Final try to stop all leeching in Toki.

[Frankie]

Some time ago, we changed the difficulty setting in Toki to 'hardest' to try and prevent that players did massive leeching in this game. All the players interested in the game (QRS, Alpha and Sampras) submitted new recordings without any leeching.

Now someone have submitted a recording on 'hardest' full of leeching.

http://marp.retrogames.com/index.cgi?mo ... 00&tourn=0

http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/dtr_toki ... _win58.zip

It's very boring to look at, and therefore we need to find out if this should be stopped or not.

The possible ways of leeching is:

1 - Collect as many points before time runs out on Boss 1, by shooting the small enemies, and then kill the Boss when the time is about to run out. Here you can lose a life when you don't watch out.

2 - Same as one, but on Boss 2. Here you can also lose a life if you make a mistake.

3 - Stay in one position on Stage 5, and shooting 'flower seeds' until the time runs out. Here you can't die, if you just keep on shooting. The recording mentioned above shows this way of leeching.

4 - Jumping on the hard-headed enemy near the boss at stage 5. Here there's a little chance of dying (according to QRS).


So, the 3 options to choose from in the vote is:

1 - Let's leech as much as we want on 'hardest' making the recording extremely long and boring to watch.

2 - Let's say no leeching at all. Meaning that you must try to kill the Boss on stage 1 and 2 as fast as possible, and that you don't stay parked shooting 'flower seeds', or keeps on jumping that hard-headed enemy on stage 5.

3 - Still no shooting of 'flower seeds' or jumping on the hard-headed enemy, but you are allowed to leech once on the Boss on stage 1 & 2. However, should you die while doing this, or the time runs out, you must press ESC and restart, so that you only do this once on each boss.

Another thing. Should we in the future discover more ways of boring leeching in this game, then they'll automatically be included under point 2 or 3 depending on which of them wins, if any of them wins.

Now, please think about it, and vote. It's important that we do something about this before its to late.

Happy voting

[LN2]

Given there is a time limit where when time expires you die I don't see the above as illegal leeching. It's really no different than any other game where you try and maximize the score you get each level.

IMHO it would be illegal if you earn enough points to get an extra man or you can do something in Toki that gives you a time extension over and over again so in a sense you can play one little area forever. There is no loop like that in Toki AFAIK although I haven't played it to completion.

It still requires the person play through the game and beat the bosses doesn't it? He just does it where he maximizes the points.

It's like in all those space invader clone games saying you must shoot all those enemies as quickly as possible and not delay shooting them just to get a few more flying saucers for more points.

In a game like Alien Syndrome do you advance to the level boss as soon as possible after you get the items? Nah, you try and get all of the items for more points and shoot enemies the entire time during this task then exit just before you would die.

In a game like Kangaroo or Donkey Kong etc. you could quickly end all those earlier levels but do players do that? Of course not, they get the hammer and rack up the points then get where they are near the end of a level and in Kangaroo keep punching monkeys for 200 pts each and finish the level with only 100-200 left on the bonus timer. You can get a lot more points that way versus completing the level as fast as possible. Kangaroo even has it where you earn an extra men every 40k so in a way that "leeching" is earning extra men you wouldn't have if you just completed the levels as fast as possible. In Donkey Kong on the first screen for example they get where they are all the way by the top ladder to end the level but don't end it. they stand there jumping barrels for 100 pts each and amass more points doing it that way.

In Ms. pacman, or any of the pacman games, when you are down to the last energizer and some dots do you just eat the dots to finish the level? Of course not, you nip the energizer then eat the monsters for points before you complete the level.

I am sure there are several other examples.
Sure you can call it leeching but illegal leeching? I don't think so.

[mahlemiut]

I fell asleep before it was even anywhere near finished. No one wants to watch that. I don't even know how anyone can stand playing that way sometimes.

[LordGaz]

My opinion on this subject has always been the same. The bottom line is that in a real arcade you aim to get the high score and leave the machine with your name at the top of the chart. I have never agreed with putting artificial parameters on the way you should play the games, if this makes for boring replays, so what.

If someone wants to get to a safe spot in Bombjack with the bonus coin on x5 and jump ad nausium for 50pts a jump to get the high score, noone should have the right to stop that because you can do it on a real machine in an arcade. The only thing is that you should not use pause or speed throttling ever, even in emergencies. Nor should you play at less than 100% speed.

I say allow all leeching, marathoning and taking advantage of bugs on all games. I once scored A4B5D2EE on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on a real machine and got the high score, that's it, my name was at the top of the chart, noone could DQ it for taking advantage of bugs. Actually I don't even know how I did it.

Judging leeching is a bit subjective anyway, who is going to say whether someone shot those ten enemies in a row to save himself or whether he/she was leeching some extra points. Same goes in Ghost 'n Goblins I believe, where someone can make a death look accidental so he can do the level all over again for more points. I also read in another post that someone finished Salamander scoring only 35500 pts, if you score more than that it could be considered leeching by some.

That's my two penneth, cheers .

LordGaz

[mahlemiut]

Oh, I'd better figure out a way of finishing DDSOM with the glitch then.

[tmorrow]

I must say the 'non leech' philosophy is going too far here. You play the game, you do your best to get a good score. You use all your available time if you can to get points - it seems natural.

I for one was impressed with the leeching performed in stage 5. Yes, I would get tired of watching it repeatedly, but a quick F10,F8 will get me through it with relative ease. There is a timer so the leeching is limited, you can't do it ad nauseum. I liked the way the player timed the leeching in the last few seconds to try and kill the plant generating the flowers to get the 1000 bonus.

Clearly it is a matter of degree. I have a problem with leeching that can be done forever with no risk - inp's are megabytes in size and take hours to play through - ugh! Others are even less tolerant and even in timed games don't want to see easy points being made in a repetitive manner. I understand their view, I just don't agree with it in this case. I think each game has to be considered separately.

Tim

x

[Alpha]

I watched the "flower seeds leeching recording" and I found it was very boring to watch him shoot the flower seeds over and over again. But on the other hand I would never ever have thought about shooting these flower seeds. From that point of view he earned the points, since he took the time to explore TOKI very thoroughly. The problem is that everyone who wants to get in the first place for TOKI, will "have to" leech this way. So why not a compromise: allow leeching anywhere, but if you die when leeching, your recording is invalid. This would make it a little harder to leech. Imagine you get to the 5th stage and start leeching on the flower. The leeching is simple, but you need to get that monkey ass to the end of the level before time runs out. So one mistake when going from the leeching place to the flower would make the recording invalid.

Judging leeching is a bit subjective anyway, who is going to say whether someone shot those ten enemies in a row to save himself or whether he/she was leeching some extra points.
LordGaz

I think it's very clear when someone leeches. If you watch a recording of a game you like, but in the middle you here yourself saying: "This is boring!", well that's leeching in my opinion ...

[QRS]

I have nothing to add in this discussion more than a big "zzzzzzz" for the 600k recording. I will not bother to play like that. Geez..

Cheers

[Frankie]

I think each game has to be considered separately.

That's why we run this poll. Some players think its wrong to leech in this game, some don't. But we'll never find out if we don't run a poll.

Even with a timer like in this case, the shooting of 'flower seeds' on stage 5 is extremly boring to watch. No matter if you do a F10/fs11 it takes a lot of time.

We are considering it seperately, the poll will decide.

[wuzel]

i admire him (destructor@hotteam.pl)
he is really good in many games and he told me that he will show the new leeching technique when the pool decided that the hardest settings for toki are on. and i was very curious what he discovered and i really like it. he has a sixth sense of finding things like that and he should be rewarded not punished
he knows the game very well. he is not that kind of player who found the leeching technique in first stage and doesnt even know the rest of the game.
i very happy that his inp had been confirmed

Ps: again sorry for my english

[destructor]

Welcome.

Boring???????????????? F10 + F8 and problem solve. It's only 5 lives !!!!.

I know more leeching techniques on Toki, but this is the best
I didn't play early on Toki because I waiting for set hardest settings on.

It's impossible prohibit leeching. What will be way to counting points???

I did hard work to make this score. Uff my fingers ! I do more

Let's say no leeching at all.
Meaning that you must try to kill the Boss on stage 1 and 2 as fast as possible, and that you don't stay parked shooting 'flower seeds', or keeps on jumping that hard-headed enemy on stage 5.

It's total absurd.

Still no shooting of 'flower seeds' or jumping on the hard-headed enemy, but you are allowed to leech once on the Boss on stage 1 & 2. However, should you die while doing this, or the time runs out, you must press ESC and restart, so that you only do this once on each boss.

Why allow to leech on Boss 1 and 2 one life, but not on flower

It's abnormally. Maybe prohibit playing on Toki completely!!!!!!!!!

Why prohibit leeching in this game. 5 lives to leeching - it's little. Maybe set dipswitches to 2 lives only at start


Greetings to all.

Sorry for my english.

[LN2]

Frankie, here is the problem if leeching of anytime in a game like Toki is not allowed.

Let's say one person has submitted a score of 321,000 and someone else comes along with a score of 323,000. In viewing the inp the person with 321,000 files a protest saying that other person leeched a few extra enemies along the way they didn't have to kill for points.

By even considering disallowing something like this opens up a whole new can of worms that is very subjective and unclear to players.

There is no clear black and white for this example where you can say this is illegal, but something else is illegal. It's easy for example to say you can't leech in games where you earn extra men from the leeching so you can stay at an early and easy stage forever just leeching points. Toki doesn't have that.

If this was allowed for Toki there would be 100s of other games you would also have to set that for using this precedent. It gets too gray too quickly.

If in my recording I returned to areas as time allowed to kill enemies that keep reappearing, like the cemetary area, then at what point do you call that illegal leeching versus just playing the game? It isn't clear at all.

Again I refer to games like Space Invaders where delay tactics are used to get more flying saucers each level to leech points. That really is no different than the flower seeds in Toki. You are slightly delaying progression/completion of levels so you can get more points. There are 100s of examples.

This is a very dangerous precedent to try and set.
If passed to disallow that then you likely will see polls for 50+ other games next week pointing out similar things. Fine, it makes for a damn boring inp. I'm sure there are 100s of other inps that are damn boring to watch for others as well.

[Frankie]

Well, I haven't voted yet as I'm not sure what to vote for yet. I started this poll because someone asked me to, and because I find it very boring to watch inps that uses leeching like that shoot the flower seeds trick.

But so far it seems that the vote goes for leeching, which is fine by me if that's what the majority wants.

Maybe another poll should be started to clarify if its only allowed to ban/vote against leeching techniques when extra lives are earned doing this.

But someone else will have to run that poll

[DaviL]

This time i don't think Destructor leeching. Why finish a game with 4 lives left? You can't take infinite lives here, so for high score you must learn to use your lives and especially your times better you can. Finish a game with a lot of lives left have no sense for a high score. You can't Leeching foverer here, you never gain new lives, you only lose it ! The better player is the man that can use his lives better he can for highscore.
A man that can finish the game with only 1 live still can remain n°1, but he must learn use the lives left.

[Frankie]

This time i don't think Destructor leeching. Why finish a game with 4 lives left?

Well, if I understand his description right, he doesn't finish the game because he wasted a lot of lives doing that flower seed leeching.

No wonder he was to tired finishing it, he probably fell asleep on stage 5, like I almost did watching it