Fair competitive practice and shoot'em ups

[Ghegs]

When did Gus get banned ? Who banned him and why ? I don't think I like this banning system.

He's not allowed to post in Shmups Chat, he can still post everywhere else.

Well I would like to know who made that decision and why because I don't think I agree with it.

Yep, Gus requested this arrangement himself.

[Ed Oscuro]

My personal thought is that any high score run should be achieved by playing the game straight through. I don't even like to pause or use autofire (bomb pride also...), but how somebody practices is their business.

[emphatic]

I think that just a video of a top player visible while getting at least 85% of their top score should be trusted proof of their skills. Like the vid of PROMETHEUS playing DDP on Casino, London. You can't fake that easily. This means live recording, adding extra stress and making the player seem even more awesome.

[KAI]

Darius Gaiden and Gun Frontier are the best example of games that become easier by using autofire, and there's no way of knowing if a hiscore was achieved by using it or not.

Autofire is cheating only when a game requires you to smash buttons like crazy.

[PROMETHEUS]

I think that just a video of a top player visible while getting at least 85% of their top score should be trusted proof of their skills. Like the vid of PROMETHEUS playing DDP on Casino, London. You can't fake that easily. This means live recording, adding extra stress and making the player seem even more awesome.

You don't understand !!
That doesn't stop me from posting whatever freaking score I want that I haven't done and probably can't do ! Cheaters are not just bad players, very good players can cheat too. So if I want, any day I can post a 690M DDP score, and a 2,880B DOJ score WITH PICS and with your logic it will just pass. But I probably can't do those scores, and most importantly I haven't !! So set up the freaking security because there are guys like me out there who are less honest, I know them, I've seen them, and you are letting them do their thing and disrespecting the legit members and I think that is NOT COOL at all !

Cool !

[xbl0x180]

This is video game doping!

[emphatic]

You don't understand !!

LOL. What I meant was, I have an easier time trusting a video of the player shown in picture while playing over an .inp recording or an uploaded MAME video because they are way easy to fake. Here's me playing Outzone getting to 232%: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajv-wkkjkTM and my personal best is 298%. Do you doubt me getting there even though I only have a photo of the high score list?

Cool!

[Ed Oscuro]

Thunder Blaster and Darius Gaiden are the best examples of games that become easier by using autofire

Fixed. Also, Gun Frontier has an infinite milking trick if extends are constantly awarded, which strikes me as a bigger concern.

[PROMETHEUS]

You don't understand !!

LOL. What I meant was, I have an easier time trusting a video of the player shown in picture while playing over an .inp recording or an uploaded MAME video because they are way easy to fake. Here's me playing Outzone getting to 232%: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajv-wkkjkTM and my personal best is 298%. Do you doubt me getting there even though I only have a photo of the high score list?

Cool!

I agree that .inp recordings are probably not too hard to fake, at least they are a basic layer of security but they are probably not enough. I wish we had a better solution.
You always struck me as a nice guy so I doubt you would fake a score, but in the context of competition you can't factor the overall feeling that comes out of a person, because there are crazy mofos out there who will fake it. I think the cheaters are a small minority but they plague communities if you don't do anything about it, they can really destroy it.

Starcraft example. At one point Blizzard were releasing Warcraft 3 so they didn't care about making Starcraft good anymore, in fact they benefited from it to go down so people would move on to Warcraft 3. So this shitty company stopped watching the cheaters like they did before and a lot of them started cheating again in mass. They took over the ladder rankings in such a way that they were 100% full of hackers with maxed out points, they had figured every single way to cheat the system, not just map hack but also get countless games played automatically, autowon, with bots or whatever. This isn't anything Blizzard can't do anything against, but they stopped taking care of it, probably purposely. The rankings were dead and destroyed. Immediately after, the community developped their own servers with rankings and everything was not only fine again, but we had a much better system than Blizzard had ever developped. We found new, better ways to take care of cheating problems and they became a very minor problem.

Starcraft is a much bigger community, and I have to say it is much more evolved, it was born in 1998 with very low understanding of competition and developped at an incredible rate and now it is one of the very top competitive community in all Esports. By this I mean that it has not only numbers, but very good widespread understanding of competition, and it is able to developp their own tools, events (including in real life around the world), channels, earn money from sponsors, etc. Our shmup community is so much smaller, I don't think the boards here are filed with 5 cheaters per board. But maybe 1 or 2 per board, or maybe you have like 10 or 15 fake top scores out there. I don't really know, we'll never know because we don't check. By the way, the Italian shmup community (now have moved on to fighters), they were more competitive and they had quite a bunch of cheaters and they found out about them. They were more evolved.

Shmups.com is the core of western shmupping, but we have failed to evolve for such a long time. It's like we're level 13 and Arcade Extreme is level 34 and Starcraft Teamliquid is level 90. Are we gonna climb that freaking ladder or not ?! Don't you guys want to make it all more awesome ?

[Ed Oscuro]

MARP is more in line with what you think Shmups is, I'm guessing.

[Hagane]

Shmups.com is the core of western shmupping, but we have failed to evolve for such a long time. It's like we're level 13 and Arcade Extreme is level 34 and Starcraft Teamliquid is level 90. Are we gonna climb that freaking ladder or not ?! Don't you guys want to make it all more awesome ?

As I've said before in the STGT thread, this community closely resembles the fighting game community of 10-15 years ago. Mostly casual players who see competitiveness as "not playing for fun", complaints over "cheap" stuff that actually isn't that way (efficient practice, for example), very little in-depth information on the games' systems, etc. This mentality is so deeply ingrained that it will be very hard to get rid of.

[PROMETHEUS]

MARP is more in line with what you think Shmups is, I'm guessing.

Perhaps, I don't know exactly what MARP does. I don't know how big it is and what they can organize. But it seems to me it spread itself thin to the max so it doesn't have a strong core identity. If you're doing ALL arcade games, what is the thing that makes everyone come together ? Certainly not competition, nor passion about a specific set of abilities and knowledge shared by the community. Let's face it, a lot of arcade games suck, and a lot of them are easy to master. A lot of shmups are as well.

We have a much better focus though, and CAVE-STG represent a slightly exaggerated but not invalid attempt at making the shmup community turn to the competitive side of shmups, because most old school games are not. I've one-lifed Pulstar, I can one life Metal Slug 2 or Blazing Star, those games are so easy compared to Cave games it's not even funny putting them on equal grounds.

[Hagane]

those games are so easy compared to Cave games it's not even funny to put them on equal grounds.

This community's perception of what complexity actually is needs some work too. But let's not open more than one can of worms at a time.

[PROMETHEUS]

those games are so easy compared to Cave games it's not even funny to put them on equal grounds.

This community's perception of what complexity actually is needs some work too. But let's just open one can of worms at a time, shall we?

Yeah mentionned that in passing because it is something else that needs improvement and it would benefit the community because people coming from competitive backgrounds would see the appeal if we are competitive and understand what games we are playing and why they are hard(er), so we could grow a lot more. But like you said, one can of worms at a time lol.

I mean, that's the thing, what is this community's identity ? We're not CAVE-STG, ok, I respect that, I don't want to be CAVE-STG anyway because I don't want to be focused on one company, that's not my thing, other people have made hard games (not a lot, but some, I think of Psikyo, Raizing, Treasure and Touhou) and may make more hard games in the future.

But what are we ? We do all shmups, ok, cool. Are we competitive or are we casual ? I'm here for the competition, all the casual stuff bores me to death. And I hear a lot of people here talking like we're the most competitive and shmups are the most competitive but... bullshit ! We suck guys, we're on such a low competitive level it's ridiculous the way we talk. So there is some re-defining to do, and if like me you guys are into playing games well and fighting for that next good score because it's so hard and awesome, then let's take this to the next step damnit !!

[Bananamatic]

casual

[Ed Oscuro]

Shmups.com is the core of western shmupping, but we have failed to evolve for such a long time. It's like we're level 13 and Arcade Extreme is level 34 and Starcraft Teamliquid is level 90. Are we gonna climb that freaking ladder or not ?! Don't you guys want to make it all more awesome ?

As I've said before in the STGT thread, this community closely resembles the fighting game community of 10-15 years ago. Mostly casual players who see competitiveness as "not playing for fun", complaints over "cheap" stuff that actually isn't that way (efficient practice, for example), very little in-depth information on the games' systems, etc. This mentality is so deeply ingrained that it will be very hard to get rid of.

How about you guys worry about what you're doing and let everybody else do their thing as they like? Nobody's going to scream at you for trying to set up better systems, but I get the feeling that everybody's supposed to go along with this and that requirement and regulation, which is just not worth it for so many.

I had my fill of hyperactive competitive-minded nonsense with the "mandatory replays" debacle in this year's first week of STGT. As it turned out, it wasn't even an option because that game's replays desynch!

I am not going to require any more stringent verification of scores for the few high scores threads I still hold. I'm not running Twin Galaxies here. I don't think anybody else is, either. There is some good work being done at the moment with clearing up board / version requirements for comparing scores, which is the first requirement for verification outside of shmupmeets with PCBs. Realistically, I agree that we're a ways off from being able to state that scores are verifiable, but the steps being promoted seem to be coming along with a rather startling amount of disrespect for the "casually minded" player.

[Hagane]

If it's not worth for you, then don't compete. Nobody forces you to post scores or participate in a tournament. It's not like anything would change for that crowd if competition was better organized.

Also, let's just get this out of the way: if you are posting a score in a highscore thread, then you can't say that "you don't care" about competing. Otherwise you would be playing by yourself. If you are going to run a competition, then run it properly, like many other communities (like, *gasp* the Touhou community so many people here feel so superior to) do.

[PROMETHEUS]

the steps being promoted seem to be coming along with a rather startling amount of disrespect for the "casually minded" player.

Adding to what Hagane said, I want to say to you Ed Oscuro, I'm sorry if it comes accross as disrespectful for the "casually minded" player. I might have phrased my stuff in a slightly confusing way, but here's what I think about casual play :
it's fine!!! Not all players have to be hardcore, why should they ? They can't, they have many other things going on with their lives, maybe they're a hardcore guitarist but they use shmup as a way to relax. They may or may not be interested in watching or hearing about the more hardcore playing. That's cool, I don't want them to lose anything in that, and I don't think they're losing anything. We may not require to record for scores below top 3, for example.

I get the feeling that everybody's supposed to go along with this and that requirement and regulation, which is just not worth it for so many.

See, I don't think you're supposed to really. What I'm trying to do here is convince other people, because I think there are things they are not seeing and how it is important for some of us, how it would be so much better for us and in the end I think they will benefit from it as well, the community would grow, you'd get to see many runs from players you know, etc. I mean, not worth it, what ? You don't have to do anything, I'm just asking of the community, don't you see why it would be better for many of us and not cost anything to the others ? If the people who don't see that much benefits for themselves see the benefits for others and for the community as a whole, won't they agree to let us make it happen ?

If you have good arguments against it, let me hear them and change my mind, but so far that's not what's been happening at all. People going "hey it's just for fun so whatever". "Fun tournament anyway, and I'm not getting into top 5 so I don't care". Or "if you have a video of one play or some kind of reputation, you can be trusted in the future". I and others have replied to that, there has been no convincing argument against it. So, if maybe people talking like me would be right because they have some more experience on that particular topic, why not listen to us and maybe change your mind if you agree ?

[Hagane]

Yeah, making replays mandatory for clears or top scores would make things more exciting for those who want to compete for high scores, and wouldn't affect casual players since they aren't going to get to that level. But for some reason many people feel like even doing things that way is bad, and that it would hurt the spirit of trust, fun and friendship this community has been so famous for.

Nobody is forcing anyone to compete. We just want to make things better for those who care about competing.

[PROMETHEUS]

But for some reason many people feel like even doing things that way is bad, and that it would hurt the spirit of trust, fun and friendship this community has been so famous for.

Yeah I think you nailed it there. It's absurd. This community is great but it is no more friendly, trusting and fun than the Starcraft community, which is very big and extremely competitive. Players loving their game and getting good together makes for strong bonds, actually, many people I met in Starcraft have become long time friends.

[Ed Oscuro]

You're basically telling me to give up the High Score forum, and that's totally unacceptable. The basic difference here is that you and your ilk think that "competition" only breeds wonderful qualities, instead of the prancing maggots, at the supposed pinnacles of various gaming scenes, that I see entertaining the drama-obsessed hangers-on of the various competitive scenes. After spending just 30 minutes in a Counter-Strike: GO server, I've already depleted my decade's reserve of patience for this nonsense. The real and only hope for personal and collective improvement comes from collaborative work. A tournament or replay video certainly is worthwhile, but what makes it possible to share and distribute that knowledge is the group effort. Competition is a great personal motivator but it's a red herring in this discussion; we are actually debating something else.

You guys really need to swallow your pride-on-behalf-of-others and stop telling other people what's best for them. So far I have seem some nebulous demands for verification that have (as I mentioned) fallen through laughably, like how a number of special people were screaming about the importance of replays for STGT before even verifying the fucking things worked on their platforms for the first week (RNGmaster discovered they didn't). Supposedly jumping through flaming hoops of somebody's design will cure the tendency of some to cheat. It will not.

I don't know what's so hard about the concept of trying to package this effort as an optional, but highly recommended, set of steps to benefit the players. I suggested it back during the debate preceding STGT, but apparently you guys are so intent on raging that you have forgotten that you actually need to market this proposal and also hopefully not drive people away in droves. If somebody wants to do without the extra rigamarole, that doesn't reflect badly on them; it definitely doesn't reflect poorly on players who are competitively- and verification-minded players. The existence of an unverified score on Shmups Forum does not invalidate whatever measures you wish to take. People who do not take the extra steps to verify their scores have not been fooling us all these years into thinking that they meet the Arcadia standard. Importantly, none of us are going to defend somebody who has the ability to easily provide some simple verifications of their plays to capture the top of a leaderboard (especially against somebody who does) but fails to do so, yet at the same time this is not really the same as getting the respect afforded somebody who does verify their score. Like in baseball, an unverified score clearly carried an asterisk, simply because of what it is not - verified.

At the center of any respectable competitive effort is a core of collaborative effort. At the same time, probably the longest enduring Shmups Forum core value has been low-key collaborative gaming. The difference between people from the first camp is that they are not demanding other players degrade their efforts to a lower standard. Adding a replay would be as simple as an extra column in a high scores table.

Edit: I see your post now, too, Prometheus, and thanks for the kind words. I believe that my post addresses your points above, but just to make sure it's clear:

1.) Competitive gaming attracts competitive types only. The competitive scene might attract some people who like drama, too, but it also can drive away people who just want to play games. This should be carefully considered. Therefore, I do not see that argument as really militating in defense of any effort, but we should put a premium on being conservative with the current userbase - driving people out should be avoided more than reaching out for potential new players, if that is the choice that we face. I don't think it is, but I do see ways in which the discussion is being framed in already unwelcoming ways.
2.) I totally agree that various types of play should be given due. I think that it is as simple as updating High Scores threads with verifications added in a new column after the score (we already typically use game version - i.e. MAME version, console port, original PCB, etc.) so that players who are attempting to provide a reasonable proof of their scores can enjoy some benefit to doing so. This is where I think you and I might disagree with Hagane, RNGMaster, and possibly some others who seem to despair at the thought that somebody could actually reach the top of the leaderboard without a verifiable score. As I think is clearly evident, you can't have a verified score without impartial judges watching in-person (and even then I don't think it's guaranteed to work unless the judge has a very deep knowledge of the game, lol donkeykong).
3.) So basically, the "casual" and competitive players can perfectly and easily coexist. If you don't give a shit or like to cheat, then you obviously will not have people watching your scores. You probably won't have replays or videos on file either. Those scores don't get pride of place, even if they reach the numeric #1 spot on the board.

Nobody is talking about putting unverified scores out there, no matter where they place on the leaderboard, as an answer to Arcadia, MARP, or even to Twin Galaxies. If somebody wanted to see what the state of competition provided, then all they would need to do is select those games which have some verification.

Of course, as Twin Galaxies and even Japanese records or superplay organizations show (from the special PCB superplay fiasco mentioned earlier in this thread), just because you have referees in uniform or special sauces does not mean that you automatically gain credibility. It is unrealistic to expect anybody to really agree that an .inp from somebody's computer is the same level as a score recorded in person. Anybody who watched the Olympics, for example, noticed that many times (actually, most often) the gold medals were given out for performances which were not world record performances. Why is that? It's because they don't often run trials just to suit the schedule of the fastest or strongest person. The downside is that they can only meet every four years. To show the similarity with Shmups Forum, that'd be like having to convene a shmupmeet every time you wanted to get a new score up. I think that, even for many of the people most strenuously urging score verification as if it would bring the awe and respect of all naysayers worldwide, it would be a shock not to have their best runs admitted merely because they couldn't crank one out under pressure.

[Zerst]

I'm with Ed, here. I follow the speedrunning community as well, and they're in the same park as far as cheater "problems" go. What they do for leaderboards on the more open, casual sites is list all times, and the players who post videos are just given more credibility within the community than those who post screenshots, than those who just say they did something. There's occasionally a call for proof when someone nobody knows puts out a top time, and cheaters are occasionally ousted (often by chance), but that system maintains a competitive, yet inclusive atmosphere.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I mostly just keep track of SDA and SRL when it comes to speedrunning stuff, but I've seen very little in the way of actual cheating happen.

[Erppo]

before even verifying the fucking things worked on their platforms for the first week (RNGmaster discovered they didn't).

As you say. I have no idea where this came from.

[PROMETHEUS]

You're basically telling me to give up the High Score forum, and that's totally unacceptable. The basic difference here is that you and your ilk think that "competition" only breeds wonderful qualities, instead of the prancing maggots, at the supposed pinnacles of various gaming scenes, that I see entertaining the drama-obsessed hangers-on of the various competitive scenes. After spending just 30 minutes in a Counter-Strike: GO server, I've already depleted my decade's reserve of patience for this nonsense. The real and only hope for personal and collective improvement comes from collaborative work. A tournament or replay video certainly is worthwhile, but what makes it possible to share and distribute that knowledge is the group effort. Competition is a great personal motivator but it's a red herring in this discussion; we are actually debating something else.

Actually I completely agree with you, except that you don't know anything about Counter-Strike and while there are some stupid drama-obsessed guys (mostly on the casual servers, and not unlike we have had here with guys like Shoe-sama and Twiddle perhaps), it is also a strong community with players who have created many things together and learned a LOT of things.

Indeed, all comes from a group effort, and that is what I'm trying to promote here. I do not want us to pick leaders who impose their rules on others, that is a terrible way for things to work. I want this community to sort out their understanding of their games and come up with better organization and better events so we can grow, cultivate and spread the love of playing shmups, and playing them well. Right now, I think it would best come in the form of a vote to determine whether we want to make it a rule in the High Score subforum that all top X scores need to come with a verification Y or Z.

[Hagane]

Oh, come on. You say we "should swallow our pride" and not tell anyone what to do, yet you come and do exactly that, refusing to budge even a single millimeter from your position for no reason at all.

What you don't seem to understand is that we want to make this obligatory for people who actually care about scores and competing. Nobody is asking you or any random player who casually plays these games for whatever reason (which is not a bad thing; I don't play football competitively but I don't demand the other players to follow "casual" rules when I meet up with regular football players) and can't even get an 1CC to provide replays, we want to make it for the top spots, that will be reached by people who do care about competing. If you invested a lot of effort and time into getting a really high score, then you can't say you aren't serious about it.

The rest wouldn't be affected by this and would be able to keep doing things the way they want. Why is this so hard to understand?

As PROMETHEUS said, competition enhances fun and friendship (I met several of my best friends through competitive fighting games), and of course will make people contribute more if more people are interested in getting better. There will be idiots too of course, but it's not like there won't be any even if those measures aren't adopted (moreover, all this silly FALSIFICARE drama would most likely have not happened if we had clear rules for competition).

By the way, replays worked when players started submitting nvram files.

[PROMETHEUS]

Agree with Hagane and

The rest wouldn't be affected by this and would be able to keep doing things the way they want. Why is this so hard to understand?

I think the rest would actually be affected positively by this, for the reasons I said before : can watch top player's videos, community evolves and attracts more competitive players and grows, etc.

[Hagane]

I meant for people who don't care about competing, but yeah you are right.

[PROMETHEUS]

Yeah I think they would benefit from it as well, those who don't care about competing. Cause they still care about shmups, and community growing and doing more things should catch their interest I'm sure. At the shmup events in France, it's not just the very competitive players who come just for them, lots of casuals as well. Even when its 500km away.

[chempop]

My main point is that emulating isn't as much a staple of the shooter community in Japan as it is elsewhere.

For some reason I just assumed this was the case all these years. I am surprised by how common it is for members here to save-state practice. For a community to be so critical of pausing between stages (rather trivial in retrospect), yet perfectly accepting of save-state practice seems rather odd, especially as community so hellbent on using default settings. Default, as in the way it was intended to be played. Now you could say, well if credit-feeding is a form of practice why shouldn't save-state practice be considered the same - but I feel it is different because having the option to continue is built into the game, very different than a computer which can do things that are not built into the game.

Still though, I have a lot of respect for top score players, regardless of their practice methods... just not nearly the amount of respect I have for players who achieve great scores and play the traditional way.