Single Segment - Allow Nova Beam Wallcrawl?

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2015-01-01 05:06:55 pm

kirbymastah: 2015-01-01 05:05:39 pm

2015-01-01 05:04:44 pm

Should the nova beam wallcrawl be allowed for single segment runs using in-game time? Axon wanted to ask about this but basically made me post here so yeah

The wallcrawl was found by parax

It abuses checkpoints by dying while collecting nova beam, skipping a small trip along with the entire timed pirate sequence for nova beam. The question is, how much of the in-game timer is "lost" to this death? When is the checkpoint hit? If it's hit the moment you get nova beam, I don't see much reason to ban it but if it's before then that's iffier and less likely. I'd like for this to be allowed but it'd be important to figure out where the timer restarts upon the death, so if someone could look at that with dolphin that would be great...

Thread title:

axon

2015-01-01 05:12:31 pm

playing prime in a thunderstorm

do you normally keep items across checkpoints? if not, then the checkpoint here must trigger as soon as you get nova beam (stating the obvious) and then i wouldn't really see any reason for this not to be allowed. but it's still dubious whether dying and loading a checkpoint counts as segmenting.

kirbymastah

2015-01-01 05:15:10 pm

I know the checkpoint is dependent on which room the game is currently transitioned on. But when that checkpoint triggers I'm not sure.

TheMG2

Edit history:

TheMG2: 2015-01-01 05:39:48 pm

2015-01-01 05:30:38 pm

My only productive question would be if you allow this, how do you define unacceptable abuses of checkpoints (as in using checkpoints instead of traditional segmenting).
EDIT: I came up with an answer to my own question. Allowing checkpoint abuse that allows you to skip sequences as opposed to retrying them.

Aruki

2015-01-01 05:54:20 pm

The checkpoint is pretty obviously set after you collect the Nova Beam, given you have it when you respawn. No in-game time is lost. I don't see any reason this should be considered dubious.

Quote from axon:

do you normally keep items across checkpoints? if not, then the checkpoint here must trigger as soon as you get nova beam (stating the obvious) and then i wouldn't really see any reason for this not to be allowed. but it's still dubious whether dying and loading a checkpoint counts as segmenting.

Save + reload has been allowed in single-segment for a long time (usually RTA, "single segment with resets" on SDA). This isn't any different.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2015-01-01 08:13:25 pm

kirbymastah: 2015-01-01 08:12:08 pm

2015-01-01 08:11:06 pm

Quote from Paraxade:

The checkpoint is pretty obviously set after you collect the Nova Beam, given you have it when you respawn. No in-game time is lost. I don't see any reason this should be considered dubious.

I don't disagree. However, in some cases you don't die instantly (especially in 100%; I've survived a few times with 4-5 etanks before IIRC), meaning you spawn in the generator. You then have to manually kill yourself, probably with hyper mode; you then spawn at the proper checkpoint as usual. I assume the time from getting nova beam to killing yourself doesn't count towards the in-game timer after you die, which (assuming I'm right) would make this questionable if the beam fails to insta-kill. At the same time, I doubt people really gives a crap about how quickly you kill yourself with hyper mode if you survive the death beam soooo yeahhh... IMO it'd be rather silly to allow this trick if the beam insta-kills but invalidate it as single-segment if the beam fails to insta-kill.

I do hope we'll allow this and someone would look into when the in-game timer counts/doesn't count so we can agree on an official decision.

[quote="Paraxade"]The checkpoint is pretty obviously set after you collect the Nova Beam, given you have it when you respawn. No in-game time is lost. I don't see any reason this should be considered dubious.
[/quote]

I don't disagree. However, in some cases you don't die instantly (especially in 100%; I've survived a few times with 4-5 etanks before IIRC), meaning you spawn in the generator. You then have to manually kill yourself, probably with hyper mode; you then spawn at the proper checkpoint as usual. I assume the time from getting nova beam to killing yourself doesn't count towards the in-game timer after you die, which (assuming I'm right) would make this questionable if the beam fails to insta-kill. At the same time, I doubt people really gives a crap about how quickly you kill yourself with hyper mode if you survive the death beam soooo yeahhh... IMO it'd be rather silly to allow this trick if the beam insta-kills but invalidate it as single-segment if the beam fails to insta-kill.

I do hope we'll allow this and someone would look into when the in-game timer counts/doesn't count so we can agree on an official decision.

TheMG2

Edit history:

TheMG2: 2015-01-02 10:44:30 am

TheMG2: 2015-01-02 10:44:22 am

2015-01-02 10:43:22 am

Couldn't you just activate hypermode before collecting nova and get corrupted and die that way?

EDIT: Granted, would be bad if you activate hypermode, then mess up the wallcrawl.

kirbymastah

2015-01-02 02:42:12 pm

Quote from TheMG2:

Couldn't you just activate hypermode before collecting nova and get corrupted and die that way?

EDIT: Granted, would be bad if you activate hypermode, then mess up the wallcrawl.

You still don't die instantly unless you get fully corrupted at the exact same time? idk

TheMG2

2015-01-03 09:16:50 pm

So is anybody actually researching this? Cause so far, no objections have been raised.

Aruki

2015-01-04 03:42:17 am

Quote from kirbymastah:

Quote from Paraxade:

The checkpoint is pretty obviously set after you collect the Nova Beam, given you have it when you respawn. No in-game time is lost. I don't see any reason this should be considered dubious.

I don't disagree. However, in some cases you don't die instantly (especially in 100%; I've survived a few times with 4-5 etanks before IIRC), meaning you spawn in the generator. You then have to manually kill yourself, probably with hyper mode; you then spawn at the proper checkpoint as usual. I assume the time from getting nova beam to killing yourself doesn't count towards the in-game timer after you die, which (assuming I'm right) would make this questionable if the beam fails to insta-kill. At the same time, I doubt people really gives a crap about how quickly you kill yourself with hyper mode if you survive the death beam soooo yeahhh... IMO it'd be rather silly to allow this trick if the beam insta-kills but invalidate it as single-segment if the beam fails to insta-kill.

I do hope we'll allow this and someone would look into when the in-game timer counts/doesn't count so we can agree on an official decision.

Hmm, yeah, that does make it a little more complicated, since the time spent killing yourself afterward wouldn't count on the timer. SDA's rules would normally be to add the amount of time it takes to kill yourself to the final time, but since the timer doesn't track seconds that wouldn't work especially well. My personal inclination is just to say we should allow it as long as you die ASAP after collecting Nova Beam by corrupting yourself, and don't respawn from the checkpoint more than once. After all, it's not like this offers you any benefit either; any progress you make after collecting Nova Beam won't stay with you when you respawn, unless you activate another checkpoint.

I'd maybe make a thread on the SDA forums to see what people think there.

[quote="kirbymastah"][quote="Paraxade"]The checkpoint is pretty obviously set after you collect the Nova Beam, given you have it when you respawn. No in-game time is lost. I don't see any reason this should be considered dubious.
[/quote]

I don't disagree. However, in some cases you don't die instantly (especially in 100%; I've survived a few times with 4-5 etanks before IIRC), meaning you spawn in the generator. You then have to manually kill yourself, probably with hyper mode; you then spawn at the proper checkpoint as usual. I assume the time from getting nova beam to killing yourself doesn't count towards the in-game timer after you die, which (assuming I'm right) would make this questionable if the beam fails to insta-kill. At the same time, I doubt people really gives a crap about how quickly you kill yourself with hyper mode if you survive the death beam soooo yeahhh... IMO it'd be rather silly to allow this trick if the beam insta-kills but invalidate it as single-segment if the beam fails to insta-kill.

I do hope we'll allow this and someone would look into when the in-game timer counts/doesn't count so we can agree on an official decision.[/quote]

Hmm, yeah, that does make it a little more complicated, since the time spent killing yourself afterward wouldn't count on the timer. SDA's rules would normally be to add the amount of time it takes to kill yourself to the final time, but since the timer doesn't track seconds that wouldn't work especially well. My personal inclination is just to say we should allow it as long as you die ASAP after collecting Nova Beam by corrupting yourself, and don't respawn from the checkpoint more than once. After all, it's not like this offers you any benefit either; any progress you make after collecting Nova Beam won't stay with you when you respawn, unless you activate another checkpoint.

I'd maybe make a thread on the SDA forums to see what people think there.

MLSTRM

2015-01-09 03:27:49 pm

Oh wow discussion. I can try to look into this at some point, now that I have a better computer emulation is probably going to work a lot better than it used to, however when I was last doing research I never did manage to find the memory address for the timer. Once I find that I can just use moonjump or something to actually get to nova beam and see the effect on the timer.

As for what I think, imo it doesn't fit the "classic" description of Single segment, but I have no issue with allowing it even if the timer gets a bit out of whack, since it fits the more modern definition (what SDA calls single-segment with resets)

JustinDM

2015-07-02 12:57:34 am

Ok this needs a confirmation. What does everybody think of allowing it? If you don't want to allow it in SS runs, please say why as well.

Hazel

2015-07-02 09:15:08 am

rocks, locks, and invisible blocks

You could simply avoid the problem by aiming for RTA instead of IGT. But honestly if dying once saves in-game time as well as real time, I can't imagine why anyone would be against it. As long as you don't abuse the checkpoint multiple times for optimization or something.

kirbymastah

2015-07-02 10:00:38 am

As mentioned before, the nova beam wallcrawl has IGT that's "reset", which is the time between getting nova beam (aka hitting the checkpoint) and dying. Granted, nobody really cares about this, but it's still a point against allowing it that's valid.

The "single segment" definition could always change and it isn't always the same thing for all games anyways. The main intent behind it is to disallow retrying segments that save time, but this isn't the case for the nova beam wallcrawl.

Hazel

Edit history:

Hazel: 2015-07-02 11:45:35 am

2015-07-02 11:41:49 am

rocks, locks, and invisible blocks

Rules put in place to prevent redoing segments in a run shouldn't cross over to something that's entirely different but "violates those rules". This is essentially a death warp, you activate something then die and it saves time. Plenty of games allow this, and things similar to it, like a save warp for example. Mind you those games typically aim for real time, but I'm sure there are cases out there where they don't. Not that we should be copying the rules of other games with different circumstances than this one in the first place. Having a universal set of rules that all games should follow is unrealistic and just creates problems like this.

Does Justin even plan on submitting his completed run to SDA by the way? Because if not, he really has no reason at all to care what may or may not be considered fair by them, as long as this games community says it's allowed.

As the Metroid Prime 3 community, we can define single segment checkpoint use as fair as long as it's done to actually save time and not to respawn from to avoid mistakes or redo sections of the run. Someone can come up with better wording for that if they want, be more objective/descriptive or something. If we need written rules in the first place, we could just add an exception to Nova Beam wallcrawls checkpoint if it's being used once and to skip the fight blah blah blah. It doesn't matter, and if Justin wants to use the wallcrawl he should be allowed. Saying a speed trick is only allowed in segmented because you die to save time is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Rules put in place to prevent redoing segments in a run shouldn't cross over to something that's entirely different but "violates those rules". This is essentially a death warp, you activate something then die and it saves time. Plenty of games allow this, and things similar to it, like a save warp for example. Mind you those games typically aim for real time, but I'm sure there are cases out there where they don't. Not that we should be copying the rules of other games with different circumstances than this one in the first place. Having a universal set of rules that all games should follow is unrealistic and just creates problems like this.

Does Justin even plan on submitting his completed run to SDA by the way? Because if not, he really has no reason at all to care what may or may not be considered fair by them, as long as this games community says it's allowed.

As the Metroid Prime 3 community, we can define single segment checkpoint use as fair as long as it's done to actually save time and not to respawn from to avoid mistakes or redo sections of the run. Someone can come up with better wording for that if they want, be more objective/descriptive or something. If we need written rules in the first place, we could just add an exception to Nova Beam wallcrawls checkpoint if it's being used once and to skip the fight blah blah blah. It doesn't matter, and if Justin wants to use the wallcrawl he should be allowed. Saying a speed trick is only allowed in segmented because you die to save time is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

TheMG2

2015-07-02 11:55:59 am

There are three reasons I see to disallow saving and reloading or in this case checkpoint abuse in single segment runs in any game.

1. It breaks the demo recording. This is pretty much only relevant to certain PC games like half-life. If you don't know what a demo file is, this is probably not relevant to your game..
2. It lets you retry sequences for no/little cost by the time metric you are using (usually this is IGT where this could be a problem).
3. It makes the run boring (this one is dumb as well, but I kinda understand it).

This wallcrawl fits none of these.

kirbymastah

2015-07-02 12:43:31 pm

To be fair, as I mentioned, none of those cases you stated really talk about how we're negating the IGT it takes to kill yourself after hitting the checkpoint. Yes, nobody really cares, but there could potentially (at risk of a slippery slope) be other spots of checkpoint abuse where it's a lot more significant.

...though really, it doesn't take that long to kill yourself with hypermode corruption so I doubt that would ever happen

JustinDM

2015-07-02 02:02:58 pm

@andy , nope I don't plan on submitting to SDA.

Agreed, Kirby. The IGT between collecting nova beam and dying does NOT matter because what are you doing to progress? Nothing. You're dying. There is nothing wrong with losing it.

I would really like a definitive yes or no. This topic has been up for 6 months now and I was told that the community needs to decide before I actually use it in a run. :P

Hazel

2015-07-02 02:12:40 pm

rocks, locks, and invisible blocks

Who told you that?

Also you have a definite yes from me.

JustinDM

Edit history:

JustinDM: 2015-07-03 02:28:33 pm

JustinDM: 2015-07-03 01:16:32 am

JustinDM: 2015-07-02 02:30:09 pm

JustinDM: 2015-07-02 02:17:27 pm

JustinDM: 2015-07-02 02:17:19 pm

2015-07-02 02:16:21 pm

Kirby. Plus I don't want to get like 2:20 by using it and then have it voided because of an "uncertainty".

Also the tally:

Yes - 6
Ehh - 1
No - 2

Littlenino

2015-07-02 02:17:11 pm

For what it's worth, you have a yes from me as well. I have no qualms as long as one doesn't redo it a bajillion times for optimization sake.

JustinDM

2015-07-02 02:18:11 pm

Yea of course. This would be a one time wallcrawl in the run. Collect nova, leave.

kirbymastah

2015-07-02 02:27:59 pm

Should give this a few days for others to pitch in, particularly the eh/no people <_< It hasn't even been a day since this thread was revived. ~~Though miles is basically done with m2k2~~

I'm more indifferent about it, but if I had to choose I'd say Yes; there isn't really THAT much reason to say No besides make the run less interesting.

JustinDM

Edit history:

JustinDM: 2015-07-02 02:29:57 pm

2015-07-02 02:29:25 pm

~~You and~~ parax is the eh / no person lol.

rekameohs

2015-07-02 11:54:21 pm

Anywhere, everywhere

Yeah, do it. It's pretty interesting, so why not?