The Problem with Perikles

[Mark_MSX]

I'm with Gus on the idea of streaming the run if you want an extra-crispy reputation for your score. I don't think it has to be a requirement, but I personally do like the idea of making it an incentive. If you guys plug in your ethernet chords (no wifi) and maybe drop the resolution and frame-rate a bit (480p and 48 fps if you're real low spec), you can still stream in passable quality on slow connections. While it is possible to cheat while streaming, it's much more risky and likely to have a tell than a pre-recorded video that can be checked over carefully. I'd also recommend doing an external input display if possible. Again, not required, but an external input display will expose someone trying to use slowdown (because the inputs won't match up to the game play). Tonight I have put together my own cheated DDP run that I will upload for people to look over. I think it will be a good parallel to what we suspect Perikles has been doing.

P.S. I think Pazzy is completely legit. His Dan 3 graze score is absurdly good and I don't see how it would be possible for him to cheat in that game. You can't use savestate, you can't level select properly (so no splicing), you can't slowdown and record (no replays) and there are no sort of hacking practice tools for the game. I do think he probably just suffered from streaming nerves, which can be a real thing. The only reason why I didn't get them when playing ddp was I always streamed and assumed nobody was watching.

[blossom]

I'm not convinced your experiment with DDP will prove or disprove anything. While it's looking more and more likely Perikles cheated, DDP isn't one of the replays on his channel. Why not play Tatsujin Ou or Same Same Same at 50% speed, mostly blind, and see how quickly you'll earn the clear? I'd like to restate such an experiment would not prove or disprove anything, however it would be much more helpful.

[6t8k]

As written earlier I'd advocate the adoption of a verified/unverified variant (even though never having submitted a score here so far, but planning to):

When combined with the secrecy and elitism of Japanese arcades, this idea of strict verification for western players is too much of a double standard for me.

Why engage a lock bar to potential improvenent for the reason that somewhere else, it's somehow different, and we can't change it anyway - whataboutism?

I'd be okay with mandating that a verification status is marked beside each submission as a compromise, and possibly for mandating that top new scores submitted be verified (I'm undecided on this, leaning more towards no; I don't think it's necessary that games with relatively small/inactive scoreboards require the same kind of rigorous verification that the extremely active and popular games do, but I can see the arguments in favour of being consistent) but I'm still definitely not onboard with splitting scores into separate tables based on verification status either, for reasons I've previously outlined including it simply being a pain to manage. There's also the caveat that a photo should suffice in a situation where the run was played live with multiple reputable witnesses but was unrecorded such as at a meet, in an arcade, etc, and those witnesses can vouch for the score being legitimate.

If looked at the table with the keen, "verified" glasses on, the highest score is the highest verified one. Otherwise the highest score is simply the topmost score. Ideally it would coincide and be the same submission, and I'm thinking it's not that far fetched to assume that this would be the case anyway, most of the time. No need for split tables or the highest score having to be verified

[it290]

I'm not a competitive player so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but to me the onerous thing about a streaming requirement has nothing to do with difficulty, technical limitations, etc.—it's simply that streaming has nothing to do with playing a fucking video game and is not something I want to mess around with when I'm spending time enjoying games, which is what this hobby is all about in the first place. I think if you want some verification for people competing at the very top I think that's fine, but imposing any kind of requirement like that on people who just like to play games is ridiculous, and I believe having a 'verified' column will be discouraging for people who are playing more casually.

I also completely buy the argument that some people might not be able to score well on camera as attributable to nerves. Most of my best runs at all kinds of games come when I'm not expecting them and I'm just casually dipping in to make an attempt. Having to turn on streaming every time I do that would kill my state of mind and the task of managing all those recordings would turn a fun hobby into an office job.

I think the main issue here is that we have two groups of players: one group that's playing for fun and 'gentlemanly' competition where the outcome ultimately doesn't really matter that much because they're only competing against themselves, and another group that is really serious about records and rankings. If the community really feels that some sort of verification is necessary, my suggestion is that we think about maybe splitting tables into 'casual' and 'ranked' rather than having one table with 'verified' and 'unverified' scores, with the 'casual' tables perhaps containing both scores. That way the casual people can still have fun trying to get to the top (because as a player, you know if you cheated or not, and your score only matters for your own sense of accomplishment) while the people who are serious about scores can have their own rankings.

But I have to say, I am really opposed to any initiative to turn this forum's scoreboards into some sort of esports thing. That has never been the point IMO and it's a great way to alienate people.

To quote Punch-Out,

Let's keep it clean! Now come out boxing!

[CyberAngel]

If anything, a column with links to whatever proof the score has is a great idea in general. It's a standard thing on Touhou scoreboards (thanks to relays being a thing since forever), and the lack of it here is a huge inconvenience when looking for anything that can help with studying the game.

Other than that, just mark questionable scores somehow. Deletion is too drastic a measure that should only be applied to blatant or proven cases.

[CStarFlare]

Bit of a rushed post, but I don't really welcome the comparisons with speedrunning. Modern speedrunning seems to have evolved from SDA, where proof was always a requirement to entry - it's just kind of part of the DNA of that community (probably helped by the fact that speedrunning is very home gaming focused, which makes it much easier to get a recording). Shmups forum has always been a much more casual “come in and participate” community.

Personally, I've got little inclination to stream and don't expect I'd have any viewers if I did (what is the value of a stream as evidence if there are no live viewers?). I mean, it's great if people do, but I'm fairly comfortable with normal video evidence being the standard until someone calls foul. And I kind of object to the suggestion that players join and be active in an external social networking site to participate in this community.

I'm fully in agreement that any proof provided for a given score entry should be linked in the board itself instead if buried in the thread. That's just convenient.

[Herr Schatten]

I'm not a competitive player so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but to me the onerous thing about a streaming requirement has nothing to do with difficulty, technical limitations, etc.—it's simply that streaming has nothing to do with playing a fucking video game and is not something I want to mess around with when I'm spending time enjoying games, which is what this hobby is all about in the first place.

[…]

I think the main issue here is that we have two groups of players: one group that's playing for fun and 'gentlemanly' competition where the outcome ultimately doesn't really matter that much because they're only competing against themselves, and another group that is really serious about records and rankings.

[…]

I am really opposed to any initiative to turn this forum's scoreboards into some sort of esports thing. That has never been the point IMO and it's a great way to alienate people.

I agree with all of this.

[Bananamatic]

I would say that no proof should be required unless asked - and if you outright refuse to provide it like perikles did, the score gets deleted
The only issue is when someone calls out a run a year or more after it's posted and by that time the player is probably rusty as hell at the game and can't realistically provide anything

I also completely buy the argument that some people might not be able to score well on camera as attributable to nerves. Most of my best runs at all kinds of games come when I'm not expecting them and I'm just casually dipping in to make an attempt. Having to turn on streaming every time I do that would kill my state of mind and the task of managing all those recordings would turn a fun hobby into an office job.

I never understood this, basically every pc shmup is recording you all the time with the replay feature, streaming is no different because no one is expecting anything, they are just there to watch you play
Not to mention that you dont need to manage anything, just highlight anything after you're done streaming straight on twitch, if nothing happened then do nothing

[Mantrox]

I also completely buy the argument that some people might not be able to score well on camera as attributable to nerves. Most of my best runs at all kinds of games come when I'm not expecting them and I'm just casually dipping in to make an attempt. Having to turn on streaming every time I do that would kill my state of mind and the task of managing all those recordings would turn a fun hobby into an office job.

I never understood this, basically every pc shmup is recording you all the time with the replay feature, streaming is no different because no one is expecting anything, they are just there to watch you play
Not to mention that you dont need to manage anything, just highlight anything after you're done streaming straight on twitch, if nothing happened then do nothing

Can't you just stream or record privately for archival purposes and just submit the video when you get the run? No pressure from having somebody watching.
If you can see the game and the player's hands, it should be enough.

For example, IIRC Exmosquito used to record his runs with an ipad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKkKcrsUYE

[wiNteR]

..... I believe having a 'verified' column will be discouraging for people who are playing more casually.

.....
I'm fully in agreement that any proof provided for a given score entry should be linked in the board itself instead if buried in the thread. That's just convenient.

I would say that no proof should be required unless asked - and if you outright refuse to provide it like perikles did, the score gets deleted
The only issue is when someone calls out a run a year or more after it's posted and by that time the player is probably rusty as hell at the game and can't realistically provide anything

Agreed with all of these.

Though a complete run (of similar level) after much time has passed might a bit much to ask for. But two options that I see are: (1) Much lower level of performance would be acceptable (but it should have some plausible comparison with original one). (2) one might expect the player to provide, say, something like how to go through the hardest stage/part of the game etc. Might not be enough but might provide a compromise.

At any rate, in general, I think keeping the focus on a given player rather than on every single individual score is the better way to handle it.

[Limbrooke]

I would say that no proof should be required unless asked - and if you outright refuse to provide it like perikles did, the score gets deleted
The only issue is when someone calls out a run a year or more after it's posted and by that time the player is probably rusty as hell at the game and can't realistically provide anything

This is where we're at. The fact is when directly requesting some proof and that being ignored/denied or excuses made that's effectively ends the argument. If you've got nothing to hide then there should be no issue. A partial issue is the level of trust which generally is, we're all playing fair until someone thinks we're not. If Perikles had been approached about this much earlier the assurance in taking one side over the other would've been clearer and maybe it would have worked out differently.

As has been addressed earlier by Bananamatic, I share a similar thought to the relation between skill and knowledge. I don't think you need skill in order to be knowledgeable but you can be knowledgeable as a result of skill and progression/time spent in a game.

I don't care if someone is a nice guy, helpful, and contributed a good amount of information as all that is independent of high score submission and irrelevant. You don't need to meet up in person nor do you need to do some sort of significant feat to prove your worth, just come out and explain and move on. We're talking about a format that hardly matters anymore (PHP forums) so what exactly do you lose to a bunch of stangers online anyway? Interesting too when Perikles called into question scores by tviks and back then I had no reason to doubt him.

We'll see what happens by the end of January but I have my idea its not going to change from the present path.

[Gus]

Been ill for the past few days, so catching up on you guys' posts.

P.S. I think Pazzy is completely legit.

To be clear, I also think Pazzy is 100% legit. I was only trying to illustrate the radical and seemingly inexplicable differences in attitudes towards streaming compared to speedrunning, even among top level players.

I think the main issue here is that we have two groups of players: one group that's playing for fun and 'gentlemanly' competition where the outcome ultimately doesn't really matter that much because they're only competing against themselves, and another group that is really serious about records and rankings.

I don't think this is a fair way of looking at things. I personally identify more with the former set of ideals than the latter, as I have only a passing interest in serious competition and find the emphasis often placed in the community on records/rankings over videos/streams to be a huge turn off. Even the people firmly in latter camp still do play for fun and enjoy the gentlemanly form of competition that this community provides over, say, a League of Legends tournament with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. The main arguments in favor of adding verification to scores seem to boil down to these:

1) Replays should not continue to be treated as the gold standard for verification, as it's been repeatedly demonstrated how easily they can be faked for nigh-undetectable cheating, and other communities have long since having moved onto more sophisticated verification methods.
2) Streams and live plays are a good deal harder to fake than replays, and that should be recognized.
3) It's good for the community to give players incentive to stream and to promote players who do.

Notice how absolutely none of these derive from wanting to make the community resemble e-sports. Concerns about verification stem from wanting to learn from this ugly Perikles drama and move the community forward, nothing more than that.

If the community really feels that some sort of verification is necessary, my suggestion is that we think about maybe splitting tables into 'casual' and 'ranked' rather than having one table with 'verified' and 'unverified' scores, with the 'casual' tables perhaps containing both scores. That way the casual people can still have fun trying to get to the top (because as a player, you know if you cheated or not, and your score only matters for your own sense of accomplishment) while the people who are serious about scores can have their own rankings.

This really doesn't seem that different from what others have suggested so far. To me, it seems more disparaging to unverified scores to have them split away onto a table labelled "casual," compared to just a unified table where some scores have a "verified" tag. My idea would be more conservative.

If a score is done on stream or a live run, it gets tagged "verified streamed" or "verified live." Ideally, someone's verified score would be the same as their unverified, but a difference could be noted in the event that it's not, like by placing a "highest verified score" below their unverified entry. A similar thing would happen in the event of the verified score being lower than the unverified one. Everything else about the boards would remain unchanged.

I see no real drawbacks to this method. The only thing that would really change would be that scores tagged "verified" might be perceived as having a little more weight behind them. This is good for satisfying the 3 points mentioned above. As the majority of the leaderboards would remain almost all untagged scores, I can't see it having any effect in discouraging people who can't or don't feel comfortable with streaming.

Bit of a rushed post, but I don't really welcome the comparisons with speedrunning. Modern speedrunning seems to have evolved from SDA, where proof was always a requirement to entry - it's just kind of part of the DNA of that community (probably helped by the fact that speedrunning is very home gaming focused, which makes it much easier to get a recording). Shmups forum has always been a much more casual “come in and participate” community.

I wouldn't say the differences are this simple. The question of whether or not evidence should be required has long been a point of contention in the community, like the Sikraiken controversies, and guys like the Arcade Extreme crew have tried advocating for mandatory proof in the past as well. Even now, I don't think it would be controversial to say that it's in good form to provide some sort of evidence for a score if it's anything remotely decent. The main point of difference with speedrunning seems to be the emphasis on streaming as a verification method, moreso than whether or not evidence should be provided.

Personally, I've got little inclination to stream and don't expect I'd have any viewers if I did (what is the value of a stream as evidence if there are no live viewers?). I mean, it's great if people do, but I'm fairly comfortable with normal video evidence being the standard until someone calls foul. And I kind of object to the suggestion that players join and be active in an external social networking site to participate in this community.

I wouldn't say that a stream no one watches is entirely without value, as you'd still have numerous hours showing yourself practicing/attempting runs compared to just a single replay. Besides that, I'm not sure about the point about an "external social networking site" as you already need to use external sites to upload replays.

[blossom]

Still can't help but feel this thread has some kind of ulterior motive. All these strict requirements of streaming for verification, if implemented, would simply keep the old guard in and keep potential newbies out. Why would anyone want to submit a score when it's harder to do than submitting a speedrun? Last I checked, the Super Metroid leaderboard doesn't require video evidence, not even for first place.

[chum]

There is something interesting I want to bring up, which is a bit amazing if Perikles has cheated. If you are cheating, it should be rather hard to gauge so many games difficulty levels properly. However I think Perikles has managed to do so quite well with his list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59651 arguably better than the Japanese list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56114
Why do I say this? Well earlier I did a list of my own, using only arcade shmups I have 1ccs in. Although I am nowhere near as much of a 1cc collector as Perikles I have over 50 arcade 1ccs so there is enough of a sample pool. Turns out my list is slightly closer to Perikles than the Japanese one, without peeking at either while making mine. Since a lot of people think he has used slowdown tools for cheating, wouldn't it be kind of strange to do that and yet end up with such an accurate list? Playing slowed down isn't really playing the same game anymore afaik, so you shouldn't really understand so accurately how hard the game is while doing that. What do you all think about this? Meaningless or meaningful? Do you think slowed down play doesn't hurt the accuracy after all?

[Lags]

There is something interesting I want to bring up, which is a bit amazing if Perikles has cheated. If you are cheating, it should be rather hard to gauge so many games difficulty levels properly. However I think Perikles has managed to do so quite well with his list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59651 arguably better than the Japanese list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56114

You can get a good sense of a game's difficulty without completing a legit clear or getting a decent score, just through stage practice and run attempts. There's a point after stage practice where you start grinding run attempts, putting everything you learned together, this can take many hours and many restarts. Cheating could be a way to save time in this process, to overcome walls and difficult spots. A competent cheater won't play these games blind at -40% speed and upload replays. That would be ridiculously obvious and not a problem to spot.

Since a lot of people think he has used slowdown tools for cheating, wouldn't it be kind of strange to do that and yet end up with such an accurate list? Playing slowed down isn't really playing the same game anymore afaik, so you shouldn't really understand so accurately how hard the game is while doing that. What do you all think about this? Meaningless or meaningful? Do you think slowed down play doesn't hurt the accuracy after all?

He can play games at normal speed and modified speed. It's not either/or.

Still can't help but feel this thread has some kind of ulterior motive. All these strict requirements of streaming for verification, if implemented, would simply keep the old guard in and keep potential newbies out. Why would anyone want to submit a score when it's harder to do than submitting a speedrun? Last I checked, the Super Metroid leaderboard doesn't require video evidence, not even for first place.

The "ulterior" motive is people want a way to prevent another Perikles-gate in the future. Speculating about irrational strats and improbable maneuvers is time consuming. Spotting incompetent cheaters is not a problem, spotting competent cheaters is a problem. So either you get higher standards of verification or you get shmup detectives working on cases.

[CyberAngel]

1) Replays should not continue to be treated as the gold standard for verification, as it's been repeatedly demonstrated how easily they can be faked for nigh-undetectable cheating, and other communities have long since having moved onto more sophisticated verification methods.

The whole Touhou scoring scene laughs right now. Doom speedrunning too. Probably many others as well.

This argument is horrible and underplays how they actually HELP in detecting cheaters in ways no other methods can. Can they be faked? Yes, but NO single method is 100% flawless, after all. Even your dear live streams. Peer reviews still decide everything, as this thread's existence demonstrates.

2) Streams and live plays are a good deal harder to fake than replays, and that should be recognized.

Funny, I remember seeing an instance where that was pulled off successfully. It's no silver bullet, unlike what you people push it to be.

3) It's good for the community to give players incentive to stream and to promote players who do.

No amount of rationalizing will solve the problems people have with doing that. Some might not want to stream in unwatchable quality. Some might be ashamed of showing off anything but their best performance. Some might be too anxious of the idea of responding to (or even having) live viewers. Some might not feel it worth the trouble to set everything up every time. If you don't have any of those issues and can stream just fine then good for you. But it doesn't make them any less real. You don't need to "understand" this, just accept that other people are different from you.

Notice how absolutely none of these derive from wanting to make the community resemble e-sports. Concerns about verification stem from wanting to learn from this ugly Perikles drama and move the community forward, nothing more than that.

The motives don't matter if the effects are the same. Such elitist attitudes are pushing away players, as some posters have already expressed here.

So please stop and ask yourselves, is the harm that might be done by such decisions worth it? It's probably not such a good idea to make an already niche hobby even more niche.

The "ulterior" motive is people want a way to prevent another Perikles-gate in the future. Speculating about irrational strats and improbable maneuvers is time consuming. Spotting incompetent cheaters is not a problem, spotting competent cheaters is a problem. So either you get higher standards of verification or you get shmup detectives working on cases.

Things offered here will solve literally nothing. Someone will still have to bring up any possible cheating and demonstrate the proof. And there will still be such discussions anyway. You can't follow every single stream of every single player of every single game you're interested in, now can you?

[DenT4F]

There is something interesting I want to bring up, which is a bit amazing if Perikles has cheated. If you are cheating, it should be rather hard to gauge so many games difficulty levels properly. However I think Perikles has managed to do so quite well with his list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59651 arguably better than the Japanese list here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56114
Why do I say this? Well earlier I did a list of my own, using only arcade shmups I have 1ccs in. Although I am nowhere near as much of a 1cc collector as Perikles I have over 50 arcade 1ccs so there is enough of a sample pool. Turns out my list is slightly closer to Perikles than the Japanese one, without peeking at either while making mine. Since a lot of people think he has used slowdown tools for cheating, wouldn't it be kind of strange to do that and yet end up with such an accurate list? Playing slowed down isn't really playing the same game anymore afaik, so you shouldn't really understand so accurately how hard the game is while doing that. What do you all think about this? Meaningless or meaningful? Do you think slowed down play doesn't hurt the accuracy after all?

I can't beat stage 3 in half of the games on the difficulty list but I'm convinced I could be more accurate (closer to yours) than the Japanese one..

[Lags]

What's funny is people who are arguing against having better standards are also the same people arguing against threads like this trying to maintain score integrity. What's the problem? You planning to cheat in the future? Where were you on the night that Perikle's uploaded his Tatsujin-Oh run???? Got an alibi?

But seriously, either we get higher standards that make cheating inconvenient and difficult or we get shmup police who make threads like this and request further proofs from players.

If you change nothing and cry "witch hunt" whenever a player gets accused of cheating then what's stopping competent players from posting funky World Record scores in your favourite games and ruining the high scores sub-forum? Think about it.

[CyberAngel]

But seriously, either we get higher standards that make cheating inconvenient and difficult or we get shmup police who make threads like this and request further proofs from players.

If you change nothing and cry "witch hunt" whenever a player gets accused of cheating then what's stopping competent players from posting funky World Record scores in your favourite games and ruining the high scores sub-forum? Think about it.

Again, it'll also make POSTING SCORES inconvenient. You can argue that it's no problem for new players if only high places will have stricter standards, but there WILL be an averting effect on everyone. Why compete at all if it's gonna be too much trouble to shoot at the top? You can ride your "fair scoreboards" high horse all you want, but in the end this is a choice between having a few bogus scores versus scaring away many more. Seriously, do you want this forum to die or something?

Also, I haven't been around for any other such occasions, but from what I've heard here the "shmup police" had no trouble proving someone a cheater before, so I see no problems with it. Except they should finally realize that something drastic like DELETING EVERY SCORE needs solid proof of repeated cheating, not a few reasonably lucky dodges. And people are still coming up wth arguments for Perikles' trustworthiness, despite all the "proof" presented.

Oh yeah, and using his behaviour as an argument is just preposterous. According to NTSC-J, he has no INPs anymore and he's not into showing his performance live. And I don't think asking him to stream something he played barely enough to get a 1cc a full year or more ago will solve anything. A performance of a comparable level will need derusting, and that's asking for too much time to be reasonable. He owes you people nothing. Besides, didn't he say it's okay to delete his scores, again according to NTSC-J? What was the point of dragging this out in the open, then? To get a decision by community consensus? Well, the community thinks the case is questionable. And "questionable" is not good enough.

[Lags]

Again, it'll also make POSTING SCORES inconvenient. You can argue that it's no problem for new players if only high places will have stricter standards, but there WILL be an averting effect on everyone. Why compete at all if it's gonna be too much trouble to shoot at the top? You can ride your "fair scoreboards" high horse all you want, but in the end this is a choice between having a few bogus scores versus scaring away many more.

It's not "a few bogus scores", it's possibly very many. Pic related. And could be many more in the future.
People have suggested having two score systems, verified and unverified. So casual players who just want to post screenshots wouldn't be affected much.
The option I suggested is having a "verified status" by recording yourself actually play, like Pazzy.

Seriously, do you want this forum to die or something?

Stricter scoring standards will kill the forum ? Nice drama.

Oh yeah, and using his behaviour as an argument is just preposterous. According to NTSC-J, he has no INPs anymore and he's not into showing his performance live. And I don't think asking him to stream something he played barely enough to get a 1cc a full year or more ago will solve anything. A performance of a comparable level will need derusting, and that's asking for too much time to be reasonable. He owes you people nothing. Besides, didn't he say it's okay to delete his scores, again according to NTSC-J? What was the point of dragging this out in the open, then? To get a decision by community consensus? Well, the community thinks the case is questionable. And "questionable" is not good enough.

The details weren't set in stone and the request to verify his skills was totally reasonable and open to different parameters and time frames.
He owes the score keepers better proof, since he was pestering them to update his score records constantly, had 87 top community scores, and funky replays that stood out as suspicious to many top players. it's totally reasonable for them to point out his suspicious replays and try to work something out. His reluctance and response was hilarious and suspicious as fuck. Definitely not helping his case.

[Moglar5k]

2) Streams and live plays are a good deal harder to fake than replays, and that should be recognized.

Funny, I remember seeing an instance where that was pulled off successfully

Hmm... doesn't sound like it was very successful.

[Gus]

1) Replays should not continue to be treated as the gold standard for verification, as it's been repeatedly demonstrated how easily they can be faked for nigh-undetectable cheating, and other communities have long since having moved onto more sophisticated verification methods.

The whole Touhou scoring scene laughs right now. Doom speedrunning too. Probably many others as well.

This argument is horrible and underplays how they actually HELP in detecting cheaters in ways no other methods can. Can they be faked? Yes, but NO single method is 100% flawless, after all. Even your dear live streams. Peer reviews still decide everything, as this thread's existence demonstrates.

Yeah, I'm sure the Touhou scene is laughing. The same one that had its own Perikles situation when many continued to regard ichizoku's EoSD score as the legit WR even as just about every serious scorer of the game thought it was clearly TAS.

2) Streams and live plays are a good deal harder to fake than replays, and that should be recognized.

Funny, I remember seeing an instance where that was pulled off successfully. It's no silver bullet, unlike what you people push it to be.

This is largely irrelevant to the point I'm making, and it's actually a point I've acknowledged earlier in the thread. Faked streams also tend to yield more definite evidence of cheating than "a few lucky dodges," as you describe the evidence against Perikles's suspect replays. Do you agree that it requires significantly more effort to fake streams and live demos than it does to record with an .inp with Cheat Engine in the background? Yes? Then move on.

No amount of rationalizing will solve the problems people have with doing that. Some might not want to stream in unwatchable quality. Some might be ashamed of showing off anything but their best performance. Some might be too anxious of the idea of responding to (or even having) live viewers. Some might not feel it worth the trouble to set everything up every time. If you don't have any of those issues and can stream just fine then good for you. But it doesn't make them any less real. You don't need to "understand" this, just accept that other people are different from you.

Again, you are making an irrelevant point that's already been acknowledged in the thread. Of course not everyone is willing/able to stream, just as not everyone is willing/able to upload videos or partake in the scoring community at all. Do you agree that it gives good exposure to the games to have people streaming them? Yes? Then move on.

The motives don't matter if the effects are the same. Such elitist attitudes are pushing away players, as some posters have already expressed here.

So please stop and ask yourselves, is the harm that might be done by such decisions worth it? It's probably not such a good idea to make an already niche hobby even more niche.

If you think I'm being elitist then please point out where. Nothing I or anyone else supporting a verification system has suggested would have any impact on your ability to post a score.

Again, it'll also make POSTING SCORES inconvenient. You can argue that it's no problem for new players if only high places will have stricter standards, but there WILL be an averting effect on everyone. Why compete at all if it's gonna be too much trouble to shoot at the top? You can ride your "fair scoreboards" high horse all you want, but in the end this is a choice between having a few bogus scores versus scaring away many more. Seriously, do you want this forum to die or something?

A few threads actually have tried imposing proof on people claiming the top and it's had no discernible effect on scores. Back when an .inp was required for the top DDP score, I never saw any PCB players going, "I'd love to partake in that thread but it sure sucks that I'll need to post an .inp if I ever beat Prom's score." Saying the forum would die from having formal verification measure is ridiculous. I'm not sure how you can look at this thread and not see that there's a problem. We're having this conversation because many agree that there's a huge problem.

[blossom]

Back when an .inp was required for the top DDP score, I never saw any PCB players going, "I'd love to partake in that thread but it sure sucks that I'll need to post an .inp if I ever beat Prom's score."

Why would they say that? If I were a PCB player and saw the requirement, I'd just stop posting scores.

[Moglar5k]

Why would they say that? If I were a PCB player and saw the requirement, I'd just stop posting scores.

You wouldn't even ask if PCB scores were exempt from that rule?

[Perikles]

I've seen this thread a few days ago, yet didn't respond for the salient reason that I hold the firm conviction that, if you do decide to participate in a discussion, you should try to first and foremost address the pressing subject matter - which won't be resolved in any adequate manner. Since I'm not delusional, I am well aware of how dubious this entire affair must look - I acknowledged this very point when conversing with NTSC-J, which is likewise why I both understand & support the removal of all my scores.

The old .inp files don't exist anymore (I currently haven't even set up any version of MAME on my computer) - I honestly thought I made that part obvious in the PM, but it's possible I phrased it in a somewhat ambiguous manner. Harkening back to the paragraph above, I fully understand that's not exactly an optimal starting position, which is why I took the stance of suggesting to delete the scores. No matter what does and doesn't happen in the future, all the "evidence" for my past scores is presented by the videos themselves, meaning that even in the best scenario, there'll never be further proof for past deeds.

To continue this wholly unsatisfactory streak, I've indeed no proclivity to stream, not now, nor ever. The closest thing I can think of right now that might offer any value whatsoever is that I would like to get a 2-ALL of Sengoku Blade at some point in time - since I also own the game on PS2, I am willing to record such a run with my Smartphone for customarily gruesome quality once/if it happens. However, such a video won't happen anytime soon by dint of the difficulty of the task and the paucity of determination on my part right now (that's also moiety of the reason why I haven't uploaded a clear of an arcade shmup for over a year now - so much for desperately keeping the YT channel alive).

As I feel that this is really the relevant part of the post, I wish to reiterate once more that I hold no ill will or grudge towards anyone who thinks that all this reeks. The idle promise to create a video at some opaque point in the future from someone who potentially lied and cheated for several years is not a sufficient basis whatsoever. Thus, the consequences are just.



To nonetheless answer some of the other questions in the thread:


If you really didn't care about getting first place, why contacting NTSC-J to update the Hall of Records?

For the same reason I've pointed out several highest-scoring runs in Plasmo's thread (both my own and from other players, including several games that probably would still not be added to this date without the selfsame interventions), created/took over dozen of threads in the high-score forum, immediately updated my difficulty list after every clear, only have a single entry for every game on Restart Syndrome etc. pp. I do have a penchant for order. I also informed NTSC-J about many recent first places not my own, and even about those instances where someone bested one of my efforts. I'd be blatantly lying if I said that I didn't also enjoy bringing up my own results, but claiming that's all I did, constantly, is patently false.


Isn't the sheer numbers of first places in the Hall of Records suspicious on its own?

Not in the slightest. While it obviously looks impressive to have more than four times the records than the second place, it doesn't tell you anything about how qualitatively puissant such a score is. Browsing through the entries, I could easily name you 40 examples (such as Strike Gunner S.T.G, Rafflesia, Fire Barrel, Mr. Heli, Youjyuden, Air Buster, Heavy Unit, A-Jax, Finalizer, Gyruss, Mega Zone, Phelios, Pistol Daimyo no Bouken, Sky Smasher, P-47...) or so where I simply hold the first place for being either virtually the only person to have bothered with the game - even a five-second effort in stage 1 would've resulted in me getting the "record" - or where I just happened to score a handful points more than someone else who cleared it. Even those scores associated with a bit more effort are not even remotely comparable with, say, saucykobold's towering achievements in Irem or Raiden games or some of the scores in CAVE games we have here.

An easy way to see this is by looking at my scores compared to what people come up with in various tournaments. Whenever players like Ako, Erppo, Jaimers, Kyper or saucykobold decide to invest some time in one of those older games, they invariably end up with a considerably better score than what I've got. If any of these players wanted to have 70, 80 or 100 first places, they could easily reap them. Hell, six players got a materially higher Daioh score than me during STGT 2011, within a week, probably not having any decent replay available at the time, having to figure out intricacies like the rank system in the game, too.


Is there any strategy/routing in your videos whatsoever? Is there something, be it ever so tenuous, that supports your endless soliloquy?

For anyone open in partaking in a little experience, try this: load up Battlantis, reduce the speed by 50%, 60%, 75%, whatever you like, and try to see how far you can get. Whether you can overcome the first half of the first loop within a reasonable amount of time. Whether you're able to clear the first loop on your first afternoon with the game. And how well, then, the second loop treats you.

In concomitance with the question above I also wish to point out the following: there have been several instances where I either could've gotten first place or make sure that it perpetuates to be first place easily had I played it more risky. Some examples off the top of my head that might be somewhat interesting to point out:

In my Acrobat Mission run, I patiently time out bosses in order to keep my lives for the final boss, thus losing out on a ton of points for the end-of-stage bonus.

I only played through dimension 2 in Galaga '88 like a chicken (hence thwarting any ambition of scoring in the game) because frankly, anything above that it nasty.

I only used three options in Gradius II in order to avoid the option thief who ruined several runs all on its own - due to that and my inability to properly milk the Moai boss on higher loops, I had to play for considerably more loops than what would've been necessary otherwise.

I got up to 95% of the maximum score in Outzone even though I really wanted to counterstop the game, because, well, I met my grisly end before that.

I've never managed to get a 2-ALL in Detana!! TwinBee, Gradius III or Parodius Da! despite some earnest efforts in the latter two. I did manage to savestate my way through all of these quickly enough, though. I furthermore never managed to clear what is most likely the nastiest single-loop classic shmup out there: SD Gundam Neo Battling. It might look cute like a button, yet I guarantee you it's substantially harder than Tatsujin Ou or Same³.

Some of the indubitably suboptimal or even poor routing might have to do with me not looking up or being able to easily replicate routes from videos, it could also be due to the fact that some of those videos weren't as widely known (i.e. before Plasmo or someone else unearthed some obscure run on nicovideo for the thread) or even uploaded by the time I made my clear. For instance, maximo310 specifically mentioned F/A - all of the highest-scoring videos were uploaded sometime this year (those that I can see, anyway, some are taken down), but I did my clear almost two years ago. I simply didn't know about the easier way of proceeding during the final boss fight, but I did practice getting in-between the shots (which also allowed me to hit the boss in the process) with a somewhat moderate success rate, so that's what I did.

There are also some mistakes in my videos where I can aver that I (or anyone else for that matter) most certainly would have no reason whatsoever to make them on purpose (or at drastically reduced speed, really) - the entire bomb spam fiasco in Raiden II for example originated from me accidentally picking up a straight missile instead of keeping the homing missile. Due to that, I was unable to keep all the enemies at bay, resulting in many panic bombs and entirely messing up the route. Not getting the wrong missiles would've been much better for the performance, score and in terms of the replay looking believable.

The 10m+ run on PCE Gradius II was furthermore done on a real PC Engine, a console which doesn't even have any Gameshark/cheat engine equivalent as far as I'm aware (I might be horribly wrong on that, though) - on account of the nasty flicker on higher loops, this is about as difficult as getting 10m+ scores in the arcade version, which is not exactly trivial, either.


Why not post your entire process towards a clear to show us how you got there (i.e. posting a stage 5 score, then stage 7, then the 1-ALL etc.)?

First of all, I personally simply don't care for scores if I can't clear a game at the same time. Second, there are a few rare instances of that (such as the sequence going onwards from my post in the Parodius high-score thread from May 10, 2017, which didn't even result into anything close to a 2-ALL!), but I generally don't see any reason to explain every step of the way when I can just do it all at once when I'm done. Third, you can see some rather striking examples of my scores getting gradually better (various Gradius games, even something like MD Daisenpuu - it took me five years (!) to finally clear more than one loop in that one, despite it being a 16-bit port which according to you guys means that it should be utterly trivial, and which would also mean I could've just used invincibility or whatever in the first place since there isn't even a video to go along with it; but I knew how suspicious it would've been to immediately astound everyone with something as profound as a Daisenpuu MD 2-ALL on Hard which is why cunningly waited all this time to fool you).


Is your behaviour in various instances not proof enough?

That depends on your personal impression, of course. As I've pointed out a few times already, I don't blame you if that's your conclusion. I do want to stress all the same that I can't help but see some glaring instances of ex post confirmation bias at work.

My claims that I'm not particularly daedal, meaning I got rather bad results when I first dabbled with 16-bit games is seen as highly suspicious since ostensibly, the opposite is the case. Had I boasted about my adroitness in the past, it would've also made perfect sense for a cheater to be a narcissistic braggard, permanently flaunting with skills he does not, in fact, possess.

Both surviving dire situations like the ones highlighted here is suspicious and dying to silly stuff, too. If I survive, it's lucidly clear I cheated, if I die, it's because I wanted to alleviate doubt. I apparently had very meticulous plans in mind where to live and where to die.

Agreeing to remove the scores is suspicious, as is not posting in the thread. I'm willing to bet that this long post is definitely also a classic instance of someone guilty trying to volubly talking his way out of it. Had I reacted with indignation and strong emotions, that would've been a tell-tale sign that I already started to become victim of my own web of lies. Archetypical choice between wrong and incorrect, here.

Not playing bullet hells much at all is suspicious for apparently, you can easier tell in those when someone cheats. Does anyone believe that a CAVE 2-ALL (or two, or three...) would've changed anything? In case they would've sported lucky dodges, they immediately would've been added to the pile of dubious replays, in case anything seemed fine, it wouldn't have changed anything with those runs already accumulated.


No matter what you believe, you will always be able to arrange even the most nugatory details into a coherent tessellation. You can argue with the actual demeanour or its polar opposite and it still fits perfectly. That's not to say some of it couldn't be veracious all along, but that is really more happenstance than keen profiling.


What happens now?

It's hopefully understandable that I'm not going to delete my own scores from my threads, meaning that I willingly surrender all of them to whomever wishes to tend to them henceforth. I'm not going to protest to any and all actions taken, whether you expurgate the scores, put an asterisk next to them, place them in a different table or keep them. And regardless of whatever videos I may or may not post (whether they be live or via emulation) in the future, I won't submit any more scores here or on Restart Syndrome, meaning you won't have to worry about future quarrels regarding me. Even if you consider this whole post as the final act of supercherie (again, understandably so) in an already overstretched travesty, you may believe me that I'm tired of this entire issue. Hence the ultimate decision to post after all: to hopefully allow everyone involved to remedy the (sub-)forum as they see fit instead of having to wait for another few weeks or months.

[6t8k]

I'm so happy. (I have not yet read the above)

[Plasmo]

Let me just say one thing: THANK YOU!

This is the best that could've happened to this topic.

[chum]

Why can't you just show off some gameplay in one of these difficult games?

[Plasmo]

And now that I have read through it again:

To continue this wholly unsatisfactory streak, I've indeed no proclivity to stream, not now, nor ever. The closest thing I can think of right now that might offer any value whatsoever is that I would like to get a 2-ALL of Sengoku Blade at some point in time - since I also own the game on PS2, I am willing to record such a run with my Smartphone for customarily gruesome quality once/if it happens.

This is the most important part of your post as you actually talk about providing (additional) proof here and this is what the topic is all about after all.

Personally, I don't think a stream of anything is needed. If you can record a 2-ALL of Sengoku Blade with an external device including showing your hands + gameplay, I would be more than convinced. This run would function representative for your skill. The game is tough as nails.

[NTSC-J]

Thank you for the reply, Perikles!

A Sengoku Blade 2-ALL recorded with a smartphone would be very much appreciated.