simply an augmented reality game where the purpose is to integrate play between the game itself and reality. With this rule as it is, I do worry about other augmented reality games which may have nonstandard input methods which would potentially be rejected from vault.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Posted: 8/24/2018 8:41 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
I'm only saying that it's still totally boring, even with this feature. It's bad from the general audience perspective. Novel idea, effort invested into making it all work within its genre, nothing really interesting to actually play.
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.
Posted: 8/25/2018 2:59 AM
Quote
KusogeMan
Experienced player (788)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1806
Location: Brasil
this is suitable as any% or an extra category which the game deserves, since it's how it's supposed to be played(with extra CDs).
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Posted: 8/25/2018 10:43 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
01:40:25 <feos> adelikat: what does your heart say about this CD based game? 01:40:43 <feos> (or guts, whatever you use for such things) 01:41:26 <adelikat> that it isn't worth worrying about :P 01:41:44 <MemoryTAS> wait until we have amiibo etc to deal with 01:41:51 <feos> so we keep it in the queue forever? 01:41:51 <MemoryTAS> that's gonna be fun 01:41:53 <adelikat> but honestly, it sounds like this feature is part of normal gameplay 01:42:34 <adelikat> that was the reasoning for zelda up+a, it's part of normal gameplay I can interpret this: even though you don't know the bit combination you are supposed to send to unlock a certain character, and every combination is arguably secret (not known beforehand from anywhere), every combination is valid as well, so every combination is known, and is known to work!
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.
Posted: 8/26/2018 5:13 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
Check out these changes guys. Approved by Nach. http://tasvideos.org/diff.exe?page=MovieRules&rev=339&prev=337 Also if anybody knows games where no input combination is explicitly suggested by the game, yet most to all combinations spawn new content not present from the start (characters, abilities, modes, etc), please name 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.
Posted: 8/27/2018 8:12 PM
Quote
ThunderAxe31
Any
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1361)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Arcade TAS of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 PSX TASer of 2022 Gameboy TASer of 2017
I agree that using the CD feature of Monster Rancher 1/2 is like using secret passwords, as it's based on external informations (where "informations" may both refer to the data in the CD or to the knowledge itself that the specific CD gives the desired monster). However, I think that it should allow the usage of this feature for Vault, since I think that there is a sensible way to draw a borderline. Usually, a password system is a secondary feature of a game, for which its purpose is to give an alternative way to play the game (may it an advantage, a disadvantage, or a completely cosmetic option); instead, for Monster Racher 1/2 it's the main feature proposed by the game, as it's suggested at the beginning of the gameplay and it's strongly encouraged on the back of the official game cover, as the concept of spawning monsters from disks is the main theme of the franchise. I also have to note that the feature is able to work with any CD in existence, as the monster and its stats are decided through an algorithm, with few exceptions (as mentioned by Omnigamer).
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Posted: 8/27/2018 8:28 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
Omnigamer wrote:
The flaw or ambiguity in 5 though is asserting that the content resulting from using the input is not available at the start. It is available from the start - exactly through reading the nonstandard input. This is no different from the content that can be accessed from game start through controller input alone.
You can not argue with a general statement. There can be specific combinations in games that spawn new characters that you can not select before entering such combinations. You can not have entered such a combination before starting the game. Because such a combination is only ever read after the game has already started. Which means if you don't enter this combination, you don't get this special character, and it won't be available from the start.
Omnigamer wrote:
For numbers 6 and 7, I don't see these as reasonable or enforceable limitations. Plenty of games have content that is not explicitly detailed in-game or in user documentation, including special moves, secrets, and otherwise. Are all such content also not vault eligible? Or looked from the other perspective, if a developer explicitly lists a cheat code in a game manual, can using it be vaultable?
Vaultability of this last scenario isn't explicitly addressed, but we view codes known from the game as non-secret, and they are universally allowed as valid input, even if they make the game easier: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#CheatsDebuggingCodesAndArcadeContinuesAreNotAllowed Then, Vault now lists which secret codes are allowed: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#Vault_2 http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#1 If you have questions about what exactly we consider a code that spawns new content, it can be discussed duly.
Omnigamer wrote:
11 is not a clear concept. What is the functional difference between a set of inputs to generate content and a set of inputs to select pre-formed content? For MR2 specifically, it is not required to obtain a monster from the Market (pre-formed) to complete the game. It is optional to visit it at all, as you can obtain similar outcomes from the Shrine (generated). The only difference is that one method requires nonstandard input, while the other can be accessed with only controller data. If the nonstandard input is already regarded as part of the input set, the cases are identical.
Nonstandard input by itself I consider a normal input method for this game. But the key point is, what do you send as input data? Usually games tell which control does what in the game, it teaches you how to use controls. It may also teach you what codes you can send, and what they do. CD data here is a black box, and I don't think this can be contested. You do not know from the game instructions which CD bit does what in the game. This is used as a random seed, and it's supposed to look random when trying a new CD. And using CDs is optional simply because you can complete the game without them. Both Shrine and Market are optional. In SMB, the A button is required, but the B button is optional. The Reset button is optional there as well. And the Start button is too I don't think we need to draw any legitimacy lines between generated content and pre-formed content. We do not care which exact procedure is used to define your character. We only care how you enable this character in the game. By sending a specific input combination or by playing the game gradually and/or with glitches.
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.
Posted: 8/27/2018 8:29 PM
Quote
Memory
She/Her
Site Admin, Skilled player (1558)
Joined: 3/20/2014
Posts: 1767
Location: Dumpster
GBA TASer of 2020 GBA TAS of 2020 GBA TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
Something relevant to bring up is that this game appears to require usage of the CDs for full completion. So there must be at least one branch in which this must be accepted.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Posted: 8/28/2018 9:44 PM
Quote
ThunderAxe31
Any
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1361)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Arcade TAS of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 PSX TASer of 2022 Gameboy TASer of 2017
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
However, I think that it should allow the usage of this feature for Vault, since I think that there is a sensible way to draw a borderline. Usually, a password system is a secondary feature of a game, for which its purpose is to give an alternative way to play the game (may it an advantage, a disadvantage, or a completely cosmetic option); instead, for Monster Racher 1/2 it's the main feature proposed by the game, as it's suggested at the beginning of the gameplay and it's strongly encouraged on the back of the official game cover, as the concept of spawning monsters from disks is the main theme of the franchise.
Thinking it again, I've concluded that this logic doesn't work. There is another game which features a password-like system as a main game mechanic: Ketai Denjuu Telefang. However, we have a precedent of a rejected submission for this game, due to having used a secret password for unlocking a strong monster: #5882: jlun2's GBA Keitai Denjuu Telefang 2: Speed Version "secret Denjuu" in 1:20:32.53 With Monster Rancher 1/2, the situation is slightly different due to the fact that its monster-generating system is mainly based on an algorithm, with few exceptions. Also, Monster Rancher 1/2 is much more balanced when it comes to potential unfair advantages, as it requires the player to complete certain portion of the game before being allowed to generate special monsters from CD:
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Posted: 8/29/2018 3:12 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
So let's finally discuss the proposed rules. Thread #20426: Clear cut rules for arbitrary extra CDs? /0
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.
Posted: 9/5/2018 7:25 PM
Quote
feos
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
NES TAS of 2011
And here's the rule for real: http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#RomImageMustBeIntegral So for this submission, it'd have to be tweaked to use a non-arbitrary extra image that meets the requirements, it can even work the same as the image used here. Then we'll judge the actual movie finally.
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.
Posted: 9/5/2018 8:28 PM
Quote
ThunderAxe31
Any
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1361)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Arcade TAS of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 PSX TASer of 2022 Gameboy TASer of 2017
feos wrote:
So for this submission, it'd have to be tweaked to use a non-arbitrary extra image that meets the requirements, it can even work the same as the image used here. Then we'll judge the actual movie finally.
...I'll try to make a handcrafted image that syncs for this movie, as resyncing the movie would basically mean to re-do everything fron scratch.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Posted: 9/5/2018 8:39 PM
Quote
DrD2k9
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Expert player (2222)
Joined: 8/21/2016
Posts: 1091
Location: US
Arcade TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TASer of 2020 First edition TAS of 2020 Gameboy TAS of 2020 Exotic platforms TASer of 2019 Computer TASer of 2017
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
feos wrote:
So for this submission, it'd have to be tweaked to use a non-arbitrary extra image that meets the requirements, it can even work the same as the image used here. Then we'll judge the actual movie finally.
...I'll try to make a handcrafted image that syncs for this movie, as resyncing the movie would basically mean to re-do everything fron scratch.
If a different image would result in a more optimal monster...it's worth redoing anyway.
Posted: 9/6/2018 12:18 AM
Quote
NhatNM
He/Him
Experienced player (719)
Joined: 6/17/2009
Posts: 600
Location: Vietnam
something change will make RNG change, alot work will need do if try change something...
A man come from Vietnam My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NhatNM/playlists
Posted: 9/6/2018 5:40 AM
Quote
Omnigamer
Player (37)
Joined: 2/16/2012
Posts: 282
You should be able to take the current disc's TOC and graft it onto an otherwise blank disc for identical performance. The code I used for my MR1 generator can be used with minor modifications to build a comparable image based on TOC data.
Posted: 9/10/2018 6:25 PM
Quote
ThunderAxe31
Any
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1361)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
Arcade TAS of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 PSX TASer of 2022 Gameboy TASer of 2017
Omnigamer wrote:
You should be able to take the current disc's TOC and graft it onto an otherwise blank disc for identical performance. The code I used for my MR1 generator can be used with minor modifications to build a comparable image based on TOC data.
As I already wrote in this post, using a completely blank image resulted in an irreversibile desync for the submitted movie. However, I've just managed to make an image that works, you can download it from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m8xslirn7a6qtxb/MR2%20Pixie%20for%20%236033.zip?dl=1 I basically took the image used by the author and erased all the data except for few file names and text strings, which is about 1Kb in total. The resulting image virtually contains no copyrighted data.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
1 2 3 4 5