The Problem with Perikles

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blossom
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by blossom »

I oppose the idea of INPs being something that can be produced upon request simply because not everyone plays on an emulator. Occasionally, there's a dedicated fan who submits a great score on real hardware. Should those players have video capture hooked up to their PCB at all times, just in case they achieve a noteworthy score that might be called into question? Should they take a screenshot of their dip switches so we know they're at defaults? Really, how far would this go?
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by DenT4F »

.. or something
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6t8k
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by 6t8k »

I want to analyse the button inputs of the Gradius INP (or at least make the analysis of them possible)!

Currently I'm stuck because

• The INP only runs on shmupmame (as far as I know/have tried)
• shmupmame can display inputs, but only when no INP is playing...
• shmupmame has no inpview module, which would allow for it (like e.g. Wolfmame does).
• When removing the check for desync in the Wolfmame code, not only is it played back incorrectly, but the inputs themselves are read wrong, not simply time-shifted or similar (unfortunately for us, it works like that)
• At this time I cannot build shmupmame from source (if I could the rest would be trivial) - the download is missing stuff and from what I've heard pushing further seems to be a major hassle

The only remaining approach I can think of is analysing the INP file itself.

Ideas? Is there no standalone tool in 2019 that can analyze INP files?
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by mycophobia »

blossom wrote:I oppose the idea of INPs being something that can be produced upon request simply because not everyone plays on an emulator. Occasionally, there's a dedicated fan who submits a great score on real hardware. Should those players have video capture hooked up to their PCB at all times, just in case they achieve a noteworthy score that might be called into question? Should they take a screenshot of their dip switches so we know they're at defaults? Really, how far would this go?
this isn't a matter of setting up exact definitions by which we call out cheaters. in this case it's a special confluence of circumstances.

A world-class JP superplayer has a presence in the game centers they play in. There's a network of players that have seen them do their thing, they may have published superplays, they may have personally interacted with the developers of the games they play, so on and so forth. Lots of things like this speak in their favor. I could say similar things of higher profile western superplayers; I would be extremely surprised if, say, Jaimers were outed as a cheater considering he's streamed a ton and has a significant presence in the community and has made public appearances. None of these things, of course, are required for someone's scores to be considered trustworthy, nor is it unimaginable of course that a well-known, well-connected superplayer could turn out to be a fraud. A reason for suspicion is needed. Context is key.

Perikles has a lot of good scores. Perikles also has no real presence outside of his forum posts and his YouTube videos. Some of these YouTube videos have questionable things going on in them. Setting aside my feelings for his quite high quality forum contributions, I've played a lot of Truxton 2 and have watched a lot of replays of Tatsujin Ou and that part of his replay looks kind of fishy to me. Flailing around like that at max speed and max power for that entire section just seems incredible. That's the only example I can really speak about personally. But others seem to find aspects of his other replays strange as well. This is how the situation stands.

But weird shit happens, not everybody follows the same routes or has the same abilities. All of this could possibly be rationally explained in a way that doesn't mean he cheated. All he would have to do to put most people's doubts to rest is come out and just stream some derust and attempts on one or two of these games. Considering a lot of high level players are concerned about his legitimacy, I don't find it unreasonable to ask, and in the case of people who keep records, I don't think it's unfair to set a time limit for some, ANY kind of response. Like, it sucks if he's completely for real and his feelings are hurt, but the situation is what it is.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by wiNteR »

NTSC-J wrote:Jaimers, great post. It really is striking how much more the movements make sense when at half speed.
CStarFlare wrote:As a fellow fence-sitter, I do feel there's a point at which a decision must be made by the people in charge: either remove the scores or state definitively that we're moving on from that question. The OP put the question to the community, but the people who have suspicions have largely held off on advocating for action so far (understandably so).

So I'll move first: if NTSC-J's report that Perikles requested his scores be removed is accurate I would recommend doing so on the 1st of the year unless we hear from him. At that date I'll also mark them as private on Restart Syndrome (that is easily reversed if he decides to come forward and maintains his own private record of his scores if he wishes to keep it). Without that request, I'd say that without several people willing to move beyond chatter and actually commit to the accusation and request removal, no action should be taken.

This isn't and won't be intended as a reflection on him as a player, person, or member of the community. It's a reflection of wanting the scoreboards to be able to stand up to scrutiny (and silence does not qualify). The questions raised aren't unreasonable, and if members of the community are willing to state outright that they believe the scores aren't legitimate ignoring that undermines the entire enterprise of maintaining a supposedly moderated scoreboard.

Rare as this situation is, it might be worth attempting to set some sort of pre-determined mediation process for this kind of dispute, and/or explicitly state what the community's gold standard of proof actually is. A mediation process might allow for things to be raised and settled before people have been talking about it amongst themselves for years, and a gold standard would give players absolute guidance on how to preemptively answer any questions about legitimacy. I'm sure many of the people in this thread have an idea of what would have been perfect contemporaneous proof of these scores; let's say formalise that.
Agreed with everything in your post. A New Year's deadline sounds reasonable to me for hearing back from him.

To clarify, will you quarantine all of his scores or just the ones people have the most issues with (Tatsujin Ou and Same!)?

I also think it's probably long overdue for a mediation process of some sort that can be carried out discreetly with the thread manager, the player, and maybe another player that is well-versed in the game to avoid clumsy dispute attempts like mine here. I think live streams are a good first option since so many players use emulators and/or have the ability to stream, but I understand that isn't available in all cases so we'll have to think of other possibilities (smartphone videos, etc.). As far as a gold standard, I think that's a bit trickier because I want to say first place scores should have video as proof, but this again might not be easy in some cases (like playing on a cabinet), and obviously, in Perikles's case, more than just his videos have been requested. Also, as Licorice just said, any rules we decide on should only apply from that day forward and wouldn't apply to previously posted scores.
I partially agree with a lot of things you are saying. But some thing I still don't understand. So I will try to describe things in points.
What is exactly that Jaimers is saying? Is it that:
(i) The given performance (on last page) is unreasonably hard to duplicate.
(ii) The movement is too odd.
(iii) It is very easy to cheat?
(iv) Slow speed play is very similar to one in vid

(i) is very different from (ii),(iii),(iv). And it doesn't seem to be correct given other players seem to have done that section so quickly. So that leaves the other possbilities. But (iii), if it's true, has always been there. So that only really leaves possibility of (ii),(iv). OK they do make sense but the problem is that how do we decide whether they are decisive or not (it seems to me that without ridiculously exaggerated movements, decisiveness in this matter is difficult to be ascertain).

I am not in favour of deadline or removing any scores (let alone the two games in question) unless a nearly decisive thing that can be found. And, as I mentioned above, the previous page vid is still suspicion, even if its reasonable it is nothing close to decisive. If I have missed something then it is another matter.

===

I will try to explain my reasoning. As you yourself said if you have rules then these should apply from that day forward. The above would go against it. I will say just leave it be [1]. For any future runs that sound/look too impressive (or there is some other reason) one could ask the given poster for "some kind of verification". Also, asking proof for every "first place score" might be a bit radical of a change. But, generally, I quite agree that placing a rule (when some "verification" is desirable) is a very good idea (and maybe essential).


[1] To see how not doing this would complicate things unnecessarily (and perhaps undesirably). People raised similar concerns about Sikraiken's score many years ago (almost a decade or so I think). While I assumed them to be correct (based on reasonable faith) there were people who seemed to be doubting it.

So I think that a good idea is to place the rule from some point on and apply it without exception (instead of purging past scores without anything decisive against them).
Last edited by wiNteR on Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:13 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by PerishedFraud ឵឵ »

Making rules to avoid cases like this in the future is the right way to go, yes.

I agree that Perikles should be given an indefinite amount of time. His scores can be taken down and stored until he responds, and there's no sense of urgency about it, methinks. Giving him a deadline of any kind is just dickery, since he might not be aware of this thread, and might have other issues. There's no reason or benefit in limiting him other than sentimental (ie, nasty) ones.

The rules being strict shouldn't be an issue. Going for a high score or a 1cc submission is entirely voluntary, and having standards is fine for a record-keeping place. Remember, folks can still post videos of their runs without asking for score submissions.

A shit I have to call out, however, is assuming ways in which he could've cheated. You only have weird movement to go with. Playing a damn guessing game in order to better explain it is getting to truly fucked up levels, and also further devalues Perikles (who still hasn't even responded!) I'm not gonna say any names but cut this crap out, if you want proof then stop trying to manifest your own take on it into existence.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by andsuchisdeath »

PerishedFraud ឵឵ wrote: A shit I have to call out, however, is assuming ways in which he could've cheated. You only have weird movement to go with. Playing a damn guessing game in order to better explain it is getting to truly fucked up levels, and also further devalues Perikles (who still hasn't even responded!) I'm not gonna say any names but cut this crap out, if you want proof then stop trying to manifest your own take on it into existence.
You sound like a fool
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by copy-paster »

Average of person's online inactivity is around 3-4 months from what I see. If 3-4 months this thread still bumping but the said person still don't respond of any kind well that's certainly something.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Plasmo »

1) Deadline
I'm in support of this. Given his posting history, it may take 2-3 weeks for him to log in again and find this topic. His absence is in no way suspicious but I feel that this forum has to move on at one point and has to take the necessary consequences. If he returns in half a year and suddenly has all the proofs we can put the scores back up. Not a big deal.


2) Removal of scores
Which scores are to be removed and which ones can stay - this is an ethical dilemma. I'm in strong support of having all of his scores removed. The nature with slow motion (and this theory looks like the most natural solution) is that you can detect it more easily with hectic games. For easier or slower ones, there is no reliable way you could ever tell. I don't trust cheaters at all and if we as a community decide that he is one, then I would like to see the full consequences of these claims. I'm quite sure that many of his console stuff is legit. He posted videos with external camera equipment for very few of them and I'm convinced that he he's a good player in general. However, do we really want to have these scores (even when they are legit!) up here when other scores of him are treated as fakes? In the end, it would be completely arbitrary to decide which scores we take down and which ones we would classify as legit. This is also how recent cheating scandals in other communities were handled (Rogers, Mitchell).

The specific places that would need to be cleaned up are the following:

The STG Hall of Records
Highest scoring replays available (resource topic)
All individual hiscore topics


Furthermore I'm in favor of a full deletion of his profile over at Restart Syndrome. The site is integral to the community and tied closely to shmups forum members. It is an external site but I'm very glad to see that CStarFlare is apparently following this discussion (great post btw!).

I feel like this definitely has to be a community decision. Please post your opinion here on how you think it would be best to handle the removal of scores. Only remove 2 scores? Remove them all? Why? I would also appreciate it if only people post here who actually use the hiscore forum. There are no consequences for any of the other places here.


3) The future of score submission - New rules
This topic is the next logical step. Again, this is a community decision and needs to be discussed as a group. I think it would be best if we open a new topic on how we want to handle future score submissions. Let's not derail this very topic too much but rather start a new one after this case is settled.
Last edited by Plasmo on Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by copy-paster »

Removing ALL scores is very rude thing to do tbh. Holding his score of Same3 and TatOu is acceptable but all of them? really? even it's a perfectly legit? This could leading to ban of every score he posted in the future even if it's a legit run because of "cheating before" in just two games.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by PerishedFraud ឵឵ »

andsuchisdeath wrote:You sound like a fool
You post like a 4chan

@Removing scores

It's well-established that he's a valued community member, and scores he posts after this date will surely be accepted if proof is provided. With this in mind, I'm supporting selective score removal unless he reveals that other runs were cheated.

Code: Select all

My logic is: If we're willing to delete all of his scores for lack of evidence and nothing more, we should be deleting every proof-less score there is in the archives. Who knows who else got away with cheating?

However, this is a rather extreme and overblown way to go about it.
On the other hand, the chances of other cheated scores being on the archives is extremely high. People get away with these things all the time as long as they're not noteworthy.
Last edited by PerishedFraud ឵឵ on Sun Dec 01, 2019 8:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by ACSeraph »

We should really take this conversation away from Perikles specifically and just think of how to improve the system going forward.

Why don't we set up a verification system for scores that involves INPs or live video and simply mark scores that lack that as "unverified" but keep them. That avoids the moral dillemma, and we can simply go through the entire records thread and mark scores as verified or not for all players. If an unverified score would replace a verified score's spot in the hall of records simply keep both and note the verification status next to the score. In this way we can preserve the forum's traditional honor system and let players come to their own conclusions about unverified scores while also making sure to safely preserve records that meet the "gold standard".
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by PerishedFraud ឵឵ »

ACSeraph wrote:simply mark scores that lack that as "unverified" but keep them.
This is an amazing solution for both Perikles's other scores and the entire system. Well done AC.

Edit: In reply to copy paster's next post: having your score marked as unverified wouldn't automatically discredit it. You could still have an INP to go with it too. No system is perfect but AC's suggestion is a major improvement.
Last edited by PerishedFraud ឵឵ on Sun Dec 01, 2019 9:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by copy-paster »

Not every people can perform live video. Crap devices and limitations of hard drive to store "raw" video could be the cause.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by wiNteR »

ACSeraph wrote:We should really take this conversation away from Perikles specifically and just think of how to improve the system going forward.

Why don't we set up a verification system for scores that involves INPs or live video and simply mark scores that lack that as "unverified" but keep them. That avoids the moral dillemma, and we can simply go through the entire records thread and mark scores as verified or not for all players. If an unverified score would replace a verified score's spot in the hall of records simply keep both and note the verification status next to the score. In this way we can preserve the forum's traditional honor system and let players come to their own conclusions about unverified scores while also making sure to safely preserve records that meet the "gold standard".
Regarding the rule-setting in general:
I don't know about this. The problem is that this seems a bit complicated. My idea is simply trust a poster. But if that poster "clearly fails" to produce any reasonable evidence (based upon rules) upon repeated requests (and after a fairly significant time given), then remove his scores.

The "reasonable evidence" shouldn't be exact replication of a run etc. The rules should be flexible enough that, generally speaking, producing a similar level of play (in the same game) should be considered as acceptable. This would also resolve the "playing on PCB" problem. But the specifics of this need to be decided in detail.


P.S.
Making it too strict would probably only have been good if something like inp's were truly fool-proof. But based upon what several posters mentioned now (and in the past) that's not the case. So that's why getting too strict seems to be a case of diminishing returns (and possibly would only stop a percentage people from posting scores).
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by pegboy »

Does a .inp really prove anything, one way or another? As far as I can tell, that won't actually show if he was playing with slowdown or not but I don't know for sure.

I've tried to stay out of all this bullshit and I really hate that this is happening but if he is a cheater all of his scores should be removed, since there is no way to tell which are legit and which are not. That's the only way you can really do it. I truly hope he didn't cheat but the evidence is mounting and if he never comes and addresses any of this I don't know how you can possibly think nothing happened. That being said I consider him to be a friend, as much as someone I've never met in person can be, and even if he did cheat it wouldn't change that.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by ACSeraph »

In response to verification being difficult for some players (myself included) or games (console stuff), please understand I'm not saying we should require future scores to be verified, I'm just saying that verified scores should be preserved as their own "pro league" of sorts. Requiring verification would be bad for the community, as I think the greater majority of players view the score threads as a more casual community activity. Basically we need a dual system, verified and unverified. If you want to play in the verified big leagues you need to be willing to face scrutiny and invest in the equipment to do so. If not, who gives a shit? I'd be perfectly happy to play in the unverified league.
blossom wrote:Should those players have video capture hooked up to their PCB at all times, just in case they achieve a noteworthy score that might be called into question?
This also needs to be addressed. I'm not on the level of Plasmo and company, but I have played for world record tier scores in the early days of Caladrius and Caladrius Blaze. I held the (unverified!) world record for non-custom Lilith in 1.0 and Evolution for years and honestly I still might, I haven't kept up with it for the past few years. Until Aquas crushed it I actually held the overall record for non-custom characters.

What I want to make sure everyone understands here, is those runs don't "just happen". I was practicing that game 8 hours a day on weekends at my peak. When you are going for a world record run that shit is not practice, you are intending for that run to be the one. So there is no reason why you wouldn't be able to document it if you had the equipment required to do so (I didn't unfortunately).
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by ZPScissors »

I'm pretty much in agreement with Plasmo on how we handle this.

Give Perikles some time to respond, especially since he's been known to not post for long periods of time, and even if he doesn't respond in time temporarily remove his scores but keep records of them in case he later proves himself. Also, I think they should only be removed if there's definitive proof that he cheated, which we don't have yet.

I do think that, if it turns out he did cheat, this would be good enough reason to remove all his scores. If we can definitively prove some of his scores are cheated, what reason would we have to believe that the scores that haven't been definitively proven as cheated are legit? Knowing that someone has cheated before is reason enough to be suspicious of a score.

I'd be fine with adopting new rules that make it harder to cheat, but I don't know what the best way to do so would be. INPs are a logical solution, but, on one hand, as people have said earlier, they're still possible to cheat with. On the other hand though, it is easier to catch a cheater with an INP. There is also the issue of people playing on PCB who can't record INPs.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Licorice »

ACSeraph wrote:Why don't we set up a verification system for scores that involves INPs or live video and simply mark scores that lack that as "unverified" but keep them. That avoids the moral dillemma, and we can simply go through the entire records thread and mark scores as verified or not for all players. If an unverified score would replace a verified score's spot in the hall of records simply keep both and note the verification status next to the score. In this way we can preserve the forum's traditional honor system and let players come to their own conclusions about unverified scores while also making sure to safely preserve records that meet the "gold standard".
Strong agree. It's also fair. Fair in the way removing one particular individual's scores cause they don't meet standards that many other people's scores don't meet is not.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

If it's decided that his score submissions as a whole are far too suspect to keep up without further validation, I'm in favour of deleting all of Perikles' scores until he's willing to step forward and provide some kind of answer or evidence that his replays are indeed trustworthy. If a handful of them are suspect, then there's no way to really accurate go through everything he's ever posted and play a game of "did he or didn't he cheat" on every single run. If someone has been shown and is known to submit cheated runs as legitimate, it's really hard to further trust the rest of their content, and we should not be obligated to try and weed through their records to try and guess which ones are valid and which ones aren't.

I think this situation sucks for Perikles; I'm still hoping his runs are the real deal and would love for him to be able to clear his name. It also sucks for the people who loved his writing and followed it closely, as if he has cheated it rather sours it for us, but if he had an admission or some kind of explanation would at least provide some kind of closure, so no matter what it would be nice to hear from him still and see what he says.

To the people suggesting it's rude or unfair: it's not. It's about establishing and maintaining an acceptable level of community standards. The fact is that if you're going to post a ton of significant clears, including several near-WR scores, you should be prepared to have people ask for you to back them up with more rigorous evidence such as live play demonstrations. Input replays can be fake as we've established, and generally speaking, I don't see any reason to doubt most scores posted or require hardcore evidence for literally every single one. But Perikles is not an average poster; he's someone who has posted a ton of clears, several of which are extremely difficult and have enormous scores.

As an example, if someone relatively new or unknown posted a few low scores of Dodonpachi that either don't clear the game or only clear as a 1-ALL, I don't think anyone here would seriously question its authenticity. For your average score, nobody's going suspect or assume foul play. But if someone nobody's ever seen play live starts posting several clears in a short period of time on the level of difficulty of that of a 2-ALL Dodonpachi clear with scores that claim to be not far off from world record scores, you can be damn sure people will expect to see more than just a screenshot or photo as proof. The better the runs you're posting, the higher the burden of proof essentially, and it should be taken as a compliment I think to be seen as a good enough player to need some more authentication of your runs to weed out potential cheaters who want to game the system.

As far as PCB play goes or other games that are not easily streamable or do not support input replays such as some doujin shmups, if a high level player who's been seen in public playing and is verified to be a capable player posts a pthat person is willing to run the game again in public to try and show off a high scoring run similar to what they posted before, that's a lot easier to believe than someone with little to no play history, who nobody has ever watched play live claiming they got something near a world record.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Licorice »

People saying only Perikles' scores should be deleted aren't being fair.

The reason being Perikles' scores are only being held up to scrutiny because a certain group started making noise about them.

Until they started making noise, the scores were just as legitimate as anyone else's.

In other words, if you held other scores to the same scrutiny, you might find the same reasons to be suspicious and remove them.

But no one is doing so, cause no one is making noise about these other scores.

The result is, one person is being treated differently from the rest, and given a harder time, where others get a free pass.

This isn't right.

IMO, either hold everyone to the same standard, or let it go.
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Xyga »

Plasmo wrote:I feel like this definitely has to be a community decision.
Plasmo wrote:I would also appreciate it if only people post here who actually use the hiscore forum.
Plasmo wrote:There are no consequences for any of the other places here.
Community...but not everyone ? I like how you twist things at your convenience.

There ARE bloody damn consequences for the other forums, for everyone scorer or not, we all had to endure this, it's not a private topic the thread was adressed to the entire forums in Shmups Chat, and we lose Perikles's presence, as some said even if he cheated we appreciated his general presence anyway and some people at least could forgive him would he come back and be honest/true.

I remind you that it was your fault guys to have started this the wrong way as a crackdown, on a community forum you have had practically no presence for sharing with the active bulk here, for years already.

That the HS threads are here too is a fact, okay, but you cherish your social media comfy filtered anonimity, then when you need to bring a scandal in the open you have no problem coming back here to expose everyone to it...

If at least the bunch of you who concerted prior then brought NTSC-J to open this thread, had stated who you were as accusers and properly detailed the issue - like you thankfully did tho late from page 6 - things would have gone more smoothly because you wouldn't have been suspected of doing something dirty.
Your . mistake . you . started . it . this . way
So don't go and imagine you are entitled to do the police and tell now whoever you want to shut up and leave. The nerve.

You might want to make another rule; that for future cases of cheating, the plaintiffs instead of launching accusations on a member of this forum beginning anonymously using a proxy poster, should state who they are and bring quality material from boot to support their claim.
What kind of court/justice allows people to make grave accusations towards someone wherever whenever they feel like, while wearing a mask/not stating their identity?
So that should be the minimal required politesse when you launch such a bomb at a place you barely even give its regular residents a thought about, yet you feel entitled to use at your convenience not caring about the consequences.


Damn highscore-lords/e-sportsmen think they have some kind of privilege to rule over every aspect and location of internet shmups activity.
It's always been like this, their demographics among the global shmups crowd has alway been pressuring, condescending, and authoritarian towards all the others, even here before most of them left for social media backrooms.
Yet, would they have actually stayed active here instead of being the ghosts from a distant forums past they are now, they would have been way more legitimate to start this tantrum in our home.
Last edited by Xyga on Sun Dec 01, 2019 10:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Ako
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Ako »

The most suspicious thing I've ever seen in any replay is the final boss of my shippu mahou run. The thing is no one actually has any idea wtf is going on in that game and thus no one ever notices the astronomically low chance of recovering from the frozen hand glitch with a suicide into bashi. And not only that, but after bumping him, serendipitously getting hit by one of his bullets and removing my homing weapon which allowed me to properly milk the enemies in the home stretch.

Anyway, I have no proof either way but I'm guessing most of his runs were legit. Why cheat at random games like Hanii In The Sky for PC Engine? However, Same is way too hard to clear without very refined and very precise plans. I'm not seeing that in the replay and it certainly seems odd. I'm not sure what his motivation would be if he cheated to just cheat at one game. He participated in STGT and certainly didn't cheat there, managing I believe top 5 scores but no top 1s. Maybe he took the JP wiki too seriously and got fed up that he wasn't easily clearing an "easy" game and banged out a slowed down clear for completion's sake. I hope at some point he steps forward to either explain his Same replay or admit it is not legitimate to possibly redeem the rest of his legitimate scores.
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Shepardus
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Shepardus »

Plasmo wrote:Furthermore I'm in favor of a full deletion of his profile over at Restart Syndrome. The site is integral to the community and tied closely to shmups forum members. It is an external site but I'm very glad to see that CStarFlare is apparently following this discussion (great post btw!).
I'd rather just mark his submissions private, as CStarFlare suggested in his post, for the same reasons he stated there; no reason not to let him use the site as a personal archive if CSF is okay with it, and on the off chance the scores turn out to be legit, it'd be easier to restore.
pegboy wrote:Does a .inp really prove anything, one way or another? As far as I can tell, that won't actually show if he was playing with slowdown or not but I don't know for sure.
No, it doesn't offer much more than a video does, so I'm unclear what we hope to gain by demanding input files.
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wiNteR
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by wiNteR »

Licorice wrote:People saying only Perikles' scores should be deleted aren't being fair.

The reason being Perikles' scores are only being held up to scrutiny because a certain group started making noise about them.

Until they started making noise, the scores were just as legitimate as anyone else's.

In other words, if you held other scores to the same scrutiny, you might find the same reasons to be suspicious and remove them.

But no one is doing so, cause no one is making noise about these other scores.

The result is, one person is being treated differently from the rest, and given a harder time, where others get a free pass.

This isn't right.

IMO, either hold everyone to the same standard, or let it go.
I agree that there needs to be some uniformity. Either we have:
(i) For any highscores posted from sometime in future (few months from now when rules have been placed), the member posting the score may be asked for some kind of verification (based upon rules). And if he isn't able to address (given enough time) then consider removing all his scores.

However, past scores would be left untouched (if the member is no longer posting hi-scores).

(2) The second option is also to consider removal of past scores too (even if the member who posted them is no longer posting high-scores). But this is complicated. For example:
--- What if the member has stopped posting scores for years already (and may no longer be an active player)?
--- What if the member hasn't posted in for years?
--- What if the member hasn't logged-in for years?

But it seems plausible that some reasonable rule can be set-up (perhaps consider a period of 0-3 years in the past).

===

I don't know exactly what should be adopted. But, if (2) is placed, then other members should also be able to comply to similar requests (even if they are no longer posting hi-scores).
chum
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by chum »

I'm against removing Perikles scores so soon because there's no concrete evidence that he's cheating. Everyone is relying on (reasonable) gut feeling. It would be very rude to remove anything before he's even seen the thread and defended himself, not to mention arbitrary to remove without proof. The scores have stayed for years already, I think the least you can do is let the scores stay until Perikles starts communicating (and rethink this if he like, never comes back).

However, a discussion about future scorekeeping is nice. Personally I like the rather lax way of scorekeeping here. No video/replayfile/even screenshot is required. This is how it's always been (right?) and I don't think you should be in a hurry to change it given how few people are using the scoreboards these days. If you want a more robust scoreboard with more rules, that's fair because there's good reasons to have that, but I think it's arbitrary to just change the rules all of a sudden, because the people that have submitted until now for all this time have done so under the so called honor system. Perhaps adding a link to a video or a inp next to the score should suffice, but lacking one shouldn't exclude the score? Technically Perikles hasn't broken any rules and I am not convinced that he's cheating based on his movement. Yes, his movement might be the result of slowdown use, but I honestly think it could very well also not be, because people do have varying amounts of dexterity, and Perikles does make lots of mistakes uncharacteristic of slowdown use. My gut feeling is still that it's fake, moreso based on the lack of strategy than his movements, but gut feeling is not good enough reason to remove scores, and there's no proof.

Instead of removing scores, I think it would be wise to look for proof, better proof until Perikles shows up. I have no idea how to do this kind of thing but for example some way of analyzing that INP file. Sorry but I don't really understand much about how this is done, so maybe it is impossible. In that case we are at an impassé until Perikles communicates.
The result is, one person is being treated differently from the rest, and given a harder time, where others get a free pass.

This isn't right.

IMO, either hold everyone to the same standard, or let it go.
Right. This is pretty much what I'm arguing.
I don't think the rules should just be changed overnight.
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CyberAngel
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by CyberAngel »

Plasmo wrote:I'm in strong support of having all of his scores removed.
Plasmo wrote:Furthermore I'm in favor of a full deletion of his profile over at Restart Syndrome.
Congratulations. The moment these words have been written this thread has become an open and clear witch hunt. This bloodthirst wouldn't come from someone who just wants fair scoreboards. I am heartbroken at everyone who calls for this "solution".
Plasmo wrote:I feel like this definitely has to be a community decision. Please post your opinion here on how you think it would be best to handle the removal of scores. Only remove 2 scores? Remove them all? Why?
Only remove ONE score. Tatsujin Ou has been testified to be within reason. And if defense of his Same3 performance comes up then leave that too. His other submissions have proven useful to other people and haven't been found suspicious. Removing them will only harm those games in the long run. You want to remove them? Make a case for each and every one. The burden of proof is on YOU. Don't lift it if you can't carry it all the way.
Plasmo wrote:3) The future of score submission - New rules
This topic is the next logical step. Again, this is a community decision and needs to be discussed as a group. I think it would be best if we open a new topic on how we want to handle future score submissions. Let's not derail this very topic too much but rather start a new one after this case is settled.
Such rules are already in place. They vary with game (within what's reasonable for it) and are clearly written out in each thread. Of course, it remains up to the thread owner whether to enforce them or not. But this feels sufficient. Cheating isn't a frequent enough situation to warrant any extra site-wide measures or regulations. If you want to point out possible cheating then make a clear case and post it in the scoring thread so that anyone interested can chime in. The final action depends on the thread owner anyway.
Last edited by CyberAngel on Sun Dec 01, 2019 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Xyga
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Xyga »

@NTSC-J; I have a suggestion;

Instead of trash fire individually nominal threads like this one, in one of the more general forums like this shmups chat, maybe you should have a sticky in the HS forum titled 'possible fraudulent entries' or something, and deal with that sort of stuff there.

Upholding integrity is the normal goal for any HS/competitive group, but if some people don't have any intention to show integrity themselves from the start, like making accusations behind anonimity and rather do it the cabal/rumor/vendetta fashion, then it is a very bad idea to do it in threads lke this one that was definitely asking for trouble.

Then, as this dedicated sticky thread would stand in the specialized HS forum, it would feel much more natural to ask only high-score participants to intervene there.

EDIT: or is everyone here fine waiting for the next "The Problem With *******" thread ?
I mean we have trashy politics threads in OT already, maybe that doesn't stink enough for some, dunno I'm asking, maybe the majority thinks we should go full social media and tabloid kind of mentality.
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CyberAngel
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by CyberAngel »

CyberAngel wrote:And if defense of his Same3 performance comes up then leave that too.
You know what, I'll do it myself. As someone who did practice games with fast aimed bullets, that clip doesn't even close look suspicious enough to warrant calls for cheating. It's entirely possible to plan such dodges by memorizing the enemies and taking into account that bullets are aimed straight at you. The only unplanned part might be when a ship shoots him from behind, but guess what, lucky dodges happen.

So yeah, update my vote to deleting NO scores. If you're even gonna take other people's opinions into account...
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Shepardus
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Re: The Problem with Perikles

Post by Shepardus »

chum wrote:Personally I like the rather lax way of scorekeeping here. No video/replayfile/even screenshot is required. This is how it's always been (right?) and I don't think you should be in a hurry to change it given how few people are using the scoreboards these days.
I think this is a good point. The high score boards are already not very active, and adding additional friction to score submission wouldn't help that. You could argue that a verification policy would only affect the top few scores, but people already tend not to bother posting their scores unless they rank well, and more process and regulations could be enough to push them into "why bother" territory.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:As an example, if someone relatively new or unknown posted a few low scores of Dodonpachi that either don't clear the game or only clear as a 1-ALL, I don't think anyone here would seriously question its authenticity. For your average score, nobody's going suspect or assume foul play. But if someone nobody's ever seen play live starts posting several clears in a short period of time on the level of difficulty of that of a 2-ALL Dodonpachi clear with scores that claim to be not far off from world record scores, you can be damn sure people will expect to see more than just a screenshot or photo as proof. The better the runs you're posting, the higher the burden of proof essentially, and it should be taken as a compliment I think to be seen as a good enough player to need some more authentication of your runs to weed out potential cheaters who want to game the system.
The trouble with that in this situation is that seeing someone play live serves here as a "proof of skill," and there's very little doubt at this point that Perikles is a very skilled and knowledgeable player. If we take the vast majority of his runs to be legit, as most people here seem willing to do, would that not, in normal circumstances, stand as proof that he possesses the skill needed to clear Tatsujin Oh or Same Same Same? If we take those runs to be legit, does it matter whether we saw them done live?
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