About leeching

[MJS]

I want to share my thoughts about leeching and MARP rules. I hope to help building better rules. Excuse my english, your opinions are welcome, etc

The general rule (rule 2f) refers to things like "continuously gain points", "some degree of risk" and "keep moving" which can be interpreted differently by different people. I understand it is impossible to come up with a general rule that applies for all games and leaves no place for misunderstandings, and that's why despite this ambiguity, I agree with it (ie. I agree with what I understand from it).

I neither support leeching or I am against it. I admit to enjoy leeching in some games. I prefer games that don't allow you to or is very hard to leech, though.

Enough introduction I guess, what I propose is:

Screw the game-specific rules about leeching. They should not exist. Rules for a specific game should be absolutely clear and leeching always depends on common sense. We must avoid rules that depend on common sense.

I think everyone should play as they want and scores should not be zeroed because of leeching. Scores should be zeroed when rules are broken, yes, but as I said, rules that refer to leeching should not exist.

Instead of rules that refer to leeching, I think we should write rules specifying different scoring systems. If a game is "leechable" then its score is not a good scoring system. We can use a scoring system based on the stage reached for example.

And if someone wants to spend 24h leeching let them do it! It will be the stage reached what matters after all.

Is my common sense making sense?

Thanks for reading,
MJS

[BBH]

I'm sorry but I don't agree with this... I know the "stage reached" scoring system is used at JVRM and it works pretty well, but to say that any kind of leeching should be allowable under these rules is absurd

Consider games which award extra lives based on points. Let's say one player takes advantage of a leeching "loop" (i.e. leech until time runs out, but earn more than enough points for an extra life... then do it again. Those points will carry over and eventually you'll come out ahead on extra lives). The person who has done the leeching now has extra lives to get farther in the game. Is that fair to somebody trying to play legitimately? And what about games that don't have definable "stages" (or automatically keep track of them)?

I know that leeching can be a gray area (and I know it's the Fantasy Land thread that inspired you to make this post), but I don't think that allowing blatant leeching on games is a good thing for MARP. It's boring for the players, and it's boring for the people who actually want to watch the recordings.

[QRS]

The problem, as I see it, is that some people always tries to bend the rules and squeeze out as much of them as possible. To me the rules are quite clear. Just use common sense. Sort of Seymors rules on IRC If not, well you go

In a game like fantasy land it is of course very hard to say what is leeching or not. It is pointless to set a time limit, score by stage etc. Just use common sense and proceed.... Right now a finished game is arround 2-2,5mil.. I don't think it matters much if someone submits a score 100k more or less, but if there will be finished games with scores like 3-4mil.. well they will be zeroed.

Nothing of what I have said matters if you are eager to get a firstplace though.. and care A LOT about beeing first instead of second etc.

[destructor]

I don't agree too.

[MJS]

Judging from your answers it seems I didn't make myself clear.
We may not disagree after all...

My proposal was to change the scoring system for the leechable games instead of adding rules about leeching (see reasons in my original message). Just that. Then I said that the 'stage reached' scoring system could be an alternative to the (obviously flawed) 'score' scoring system. I didn't mean to use 'stage reached' for all leechable games. I think each game must be treated separately from the rest if we want clear rules. And I gave the example of the 'stage reached' scoring system as it seems stages are what most games have (counting out the score).

I'm sorry but I don't see how someone who understands that rules about leeching are not clear would disagree with what I am saying. By the way, if you disagree please explain your reasons otherwise it won't help.

To address the problem BBH mentioned (about a game that is leechable and have stages but awards extra lives forever) I would force the players to change 'bonus life' settings or limit the number of lives that can be used, or something like that. I'm sure we will come up with something better if we discuss it.

In general, for leechable games with stages I would (in order until it is enough):

1) change the scoring system to 'stage reached'
2) if the game never stops awarding extra lives, force the players to change 'bonus life' settings
3) if the game doesn't have 'bonus life' setting, limit the number of lives the player can use

For games that don't have stages, of course 'stage reached' is not a good scoring system (it's not even possible) but 'score' wasn't good in the first place either, so a third scoring system should be used. If no scoring system can be found for a game, then the game must be quite boring to say the least.

Again, don't take the above three steps as what I want to do always. It is just a suggestion on how to write the rules for that kind of games. I think the rules for a game should be seen on a case by case basis to ensure proper rules. Of course many games will have similar or even identical rules, but that doesn't mean anything beyond that. And fortunately not all games need special rules.

I didn't follow the Fantasy Land case (in fact, I've never played the game), but yes your post inspired me BBH. You weren't sure if your recording was fine which was revealing that something is not right.

Long post I know, but hopefully you can understand better now!

[LN2]

I think everyone should play as they want and scores should not be zeroed because of leeching. Scores should be zeroed when rules are broken, yes, but as I said, rules that refer to leeching should not exist.

In a nutshell, the MARP scoreboard is essentially competition results for all the various rom sets in MAME.

If leeching was freely allowed, it would result in lots of rom sets being "archived". If you aren't familiar with that term here, an asterisk is put in front of the rom set name and the scores for it are not considered part of the leaderboard or have any value except perhaps example replays for how to leech at the game.

The competition factor is totally lost there. ie. naughty boy. I had never played the game. The game is pretty tough where a good score would be around 100k. I watched a replay where the guy leeched to 2 million near the beginning of the game then stopped.

I then...never having played the game before...got the leeching spot setup and leeched to 1 million myself before I stopped.

If that leeching was allowed, then why track scores for that game? Scores for that game would be meaningless playing the game in that manner...so special anti-leeching rules are added to disallow that technique...so then you can play the game and compete with others again.

If a game is "leechable" then its score is not a good scoring system. We can use a scoring system based on the stage reached for example.

yes, in some cases something similar to this has been done..but it has always been some combo of level reached and the actual game score. Even this doesn't work on the infinite-leeching games.

Consider this flaw as well...for some games...doing leeching allows you to build up men...so you can leech tons early...build up 100 men(if that game allows that), then play the game "normally"...and still score really high and play lots of levels/stages. IMHO, that is still meaningless cuz someone else could just leech longer and build up even more men etc. and just outlast you...or just have marginally better skill so those 100 men last them a bit longer.

Meanwhile at the start of the game we have to watch a 1+ hour leech-fest before the actual gameplay begins...then we see so-so gameplay...dying left and right. Sorry, that's no good.

It varies game by game..which is why even though MARP has general leeching rules, there are specific rules for certain games.

In naughty boy, if you are able to juke the enemies and get lots of points on each level...that's fine...but sitting in a sit spot just firing forever...(you can put something on your fire key and leave the game for hours by itself.) certainly isn't playing the game.

[BBH]

I didn't follow the Fantasy Land case (in fact, I've never played the game), but yes your post inspired me BBH. You weren't sure if your recording was fine which was revealing that something is not right.

Um, what? How did I say that?

[MJS]

Oh! I must have misunderstood what you said then.
I thought you were asking if your recording was valid for the current rules.
Sorry about that.

Anyway, my proposal still stands.

[The TJT]

Actually, MJS has a point there.

Stages cleared could be a good system for some games with bad scoring.
Hmmm...What if several players finish the game... Answer?: stages cleared -time

For example at Fantasy Land:
Score = stages cleared*10000 -frames played
...That would be good for finished games.
At some cases if same stage is reached by two players, then the player who gets nearer to the end of current stage gets beaten unfairly, though. But it would be quite good for comparing 2 finished games...But another downfall with such scoring is that it makes games more like a speed-run...But at Fantasy Land that might be only good?

Another recently discussed game, that I can think of would be Puzzle Club-Magic Bubble... Better player you are- more stages you clear and faster...Might be really good for the game?
That leaves the problem when game is not finished and couple players reach same stage, although not very common problem. (a big problem if stages are long!...maybe then should count the frames after last finished stage )

Also if game is not finished by players, because it's hard, then someone can use time to leech for extra men and finish the game...But then it would come to who leeched and finished fastest.

Just some my 2€'s

TJT