Timing used in fusion

Edit history:

JamJam: 2014-06-02 04:38:03 pm

JamJam: 2014-06-02 04:34:35 pm

2014-06-02 01:13:27 am

Obviously this topic has kind of been pounded into the ground, but seeing as there is like a 5 way tie for third in any% now, I felt it was time to bring it up again. Just using IGT doesn't really seem like a preferable option going forward, since everyone will lose the ability to compare to each other, and the game will stagnate about the top times (45-47). RTA on its own would also not work because of a plethora of problems( emulators, japanese/chinese, buffering, people not wanting to optimized text...) RTA I feel can be used to settle the ever growing backlog of ties, even if it isn't a perfect reflection of the skill in a run, it comes close. This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them. This would also penalize buffering, but again this seems fair given how broken buffering is in fusion and the advantages it provides. The big problem would be emulators, as they have an inherent advantage in real time, and the only real solution I can think of is to come up with some consistent penalty based on the length of the run, though this would still not perfectly correct the problem. Unless someone can come up with a better solution than this, we should probably start solving these dumb ties with RTA, so fusion can start being competitive.

Current consensus: (listing RTA times besides IGT and sorting comparable times

0:46 runner1 (1:18:30 - ENG console)
0:46 runner2 (1:18:40 - ENG console)
0:46 runner3 (1:18:00 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner4 (1:18:10 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner5 (1:13:00 - JP emu)
0:46 runner6 (1:13:10 - JP emu)

the ordering of the version would just be kinda arbitrary, and at the top of the leaderboards thread, it should be made clear that time comparisons can't be directly made between different versions.

Thread title:

Obviously this topic has kind of been pounded into the ground, but seeing as there is like a 5 way tie for third in any% now, I felt it was time to bring it up again. Just using IGT doesn't really seem like a preferable option going forward, since everyone will lose the ability to compare to each other, and the game will stagnate about the top times (45-47). RTA on its own would also not work because of a plethora of problems( emulators, japanese/chinese, buffering, people not wanting to optimized text...) RTA I feel can be used to settle the ever growing backlog of ties, even if it isn't a perfect reflection of the skill in a run, it comes close. This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them. This would also penalize buffering, but again this seems fair given how broken buffering is in fusion and the advantages it provides. The big problem would be emulators, as they have an inherent advantage in real time, and the only real solution I can think of is to come up with some consistent penalty based on the length of the run, though this would still not perfectly correct the problem. Unless someone can come up with a better solution than this, we should probably start solving these dumb ties with RTA, so fusion can start being competitive.

Current consensus: (listing RTA times besides IGT and sorting comparable times

0:46 runner1 (1:18:30 - ENG console)
0:46 runner2 (1:18:40 - ENG console)
0:46 runner3 (1:18:00 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner4 (1:18:10 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner5 (1:13:00 - JP emu)
0:46 runner6 (1:13:10 - JP emu)

the ordering of the version would just be kinda arbitrary, and at the top of the leaderboards thread, it should be made clear that time comparisons can't be directly made between different versions.

samthedigital

Edit history:

samthedigital: 2014-06-02 01:52:01 am

2014-06-02 01:50:10 am

I don't really run Fusion, so my opinion is kind of invalid. I'm going to give you my two cents anyway though.

"RTA on its own would also not work because of a plethora of problems( emulators, japanese/chinese, buffering, people not wanting to optimized text...)"

I don't think that any of those things is a problem. If the game is being optimized for real time then text naturally has to be optimized and pause buffering has a larger cost than it currently has. More on the rest later though.

"This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them."

I personally don't mind people using the Japanese version of the game to get an advantage, but I would definitely ban the Chinese version. It seems unfair that a person who has the Chinese version should have an advantage just because they could find a copy of the cart while no one else could. If the Chinese version is indeed more common I don't really care, but it doesn't seem to be easily available.

"The big problem would be emulators, as they have an inherent advantage in real time, and the only real solution I can think of is to come up with some consistent penalty based on the length of the run, though this would still not perfectly correct the problem."

We could just put them in separate categories unless someone figured out how much time emulators gain or lose. There is no perfect solution here though. I prefer runs done on console just because they are official versions of the game, but this isn't something that's exactly black and white anyway.

If we discount emulators from the conversation all we are doing is putting more of an influence on text mashing and giving people a penalty for pause buffering. It doesn't really change much fundamentally about the game. It's still played the same way and everything (except that there would actually be seconds instead of the game cutting important information). This is why I would rather see full rta than anything else.

If only Fusion had seconds at the end =(.

I don't really run Fusion, so my opinion is kind of invalid. I'm going to give you my two cents anyway though.

"RTA on its own would also not work because of a plethora of problems( emulators, japanese/chinese, buffering, people not wanting to optimized text...)"

I don't think that any of those things is a problem. If the game is being optimized for real time then text naturally has to be optimized and pause buffering has a larger cost than it currently has. More on the rest later though.

"This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them."

I personally don't mind people using the Japanese version of the game to get an advantage, but I would definitely ban the Chinese version. It seems unfair that a person who has the Chinese version should have an advantage just because they could find a copy of the cart while no one else could. If the Chinese version is indeed more common I don't really care, but it doesn't seem to be easily available.

"The big problem would be emulators, as they have an inherent advantage in real time, and the only real solution I can think of is to come up with some consistent penalty based on the length of the run, though this would still not perfectly correct the problem."

We could just put them in separate categories unless someone figured out how much time emulators gain or lose. There is no perfect solution here though. I prefer runs done on console just because they are official versions of the game, but this isn't something that's exactly black and white anyway.

If we discount emulators from the conversation all we are doing is putting more of an influence on text mashing and giving people a penalty for pause buffering. It doesn't really change much fundamentally about the game. It's still played the same way and everything (except that there would actually be seconds instead of the game cutting important information). This is why I would rather see full rta than anything else.

If only Fusion had seconds at the end =(.

BioSpark

2014-06-02 01:55:23 am

how about:
everyone uses english
still go for in-game time
ties are broken with rta

samthedigital

2014-06-02 01:56:07 am

that's what jamillton suggested
what about emulators though?

BioSpark

2014-06-02 01:57:47 am

another idea:
not care who's better than who and just play the game

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 12:02:39 pm

2014-06-02 11:57:27 am

Quote from BioSpark:

another idea:
not care who's better than who and just play the game

I honestly don't really care about the ties in 0:47 (and maybe the eventual 0:46 ties). And the ties don't really seem to make much of a difference in its "competitiveness"; people race to have fun, and I still see a new runner or two pop up practically every month despite the in-game time. And as you mentioned, the biggest problem would be emulator; over half the runners (including new ones I see) use emulator, and going by real-time would only hurt the community by not allowing them to run emulator (or having them run a "different category").

Is it a problem? Yeah, but I honestly don't really see any other way around it that doesn't screw over a big chunk of runners. It's so much more simple to just go purely by one timing method, and going by RTA poses many more problems than in-game time.

EDIT: Also, to copy a post I made on an SDA thread asking about metroid timing:

Quote:

Also, my personal opinion on why I think it's not the worst thing in the world to go by in-game time that doesn't show seconds, is that yes, someone with a high 50 minute run will be "tied" with someone with a low 50 minute run, for example. IN GENERAL, if someone has such a low 50 minute run, that runner is clearly capable of obtaining a 49, so eventually that will be distinguished. Again, this is just my own opinion and isn't always quite the case, but I personally think people exaggerate the issue of "oh no, 50:00 is the same as 50:59!!!" a bit too much, because it realistically doesn't happen very often. And when it does, in the long run, the person with the low time improves it by the minute. Again, of course it would be much nicer if the in-game timer showed seconds, but IMO the issue is exaggerate a LOT.

This is mainly an issue in metroid fusion, since mistakes in fusion aren't very punishing compared to metroid primes. So two people who differ by, say, 3-4 mistakes will probably still be within the same minute. Compare that with metroid prime 1+2, where one mistake can cost 1-2 minutes easily (example: phendrana's edge). Two people who differ by 1-2 "minor" mistakes will easily have times that differ by over one minute. And believe me, metroid prime 1+2 is VERY difficult to optimize.

[quote="BioSpark"]another idea:
not care who's better than who and just play the game[/quote]

I honestly don't really care about the ties in 0:47 (and maybe the eventual 0:46 ties). And the ties don't really seem to make much of a difference in its "competitiveness"; people race to have fun, and I still see a new runner or two pop up practically every month despite the in-game time. And as you mentioned, the biggest problem would be emulator; over half the runners (including new ones I see) use emulator, and going by real-time would only hurt the community by not allowing them to run emulator (or having them run a "different category").

Is it a problem? Yeah, but I honestly don't really see any other way around it that doesn't screw over a big chunk of runners. It's so much more simple to just go purely by one timing method, and going by RTA poses many more problems than in-game time.

EDIT: Also, to copy a post I made on an SDA thread asking about metroid timing:

[quote]
Also, my personal opinion on why I think it's not the worst thing in the world to go by in-game time that doesn't show seconds, is that yes, someone with a high 50 minute run will be "tied" with someone with a low 50 minute run, for example. IN GENERAL, if someone has such a low 50 minute run, that runner is clearly capable of obtaining a 49, so eventually that will be distinguished. Again, this is just my own opinion and isn't always quite the case, but I personally think people exaggerate the issue of "oh no, 50:00 is the same as 50:59!!!" a bit too much, because it realistically doesn't happen very often. And when it does, in the long run, the person with the low time improves it by the minute. Again, of course it would be much nicer if the in-game timer showed seconds, but IMO the issue is exaggerate a LOT.

This is mainly an issue in metroid fusion, since mistakes in fusion aren't very punishing compared to metroid primes. So two people who differ by, say, 3-4 mistakes will probably still be within the same minute. Compare that with metroid prime 1+2, where one mistake can cost 1-2 minutes easily (example: phendrana's edge). Two people who differ by 1-2 "minor" mistakes will easily have times that differ by over one minute. And believe me, metroid prime 1+2 is VERY difficult to optimize.[/quote]

Mobiusman

2014-06-02 12:21:14 pm

If rta is used to break ties you could still list emulator times on the leaderboard, but have them be at the bottom of the tie. so we'd have bio/kirby as #1-2, jam/secretkey/jagger as #3-5, and fangs/kahnoob as #6-7 (with each of those groups sorted by rta). It's still kind of an obnoxious penalty but only at the top level; it shouldn't be any discouragement for new players using emu.

as for banning jp or not, I guess that depends on whether you think saving 20s every reset is worth spending $40 or whatever to import it

Kahdoom

2014-06-02 12:22:11 pm

\o/

I think friendly competition is always fun and if there was a consistent penalty we could put on emulators in order to break IG ties then its pretty much the same as racing rules. When we race we don't have a tie because three people got 0:48 its separated by in game time which is fair enough everyone has their strong areas of the game and try an optimize everything whether its counted towards in game or not. But i'd rather use RTA as a solution to separating the ties rather than have RTA used in instead of in game completely.

kirbymastah

2014-06-02 01:27:21 pm

IMO versions shouldn't really be banned, which IGT eliminates the "unfair" advantages that JP/Chinese versions give over NTSC, yet doesn't really outright ban the versions.

I don't really disagree with what mobius suggested; the thing is IMO it's just that it's ultimately arbitrary and may discourage using other console versions; the best thing about IGT really, is the fact that the version you play doesn't matter at all. I agree with kahdoom that IGT should always be the final determining factor, and at minimum, RTA can be a tiebreaker between same versions.

But I still stick by what biospark said personally :P

samthedigital

2014-06-02 01:39:05 pm

"Also, my personal opinion on why I think it's not the worst thing in the world to go by in-game time that doesn't show seconds, is that yes, someone with a high 50 minute run will be "tied" with someone with a low 50 minute run, for example. IN GENERAL, if someone has such a low 50 minute run, that runner is clearly capable of obtaining a 49, so eventually that will be distinguished. Again, this is just my own opinion and isn't always quite the case, but I personally think people exaggerate the issue of "oh no, 50:00 is the same as 50:59!!!" a bit too much, because it realistically doesn't happen very often. And when it does, in the long run, the person with the low time improves it by the minute. Again, of course it would be much nicer if the in-game timer showed seconds, but IMO the issue is exaggerate a LOT."

My problem with your argument here is that you aren't saying that game time is better, but that it's not that much worse than using real time. I'd argue that seconds are more important than you give them credit for though. It doesn't matter if a run is 5 seconds or 50 seconds faster because there's still an obvious difference even if the game doesn't display it.

The main thing though is that if ties happen in the current system the person who got the tied score first is higher on the leaderboard. It's not always going to be possible to just be a minute faster than the current record, so eventually it will be nearly impossible for someone to beat a world record. That doesn't seem to be very competitive in my opinion.

On a side note just imagining Zero Mission not having seconds...

"Also, my personal opinion on why I think it's not the worst thing in the world to go by in-game time that doesn't show seconds, is that yes, someone with a high 50 minute run will be "tied" with someone with a low 50 minute run, for example. IN GENERAL, if someone has such a low 50 minute run, that runner is clearly capable of obtaining a 49, so eventually that will be distinguished. Again, this is just my own opinion and isn't always quite the case, but I personally think people exaggerate the issue of "oh no, 50:00 is the same as 50:59!!!" a bit too much, because it realistically doesn't happen very often. And when it does, in the long run, the person with the low time improves it by the minute. Again, of course it would be much nicer if the in-game timer showed seconds, but IMO the issue is exaggerate a LOT."

My problem with your argument here is that you aren't saying that game time is better, but that it's not that much worse than using real time. I'd argue that seconds are more important than you give them credit for though. It doesn't matter if a run is 5 seconds or 50 seconds faster because there's still an obvious difference even if the game doesn't display it. 
    
The main thing though is that if ties happen in the current system the person who got the tied score first is higher on the leaderboard. It's not always going to be possible to just be a minute faster than the current record, so eventually it will be nearly impossible for someone to beat a world record. That doesn't seem to be very competitive in my opinion.

On a side note just imagining Zero Mission not having seconds...

JamJam

2014-06-02 03:53:13 pm

I still see no harm in just using RTA to solve the ties, since it is more fair than putting people above each other based on who got the time first. They can all still be officially tied, but the board can reflect that one persons run is slightly better. As for emulators, another option could just be ignoring the time gain and treating the RTA times just like consoles, like we do in racing.

samthedigital

2014-06-02 03:55:19 pm

Making emulator the go to version of the game isn't a good idea in my opinion especially considering the Chinese version of the game is so easy to access there.

JamJam

2014-06-02 03:59:23 pm

well again we could just handle it like racing, where we force people to use english if they want to have a comparable RTA, and otherwise just ignore their RTA.

Mobiusman

2014-06-02 04:04:13 pm

jam, don't you think it would be fairer to have the emu times at the bottom of ties than at the top of them?

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 04:09:33 pm

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 04:07:40 pm

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 04:07:08 pm

2014-06-02 04:06:59 pm

Well sam, the entire point is that it's exaggerated, and I still think this is exaggerated a lot :P So what you're saying isn't wrong.

As for RTA to resolve ties, again I dont completely disagree with that. Just to throw out one issue that hasn't really been mentioned yet: the problem of requiring a timer/splits and even more video proof is really inconvenient. Just throwing that out there, because one of the best things about in-game time is that you need no tools besides the game+console itself. I can just do a speedrun in a car or on the airplane or without worrying about my splits crashing or whatever; my computer crashed in the middle of my metroid prime any% run but it's still a valid PB. Again, it doesn't really have much to do with the competitiveness, but it's definitely a point to consider IMO. (EDIT: Also a lot of runs on the current leaderboards don't have RTA times nor videos, so are you just going to leave them alone? It seems unfair to just rank them at the bottom because they could very definitely have IGT times close to the minute barrier)

And if you're going to treat emulator equally with RTA, then literally everyone would just go play on emulator to have a "better time" which is stupid. So basically you'll have to force everyone to play english console, which again gets rid of half the runners, and I seriously don't want the community to go in a direction where they have to play on one single version. Basically, you can't compare emulator and console RTA times equally.

Well sam, the entire point is that it's exaggerated, and I still think this is exaggerated a lot :P So what you're saying isn't wrong.

As for RTA to resolve ties, again I dont completely disagree with that. Just to throw out one issue that hasn't really been mentioned yet: the problem of requiring a timer/splits and even more video proof is really inconvenient. Just throwing that out there, because one of the best things about in-game time is that you need no tools besides the game+console itself. I can just do a speedrun in a car or on the airplane or without worrying about my splits crashing or whatever; my computer crashed in the middle of my metroid prime any% run but it's still a valid PB. Again, it doesn't really have much to do with the competitiveness, but it's definitely a point to consider IMO. (EDIT: Also a lot of runs on the current leaderboards don't have RTA times nor videos, so are you just going to leave them alone? It seems unfair to just rank them at the bottom because they could very definitely have IGT times close to the minute barrier)

And if you're going to treat emulator equally with RTA, then literally everyone would just go play on emulator to have a "better time" which is stupid. So basically you'll have to force everyone to play english console, which again gets rid of half the runners, and I seriously don't want the community to go in a direction where they have to play on one single version. Basically, you can't compare emulator and console RTA times equally.

JamJam

2014-06-02 04:17:06 pm

I think its's not that unreasonable to expect an rta time for a speedrun, and most of the people with top times still in the community could probably provide it from splits. I don't really have an answer to the problem of making emulator preferable or causing languages difference(people who play in french, german, etc..). At the least I think we should keep track of RTA times, even if it will never be fair to sort by them, just to provide a bit more information about each run.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 04:26:50 pm

kirbymastah: 2014-06-02 04:24:25 pm

2014-06-02 04:20:43 pm

I don't think there's a problem with listing RTA times aside each leaderboard time, as long as it's made clear what version it's on. The ordering could always be something like this:

0:46 runner1 (1:18:30 - ENG console)
0:46 runner2 (1:18:40 - ENG console)
0:46 runner3 (1:18:00 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner4 (1:18:10 - ENG emu)
0:46 runner5 (1:13:00 - JP emu)
0:46 runner6 (1:13:10 - JP emu)

the ordering of the version would just be kinda arbitrary, and at the top of the leaderboards thread, it should be made clear that time comparisons can't be directly made between different versions.

~~One major reason, and the #1 reason we shouldn't do this though is that it'd be way more work for me to update the leaderboards and I'm a lazy bum~~

UchihaSasuke

2014-06-02 04:47:17 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

we could also take the tedious route and cut down the videos to the gameplay sections that the IGT counts and time those to determine who was faaster. it would require dedication but at least it will leave clear who played better.
this approach can let any version compete since things like text wouldn't matter. one thing that's iffy is pause buffering since it occurs during gameplay but the timer only counts the frames that are gameplay.

Dragonfangs

2014-06-02 05:00:20 pm

I agree with most of the consensus in this thread. I'm fine with emulator automatically losing ties to console, doing anything else would require way too much work or be unfair towards console runners. Running on emulator should just be a substitute for the lazy/cheap anyway.

Quote from samthedigital:

"This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them."

I personally don't mind people using the Japanese version of the game to get an advantage, but I would definitely ban the Chinese version. It seems unfair that a person who has the Chinese version should have an advantage just because they could find a copy of the cart while no one else could. If the Chinese version is indeed more common I don't really care, but it doesn't seem to be easily available.

This I don't agree with however, either go with one version or allow all. Banning one because it's "hard to find" makes zero sense to me. Everyone here is using english anyway so I say we enforce that for now. Maybe let other languages also lose ties to english?

Personally though, I don't even care too much about the leaderboards. Unless I'm in an actual race, the only one I'm trying to beat is myself.

I agree with most of the consensus in this thread. I'm fine with emulator automatically losing ties to console, doing anything else would require way too much work or be unfair towards console runners. Running on emulator should just be a substitute for the lazy/cheap anyway.

[quote="samthedigital"]"This would give an obvious advantage to people who speedrun on japanese/chinese cartridges, but TBH they went out of there way to play on the faster version, so it seems fair to give that to them."

I personally don't mind people using the Japanese version of the game to get an advantage, but I would definitely ban the Chinese version. It seems unfair that a person who has the Chinese version should have an advantage just because they could find a copy of the cart while no one else could. If the Chinese version is indeed more common I don't really care, but it doesn't seem to be easily available.[/quote]

This I don't agree with however, either go with one version or allow all. Banning one because it's "hard to find" makes zero sense to me. Everyone here is using english anyway so I say we enforce that for now. Maybe let other languages also lose ties to english?

Personally though, I don't even care too much about the leaderboards. Unless I'm in an actual race, the only one I'm trying to beat is myself.

Mobiusman

2014-06-02 05:04:47 pm

I don't really believe anyone will ever run on a chinese cart so that shouldn't be an issue. whether people want to put japanese ahead or behind english is pretty arbitrary so just pick.

samthedigital

2014-06-02 05:14:53 pm

fangs, allowing any version that is nearly impossible to find just because it's faster is really not competitive. That's my main issue with the Chinese version, and I think it makes a good deal of sense.

Secretkey

Edit history:

Secretkey: 2014-06-02 05:29:04 pm

Secretkey: 2014-06-02 05:28:15 pm

2014-06-02 05:27:21 pm

My humble opinion:

I like the idea of competition in speedrunning and being able to compare times to each other, so I'd definitely suggest using RTA for ties (only!) I don't see any issues with that - if you don't care about text optimization or buffer a lot it's your own choice as a runner.

(Raising the question - at a RTA tie, who is the better player? The one buffering having an IGT advantage or the one reaching that same RTA without pause buffering? )

Anyways - so RTA for ties and emulator times being lower by default (although I understand too less about emulators to come up with something more concrete).

As for version difference - I honestly don't care too much and I don't think any version should be banned. You know, I really enjoy being part in this community. People are fair and friendly and I don't believe anybody here would be such a jerk insisting he would be the better runner, only because he chose the japanese version.

BioSpark

2014-06-02 05:31:55 pm

so it seems like most people agree with:

sort by in-game
ties are broken with english console rta
emulator times or other languages are automatically placed at bottom for ties

Kahdoom

2014-06-02 05:40:51 pm

\o/

I mean if we knew the time that emulator saves over console we could use that time as a penalty as well as the Jp and Chinese versions which we knew exact times for.

Secretkey

Edit history:

Secretkey: 2014-06-02 05:43:59 pm

2014-06-02 05:41:34 pm

Does anybody here have an idea if that's even possible on a technical level?