Fair competitive practice and shoot'em ups

[Gus]

Ok, so basically

Sikraiken is allowed to show up once a year, post 5 ridiculous scores he claims to have gotten after playing 10 hours spread over one week, in MAME where it's ridiculously easy to cheat, and without even posting a replay, get his scores accepted as legit with very little questioning.

But when someone who has been playing this game for at least several months posts a replay of a hard clear with some impressive/very lucky looking dodges on the in-game leaderboards, where no one has ever posted a cheat run before it's an "obvious TAS."

That said I made my previous post after only reallywatching stage 5 and the Larsa fights and after seeing some of those parts linked I have to admit I am a little suspicious but these double standards are just dumb.

[trap15]

sikraiken has posted replays though.

[ebarrett]

Discussion over STGT is pointless here; the guy has provided clear evidence against him, which tells us that he is not only a cheater, but also stupid.

As for sikraiken, he has been playing the self-aggrandizing replay drama for at least six years, and enough people in here suck up to him hard enough that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and get away with it - outright refuse to post replays, promise to post replays and then wait for everyone to slowly forget/give up, post a dodgy replay and have people simply accept it, etc. Using sikraiken as a counterpoint just throws whatever point you want to make into that limbo.

[Plasmo]

I just have to post my favourite comment of that replay from youtube:

Such an amazing display of raw skill. To the untrained eye, one would think you've yet to grasp a full understanding of bullet herding, yet it's quite clear from to me from this replay that this is not the case. Nay, you are intentionally redirecting bullets in such a way as to deliberately make the game harder, thereby allowing you to show off the full extent of your ability. I offer my greatest applause to you. Do you plan to do scoring runs? I'm certain you could reach 7 billion with ease.

You just don't understand.

[Gus]

I wasn't arguing that sikraiken shouldn't be allowed to do what he does, but that if we are going to allow to him to do what he does then it makes no sense to not allow this score which at least has a replay to go with it unlike 99% of sik's claimed scores.

To be honest I probably would be in the "this score shouldn't be accepted" camp if not for the simple fact that it's on the 360 leaderboards and like I said, no one else has ever found a way to get a cheat run on those leaderboards. Just that simple fact tell me there's at least some chance of this being legit and if it was, it would be pretty horrible to reject it.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I'm not sure about things either. Plus as Gus has mentioned before there are some random elements in the game, probably something that the macro thing mentioned couldn't handle.


There's also some ridiculous luck dodges on stuff that should be stupidly easy if the proper strat was used, and I'm talking stuff I could do consistently my FIRST DAY of playing the game.

So yeah, I have no idea whether to doubt the legitimacy or not. It's just not a replay that will prove useful to people.


Oh, and some lucky dodges are understandable. Happens to me a lot.

[Ruldra]

(my fave is this one).

Bwahahaha! Awesome!

Thanks for posting the video VixyNyan, that was very entertaining. You're great at cheating.

[emphatic]

I say we implement different scoreboards for all games, one for kids who use save states for training, one for men who only play full runs on the PCB. Oh, and one for cheaters, like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/mameplayer

What are SaveState?

SaveState = Save the current state of the game

an option available to anyone with the MAMEUI.

What do I need to make videos like yours?

1 - The emulator MameUI32

2 - A video recorder

3 - A video editor.

How can you not show the video when you make a SaveState?



I saw that hit you and not die because?

This is a side effect of SaveState.

It does not occur often and is limited only to the edges as if the sprites collision were reduced so the game must still be completed with capacity.

You can try and see for yourself.

[Ruldra]

At this point, VixyNyan will either come here and say how mean we all are for calling her a cheater or never post again out of embarrassment.

[Chirpy13]

.

[TLB]

Hahahahahahahahahaha chirpy <83

Also the disappointment is kinda pitiful. Sorry VN. Too sloppy ;) *WINK*

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Message subject: Re: Mushihimesama Futari Ver1.5 & Black Label
From: VixyNyan
Sent: Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:59 pm

Hi, I wanted to clear some things out, I don't know why people got angry. ;^;

Subject: Mushihimesama Futari Ver1.5 & Black Label

BareknuckleRoo wrote:
Run could have been done with this controller. If you pause Futari in the middle of a run the pauses aren't recorded in the replay as far as I'm aware, so it wouldn't be too hard to flail through a difficult segment, pause when you've no-missed it, save that macro and record another segment, pause, and so on. Then eventually put it all together and record the run for the leaderboards.

o.o That's an interesting controller. I've never seen that one before.

I used a regular controller for the Xbox 360 in my run, I am sorry if my shaky dodging has caused much stir in the thread, I had luck trying to dodge those bullets in the game. But... I admit that there has been some pauses (start button) when I needed to take a break, but I have been playing througn the mode every day each week trying to come very far. It has happened that I died very quickly in stage 1 early, and even against the shower of bullets at the Stage 3 Midboss, where I could have just used a bomb instead. A turtle in stage 5 has even hit me on occasions.

I had my Xbox since May last year, because I really love shmups! My first games were Futari, Otome X and DDP DFK BL (the one with Evac Doom in it). I have been stalling and falling behind on all my games, my main focus was to learn the mechanics of Futari, and with the help of Toxik Helg0r, iconoclast, SFKhoa, deexor and GUS (I admire his videos a lot!), and even NeoStrayCat (who helped me with Strania today in Co-Op online), I saw many places where I could collect gold and then get score by having over x20000 multiplier at least. My run was for surviving, not necessarily for scoring, I still have a long way to learn how to properly get gold quickly.

I keep in contact with Toxik and deexor for both moral and emotional support, they have given me tips on getting through obstacles in the shmups I own. I really love this community and I hope I can be accepted around here, it's OK for my score to be removed if it's causing so much problems for everyone, it's just that I really spent many weeks and months to finally get the last achievement. I do want to get back to God Mode again but this time with Reco, since that looks like it's easier to beat the mode with. Toxik wanted to see a replay of my accomplishment, so I worked hard trying to show that.

tl;dr, claiming it was luck

If it was indeed just a case of getting uber-lucky as you claim it is, how many runs did this take if all those fluke dodges were legit? If it really was a case of luck, you should go to Vegas sometime, lol.

Could you try clearing this up with the rest of the community, I hope I can feel comfortable visiting the forums. I wish the best for everyone here and I will improve myself and show better results, I really love shmups and I don't want there to be more problems between me and the members. ;^;

Why am I getting PM'd anyways? I don't speak for the whole forum. If your run's getting criticized publicly as possibly cheated/TAS'd, you should be prepared to defend it publicly.

[trap15]

If your run's getting criticized publicly as possibly cheated/TAS'd, you should be prepared to defend it publicly.

[mesh control]

for both moral and emotional support

lolol
video games

[Hagane]

Maybe you could film your hands/controller while doing the run or something, like some combo vid makers do so people can tell they are actually executing them and not TASing them?

[RNGmaster]

Maybe you could film your hands/controller while doing the run or something, like some combo vid makers do so people can tell they are actually executing them and not TASing them?

What about having a member of the local law enforcement supervise all our runs and provide official verification forms?

I'm feeling a bit sympathetic to VN, but I must confess that I have very little trust for somebody who claims to be named "Rebecca Loveheart". Uh, I don't think that even the Swedes are such hippies.

[CStarFlare]

I'm not sure about things either. Plus as Gus has mentioned before there are some random elements in the game, probably something that the macro thing mentioned couldn't handle.

What are these, out of curiosity? The only thing that comes to mind is the stage 1 boss's fireball attack, but that's very early on (could simply do macro runs until you get the right pattern) or potentially determined by some variable based on your performance (last digit of your counter as of a certain frame, etc). I'm not sure how many truly random events the game can have, since my understanding is that replay files are basically macros themselves. It's certainly almost completely static.

I'm sympathetic to Gus's point that video proof is basically always considered valid, but the video defies sense in so many ways. It's like watching a heavyweight boxer lose a nerd slap fight.

[ShadowWraith]

The replay would probably also include whatever random seed was chosen for the run when it was started.

[RNGmaster]

What are these, out of curiosity? The only thing that comes to mind is the stage 1 boss's fireball attack, but that's very early on (could simply do macro runs until you get the right pattern) or potentially determined by some variable based on your performance (last digit of your counter as of a certain frame, etc). I'm not sure how many truly random events the game can have, since my understanding is that replay files are basically macros themselves. It's certainly almost completely static.

I'm sympathetic to Gus's point that video proof is basically always considered valid, but the video defies sense in so many ways. It's like watching a heavyweight boxer lose a nerd slap fight.

Lots of enemy attacks in Futari are loosely aimed and pseudo-random (The jellyfish in stage 2 come to mind). There's lots of stuff that seems random, and isn't deterministic in the sense that if you stand at the same place the attack will always look the same, but replays will always produce the same result because of how random factors in CAVE games work.

Take the final attack of the stage 2 boss in Progear, for example. The velocity of the bullets after they pause and move to the left is random and produces significant variance in the pattern each time you see it. The values of the RNG which decides bullet velocity are determined by the player's input, and thus change frame to frame. Since the RNG seed value is the same every time you boot the ROM, the same inputs will produce the same random values every time you play the replay. However, if it's even a frame off, the RNG will change to reflect that and possibly cause desync.

At least, this is the explanation I got a while ago. Hey, considering my username, I damn well better know something about the subject.

[Hagane]

What about having a member of the local law enforcement supervise all our runs and provide official verification forms?

Just trying to give a solution. If you want to leave no room for suspicion, I can't think of a better way.

[TLB]

Just for clarification, I meant that the troll was sloppy. You guys are proving me wrong :/

[Gus]

Why am I getting PM'd anyways? I don't speak for the whole forum. If your run's getting criticized publicly as possibly cheated/TAS'd, you should be prepared to defend it publicly.

Dude she has 6 posts. If you were new to community and the response to you posting your magnum opus you had been working on for many months was a shitload of drama over you being a cheat you'd probably be similarly confused.

What are these, out of curiosity? The only thing that comes to mind is the stage 1 boss's fireball attack, but that's very early on (could simply do macro runs until you get the right pattern) or potentially determined by some variable based on your performance (last digit of your counter as of a certain frame, etc). I'm not sure how many truly random events the game can have, since my understanding is that replay files are basically macros themselves. It's certainly almost completely static.

I went over this in my Ultra replay. Basically there's tons of attacks with the bosses and sometimes even the stages that either have 2 different version you have or where the bullets are just randomly generated in your general direction. That macro idea simply isn't going to work.

I'm sympathetic to Gus's point that video proof is basically always considered valid, but the video defies sense in so many ways. It's like watching a heavyweight boxer lose a nerd slap fight.

Yeah, it's called a puncher's chance. Again, this wasn't just something done on first credit. It took many months to do. Some of the stuff like the stage 3 boss is pretty ridiculous luck but like I said with the generous hitboxes and the slowdown a lot of the stuff really isn't as "1 in a million" as it looks. Anyway, again, no one has ever gotten a cheat run on any of Cave's 360 leaderboards so the scenario you're proposing also seems as likely to me as that analogy

[RNGmaster]

As has been pointed out, you could fake live clips, PCB feeds, and .inps if you had the time. It's really hard to definitively tell if a play is accurate unless you're actually watching it is all. People who cheat harm our perception of everyone who doesn't by casting suspicion on everyone's play.

I honestly don't understand what someone would get out of cheating at a shmup, though. Makes no sense to me. It's not like the point is adoring YT comments saying "OMG you're so skilled", it's about the struggle and the practice paying off.

[Hagane]

I'm sure a skilled player such as Gus could tell.

If you want to compete in this genre, then you must be ready to give proof when asked for it. Otherwise, why would you even care to compete at all (posting a score)? Requiring proof doesn't cast a shadow of doubt on players; the opposite is what really happens. Nobody would be doubting anyone if there were some clear, definite rules for score competition. The way things are now, there will always be doubt when someone posts a great score with no proof.

If you really have the skill to back the score up, why would you be afraid at all? Just whip a replay and shut all the doubters up in 30 minutes.

[ebarrett]

My god Gus, you know this game better than anyone in here, you know how methodical you need to be to get anywhere in these games, for all I know you should be the first person to justifiably yell at the guy for the obvious cheating. It won't enter my head that you just can't tell a legit run, or at least one that looks legit, from an obvious TAS run. If the person relies on lucky dodges to get through so many things because he obviously has no clue what he's doing for a lot of parts, it's not a puncher's chance, it's a Complete Works of William Shakespeare monkey's chances. The replay is evidence against him, what is your point in defending the guy? Calling it a "magnum opus you had been working on for many months" smells like comparing it to your Ultra clear/scores, which is, amazingly enough, bullshitting yourself - you actually worked hard for a fuckin' long time to get these runs, you can't just think the same thing is going on over there at vixwhatever's place, you're wasting your time defending someone who clearly stands against everything you value in these games.

edit: this hiscore thread is now a complete disaster, someone threadsplit this to shmups chat plz

[Ruldra]

I don't know why Gus is defending her when you can tell so many of those dodges are pretty much impossible to survive. You get a lucky dodge once or twice in a run, not 5 or 6 per stage.

This one case right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zKqcjij ... page#t=64s

You're not even supposed to go through that stream of bullets, yet she does it 3 times flawlessly. And she claims it was luck? Please

EDIT: Oh well, just ignore this post and listen to ebarrett.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If you really have the skill to back the score up, why would you be afraid at all? Just whip a replay and shut all the doubters up in 30 minutes.

The problem is it's not so much the score itself that's at question, it's the whole no-missing the entire game up to Spiritual Larsa that's a bit suspect. No-missing the game doesn't strike me as something you can easily 'whip up' reliably without a lot of skill involved.

I went over this in my Ultra replay. Basically there's tons of attacks with the bosses and sometimes even the stages that either have 2 different version you have or where the bullets are just randomly generated in your general direction. That macro idea simply isn't going to work.

If it's pseudorandom and the RNG seed starts the same at the start of every game and is affected by inputs, etc, then I think it would work as long as the macro playback is accurate. As was pointed out:

There's lots of stuff that seems random, and isn't deterministic in the sense that if you stand at the same place the attack will always look the same, but replays will always produce the same result because of how random factors in CAVE games work.

That's not to say I think 100% this run is bullshit. A number of things make it very suspect, but as I've mentioned it's not totally outside the realm of possibility to manage a run like this with so many lucky dodges. But I'm also not prepared to say it's definitely legit either. You'd think someone posting a run with so many lucky dodges would have said something along the lines of "I was so lucky to get to Spiritual Larsa!", etc.

[SuperSoaker360]

This one case right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zKqcjij ... page#t=64s

Actually, that's very possible to do. You'd be surprised.
It's the stage 5 extend that gets me every time.

[CStarFlare]

I'm sympathetic to Gus's point that video proof is basically always considered valid, but the video defies sense in so many ways. It's like watching a heavyweight boxer lose a nerd slap fight.

Yeah, it's called a puncher's chance. Again, this wasn't just something done on first credit. It took many months to do.

But that's why it doesn't make any sense - my stage 1 route was way safer after a day of play. A practiced survival player wouldn't rocket around the screen and disregard almost every technique for minimizing their risk. She has some vague familiarity with the stages, but beyond that she seems to be winging it. Everyone fucks ups and gets into a tight spot once in a while, but she uneccesarily gets into extremely hairy situations on a regular basis and never bombs.

Either way, it is kind of funny that she probably would have avoided almost any suspicion if she's just posted a photo.

[third_strike]

Only for note, VixyNyan's scores will keep in table, at least which anyone prove it was fake/cheat.
By the way, posted a Galuda score early this week without picture or replay and nobody doubted and it was fake.