My point stands. At least one person who was rather strident about replays found out he couldn't get them working. MAME can be a finicky program, and surely the intention is not to banish people from playing. I'm not a fan of mandatory vetted distributions either (although, along with the rest, I think they have their place).
PROMETHEUS wrote:
Ed Oscuro wrote: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
Where the fuck did this come from? I know plenty about the game; more than you do almost assuredly. Do you know about the consistency of through-wall shooting in CS:GO, or about the usefulness of crouching? I have respect for the game - I've been playing it offline - I just cannot stomach many of its players.
Anyway, before you and Hagane run wild with mutual congratulations and forget what you were supposed to be selling us on, let's take the topic back to where it needs to go: What will you do to go to the promised land? It's not about what everybody else should be doing, but what YOU will do.
chempop wrote: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.
chempop wrote: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.
But all official console ports have practice modes built into them. I have no idea why people ignore this.
The practice mode of DFK lets the player start from several points during the stage and tweak the settings to match any possible play situation. This has no practical difference to practicing with savestates.
That's pandering. Obviously. Actually, it makes the point rather perfectly about how communities can grow to have unrealistic expectations about what constitutes "good" play, isn't it? As I said, that ship has sailed. I don't like to use savestate practice because it makes reaching the high stages boring - I don't want to chew up a game and spit it out, I want to actually savor it. Yeah, I'm weird (and can't remember whether to put the i or the e first in "weird").
I'm going to cut in on the Ed vs. Prom & Hagane discussion here. Instead of trying force things to be one way or the other, start by just encouraging it and let's go forward from there. So, here's what I suggest to Prom and Hagane: You two create (and upkeep) a thread where it is clearly explained how to save a replay (or screenshots) from a multitude of sources (MAME, console ports, PCB...) and what to do with it afterwards. Take screenshots, provide links to needed files and/or sites, the whole shebang. Basically, make a clear and comprehensive instruction manual for this. I'll sticky it to top of High Score forum. How's that sound?
No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.
I like that suggestion! Someday, I need to learn to just write that instead of trying to argue out all the subtle stuff nobody cares about, because that's really all that needed to be said.
p.s. Thread should take the form of suggested guidance for High Score thread maintainers. Personally, though, I think I've already hit on the high points: In-person verification, new columns for verification data / links (including movies or replays), not sure there's really a lot else to be done.
Ed Oscuro wrote:I don't want to chew up a game and spit it out, I want to actually savor it.
I have spent lots of time practicing many shmups (like DDP for example) with savestates, yet I still don't feel I'm anywhere near to having exhausted any of those games. There is so much to learn in a good game it's going to take me a long time reach a point where I have learned practically everything there is in one of them. The amount of fun I can get out of one good game is one of the main things I appreciate about shmups and savestates have certainly done nothing to that. I really don't think many players have that sort of attitude towards the games.
Diff'rnt strokes, diff'rnt fokes. It's an uncompromising tendency from my scrub ancestry that once I've seen a stage it is less exciting. Yes, I have thought about how this can handicap me if I react badly (flinch) on meeting a current "stop point," but I ought to mention I'm typically not even crediting through. Whatever the case, I'm currently developing my thoughts on playing through vs. enjoying the thrill more, but I won't actually be considering any guidance on this point I would probably only credit or savestate through a game I know will stand up to repeated plays for scoring, rather than one of the very many games, especially survival-based ones. Wait, am I asking for guidance? I don't remember asking for guidance. Lol, oh you guys, saviors of the world aren'tcha.
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ed Oscuro wrote:Where the fuck did this come from? I know plenty about the game; more than you do almost assuredly. Do you know about the consistency of through-wall shooting in CS:GO, or about the usefulness of crouching? I have respect for the game - I've been playing it offline - I just cannot stomach many of its players.
Because you said you spent only 30 minutes on one server and you had your decade's worth of whatever. But you speak like you only played offline and are completely disconnected from the community. Sure, there are stupid players. But seeing how little contact you have had with the community of that game, how can you use it as an example to argue against making our own community bigger and more competitive ?
But maybe I misunderstand. Apologies, I never mean to insult.
Ghegs wrote:I'm going to cut in on the Ed vs. Prom & Hagane discussion here. Instead of trying force things to be one way or the other, start by just encouraging it and let's go forward from there. So, here's what I suggest to Prom and Hagane: You two create (and upkeep) a thread where it is clearly explained how to save a replay (or screenshots) from a multitude of sources (MAME, console ports, PCB...) and what to do with it afterwards. Take screenshots, provide links to needed files and/or sites, the whole shebang. Basically, make a clear and comprehensive instruction manual for this. I'll sticky it to top of High Score forum. How's that sound?
I think that it's cool that you suggest such a thing, thank you for reading through our stuff, understanding and proposing an immediate step, I really appreciate that you did. I like it actually, it's very reasonnable to start it like that, encouraging the behaviour we are interested in. I don't know about how much effect it can have, because I suppose most players who post on the high score boards already know how to record... maybe not. But in my opinion, it is insufficient because the point is, what has started this discussion :
* We have much better players here now, and they want to be respected.
* There are cheating/abusing/suspicious players that come around every now and then and the community is almost defenseless against them. This is really bad for the better players and for everyone.
We are not fixing the defenseless problem with this solution. But, at least it is a good start if we make some good points as to why we want to promote recording and validation.
chempop wrote: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.
But all official console ports have practice modes built into them. I have no idea why people ignore this.
The practice mode of DFK lets the player start from several points during the stage and tweak the settings to match any possible play situation. This has no practical difference to practicing with savestates.
Sure, a handful of modern ports have practice modes, do they represent the genre as a whole? I guess for the folks who started playing these games this gen the answer is yes Anyway, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, both schools of thought need to coexisting regardless.
"I've had quite a few pcbs of Fire Shark over time, and none of them cost me over £30 - so it won't break the bank by any standards." ~Malc
Ed Oscuro wrote:Where the fuck did this come from? I know plenty about the game; more than you do almost assuredly. Do you know about the consistency of through-wall shooting in CS:GO, or about the usefulness of crouching? I have respect for the game - I've been playing it offline - I just cannot stomach many of its players.
Because you said you spent only 30 minutes on one server and you had your decade's worth of whatever.
Yes, because the decent and reasonable thing to do is try to spin a point out of somebody's short reference rather than actually thinking about the point they're trying to make. Come on, that's not reasonable. And, now that I've actually explained what I meant, you're still trying to justify it. How about this: Let's do what Ghegs suggested, and actually try to find something helpful? At this point we're just trading pulled punches on not much of substance, and I think this all goes to my point about competitive-minded people being often very lousy to deal with, because we're certainly not acting very mature about this.
PROMETHEUS wrote:I think that it's cool that you suggest such a thing, thank you for reading through our stuff, understanding and proposing an immediate step, I really appreciate that you did. I like it actually, it's very reasonnable to start it like that, encouraging the behaviour we are interested in.
You might not be aware of it, but I actually suggested exactly that before - twice. Once in this thread, in my second post I believe.
About the problem of defenselessness against bad actors, I have a few thoughts, because it's an interesting (and important) topic to grasp.
1.) Absolute certainty is impossible to guarantee. You only get a reasonable - perhaps very high - level of certainty, but if you match your expectations of certainty to a belief that defenses will never be breached, then you have misled yourself.
2.) Following partly from that observation, I should reiterate something I have written before: A cheating player's efforts do not reflect badly on those of a sincere player, and you cannot be "victimized" unless you allow it. A good dose of skepticism or incredulity is fine in all things; it doesn't imply cynicism.
3.) What is just as important in dealing with the possibility of cheating or bad actors is not simply the verification end, but the human relations aspect. There is a lot of work to be done convincing others of your good will (I find this excludes holding presumptions about other people based merely on a stereotype linked to how they play), and of course nobody questions the right of scoreboard maintainers to chuck out bad scores. A player who submits a score that does not hold up is placed under a cloud, whether rightly or wrongly. That happens even without score verification currently.
Anyway - lots of drama still, not much substance. At this point I am tempted to say that everything has been settled, and I for one am ready to move on to the next step.
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ed Oscuro wrote:I like that suggestion! Someday, I need to learn to just write that instead of trying to argue out all the subtle stuff nobody cares about, because that's really all that needed to be said.
Well I think it was useful to have this discussion because that's where a natural step to be taken came from :)
How about opening up a "casual play" subforum to the High Score section? In that section, screenshots are only mandatory when you get the top score and replay videos or input files aren't mandatory at all. But they are encouraged.
Yes, that measure alone is insufficient to solve the problem at hand. If people mantaining highscore threads or organizing tournaments don't enforce verification, things will remain the same.
Still, as I said I'm fine with doing such a guide as a I think it's a start in the correct direction. I don't know about setting up recording in consoles and PCBs though, so I guess it would be good to make another thread so members knowledgeable about that subject can share their suggestions?
emphatic wrote:How about opening up a "casual play" subforum to the High Score section? In that section, screenshots are only mandatory when you get the top score and replay videos or input files aren't mandatory at all. But they are encouraged.
You mean like a link to AO? Or even better, straight to the hotness topic
"I've had quite a few pcbs of Fire Shark over time, and none of them cost me over £30 - so it won't break the bank by any standards." ~Malc
NTSC-J wrote:
One guy got a specialized Ketsui PCB that let him practice the DOOM fight. When news of this came out, everyone got upset, he apologized and his score (achieved on a regular PCB with defaults settings) was voided.
I'd like to take a moment to point out that this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read anywhere. Ever.
emphatic wrote:How about opening up a "casual play" subforum to the High Score section? In that section, screenshots are only mandatory when you get the top score and replay videos or input files aren't mandatory at all. But they are encouraged.
You mean like a link to AO? Or even better, straight to the hotness topic
Hagane wrote:Yes, that measure alone is insufficient to solve the problem at hand. If people mantaining highscore threads or organizing tournaments don't enforce verification, things will remain the same.
Here is what I envisioned (and I think probably Ghegs and Zerst as well):
Scores all get dumped in the same place - where they're subject to scrutiny (and of course ridicule, if warranted). If you want a stronger claim to your score, then you append a movie or input file, which I think should be posted for all to see. (I know I have written before about the silliness of trying to get everybody to make replays publicly available even against their wishes of keeping some things secret, but for the purpose you're aiming for, they obviously can't claim credit for verification if it is unverifiable. People who want to keep secrets will not be able to take advantage of the system.)
Simple. Done.
If you want to set up a sort of Western Arcadia, by all means you need in-person verification of scores. For reasons I have already discussed, these are not suitable even for STGT. If you can find somebody who is willing to travel to referee runs of games (or have the cash to pay somebody or do it yourself) then it would be somewhat less of a burden to players, but as it stands, with players on every continent, I don't think it is really feasible.
Let's lay off the wild accusations of carelessness on the part of maintainers and organizers for now.
I'm not in favor of forced replays on anything that would require additional hardware to record. Of course, if you're able to record it due to having that additional hardware, great, but then that'd be unfair to force one group to upload replays and others not to.
I'm more interested in replays for people to be able to learn from with verification as a secondary benefit rather than the primary one. But if recording them requires going out and buying additional hardware, I'd never be in support of forcing it.
I still view leaderboard entries in STG to be mostly legit, the exceptions being some possible PC stuff(Jamestown has a lot of cheated ones), but on console I have no reason to suspect most of the scores.
So I can understand forcing replays for Doujin stuff with replay support or MAME. Console stuff can let you upload replays, but then you might be restricted based on your rank, region leaderboard differences(Deathsmiles ), or other reasons, so you can't force uploading a replay to a leaderboard either..
I'm not sure if there's enough interest to start messing with the high score forum here, but if there's interest I think that Restart Syndrome could be updated to facilitate higher standards standards (such as top 3 only with inp or video attachment) or force certain levels of verifications on score submissions. Our userbase is new and small enough that I think there would be fewer people who feel like they're being imposed on, and the system is flexible enough that we could easily provide casual boards alongside for those who aren't able/interested in meeting the higher standards that some are calling for.
You don't actually need to force INP or video replays for the top three (or any arbitrary number); you can just disregard scores that don't have it, if you like. Other scores will naturally be compared in light of those that do provide some verification, of course.
Scores all get dumped in the same place - where they're subject to scrutiny (and of course ridicule, if warranted). If you want a stronger claim to your score, then you append a movie or input file, which I think should be posted for all to see.
This doesn't sound any different than how the high score tables work as it is. A lot of the top scorers show off how they did it via replays, and the ones that don't have replays are generally supported based on the user's credibility, picture, etc. Basically, you're encouraged to try and record if you know you're performing really well but it's not like it's going to disqualify you entirely if you forgot to record.
I agree that really the only way to truly avoid faked scores is to have someone else watch the run being performed in person and that's just not feasable and unreasonable; this isn't a professional competition/tournament or anything, we are here to have fun in the process.
I'm not in favor of forced replays on anything that would require additional hardware to record. Of course, if you're able to record it due to having that additional hardware, great, but then that'd be unfair to force one group to upload replays and others not to.
This especially applies to the case of console shmups that would require buying an additional capture card (PS2 games, etc).
I agree that really the only way to truly avoid faked scores is to have someone else watch the run being performed in person and that's just not feasable and unreasonable; this isn't a professional competition/tournament or anything, we are here to have fun in the process.
I agree with this. I think if a score starts to approach the real world record (Arcadia, etc.) then we should have some solid authentication. But otherwise, let's just have some fun. A lot of the high score threads are pretty inactive anyway.
Interesting topic. I wish I saw the actual video. I refer to this pause abuse as "flash pausing" and recall discussing it here years back (mk2 days?). I remember some folks interested in the technique but don't recall anybody objecting, although the subject was on sidescroller 1CCs at the time. I wasn't sure the technique was that effective but I suppose combined with illegal slow motion, it certainly could be.
I've never had interest in playing for time or score, hence my lack of high scores, but I have hundreds of 1CCs under my belt. Quite a few of my 1CCs in various genres have used flash pausing as a tool to properly react to patterns in their onset without needing to spend all the time necessary to memorize everything or to react quickly. I don't regret my classification one bit and have no plans to reclassify my 1CCs. I play to win and consider all buttons fair use as long as the settings are default and the equipment has zero functional differences from the default. If somebody doesn't want to use the Start button, then that's fine, but it's a completely artificial rule to me, the same as "no shot" or "no bomb" runs.
I don't think either side here represented themselves here as best they could. First of all, the game comes with its own rules. Arcade games don't have pausing in general but if console games are accepted, then pausing is a legitimate question. The first aspect to take into consideration is that nowhere is it stated that pausing is specifically for taking a pause from the game. If excessive pausing was frowned upon, Cave could have easily programmed in an input checker that invalidated scores if 3 pauses were detected within 10 seconds. That way, flash pausing would clearly be inappropriate. But the game has no such prevention in place. As has been mentioned already, players are free to achieve XBL-record scores with whatever pausing they choose, just as they're free to move, shoot, and bomb to their own whims. Therefore, the game rules themselves don't say anything about pausing besides that it's another button for the player to use.
Next, competitions are built through rules. I haven't checked lately but I don't remember any high score rules banning pausing. If certain types of pausing is inappropriate, then that should be clear in the rules. It doesn't make much sense to criticize someone for submitting score that didn't break any rules. While that may be self-explanatory to many here, that's not enough to prevent entry into the high score table. As has also been mentioned, fighting game tourneys usually explicitly mention as many rules as possible to make sure there are no surprises. The high scores tables here have no such prevention measures in place.
If neither the game nor the competition have anything in place to restrict flash pausing, then what's the big deal? I thought it was in poor taste that so many insulted Vixy for his/her Cave-allowed, hi score table-allowed score. If there are unmentioned standards in place, then they ought to be listed. Can you imagine if the Olympics suddenly came up with new rules after the finals just finished? It just doesn't speak well for the competition's thoroughness or fairness.
That said, I'm not a fan of Vixy's behavior either. What's the point in putting up a video that doesn't show all the "techniques" involved? If a quarter of the game is spent slowly flash pausing through waves of bullets, then that should be captured. His/her first response not fully admitting to the flash pausing was also inappropriate for an honest competitor. If it happened, then you should own up to it. If you're not ready to admit it, then perhaps you knew that was wrong. That hesitation doesn't speak well to your intentions.
For folks who didn't know before, it should now be clear that although games do allow players many options, there are only a few smart ways to approach all situations because other ways are too low on the risk-reward scale for human players. At certain levels, it's very clear how players shouldn't react. Personally, my expertise is in Street Fighter II and there are certain advanced techniques that allow me to gauge roughly where other players stand, at least enough to differentiate between intermediate and expert players. If you plan to post a video with a huge accomplishment but don't have the skills, then other players will almost certainly find out.
As for the legitimacy of pausing in high score competitions, I think it's fair to ban pausing since the original arcade games didn't have pausing. There, if you needed a bathroom break, then tough luck. If you suddenly felt your leg itch, then you waited until a quieter moment to scratch it. If you received a phone call, you would either ignore it, sacrifice your run to take it, or be baller by talking and playing at the same time. I don't think there's anything critical that must be handled during a ~1 hour playing session.
If folks want to ban pausing in certain situations, then that will be much more difficult. If, for example, the requirement is that at least 10 seconds must pass from one pause to the next, then everyone can still "allocate" pauses to the most important obstacle of every 10 second timespan. As long as the technique is useful, everyone will abuse it to the very fringe. At least that's how it worked when some fighting game tourneys had silly rules like "no more than 5 hits allowed in an infinite combo," the intent of which was to do away with the infinite altogether (where banning the motion outright might cause too many accidental false positives) but that in effect simply created the case where players would hit with the infinite exactly 5 times before letting the opponent fall down. To me and many others, that's a really weak and arbitrary method of setting rules. You could rely on the honor system in cases without video evidence but is anyone still that trustworthy in today's burgeoning Shmupsforum full of new names?
And finally, if you want to accept pausing in general, then you'll have to accept flash pausing. Like I've mentioned, it's a legitimate part of the console game. No console shooter I know of has any pause limitations that prevent high score entry. Right now, I think not using flash pausing means the player either doesn't think it'll help, doesn't want to ruin his arcade play, or has a misguided sense of pride. If folks choose to make no changes after this incident, then they'll essentially still be allowing flash pausing.
I don't play for score but I don't envy the situation that Shmups is finding itself in with these 3 choices (and possibly others). From what I've seen playing ST in online GGPO, the vast majority of players are honest and legitimate but a few try to abuse lag and some players, mostly from South America for some reason, tend to cheat by abusing turbo functionality. As a competitor and as a skeptic at heart, I wouldn't accept anything unless I saw someone doing it offline or recorded offline. However this issue is resolved, I hope that the high score competition here continues to be strong. I haven't really played shooters seriously ever since I got into competitive Street Fighter II but it's great to see more and more people strive to assert their skill in a medium that we all love.
Last edited by Ganelon on Sun Sep 02, 2012 4:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
I just want to post that I don't agree with this "anti-technology" attitude of not wanting to learn from savestates. It's basically saying that everyone should practice through full runs if they want to experiment some new tactic. Luckily, the fighting game communities have evolved past this mentality. In the end, it's all about how you use the knowledge you've acquired, not how you got it.
Personally, I don't use savestates for practice as often, because of my inability to memorize the first stages as quickly as many other people everywhere. If I didn't have said problem, I would use them more often (also, outside time-restricted competitions such as STGT, there's nothing keeping me from practicing a game long enough for me to internalize the first stages and then start making use of savestates). You don't want to use savestates/stage practice for practice? Good for you, just don't blame those who choose to. It's the same as complaining about getting a character with a disadvantageous matchup: in a fair game, everyone has access to the same resources (characters) in game. "I'll get a low-tier character, so if I win, I'm a good player; if I lose, the other player had the matchup advantage!"
I can understand if people want to "explore" scoreplay (or survival play) without savestates. Everyone has their own rhythm, their own "comfort zone", and personally I find this culture-shock amusing (regarding comfort-zone and the mentality for savestate/stage practice and common-ness of replay submissions).
chempop wrote: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.
there's no traditional way. It's just a concept. People just choose to adhere to it, as people for a long time thought that throws and turtling were lame, and that people shouldn't hit people while they're stunned. People's image of "traditional way" can also vary depending on region.
tl;dr: I respect top scorers' efforts, but their methods are irrelevant to me. Purposedly handicapping oneself is also not putting enough effort against your competition, which is disrespectful. You guys could take a little time and read this article, among others.
Ganelon wrote:
I don't think either side here represented themselves here as best they could. First of all, the game comes with its own rules. Arcade games don't have pausing in general but if console games are accepted, then pausing is a legitimate question. The first aspect to take into consideration is that nowhere is it stated that pausing is specifically for taking a pause from the game. If excessive pausing was frowned upon, Cave could have easily programmed in an input checker that invalidated scores if 3 pauses were detected within 10 seconds. That way, flash pausing would clearly be inappropriate. But the game has no such prevention in place. As has been mentioned already, players are free to achieve XBL-record scores with whatever pausing they choose, just as they're free to move, shoot, and bomb to their own whims. Therefore, the game rules themselves don't say anything about pausing besides that it's another button for the player to use.
Next, competitions are built through rules. I haven't checked lately but I don't remember any high score rules banning pausing. If certain types of pausing is inappropriate, then that should be clear in the rules. It doesn't make much sense to criticize someone for submitting score that didn't break any rules. While that may be self-explanatory to many here, that's not enough to prevent entry into the high score table. As has also been mentioned, fighting game tourneys usually explicitly mention as many rules as possible to make sure there are no surprises. The high scores tables here have no such prevention measures in place.
I think some things should be obvious, I don't think the rules specifically say anywhere that TAS'ing a game isn't allowed, but everyone still understands that is not a valid way to play a shmup. Just because someone thought a clever way to abuse the shit out of the rules, does that mean the score has to be accepted? I really doubt that even Cave has thought of every single possible way to abuse their games.
I personally don't like pausing even between stages as it seems to break my concentration, but during my 298m Casper score I had to go to the bathroom before the castle stage, after playing for ~5 hours straight. If pausing between stages isn't allowed that would create unnecessary witch hunts as it is quite impossible to determine whether one has used pause there or not.
As for recording, I really would love to be able to record my Xbox360, but I don't feel like buying a capture card atm as there is nothing else useful I could do with it. After seeing Vixy's video, it unfortunately seems that not even the xbox leaderboards can be fully trusted. :<
If folks really do care about the legitimacy of the high score boards (i.e. that they're not just for show), then you all will want to have a comprehensive rule set. Making up rules along the way is a Mickey Mouse way of running things. I agree it's not always possible to consider everything and that's why I advised a gentle response when these situations occur. If we were talking about a one-time scoring competition and the rules didn't explicitly ban flash pausing, then as someone who's run quite a few tourneys, I'd say the score stands unless the playthrough also involved slow motion (possibly the case here), which is illegal. But since the high score boards here are continual affairs, I'd say it's fine not to accept scores that don't meet unlisted standards. But mocking scores that don't follow these unlisted standards seems uncalled for. How is there cheating if no rules were broken?
It's already mentioned that external devices (cheating devices, macros, slow motion, autofire in some cases, robotic arm, etc.) are illegal. If anybody notices anything "obvious" that hasn't been mentioned by the rules, speak away. Don't make any assumptions that a new player will be on the same wavelength. I thought very carefully about these types of "obvious" unlisted rules before I posted and couldn't think of anything else that would be considered iffy without external modifications.
As for Cave, the developers there aren't always perfect but they've thought extremely carefully about preserving fairness. The JP scene hugely revolves around high scores. One of the reasons Cave games get so much play is because they're careful not to have counter stops, infinite lives, and other score-breaking problems that plague other shooters. Nevertheless, some issues have been found but Cave immediately patches games afterward without fail to preserve competition. And fans appreciate the fixed versions. But I will agree with others that the JP game scene in general doesn't really take console play or scores seriously. Unfortunately, in our case, you can't expect everyone outside Japan to play in arcades or buy PCBs.
Regarding rules, the problem of adding exceptions is that they make the rules seem more arbitrary. OK, so pausing between stages is hard to prove because the screen is black. If everyone is in agreement that pausing there is fine, then word the rule so that the "recorded video evidence cannot show any pauses or breaks in the middle of the game." That way, it's up to the player's discretion to pause between stages.
But on the subject of recording, I have to admit I never read much of the past rules and discussions in detail so I'll defer to the folks here who've thought that through more clearly. I remember quite a few questions resulting from a past scoring scandal that involved someone who used thousands of save states in an emulator to create a high score run, combined the winning inputs to form a single perfect play, and then recorded that perfect play as evidence for his high score. That's when some folks called out for external cameras that clearly showed both the screen and the controls at all times. That way, the rules could be left more open ("pausing is only permitted for temporarily leaving the game") because the video evidence will clearly show what transpired. However, it appears that the calls for external cameras failed to grab hold.
Since I'm not a high score competitor, I definitely won't be giving any input to situations that could drastically affect the player base. I just hope the final decision promotes fairness and turnout. But if I had to take a guess, I think folks will just put a band-aid on this one trick and keep competing until the next scoring scandal occurs.
PROMETHEUS wrote:
For example, their console ports' accuracy is almost always inferior to MAME.
Also, don't you use ShmupMAME? Pretty sure the spritebuffer hack desyncs the backgrounds which makes it possible to reveal hidden stage secret objects in many games.
cstle wrote:
Also, don't you use ShmupMAME? Pretty sure the spritebuffer hack desyncs the backgrounds which makes it possible to reveal hidden stage secret objects in many games.
Yup.
Back in the day when i started playing Garegga i used ShmupMAME and through save states managed to get the bird castle to disappear so i hit the birds at the same time that i spawned them with ma bawmb.
Came out of that section with 4,5 mil.
moozooh wrote:I think that approach won't get you far in Garegga.
Ganelon wrote:And finally, if you want to accept pausing in general, then you'll have to accept flash pausing. Like I've mentioned, it's a legitimate part of the console game.
This argument fails for two reasons: 1) it's a console port of an arcade game and so the pausing is intended as a convenience for IRL interruptions, and 2),
Ganelon wrote:as someone who's run quite a few tourneys, I'd say the score stands unless the playthrough also involved slow motion
the effect it creates is essentially the same as slow motion for those segments. In God Mode, the added slowdown overall makes pausing repeatedly that much more effective than in say 1.5 Ultra. It's a form of slowdown at one's whims, which anyone can tell is fucking cheap. I can't see how anybody could defend someone like that dishonest bitch cheesing the game to that extent as if it were some 'technique', especially one who boasts about running tourneys.
We're not playing a professional sport or anything but this sort of thing is so obviously not in the spirit of a genre that's all about dodging and reflexes that it should be clear why it's regarded as cheating, so I fail to see why you would defend it. What next, are you going to argue that pulling this BS off in MAME isn't cheating just because it has pausing as a convenience too?
Ganelon wrote:If there are unmentioned standards in place, then they ought to be listed.
So basically you're saying that unless we point out the blindingly obvious (don't be a fucking cheapass, don't use savestates in a scoring run) people should assume that it's a-okay to do? I suppose that explains roadsigns like "don't stop on railroad tracks" so I agree I guess we might as well treat people like imbeciles here too then. I wish we didn't have to, though, for fuck's sake.
edit: deleted the unfair & immature personal attacks, run's still bullshit though
Last edited by BareKnuckleRoo on Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I would probably only credit or savestate through a game I know will stand up to repeated plays for scoring, rather than one of the very many games, especially survival-based ones. Wait, am I asking for guidance? I don't remember asking for guidance. Lol, oh you guys, saviors of the world aren'tcha.
Anyway, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, both schools of thought need to coexisting regardless.
| My games - 
Or even better, straight to the hotness topic 
), or other reasons, so you can't force uploading a replay to a leaderboard either..
