The Problem with Perikles

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Flobeamer1922
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Flobeamer1922 »

I would like to add that MARP strongly encourages the use of WolfMAME (even requiring its use to take first place on a game), which disables features like pausing, save states, MAME cheats, fast forward, frame advance, etc while recording an INP. Obviously, this isn't foolproof, and it's still possible to cheat using WolfMAME. However, another thing it does is timestamp and capture the recording speed of an INP. This is very important, as this functionality is how notorious MARP cheater PAC was caught. Normally, the recording speed of an INP should stay at roughly 100% (though slight dips below and slight increases above are fine). One clear sign of tampering is when this is not true, and the INP demonstrates a recording speed with huge dips below and peaks above 100% throughout, such as with the aforementioned case of PAC. I wonder if it may be worth looking into some of edusword's submitted INPs to see if there are any similar technical oddities with them.

Regardless, at this point, I'm completely convinced that edusword is a cheater, and I fully support the removal of all his scores from whichever leaderboards he's submitted to.
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Gus
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Gus »

There's methods to check inp recording speeds, but I was under the impression they're hit-or-miss when external tools are being used to generate artificially slow speeds, which seems to be the case here. Does WolfMAME record inps differently than ShmupMAME?
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Flobeamer1922
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Flobeamer1922 »

This seems to be so. Regular MAME INPs (and by extension, ShmupMAME INPs) are marked as INP version 3.0, whereas WolfMAME INPs are marked as INP version 3.5. I'm uncertain of the differences at the moment, however, so I'll have to get back to you on that.
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pegboy
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by pegboy »

I'd rather just remove of all of his scores instead of trying to "verify" which runs are real or fake. Nearly all of them on his youtube (at least the games he has up where I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about) are fake as hell. Even "lower tier" stuff like his MUSHA run is completely fake.
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Flobeamer1922
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Flobeamer1922 »

So my initial assumption regarding differences between INP versions was wrong. I asked mahlemiut (who maintains and compiles WolfMAME) about this over on MARP Forum, and here's what he had to say:
There's extra info stored in the header, but done in a way that should be backwards compatible to regular MAME. The difference in INP version number also makes it easier to determine which was used to make the INP.
edusword
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by edusword »

I firstly have to say I didn’t write here before because I’ve been working outside my city for last three weeks 14 hours a day. I also have to say that English is not my language, as it will be immediately obvious.
I will not write any other post here, because I don’t want to feed this shit. And I have nothing to say about the ridiculous (and really offensive) video that started it.

Some points I want so remark:

1) Most arcade replays of mine were uploaded to MARP web, and anyone can investigate them. MARP ranking list was a little obsession for me some years ago, and I spent a lot of time because of that. I studied and investigated the games a lot in that period. But 2,5 years ago my daughter was born and my free time was decreased a lot, so I decided give up MARP and only play games I wanted to play, changing my priorities: in MARP best scores were my priority, but after that fun and 1CC were my new priorities. So I stopped going in depth in games, excepting if help was needed is some particular area of the game. This means from then I play games using my own style, without watching videos and without searching more info in the web.

2) Point 1) is much more remarkable when I play games with more or less complex score systems, like most of danmakus. I like shmups classic playability: shoot and dodge bullets, without any other distraction. Because of that, in this kind of shmups my scores are usually really low. 1CC is my only aim in these games.

3) When I think I’m well trained to starting to try to 1CC a game, I usually start from a clean boot. In MAME games I don’t need to do anything, because MAME don’t save ranking table or configuration by default, and INP saving requires a soft reset in order to avoid desynchs during the replay. Maybe used to that, I usually do the same when trying to 1CC a PC/Steam game. If my scores table only shows one score is due to this. It does not mean it is my first try in the game. And as I always do using MAME, when trying 1CC and I fail, I immediately reset the game and try it again. I do the same with PC/Steam games. In fact, I almost always prefer to practice the games using pirated versions, in order to avoid Steam connections and messages interruptions and/or distractions.

4) I didn’t know shmups can only be played using a concrete pattern or route, or using a concrete ship speed or weapon. I think each level, or boss, or each part of a level, can be defeated in different ways. Some ways will be easier for some players but not as easy for other players, so I think each player should find one way that suits his playing style. But it seems when I play using “different” strategies than most of players use, then I cheat…

Once this said, some remarks about some of your comments:

TRUXTON II:
Comments about this game are especially hurtful for me. I was playing this game for 3 months. Yes, I failed at the beginning of 5th stage, I probably had a distraction moment, and so I felt obliged to improvise. And yes, I was lucky is some concrete points, but that’s all. But you immediately say I cheat. By the way, no bomb was used because I usually only use bombs where I have planned its use, and in this game my initial strategy included not to use a bomb in that point, because I would need them in posterior zones. Once again, as I don’t use bomb, you immediately say I cheat. And yes, I know third boss “safe spots”, but I had a 50% fail rate there, so I decided to intensively train the boss using a different strategy. And I found a strategy that suits my playing style, and my fail rate was decreased to about a 20%. I intensively trained this game. I think anyone can see I memorized most enemies, because I think it is the only way to beat it.

BATTLE BAKRAID:
I admit I played this game as an unusual way. Of course I know its particular range system, but was my brother who requested me the 1CC catching all items I could. He is a great fan of this game, and I accepted the challenge even though I don’t specially like it. You can see the scoring is very low and maybe I don’t know the secrets and main strategies of the game, because it is true that I didn’t deeply study the game, but I learnt to survive. That was my aim, only and exclusively. It is a perfect example of Point 1). In fact, my brother was with me when I played it. And yes, I used default settings. You can say I did not, but I used default settings.

SHIKIGAMI NO SHIRO 2:
I honestly think it is very unfair when you say it was my first run in the game. I don’t understand it, because it is obvious that I know locations and patterns of the enemies and bosses, and the most important in this game: when and where to place the “ghost”. I was playing the game for about one month, especially due to the last stage. The game is quite easy until stage 5 if you know to place the “ghost” correctly, especially due to the low speed of the enemies’ bullets. Even so I lost my two first lives very stupidly, in two mistakes that I would not make playing at low rate speed or using save states. The only remarkable think you say is against the stage 4 midboss: I really did’nt know I could shoot the balls to move them away. Sorry, my fault, but I never had any trouble in this boss before. The live lost was my mistake, and not due to one first run.

NEPTUNIA SHOOTER:
You’re right when you say I did not have idea how to use the charge shot acquired after defeating stage 4 boss. That’s true! I didn’t worry by the use of this weapon because the use of the rest of weapons was enough to make the game easy enough to handle it. The game is not difficult, and I finished it in 3 or 4 days. In relation to final boss last pattern: I previously only played this last pattern about 2 or 3 times, and maybe I had not memorized the moment of its starting. I don’t remember it, actually.

CRIMZON CLOVER:
As I said previously in point 2), in this game my only aim was 1CC, and not scoring. Except maybe in the first two stages, I used break modes exclusively for defence purposes, so I didn’t use break modes when “it should be” if you want to scoring, and I was not aggressive and pointblanking enemies whenever possible. My final score is ridiculous vs experts in this game. That is evident. So you can’t expect the same routes, break modes use and pointblanking in a only survival run vs in a scoring run made by an expert. In any case, I don’t agree with the user writing I didn’t use the lock-on attack: I used it constantly in all the run.
Once this said: the number 8. Honestly, I don’t have any explanation for this. I see thinking the run is played at 8 fps can be something logic, but it is very far to be true. The video is NOT edited. The run was firstly played and the video was recorded in a different moment using the replay option within the game. So 8 fps is impossible. Why to mix the run and the replay??? Why to record a video playing at 8 fps if recording the replay at 60 fps is possible? That have not any sense. The video is recorded from the beginning of execution of the game. Why would I make an editing at the starting? No sense! But yes, I don’t know why that 8 appears. Maybe it is due to the initialization of the game or the starting process of the video recording tool, but I really don’t know. As I said, the video is not edited. Furthermore, who is going to play a game at 8 fps???? Would be that playable? I doubt it.
The captured image with achievements is very good. But as I already said, in order to avoid Steam connections and messages interruptions and/or distractions, I almost always prefer to practice the games using pirated versions. Crimzon Clover was not an exception, and I already finished the game previously in this pirated version once. The replay recorded was played after that using Steam version, as usual when I do 1CC attempts. But I don’t know about Steam achievements process in this concrete game.

There are other games that were aforementioned and I wanted to remark, but I’m very tired now, and furthermore all this is not useful for nothing. My intention is not to convince anyone, because it really doesn’t matter to me, but I wanted al last to give a reply here (the only one). And sorry for my rusty English, but I hope you can understand it.

Learned lesson: From now on I’ll always play games recording myself using my arcade controller or my arcade cabinet, and also saving inp replay with WolfMAME (when available) in order to upload it at MARP.

Regards.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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Pearl
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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XD
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copy-paster
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by copy-paster »

Well I have to say that Mr. Edusword's approach of "how to do when ppl accuse you cheating" is different than what Perikles did, and I think what he said can be 70% trusted than the latter.
I didn’t know shmups can only be played using a concrete pattern or route, or using a concrete ship speed or weapon. I think each level, or boss, or each part of a level, can be defeated in different ways. Some ways will be easier for some players but not as easy for other players, so I think each player should find one way that suits his playing style.
Correct me if I wrong but this is true and it did happen to myself. I saw top replays of Salamander 2 2-ALL and my strategy of second loop Doom (final boss) is different than them. It's kinda unfair to blatantly judge a run is cheating just because the playstyle is different than others.

The last sentence of yours prove that you're not going to give up to present a run, unlike Perikles which he totally gave up and doing as far as deleting all of his videos (looking like as a act of guilty). I look forward to see more runs with legit way like you said there.
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InFireX
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by InFireX »

edusword wrote: So 8 fps is impossible.
I highly doubt it. I tried playing the game while FRAPS was limiting the framerate at 8 FPS and it ran perfectly in slow-motion. You need a pirated version of the game, otherwise FRAPS won't work in-game on the Steam version. The test was done on version 1.02, while Edusword used 1.06 as you can see in his video, but I believe this would still work on a pirated 1.06 version; I couldn't be bothered to risk my computer to get it and properly prove a blatant cheater wrong.

For anyone that has a pirated version of 1.06 available and wants to try it out for themselves, all you need to do is have FRAPS running on your computer (preferably the full version since it allows you to record footage for as long as you want). Here are the settings you need to have:
Image

After that's done, run the pirated version of CCWI and you're good to go. Do a run for however long you can endure, save the replay and transfer it to the Steam one. You should be able to watch it since I could watch the 1.02 one on both the game itself and the "oldVerReplayPlayer".

This cheating technique should work on other games outside Steam and with other recording software that can limit framerate, such as Bandicam, so any doujin shmups he played could be easily cheated this way.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by trap15 »

copy-paster wrote:
I didn’t know shmups can only be played using a concrete pattern or route, or using a concrete ship speed or weapon. I think each level, or boss, or each part of a level, can be defeated in different ways. Some ways will be easier for some players but not as easy for other players, so I think each player should find one way that suits his playing style.
Correct me if I wrong but this is true and it did happen to myself. I saw top replays of Salamander 2 2-ALL and my strategy of second loop Doom (final boss) is different than them. It's kinda unfair to blatantly judge a run is cheating just because the playstyle is different than others.
Nobody is doing that. Why are you rehashing blossom's stupid strawman.

I'd love an explanation for this: https://youtu.be/P4Frajeb1Yg?t=3885
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blossom
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by blossom »

It's pretty obvious edusword cheated because of the Steam achievements, but to suggest he cheated because he didn't follow the route you're used to seeing is elitist garbage.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by trap15 »

Jesus fucking christ
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

trap15 wrote:I'd love an explanation for this: https://youtu.be/P4Frajeb1Yg?t=3885
That is some insanely risky and aggressive movement between the legs, and the movements are very fast, twitchy, and precise as they hug the moving legs. My immediate impression is that this looks tool-assisted. If it were a really early boss you might be able to argue it's not unreasonable to play around with it because if you take some risks for a speedkill it's just a quick restart, but the risks taken here don't seem worth it considering the player has no-missed to this point and is near the end of the game. It's a boss that can be timed out or killed much more safely by just hugging the walls and moving past the legs as they walk around, with the real threat being the walking turret things that constantly spawn and shoot at you.

As far as CCWI goes, you could also potentially test this Fraps slowdown exploit with the GOG version?
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pegboy
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by pegboy »

blossom wrote:It's pretty obvious edusword cheated because of the Steam achievements, but to suggest he cheated because he didn't follow the route you're used to seeing is elitist garbage.
Are you referring to the Gradius V video? If you think that is legit you have no fucking idea what you are watching.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Pasky »

blossom wrote:It's pretty obvious edusword cheated because of the Steam achievements, but to suggest he cheated because he didn't follow the route you're used to seeing is elitist garbage.
It's pretty obvious you're fucking retarded.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Plasmo »

I vote blossom for worst forum member of 2020.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by blossom »

@pegboy Not talking about Gradius V in particular, but simply how these guys are so quick to scrutinize anything outside of the norm. There is no room for creativity or self-expression in this genre, because if you make any attempt, you're called into question -- even if you're playing the game with an absolutely legitimate method and not building a tool-assisted run, they'll ask why you're deviating from The Route.

As for trap15 and Pasky, I enjoy your complete lack of a rebuttal.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by trap15 »

Image

Dude fucking read, please.
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CyberAngel
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by CyberAngel »

How people react to narrow dodges in games:

Speedrun community: "Sheesh, this guy is good. Gotta train harder and see if I can integrate his strategies into my runs."
Touhou community: "Wow, good one! Gonna add it to the next Lucky Dodges Compilation video!"
Shmup community: "YOU CHEATER ALL YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS MUST BE ERASED FROM ALL HISTORY"
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trap15
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by trap15 »

CyberAngel wrote:How people react to narrow dodges in games:

Speedrun community: "Sheesh, this guy is good. Gotta train harder and see if I can integrate his strategies into my runs."
Touhou community: "Wow, good one! Gonna add it to the next Lucky Dodges Compilation video!"
Shmup community: "YOU CHEATER ALL YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS MUST BE ERASED FROM ALL HISTORY"
Please look at the link I posted. Fat fucking chance anyone did that in real time.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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Image
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blossom
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by blossom »

Interesting thing to wonder is how many of you are cheaters too entrenched in the clique to be called into question?
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Moglar5k »

blossom wrote: There is no room for creativity or self-expression in this genre, because if you make any attempt, you're called into question
Having absolutely no idea what the hell you are doing and always magically surviving is not creativity or self-expression, unless you are trying to express that you are a complete moron in a creative way.

Do you guys just look at this (https://youtu.be/gcRt5nJKNmc?t=901) and go "woooaaaaah this replay is just oozing with creativity and self expression, absolutely beautiful!"? If so can you please stay out of these discussions, thanks.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by andsuchisdeath »

blossom wrote: There is no room for creativity or self-expression in this genre, because if you make any attempt, you're called into question -- even if you're playing the game with an absolutely legitimate method and not building a tool-assisted run, they'll ask why you're deviating from The Route.
That's what I'm saying , brother.

I don't think anyone should question whether or not someone is cheating, because everyone has the right to express themselves.

No one can tell me how to experience my game or how it "should" be played!

"Self expression through cheating."
Last edited by andsuchisdeath on Wed May 27, 2020 6:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Flobeamer1922
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Flobeamer1922 »

blossom pls
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by copy-paster »

I highly DOUBT anyone could do that TAS-like movement of that Gradius V with original DualShock 2 controller.
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