Idaho, USAYeah. If you TAS it out it goes 6 frames before the screen goes black.
Yeah, 903 doesn't make sense. Maybe it should have been 933? Looks like MrJanwar verified that one
Sorry, didn't see this. Is there a specific event you're interested in?
you listed a start frame of 744, but I had it at 740 which is 6 frames before it goes black and matches up with your timer
We talked some on discord, and I can see the argument for allowing a save state. I will say that I don't really like it from the standpoint of it being a bit of a slippery slope, making things easier to cheat/harder to verify, but I doubt there would be much of a problem on this small of a board.
The other issue is that there isn't much run left if you remove the grind.
If we are going to require a grind though we should probably require it to be in the highlight, which isn't currently in the rules.
Looks like it was, I probably timed it and then had an off by 1 error
I feel like getting the moonstones makes more sense to me than all of the items, but I don't have an objection to adding one or both categories if there is interest in running them.
I have moved the old runs and verified your new one.
That was the idea, yeah. just because that would make it harder to set up the RNG for a manipulated run.
I guess this leaves a question of if I should move over runs older runs that didn't have the game over, but were before people started doing manipulations. I guess I'm thinking I should move them and just make a note that older runs were grandfathered in
I thought about splitting the categories when people started submitting manipulated runs. At the time I was thinking the same way as NESCardinality. I think it would be possible to make a run where you aren't following a top level RNG route, but you are using knowledge of the RNG to your advantage (and not revealing it).
I think that is still true, but I think you could argue the mashing through the start, the decision making, and the time should give you a strong hint as to whether RNG was manipulated. I'm also not sure I'm convinced it is a prestigious enough category that someone would go through the effort, and therefore the honor system may be sufficient.
Especially since NESCardinality is part of this discussion I wanted to mention a few other examples of 'no RNG manip' categories. It seems like (to a lesser degree perhaps) Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy have the same problem. Dr. Mario definitely has the same problem, and perhaps even Tetris. It seems like in these other cases the rules just state that manipulation isn't allowed and that seems to have been sufficient.
I'm inclined to make a new category, but I'd like to allow time for other opinions or rebuttals first.
XtremePrime (McDonald's series mod) messaged me (M.C. Kids mod) directly suggesting NES M.C. Kids should be a part of the McDonald's series. It is an official McDonald's title, so I agree, I think it should.
Fixed. I checked the numbers on the time when I verified, but not the units apparently. I'll try to verify your new one when I'm home later
Theoretically it is possible, I think the current TAS may be using controller inputs. If you used the continue code it also wouldn't be too bad.
Trying to 1CC with just the controller probably isn't realistic though. The movement is too slow for the crazy ball speed. Even manipulations would be much more difficult, a 1 frame tap still moves the paddle 3 pixels, so some pixels you can't even get to. With the vaus controller you have pixel perfect control
I think the stuff Bissmark posted seems correct. As for categories I think all stages and all stages (warpless) are appropriate. 16 stage also works, but I still like all stages. The warp doesn't actually skip any stage it just ends the one you're on, so you still visit every stage.
I guess we can agree to disagree on rounding.
As for the ending there is a better way to try it out than just testing a lot. I checked it out with the TAS tools and the results are interesting. If you are on the last pixel and deliver the last blow by hitting B and down on the same frame the game will blue screen and hard lock right after the TV host appears. Press down any later and the end cutscene plays as normal. The fade to black happens on the same frame whether you suicide or not. I'm guessing suicide being the way to go was just for fun not to save time. I think all of this supports last hit as the place to end the timer. Even if you are foolish enough to double KO, the cutscene does start, so I'd say that counts as completing the game.
I guess I don't recall if the 'last hit' was in the rules when I became a mod, but I'm guessing it was.Based on your last statement a way to shortcut either character control or the end screen transition tells me that last hit is probably the most appropriate thing. The concern would be if there was a way to deal the final blow and then die, thus managing not to finish the game after all. I'm assuming this can't be done, but I don't think I've checked, maybe you tried it?
As for the timing, I'm pretty sure I re-timed Murphagator's run along with the other top runs when a number of us came on board. Since there wasn't a need for ms I timed to seconds and I hate the convention of rounding down. To me if your run is really 14:12.786 a claim of '14:12' is misleading. There is definitely a period of 14:12 where you have already started and have not yet finished.
I guess if we find that you can fail after the final hit maybe it makes sense to change to screen transition, though I suppose it won't affect the times much.
This doesn't have anything to do with the timing, but I guess the thing I was thinking about the other day was the enemy AI. If you could figure out a way to keep them from ducking that would probably save quite a bit of time. May be worth doing some research.
I'm open to discussion, but my instinct would be to say no. Long intros can be annoying, but I don't know that 20 seconds is really overwhelming.
I'm sure I spent some time looking at the memory and the game code when I made the tas, but even if there isn't a direct influence on RNG there are better reasons it shouldn't be allowed. Most notably there is no way for someone verifying your run to know exactly what state you're starting from and if you may have modified your save state to your advantage in some way.
Hopefully the intro doesn't completely deter you, I look forward to seeing some more runs.
