Hi all! I've seen there has been some discussion about possible rules for the Any% arcade category and I am happy to begin the discussion. My proposed rules are as follows:
- Run starts when you gain control of Dover after the opening cutscene.
- Run ends on the frame Wardner turns "grey" when he dies.
- Emulators are permitted (unless anyone wants to track down a Wardner cabinet!).
- Starting from a save state during the opening cut scene is permitted.*
- Unlimited credits permitted.**
- Any Dipswitch difficulty setting are permitted. ***
- RE: save state - from my understanding, Enemy drop RNG is determined when enemies appear on screen. In other words, if you start from a save state before getting control of Dover, your RNG for drops will be different every time. This means we don't have to worry about doing a full boot every time and going through the ~30 second boot sequence. Should speed up runs significantly.
** Re: credits - the prevalence of "Death Warping" in this game means that I don't think we should limit runs to 1 credit. If a runner wants to do a route with 4 death warps, I don't think we should limit this. We can set up a 1cc% category if people want to do one-credit runs.
*** Re: Dipswitches - This one I'm not sure of and am happy to be proven wrong on. I've played around a little bit with Dipswitches and I personally don't see that much difference (if any) between Easy/Normal. I also think it would be a pain to verify Dipswitches, as essentially every single run the runner would have to bring up their console and show the difficulty setting, which would be a pain. Because of this, I think unless it can be shown that Easy difficulty provides a significant time advantage (e.g. 5+ seconds) it would probably just be easier to say "anything goes", rather than splitting up runs into multiple categories.
Let me know what everyone thinks!
Hi Bufus! Thank you for sharing your feedback and insight. I am honestly not all that familiar with arcade speedruns so none of these factors had even crossed my mind before milliuspyros brought them to my attention.
I agree with everything you've stated. Especially since this is such a niche game to speedrun, I think the rules should remain as lenient as possible. I'll add the 6 numbered rules you listed to the category. Aside from that, anything goes (apart from blatant cheating) unless there are any objections or until the leaderboard grows to a point that it makes sense to split out to multiple categories and get more granular with the rules.
Not sure if 1cc% would be a unique enough category as I'm sure the run would simply be cutting one or two death-warps, but I can create it if there is interest in it. However, perhaps a damageless category would be interesting as it would mean no death-warps. I'm completely open to your feedback as I don't run the arcade version myself. I am curious to hear what milliuspyros thinks as well if he sees this thread.
Agreed re 1cc% (and a hypothetical NoDamage%). Seems to me the kind of thing that if someone REALLY wants to run those categories we can start one, but until that time we'll just stick to the one category.
Nice initiative ,
I would also add,
4 - Starting from a save state during the opening cut scene is permitted.* or fast forward to skip the initialization screen is permitted.
7 - any version of Wardner or Pyros at 54.877858 hz ( is wardner and pyros have different refresh rate / timing version?)
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Difficulties will add maybe 6 or 8 damages per difficulties to the the flying dragons... but who kill them with fire :D.
I'm still unsure for Wardner and end stage L4 Dragon.
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Before creating a "1cc%" , we will have to define how many lives our player must have at the start since we allow all dip switches (2 is the standard)
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I'm also running from time to time what I call fairy% , must complete the game with 2 fairies :)
I didn't think you were starting a save state so far away; I thought it was only to skip the initialization screen. With this method, the RNG is manipulated, and runs have a higher probability of getting the same drops in the first encounters. I believe that 'insert coin + start' and the cutscene are part of the run and in the spirit of speedrunning.
With fast forward to skip the initialization screen or save states a fraction of a second before the end of the initialization screen, the RNG manipulation is harder. But I still think that everything else after the initialization screen is part of the run or preparation for the run (like almost every other game on speedrun.com for 'beat the game' runs.).
I don't think that was the intended purpose of your run, and I don't believe it should be invalidated even if it's decided not to accept a save state that far. However, once clarified, it could be different for future runs.
like this general note in some ref, this one is for NES runs : https://goo.gl/pYN6AR
Save states may not be used to start a run (ie skip a long intro), or at any point during a run. Doing so can unfairly manipulate RNG, whether knowingly or not.
Milius makes some good points. Again, I am quite unfamiliar with the arcade version aside from playing it casually a few times. I was unaware of any potential RNG manipulation, but that makes sense. I agree I don't think that was the intent so the run stands as WR, but I think future runs should show the starting screen and start the game naturally. Timer still starts on control of Dover, but I do think seeing that would help us to better verify runs going forward. I will revise and add the rules Milius mentioned.
Milius, I just added you as a mod. Sorry I forgot to reply earlier this year and let you know that it wasn't letting me mod you as your account email wasn't verified, but it looks like it just allowed me to mod you. Appreciate you sharing your insight and offering to assist with verifying arcade & FDS runs going forward.
I'll try another proposition, Feel free to discuss
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Rules are a work in progress; follow this topic for up-to-date information: Wardner Rules Forum
General rules:
- Emulators are permitted, but you must provide the name and version of the emulator.
- Run-ahead is prohibited.
- Must also comply with specific category rules if available.
Genesis version specific rules:
- Run starts when you press start to begin the game.
- Run ends at the 1st frame of the credits when the screen turns back after defeating Wardner.
- Cannot use save state, fast forward, or rewind.
- Can use Wardner or Wardner no mori special.
Arcade version specific rules:
- Run starts when you gain control of Dover after the opening cut scene.
- Run ends on the frame Wardner turns "grey" when he dies.
- Using a save state to skip the initialization screen is permitted. The save state must be before the Wardner or Pyros/TAITO screen appears.
- Fast forward to skip the initialization screen is permitted. It must stop before or as soon as the Wardner or Pyros/TAITO screen appears.
- Unlimited credits are permitted.
- Dip Switches: Any difficulty settings are permitted.
- Dip Switches: Must keep the default 3 lives at startup.
- Dip Switches: Must keep the default Bonus Life at 30k, 80k, and 50k+.
- Must use a version with the same speed as the original arcade and must emulate the original arcade speed (54.877858 Hz).
Famicom Disk System (FDS / NES) specific rules:
- General NES rules apply NES Rules (8:7 ratio is also fine).
- For now, loading time is part of the game. If someone wants to remove loading time, maybe it will happen because loading time has no consistency/standard even when emulated.
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In arcade version / re-release, I think when compilation will be released, we will have to look if they run at 60hz or emulate the same refresh rate... maybe we will have to separate them, but you are welcome to submit them.
Hi I'm RAX, I'll explain my opinion about arcade version only because I don't know other versions
I usually play 1Creditonly, so I would say that infinite credits is not much enjoyable, but this site allows multicredit so ok form me. Maybe when we'll have many runs we'll ask for a split
About dip switch, I usually play with default settings; I agree that easy settings shouldn't ease the work in this particular game, but keeping the 3 lives and BonusLife is important, as you already stated
Sorry I don't understand the 11th rule "run ahead is prohibited"
PS, very nice run Bufus
run ahead is a way for some emulator to reduce input/video/... lag by emulating X frames before your key press.
https://docs.libretro.com/guides/runahead/
https://www.mesen.ca/docs/configuration/emulation.html
moved some rules to general rules, tried some rules for genesis, but i'm unfamiliar
Watched the ParasyteSteve run and start and end seem like that.
Genesis version specific rules :
- Run starts when you press start to begin the game
- Run ends at the 1st frame of the credits when the screen turn back.
- Cannot use save state, fast forward or rewind.
- Can use Wardner of Wardner no mori special.
Sorry for the late reply to this thread, but it sounds like y'all came to an agreement with the arcade rules, so that's good!
Genesis rules look perfect to me! That's exactly what I would have proposed.
Thank you so much for taking the time to update the rules for each platform. I greatly appreciate it! Hope to see more runs submitted soon :)
Added a subcategories and notes to the rules for the compilation from "Toaplan Arcade Garage : Hishou Same! Same! Same!"
Another release, nice, will try to find a standard name for all compilation releases
Removed compilation platform and added a comment in the rules to start a forum thread if ever someone run Wardner in a compilation, we will have to discuss if it run at the same speed / hz / fps.
Also, we will removes the use of millisecond... if ever 2 persons have the same 1st position time, we will maybe re-time and add the ms. Was added when i equalized the 1st position.
