Fair competitive practice and shoot'em ups

[mesh control]

video is down.

shumps forum provides justice.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Mushi Arrange vid's down too. Judging by the lack of a rebuttal "guys srlsly I wasn't cheating/pause abusing", safe to say it's an admission of guilt...?

[mesh control]

Now I want verification that she is in fact a woman, to prove all women are cheaters.

[Aliquantic]

Now I want verification that she is in fact a woman, to prove all women are cheaters.

Cool casual sexism, bro. I'm sure you care very deeply too!

[mesh control]

that was easy.

edit: yes, I'm being a asshat.

[emphatic]

Pausing during a run nullifies it from being a full run.

[Gus]

I'm pretty sure banning pausing would result in a lot of runs having to get taken off including mine since while I didn't abuse like VN, I'd been lying if I said I didn't use it quite a bit whether to use the bathroom or just gather myself a bit. Plus like was said it's just dumb to nullify a run if they had to take their dog out right at the end of a stage or something. That's why I'm not if it's sure if VN's should be taken off on the basis of that abuse since that opens up a whole world of subjectivity as to what's an honest use and abuse.

[Bananamatic]

now that she has deleted the videos she has no proof of her run

remove rebecca from premises

[chum]

I'm pretty sure banning pausing would result in a lot of runs having to get taken off including mine since while I didn't abuse like VN, I'd been lying if I said I didn't use it quite a bit whether to use the bathroom or just gather myself a bit. Plus like was said it's just dumb to nullify a run if they had to take their dog out right at the end of a stage or something. That's why I'm not if it's sure if VN's should be taken off on the basis of that abuse since that opens up a whole world of subjectivity as to what's an honest use and abuse.

The line is pretty clear, though. Pausing to actually, you know, PAUSE, is okay. Pause-buffering to make impossible dodges is not.

[Sapz]

Both the intention and effect of 'pausing' or whatever was done here is very, very clearly that the game was not played at full speed so that someone with barely any idea of how to play was able to flail through the game. The style of playing is the polar opposite of what you see from good players; it looks like someone's first few credits at an STG with asspull unrealistic saves after thoroughly pointless and counterproductive risks, time and time again. There is nothing to defend here - you should know this as well as anyone else. Please stop bringing up additional issues for no real reason other than to distract from the blatant abuse at work here.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

And if a replay hadn't been posted, the score would have been entirely believable by most of you. The score itself would not have been suspicious as it's definitely a very doable score.


And yeah, pausing is fine. You're kind of screwed if you're trying to record a MAME .inp though cause that'll desync it. But nothing wrong with just pausing normally. Pause buffering , just does not belong in STG. Of course, then I've never called those that pause buffer to pull tricks off in speedruns cheaters either, but it just feels more wrong here, and it's not like we're dealing with frame perfect speedrun tricks.

[PROMETHEUS]

And yeah, pausing is fine. You're kind of screwed if you're trying to record a MAME .inp though cause that'll desync it. But nothing wrong with just pausing normally. Pause buffering , just does not belong in STG. Of course, then I've never called those that pause buffer to pull tricks off in speedruns cheaters either, but it just feels more wrong here, and it's not like we're dealing with frame perfect speedrun tricks.

Tbh I view pausing in general as cheating myself, so I never allowed myself to do that when I played my scoring runs, even though it's one of those things ShmupMAME 2.2 allows you to do while recording (WolfMAMEplus99 didn't). Pausing between stages is kind of debatable, but pausing in the middle of a stage I wouldn't agree with. I think nerve control is a big big part of performance, as you never have full control. I make myself more nervous for faster paced patterns/staged, and try calming down in slower sections, but it's very hard to control and I use to fail so bad at that (shaking so much at most important part that I lost accurate control of ship and missed...).

But, that's still kind of debatable whether it should be considered cheating or not I guess. It's only cheating if some people are not playing with the same rules, which the PCB players can't because they can't pause. So, if nerves and a nerve control skill affect performance like I think they do, pausing should not be allowed IF we want to be in equal grounds with PCB players. Also, I think it's more fun and rewarding to learn nerve control :p

[Gus]

Both the intention and effect of 'pausing' or whatever was done here is very, very clearly that the game was not played at full speed so that someone with barely any idea of how to play was able to flail through the game. The style of playing is the polar opposite of what you see from good players; it looks like someone's first few credits at an STG with asspull unrealistic saves after thoroughly pointless and counterproductive risks, time and time again. There is nothing to defend here - you should know this as well as anyone else. Please stop bringing up additional issues for no real reason other than to distract from the blatant abuse at work here.

Sorry for trying to establish something concrete rather than just jumping on the "BAW SHE'S A CHEATER!" bandwagon.

Also my counterargument for any sort of pausing being cheating is that almost all my pauses happen at the end of a stage so I could achieve the same effect just by waiting for the gem totals to run up by themselves. I once watched a BL Original leaderboard from a dude who seemed to take a "any pausing is cheating" stance and I could swear he decided to take a shit or something between stages 4 and 5 as he just let the gem counter run forever and it wasn't even close to finishing by the time he got it to show the actual total. Really don't want the people who watch my replays to have to go through that shit.

Anyway to give some closure to this here's the last PM she sent me

Wait, how much did you use the pause button? If it was just to take a break between levels or to relieve the stress before/after a hard part that's fine but if you actually used it to help yourself navigate through patterns that's kind of a grey area.

Most of the time it was for relieving stress before/after a serious boss fight, but it has happened that I have paused in few places too. It might not have been the right thing to do but I learn from the mistakes. I am going to stay away from the forum a bit, I feel that I need to show my skills by practicing more. I will return when I'm ready.

The reason my videos were removed wasn't because of the iffy bullet-dodging,it's for the bad response and votes the video got. I am a respected woman in all the places I visit and I give support and knowledge to people around me. I will work on my other game projects and website for now but I will come back later to post scores on games when I'm ready.

I hope to see you later Gus.

/Rebecca

[Drake]

>here is a private message she sent me

dude do you even realize

that's not even

are you seriously believing

what

[SuperSoaker360]

Well done, Shmups Forum. Scared another person off.

[PROMETHEUS]

Also my counterargument for any sort of pausing being cheating is that almost all my pauses happen at the end of a stage so I could achieve the same effect just by waiting for the gem totals to run up by themselves.

Ya ok that describes what I understand is a perfectly legit way to pause.
Of course, the problem still lies in how to detect what really happened.. so on an ideal recording setup, pausing should not be possible I think.

Anyway, this VixyNyan character reminds a hell of a lot of those guys pretending to be girls to obtain better treatement by the community which I've seen in Starcraft too. I even tried it in Warcraft 3 years ago. Suddenly if you're not too bad an actor (its easy when you're only chatting by text, even easier on a forum), you can play against the best, most inaccessible players and get tips from them. It's ridiculous how well it seems to work lol.

[PROMETHEUS]

Well done, Shmups Forum. Scared another person off. :roll:

I think you don't realize why the "scared off" persons get "scared off" ^^

[Zengeku3]

Well done, Shmups Forum. Scared another person off.

You're still just a loli so you probably don't know this yet but cheaters are bad people. Good riddance.

[SuperSoaker360]

I think you don't realize why the "scared off" persons get "scared off" ^^

I just think everyone overreacted.

[Sapz]

Regarding gus' post: Pausing for the sake of taking a break is fine. Using it as an exploit to slow the game down, if that is indeed what happened, is not. This should go without saying, I'm not really seeing the confusion here. If pausing was invalid, the game wouldn't let you pause during Score Attack. Beyond that, there's no 'bandwagoning' going on here - it's pretty damn obvious for the reasons I previously stated.

Whoops, ninja'd by Prom.

I think you don't realize why the "scared off" persons get "scared off" ^^

I just think everyone overreacted.

Which part of calling a cheater a cheater is overreacting, exactly?

This is getting pretty hilarious.

[PROMETHEUS]

I think you don't realize why the "scared off" persons get "scared off" ^^

I just think everyone overreacted. :lol:

I don't agree. I think it's interesting, it raises some good questions, the kind that I haven't seen asked much around these boards and perhaps wished I had for a long time.

[SuperSoaker360]

I just think everyone overreacted.

Which part of calling a cheater a cheater is overreacting, exactly.

Nah, not quite that. It was just all the aggressiveness between Gus and everyone else. I guess it wouldn't be the Shmups Forum without this kind of stuff though.

[PROMETHEUS]

If pausing was invalid, the game wouldn't let you pause during Score Attack.

I strongly disagree with that. Cave are by no means the masters/gods of their game, or the way they are best played. For example, their console ports' accuracy is almost always inferior to MAME. Console ports may be official, but they are sometimes so bad/broken you can't even compare score with PCBs. PCBs in arcades may be the official way to practice and play, but they really are a terribly unefficient practicing tool (for reasons that have to do with profit, of course). Sometimes, Cave as a company simply fails to understand their players, because they are only like 20 people, most of them probably not very good STG players. This has always been true in RTS for the bigger companies that make them as well.

So, game letting you pause during Score Attack only means that you can pause to be on the X360 leaderboards, but it doesn't mean that pause-using scores can necessarily compare with PCB/no-pausing scores indiscriminately. "Official" does not equal good or legit. I guess I also learned that from Starcraft, official systems (ladders, servers, tournaments, broadcasts, videos, sites, forums...) have typically been distinctively inferior to independant systems, on that game. The players understand the game much better than the company and they make things for their own common interests instead of for increasing company profit.

[Sapz]

I guess I worded that badly. I see where you're coming from here since they've made mistakes with ports in the past; however, 'official' not necessarily equalling legitimate does not mean it isn't in this case. Futari's port as a whole is quite good with this aspect; it doesn't let you record a replay unless you play with Score Attack which disables continues, forces all defaults, etc. I suppose it's really a matter of how idealist you want to be here, but I'd say a pause function in itself doesn't tamper with the legitimacy of a run. If some guy was playing a run and had to pause every couple of minutes to (for example) check his emails or something, I'd consider that as legitimate as a run without pauses. I can see the appeal of playing without being able to take a break, but I'd consider not being able to pause if you needed to more an inherent problem with the PCB format rather than an unfair extra feature of home ports or MAME.

Now, whether or not pausing can be used for an exploit like what may have happened here, it's impossible to tell for certain whether someone paused in a replay - therefore, I'd say legitimacy should be judged on the qualities of the replay itself rather than whether someone may touched a pause button.

[PROMETHEUS]

I agree that the Futari port is generally a good one, and also I agree with you that using pause being legitimate or not is debattable. Seeing it as a PCB-inherent flaw makes sense to me.

I think I prefer imposing not being able to pause on myself though. In the end, I don't really care whether other players do the same or not, I guess, I don't really feel like it should be enforced.

[CStarFlare]

I'm generally in favor of taking advantage of the game's system as it allows you to do and it's not entirely unreasonable to think it would be considered valid if the leaderboard allows it to happen, but I think pause abuse is very much against the spirit of the high score community here. I think It's telling that no one seemed to realize that it was even possible until a new member dropped the hint. (very interesting to know, though)

It's neat that she has enough interest in achieving something to get this far, but this run's not really compatible with the culture here.

[PROMETHEUS]

I'm generally in favor of taking advantage of the game's system as it allows you to do and it's not entirely unreasonable to think it would be considered valid if the leaderboard allows it to happen, but I think pause abuse is very much against the spirit of the high score community here.

Isn't that contradictory ?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm generally in favor of taking advantage of the game's system as it allows you to do and it's not entirely unreasonable to think it would be considered valid if the leaderboard allows it to happen, but I think pause abuse is very much against the spirit of the high score community here.

Isn't that contradictory ?

Not in this context I think. Using a bug or exploit within the game mechanics is generally obvious in a run and is usually announced by players using it and whether it's acceptable or not usually depends from game to game, but ultimately doesn't take away from the underlying part of the game that makes shmups what they are: dodging and shooting stuff. Pause abuse basically removes the challenge from dodging bullets and hence the point of playing, not to mention it's clearly not intended to be possible as the arcade port doesn't allow this sort of thing.

I think a good deterrent would be for more games to use Espgaluda PS2 port's pausing - when unpausing there's a 5 second time (presumably to move your hand back) so it makes it much less feasable to do pause buffering. I agree with Sapz about this point:

I'd consider not being able to pause if you needed to more an inherent problem with the PCB format rather than an unfair extra feature of home ports or MAME.

Pausing for an IRL issue isn't cheating. Exploiting it to take away any challenge the game has is totally different.

[CStarFlare]

Not in this context I think. Using a bug or exploit within the game mechanics is generally obvious in a run and is usually announced by players using it and whether it's acceptable or not usually depends from game to game, but ultimately doesn't take away from the underlying part of the game that makes shmups what they are: dodging and shooting stuff. Pause abuse basically removes the challenge from dodging bullets and hence the point of playing, not to mention it's clearly not intended to be possible as the arcade port doesn't allow this sort of thing.

In addition to that, it comes very close to the line between exploiting the game system (like Garegga's last life suicide trick or an unintended safe spot) and exploiting in the environment it's running in (like opening a lot of processes so MAME slows down).

[NTSC-J]

Is anyone else getting the impression that vixy still doesn't understand what everyone had a problem with in regards to her replay? That reply to Gus' PM (you sly fox) sounded like she thinks people are angry that she used the pause button at all.

vixy, it looks like a TAS video. It looks like you did something to slow the game down massively. Did you do something like that?