TMNT leeching

[Phil Lamat]

Looks like diff hardest = more enemies, but I prefer to wait for Pat's comments.
If yes, that confirms that use of a stage-reached bonus would be good for Marp scoring ; if not, a non finished game in hardest could be better than a finished game on default.

If anyone is against this bonus, speak now, because I'm preparing the change (but I would VERY MUCH appreciate helps for watching all inputs, on all clones, to determinate how many scenes completed in each ; and for sure I won't do that alone).

EDIT :
apparently Chad & me posted in exactly same moment ; well looks like opinions are different, personally I always try to keep the in-game scoring present in marp scoring, but maybe we need a poll for this one ?

[GHEMANT]

I'm not agree with change settings about difficult, time limit to clear or n. lives for all games in Marp.


edit:

Please, not open a new not good class (like Toki) with strange settings, because in this way is impossible compare default score with others score.

often play with hardest difficult it's a easy way to obtain high score.

[pat33999]

Looks like diff hardest = more enemies

More enemies, and more aggressive enemies. They attack more often, and move slightly faster.

I'm not agree with change settings about difficult, time limit to clear or n. lives for all games in Marp.

Many recordings at MARP use higher difficulties. For example, the highest Double Dragon scores, and some scores in the Metal Slug series. I thought it was allowed to increase difficulty, but not to change any other settings besides that.

[GHEMANT]

Many recordings at MARP use higher difficulties. For example, the highest Double Dragon scores, and some scores in the Metal Slug series. I thought it was allowed to increase difficulty, but not to change any other settings besides that.

don't remind me that, please... it's one of most important problems of Marp. Unfortunately Marp doesn't estabilishes the rules for setting of the games and in this way players could send replays using any setting they will. This fact makes useless playing for score on many games.

Why this?

Because the alteration of dipswitches allows to obtain very different scores beetween them, so these couldn't be compared. I changes the difficulty, the number of enemies, the value of pts of those and all the patterns change. This means that if i play with difficulty 4 and you use difficulty 8, our scores will be different and if will be impossible to state who's the best player, who studied better the patterns, who discovered the best strategies, all this because the pts we earn doing all of these things are different. Often, when a player can't beat one other's score, raises the difficulty just because that way he could reach easily the same score doing the same things.
The most striking case is that of Metal Slug that you quoted. If i reach 3 millions in default (level 4 ) and you can't beat me, you could just raise the difficulty (level 8 ) to make my score even if your play last the half and you kill half of the enemies.

Noone can say what's the right difficulty because it would always be a subjective opinion. The only way to keep everyone on the same plan is to use default parameters.

There is people that played Toki for 8 years and reached results with default setting. The records present on marp don't allow to compare those because the have been realized with very hard difficulty where you can do much more pts killing the same enemies.

How could i understand who's stronger and smart on a game if changing a setting i can obtain totally different results? I can't. So the record concept invalidates.

The will be no more the possibility to confront each other.

In Italy coinops in '90s was regulated with parameters always differents. This made many people think to be stronger than others when it was the exact contrary. All scores made in italy at those times are actually unuseful. They don't give even a reference point. This should make ourselves think.

If on marp you want apply anyway this setting changes on game do as you wish, the site is yours and you have the full rights to do what you want, but then don't come out with absurd comment on replays sent like in twinkle star sprite's case:

"Level 8 - Lost at stage 7 - Wasted my last life so I failed to beat my best score (around 3450000) - Anyone 3500000? 4000000?! [as last check, the Gamest record is 4,007,569 -br]

The comment of the examinator of this replay is eloquent. He doesn't even asks himself that the Gamest record is on level 4 when the one on marp is made with level 8, for him the two replays are identical. But if only the japanese player could have used the level 8, too... his score would have been of 5.500.000.... instead of 4.000.000. The examinator thinked that 500k pts would be enough to beat that score, but nothing was more far from reality. So as you see it's very easy to fall in the valutation error when you different parameters are used. The concept is so obvious that i don't understand why this problem comes out systematically after some little time.

[Chad]

Comparing pat's and p21's recordings there really doesn't seem a need to enforce a higher difficulty. Having recordings on default seems fine. Yes you may get a few more enemies randomly thrown in but if you get too many and it takes you a little longer then record again like we all do if we fail to get a score we wanted. I do think that a timing bonus (bonus for completing each scenes subtraced by total time) is better than counting leech points. Even though in game scores are usualy prefered, when there are problems due to leeching, they should be fixed or games turn into leeching competitions which are against rule 1(h).

The point we try to make is that all recordings should be at the same difficulty. We allow more difficult settings because in this way if someone uploads a worse score at higher difficulty such as 3,500,000 when an easy difficulty score is at 4,000,000 this should alert us that an investigation should take place to enforce only one difficutly.

[GHEMANT]

I agree with special rules when the game have infinite and inevitable leeching problems.

In this event, special rules are necessary, otherwise the only solution is banned the game. Turtles have infinite leeching problems and special rules are a duty. But in japanese version infinite leeching not exist, therefore I think that special rules about increase difficult is not correct.

Remember, without infinite leeching and without hardest difficult, in turtles (japan) is possible obtain near 1000 pts.

[pat33999]

Well, the more I think about it, the more open I am to the idea of a time bonus. Either way, this issue has been open for far too long and needs to be resolved.

We need that poll now, Phil.

[mmxx]

TMNT 2...I hate the "no way" boss...such as the last boss of "violent storm",KONAMI ,MMMHAAAA~~

[Phil Lamat]

We need that poll now, Phil.

Sorry for delay, guys, I had no internet connection during 10 days (for french people, my provider is Noos Numericable, they probably know what I mean).
Cable guy came twice at home, now I hope everything is ok.

I already add special rule for tmnt to ban the boomerang leeching technic (first step to discourage infinite leeching).
Poll items I intend to propose :
1-keep in-game scoring
2-add bonus based on time for completion
3-add bonus based on stages completed

any omissions ?
I don't speak there about diff used, as it's a general marp rule, and any change for that is an other debate

Personally I still prefer #3, because it also ranks the non-finished games ;
Chad, how you will reward the guy who reachs stage 3 beaten by a guy who lost on stage2 but leeched better and get a better score ?

[mahlemiut]

A ban on boomerang leeching should be all that is needed.

[riksweeney]

Chad, how you will reward the guy who reachs stage 3 beaten by a guy who lost on stage2 but leeched better and get a better score ?

How about just making the bonus really big, like either 1,000 or 10,000?

Or yeah, if they start leeching the boomerangs in the replay then the score is just zeroed.

More than 5 boomerangs in a row = leeching?

[Phil Lamat]

I had proposed 1000 in case of bonus based on stages, but before talking about which bonus to give, let's vote first.
I launch the poll

[PG3]

Can you hit the boomerang ten times in a row on one opponent? He does that.
http://replay.marpirc.net/inp/7/9/5/snp ... olf106.zip
http://replay.marpirc.net/r/tmnt
And this record has only 1 point.
http://replay.marpirc.net/inp/8/b/1/snp ... olf106.zip
http://replay.marpirc.net/r/tmntj

[_Zaphod_]

FInal word.

Archive all but JP version which gives no points for boomerangs.

The question is what affects dynamc difficulty? if there is no RNG component (faster killing gets you more and harder stuff, and getting hit/dying makes it easier) then ther'es no problem. but if RNG realyl does affect the number of enemies, then the game is totally unfair, and not worth competition on.

Alternate solution. score in points minus boomerangs hit in the replay.