DoDonPachi high score verification 2010

[ArrogantBastard]

so much crying in this thread / forum about scores

ridiculous.

[captpain]

You're all a bunch of dirty cheaters.

That really isn't what I mean, does it feel that way ?

I trust most or all of the scores on this DDP board to be real, I just know sometimes there's the odd cheater and he should really be eliminated !

No, I'm just being a jackass.

INP verification makes sense, and it's fun for everyone.

[ncp]

Something I saw from you in the lagless mame thread prometheus:

It's easy to abuse pausing to play frame by frame and that is no good at all.

The version of mame I use lets me pause while recording. I just went and attempted this when I read this, and honestly, there is not a chance in hell this would work. The best method I could think of was using the autofire on my stick (PS2 HRAP) on the button bound to pause. Shit doesn't work AT ALL. It's insanely inconsistent and downright un-playable. This is a legit concern, but I think in application it is not even close to advantageous. How the hell can you play without pause, though, honestly? What if the phone rings? What if you need to talk to someone? Besides, in my experience, if I'm forced to pause in the middle of a level it's almost a sure-fire chain break since I lose my timing/flow/whatever you want to call it, but it is surely convenient between levels and before bosses where there's long breaks (or anywhere on stage 3 lol). Console ports have pause, is that cheating, too?

I mean what the hell, you're worried about pausing the game, which really has no impact on gameplay aside from convenience, but you support something that reduces the input lag, giving you a constant advantage over PCB players throughout the entire game?

Please explain why pausing during recording is more of a concern than a pure control advantage...

[EPS21]

If someone is trying to compete against PROMETHEUS' high score, and then surpass it, obviously some proof is in order for the #1 spot.

But so far no one's even coming close

Funny you should say that: http://cowboy.ikaruga.co.uk/bbs/viewtop ... 76&start=0

Dodonpachi - sikraiken - 530,901,350 - ALL - A-L - Max 841

I love watching replays and it defintly helps to improve my gameplay, but I'm too lazy to do any efforts on my own right now. While I respect both immensely as shmup players I regard PROMETHEUS as the greatest Dodonpachi player in the west because of his replays and dedication to the game. There is no doubt in my mind that Sikraikens score is genuine, but in the case of Dodonpachi PROMETHEUS has contributed a lot more to the community than Sikraiken.

Hmm well I stand corrected, surprised he hasn't posted it on here then. And after that whole story PROMETHEUS tried to verify his score and still not get anything, it's totally understandable to be adamant about verifications. But most of us I think don't have the time to invest/interest in this particular game to bend over backwards to provide some replay files/proof for some just for fun scores that are less than 1/3 the highest spot here.

[captpain]

Something I saw from you in the lagless mame thread prometheus:

It's easy to abuse pausing to play frame by frame and that is no good at all.

The version of mame I use lets me pause while recording. I just went and attempted this when I read this, and honestly, there is not a chance in hell this would work. The best method I could think of was using the autofire on my stick (PS2 HRAP) on the button bound to pause. Shit doesn't work AT ALL. It's insanely inconsistent and downright un-playable. This is a legit concern, but I think in application it is not even close to advantageous. How the hell can you play without pause, though, honestly? What if the phone rings? What if you need to talk to someone? Besides, in my experience, if I'm forced to pause in the middle of a level it's almost a sure-fire chain break since I lose my timing/flow/whatever you want to call it, but it is surely convenient between levels and before bosses where there's long breaks (or anywhere on stage 3 lol). Console ports have pause, is that cheating, too?

I mean what the hell, you're worried about pausing the game, which really has no impact on gameplay aside from convenience, but you support something that reduces the input lag, giving you a constant advantage over PCB players throughout the entire game?

Please explain why pausing during recording is more of a concern than a pure control advantage...

bahahah how many things can you get wrong, not know about, and not understand in a single post dude

[ncp]

no

[LtC]

You're all a bunch of dirty cheaters.

That really isn't what I mean, does it feel that way ?

I trust most or all of the scores on this DDP board to be real, I just know sometimes there's the odd cheater and he should really be eliminated !

No, I'm just being a jackass.

INP verification makes sense, and it's fun for everyone.

You know if you insist on having wolfmame input for every score you'd have to take quite a few scores off the board, in fact there would only be like 3 people with scores left so you might as well not have a thread about it at all.

You can cheat with non-wolfmame but wolfmame isn't completely uncheatable either. Cheating requires effort and it also can be very obvious most of the time since playing with slower speeds create situations where it should be very obvious the player is reacting/moving impossible for a human being playing at 100% speed. You get caught and you can kiss any credibility you had and will ever have goodbye.


I just don't see why so much drama about this

[PROMETHEUS]

No ncp you got it wrong, that's all right but what I meant is that you can play frame by frame because when you pause, you can then use SHIFT + P to advance the game by only 1 frame. While you do this, you can also input whatever you want and the game will apply it to the next frame. So for example, you could use this to dodge a pattern frame by frame, or even for chaining a difficult moment, and still be able to record, which is wrong. I have nothing against the ability to pause during a run otherwise, I think it's a good addition (although PCB users can't do that but I don't really care I don't think it's a big deal and feels natural in home play).

Personally I couldn't pause while recording and I did fuck up a couple runs because of that, it wasn't cool but of course you can still live with that no problem.

[PROMETHEUS]

You know if you insist on having wolfmame input for every score you'd have to take quite a few scores off the board, in fact there would only be like 3 people with scores left so you might as well not have a thread about it at all.

You can cheat with non-wolfmame but wolfmame isn't completely uncheatable either. Cheating requires effort and it also can be very obvious most of the time since playing with slower speeds create situations where it should be very obvious the player is reacting/moving impossible for a human being playing at 100% speed. You get caught and you can kiss any credibility you had and will ever have goodbye.

We were talking about requiring inps for the top 5, top 10 scores maybe which seems like a reasonable idea, no need for the pictures let's keep this serious and respectful please !
And I know wolfmame is supposed to not be completely "uncheatable" but the point is to make it much harder for cheaters while still keeping it nice and cool for everyone else.

[Icarus]

I know you disagree with me on this Icarus, I guess you have different reasons to trust him. But I don't, I know how some people can fuck around in games online as I'm part of a different community where crazy bullshit such as this do happen.

I know I did come across as rude back then, and for that I do apologise. The thing is, the limited amount of stuff I have seen from him, and the discussions I have had with him in IRC, do lead me to believe that he is fully capable of attaining the scores he posts (see the Feveron Time Attack score he put up in one of the STGT's, replay on Youtube). Even if he doesn't bother to release his stuff, even though he promises he will.

I do fully see where you're coming from though, and I don't blame you at all for it. Completely understandable.

As for the topic, I still believe that the few seconds spent to set up a recording is of greater benefit to a player, than saving a few seconds a credit, for all the reasons mentioned in oh-so-many previous threads - ability to share strategies, a kind of progression archive, inputs can be used to watch for new strategies/find and squash mistakes, and so on. But it's up to the player to make proper use of them, in the end.

[ncp]

No ncp you got it wrong, that's all right but what I meant is that you can play frame by frame because when you pause, you can then use SHIFT + P to advance the game by only 1 frame. While you do this, you can also input whatever you want and the game will apply it to the next frame. So for example, you could use this to dodge a pattern frame by frame, or even for chaining a difficult moment, and still be able to record, which is wrong. I have nothing against the ability to pause during a run otherwise, I think it's a good addition (although PCB users can't do that but I don't really care I don't think it's a big deal and feels natural in home play).

.131 doesn't seem to have this function. Shift+P didn't do anything while paused and I couldn't find any binds in the options that did such a thing.

That kind of function should definitely be removed for replays though, I agree. Not pausing or fast-forward though. I feel their convenience is almost necessary to enjoy the game :\

edit: still, I'm curious about how you can say consistently less input lag is legit for scoring but be worried about cheating because of pause. I'm just the opposite. I feel like reducing input lag is closer to cheating than pausing. I think both should be allowed, but I can't understand supporting one but not the other.

[LtC]

We were talking about requiring inps for the top 5, top 10 scores maybe which seems like a reasonable idea, no need for the pictures let's keep this serious and respectful please !
And I know wolfmame is supposed to not be completely "uncheatable" but the point is to make it much harder for cheaters while still keeping it nice and cool for everyone else.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Anyway, I don't see why fuss about this when Ravid stated how he wanted to run the thread. And I doubt any of us who aren't scoring hundreds of millions would be serious enough to play on wolfmame when it has 1 extra frame of input lag compared to the lagless version. This should be discussed again after/if/when there's a lagless version of wolfmame released.

[lgb]

so much crying in this thread / forum about scores

ridiculous.

uh.

anyway I think anyone with a high score should play on PCB/real hardware kthnx

...oh wait, they pretty much do

[PROMETHEUS]

.131 doesn't seem to have this function. Shift+P didn't do anything while paused and I couldn't find any binds in the options that did such a thing.

Tried with the lagless MAME nimix provided and it worked, recorded and played back fine, I tried dodging some bullets super close to see if it was exploitable and it worked, too, hence my concern !

Yeah I agree fast forward should be kept in too, if it doesn't bring up problems about speed verification or something like that. I can live without it too though.

[PROMETHEUS]

Anyway, I don't see why fuss about this when Ravid stated how he wanted to run the thread. And I doubt any of us who aren't scoring hundreds of millions would be serious enough to play on wolfmame when it has 1 extra frame of input lag compared to the lagless version. This should be discussed again after/if/when there's a lagless version of wolfmame released.

Well I'm kind of trying to promote a slightly different attitude for high score boards in general, I don't really worry about the DDP thread at all as it is right now because it seems reasonably cheater-free. I agree about lagless version needing to become cheat-free before any measure could really be taken.

I just think it would be a nice step to make the community stronger and healthier. People could check out each other's runs and progressions, and cheaters would be shown the door. All it takes is a little bit of efforts and understanding, I think !

I also agree that players below the top 5, or top 10, shouldn't be required proof, it's more of a hassle for them because they aren't as serious about it and makes it a little more tedious to start playing and getting involved in scoring, too. But I do think for all top 5 scores on all of the more popular games, it would be better to require that (you can capture a video of your run without having to play in windowed mode or anything, with the right stuff).

[Icarus]

Anyway, I don't see why fuss about this when Ravid stated how he wanted to run the thread. And I doubt any of us who aren't scoring hundreds of millions would be serious enough to play on wolfmame when it has 1 extra frame of input lag compared to the lagless version. This should be discussed again after/if/when there's a lagless version of wolfmame released.

Speaking of lagless, does it really make that much of a difference to some players? I've played on every version of MAME, back from the 3x-bn days up to 0.137 (and the lagless build as well), and the amount of input lag really never bothered me, not as much as some players seem to make out. Heck, I play Futari God Mode with a wireless X360 pad with little issues, save hand discomfort.

[PROMETHEUS]

Anyway, I don't see why fuss about this when Ravid stated how he wanted to run the thread. And I doubt any of us who aren't scoring hundreds of millions would be serious enough to play on wolfmame when it has 1 extra frame of input lag compared to the lagless version. This should be discussed again after/if/when there's a lagless version of wolfmame released.

Speaking of lagless, does it really make that much of a difference to some players? I've played on every version of MAME, back from the 3x-bn days up to 0.137 (and the lagless build as well), and the amount of input lag really never bothered me, not as much as some players seem to make out. Heck, I play Futari God Mode with a wireless X360 pad with little issues, save hand discomfort.

I dont think 1 frame of lag is anything serious enough to hamper gameplay, but I do notice a slight and very enjoyable difference in performance with 0 lag. It's not enough big of a deal to prevent a world record to be made with 1 frame or 2 of lag, it just hightens the probability of performing well in my opinion, and procures increased comfort.

[PROMETHEUS]

edit: still, I'm curious about how you can say consistently less input lag is legit for scoring but be worried about cheating because of pause. I'm just the opposite. I feel like reducing input lag is closer to cheating than pausing. I think both should be allowed, but I can't understand supporting one but not the other.

Do PCBs have 1 frame of input lag ? I didn't know they did.

If they do, well I view this as an playability improvement. It's not like you're cheating, you're using better performing hardware (well in this case it would be "better performing software"), still following all the rules the game wants to set.

I agree it's debatable, though, but I think at some point if we're not competing without the option of using MAME we should just use whatever progress has been made in terms of software/hardware as long as we're not playing against the intended rules of the game.

I view savestates in practice, lagless, custom non programmable sticks or pads, ability to pause or fast forward as legit ; and frame by frame, additionnal slowdown or programmed inputs as not legit.

[ncp]

I think/hope this will be my last post in this thread. Every time I look at my previous posts I don't think I conveyed myself very well...

Despite it being easy to cheat in lagless mame, the scores should still be considered legit unless there is anything to suggest otherwise. This should apply to all scores. If Ravid decides to require specifically "non-cheatable" (wolfmame) inps for new scores, I won't post any new scores. I don't think this makes the community stronger and healthier, I think it's being paranoid. A screenshot should be enough for the upper scores. If people go through the effort to photoshop a high score table or screenshot a TAS run, they're lying not only to us but to themselves, and it's just something we'll have to live with. It's not worth removing my ability to pause/fast-forward in order to stop one or two people I don't care about from cheating.

I just say have some faith in people, man.

[Ganelon]

I can't imagine how folks who have spent hundreds/thousands of hours practicing a hotly contested game wouldn't want to weed out fake scores.

I'm not sure about requiring replays on your record run but you should get a pretty close proximity if you replay it. I don't play for score but regardless of when I was gunning for fast times in racing games, going for 1CCs, or playing fighters competitively, I would always produce a similar result after a few more tries. If you can reach the heights of a popular game, you should have enough consistency through experience. What does it show for your skill (as opposed to luck) or is believable to others about achieving an amazing run that you can never come close to replicating? And if you really enjoy the game, you ought to replay it just for love of the game. This requirement obviously isn't meant for those happy enough to just touch the scoreboard; top 5 or 10 sounds reasonable.

Going off the GGPO Super Street Fighter II Turbo scene, there are a few folks (mostly from outside the US) that have recently been proven to use autofire after recording their inputs. And just seeing the number of players online who drop games to preserve their online ranking (to speak nothing of less obvious ways they might be cheating) has shattered my faith in online players. So yeah, sorry folks, but you can't always trust the competition at face value. If you know you've got a high score but can't prove it, you can feel good about it to yourself and let folks know. I just think it shouldn't mean anything in the scoreboard until you can prove it with a recorded/witnessed run or by getting your initials somewhere on an arcade board.

Personally, I also agree that proving your play on the actual board (or original version) is the way to go (to make sure you're not at any speed/input/etc. advantage/disadvantage from emulation/ports) but that's going off a tangent. Like I said, I don't care for scores and think cheating by yourself is totally fine (so I'm basically a neutral 3rd party here), but I can't stand when some folks try to cheat in competition, and feel that think any measure against that to make sure the true winners are on top is commendable. More proof shouldn't stop anyone who's hungry enough to compete, which should be everyone at the top; some may even be further motivated to compete against other proven players as opposed to possible artificially high scores.

As for input delay, for what it's worth, there was a version of Super Turbo with 3-4 frames of varying extra input lag and the fighting game community deemed it unplayable. We switched to a version with 0-1 frame of varying input lag and nobody had any issues except a top Japanese player, who said after a loss that he could feel the lag. But whether that was an excuse or legitimate was hard to tell.

[jonny5]

No ncp you got it wrong, that's all right but what I meant is that you can play frame by frame because when you pause, you can then use SHIFT + P to advance the game by only 1 frame. While you do this, you can also input whatever you want and the game will apply it to the next frame. So for example, you could use this to dodge a pattern frame by frame, or even for chaining a difficult moment, and still be able to record, which is wrong. I have nothing against the ability to pause during a run otherwise, I think it's a good addition (although PCB users can't do that but I don't really care I don't think it's a big deal and feels natural in home play).

.131 doesn't seem to have this function. Shift+P didn't do anything while paused and I couldn't find any binds in the options that did such a thing.

That kind of function should definitely be removed for replays though, I agree. Not pausing or fast-forward though. I feel their convenience is almost necessary to enjoy the game :\

edit: still, I'm curious about how you can say consistently less input lag is legit for scoring but be worried about cheating because of pause. I'm just the opposite. I feel like reducing input lag is closer to cheating than pausing. I think both should be allowed, but I can't understand supporting one but not the other.

you do realize the shmup mame is eliminating input lag IN MAME....if you are playing with a PCB, you wont have input lag(unless you are using weird scalers and superguns that might cause input lag)....so really all shmup mame is doing is making playing it in mame closer to the real thing.....this is a good thing

[captpain]

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

[captpain]

you do realize the shmup mame is eliminating input lag IN MAME....if you are playing with a PCB, you wont have input lag....so really all shmup mame is doing is making playing it in mame closer to the real thing.....this is a good thing

Yeah, no shit. Come on, ncp.

[jonny5]

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

assuming everybody is playing in mame.....its not so straightforward for people playing PCB's in cabs to record playthroughs.....

[PROMETHEUS]

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

Exactly, it's so easy to provide proof for a close enough score! Well DDP has exponential scoring so it's a bitch in that regard but still. Not a problem for any high scoring guy.

For people playing on PCB... I really don't know how hard it is to get whatever you need to record your runs so I can't really say, but if it's very hard or very expensive to do I guess they could provide a picture if it's possible to tell the picture was definitely taken from the PCB. Or have witnesses... I think it's up to them to figure it out (the Arcadia PCB scores were witnessed or recorded). If I were one of them I guess I would switch to MAME for that reason (you can always put MAME into your cab anyway, and it plays totally perfect !), if I really couldn't afford to record on PCB.

Also I'm glad to see posts such as Ganelon's, that's an attitude that makes a lot of sense. Up until now I was under the impression people mostly felt strongly against any sort of verification here. Being against it is understandable, I see the point, but we definitely have a very good point to make in favor of verification, too, and something like requirement for top 5 scores is a cool compromise, I think it'd be the best solution. Anyway, up to Ravid and other score board holders in the end !

[=SNC=]

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

assuming everybody is playing in mame.....its not so straightforward for people playing PCB's in cabs to record playthroughs.....

Hmm I don't believe anyone said that. If you achieve X score on pcb, well, how could you have cheated? Just make a DECENT pic and you are good to go. Obviously recorded runs are more than welcome but they are not mandatory.

[jonny5]

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

Exactly, it's so easy to provide proof for a close enough score! Well DDP has exponential scoring so it's a bitch in that regard but still. Not a problem for any high scoring guy.

For people playing on PCB... I really don't know how hard it is to get whatever you need to record your runs so I can't really say, but if it's very hard or very expensive to do I guess they could provide a picture if it's possible to tell the picture was definitely taken from the PCB. Or have witnesses... I think it's up to them to figure it out (the Arcadia PCB scores were witnessed or recorded). If I were one of them I guess I would switch to MAME for that reason (you can always put MAME into your cab anyway, and it plays totally perfect !), if I really couldn't afford to record on PCB.

admittedly this really doesnt affect me, as i rarely submit scores here, but expecting PCB collectors/players to switch to mame just so they can record replays to 'prove' there scores seems a bit ridiculous.....and on the same hand, expecting them to purchase capture equipment and hook all that up is just as silly

tbh i dont really understand why there is such a big emphasis to prove scores.....have there been lots of people trying to cheat here?

if somebody came out of nowhere with a top score, certainly it might make sense to request solid evidence to support it, but in general i think all this is just being a wee bit paranoid.....

this is a forum, these score boards are for fun....nobody is actually 'winning' anything with a top score.....

but ya....asking people to stop playing on PCB's and switch to emulation sounds ridiculous.....i understand you have no problem with emulation, prometheus, but most people who collect and play PCB's do so because they would rather play the original hardware.....

and i dunno about others, but if i just threw down a few-many 100's of $ on a PCB, id be damned if was gonna then turn around and emulate it

just my 2 cents....not worth much, i suppose

[ncp]

Ok, last post this time, really, I swear...

you do realize the shmup mame is eliminating input lag IN MAME....if you are playing with a PCB, you wont have input lag(unless you are using weird scalers and superguns that might cause input lag)....so really all shmup mame is doing is making playing it in mame closer to the real thing.....this is a good thing

I was under the impression that input lag was added in mame BECAUSE it was on the boards:

Also, this does not mean that the problems come solely from mame, depending on the way the games were coded and how they operated on the original hardware Mame can simply be reproducing a delay that the PCB actually has.

Can you say with certainty this isn't the case for DDP?

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

That's not true at all... There was literally HUNDREDS of attempts between my current and previous high scores, lol.

[jonny5]

Ok, last post this time, really, I swear...

you do realize the shmup mame is eliminating input lag IN MAME....if you are playing with a PCB, you wont have input lag(unless you are using weird scalers and superguns that might cause input lag)....so really all shmup mame is doing is making playing it in mame closer to the real thing.....this is a good thing

I was under the impression that input lag was added in mame BECAUSE it was on the boards:

Also, this does not mean that the problems come solely from mame, depending on the way the games were coded and how they operated on the original hardware Mame can simply be reproducing a delay that the PCB actually has.

Can you say with certainty this isn't the case for DDP?

If you're scoring in the top ten of any game here, a simple INP recording is extremely easy to do because you'll be scoring well MUCH more frequently than other people. So who cares?

That's not true at all... There was literally HUNDREDS of attempts between my current and previous high scores, lol.

in this case, no....you are wrong.....play an older cave game in mame...then play it on the PCB....very different.....speaking from experience

i dont think they are 'adding' input lag to mame to copy the PCB performance....most of the time input lag is down to issues in the emulation

i could be wrong here, as im no expert on the inner workings of mame and how it handles emulation.....

[ncp]

In nimitz' mame shmups input delay list, DDP falls under "Most games (if a game is not elsewhere it's probably there)". Are you saying MAME puts a one-frame lag on almost every game? For no apparent reason? Note the comment about "2 frames" actually being only one frame of delay, which, by the way, I don't feel is a big enough advantage/disadvantage to worry about, nor do I see how it could possibly be "very different"...

edit: in before this thread gets split again into "input delay thread bullshit etc"