Pacmania question

Discussion about MARP's regulation play

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BeeJay
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by BeeJay »

PP. wrote:Let's come to the point,

as time passes in a stage, you lose your jumping ability(jump goes smaller).

If Rank C means that you lose this ability later than in Rank B, then Rank C is easier.
If the manufacturer says that 'B' is 'Standard' and 'C' is 'Hard' then they have the best inside knowledge to state that as a fact. What that 'harder' setting actually changes is entirely up to them as the manufacturer, but as far as the Marp rules are concerned you can play on default or harder settings, but not easier settings.
PP. wrote:Is this manual from the arcade version? Don't forget that we're talking only for mame.
Yes, it is from the arcade version. It should be fairly easy to infer this is the arcade version from the screen shot as well as you're not going to see a manual for a home/console version of a game mentioning coin options, attract sound, cabinet style, flip screen, etc.

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PP.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by PP. »

BeeJay wrote: If the manufacturer says that 'B' is 'Standard' and 'C' is 'Hard' then they have the best inside knowledge to state that as a fact. What that 'harder' setting actually changes is entirely up to them as the manufacturer, but as far as the Marp rules are concerned you can play on default or harder settings, but not easier settings.
Do we know what the manufacturer says about the mame version of Pacmania?
Is 'C' harder or easier than 'B' ?
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mahlemiut
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by mahlemiut »

PP. wrote:Do we know what the manufacturer says about the mame version of Pacmania?
Is 'C' harder or easier than 'B' ?
Why would you think that it'd be any different?
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PP.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by PP. »

mahlemiut wrote: Why would you think that it'd be any different?
You mean that settings in arcades and in mame are always the same?
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MJS
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by MJS »

PP. wrote:
mahlemiut wrote: Why would you think that it'd be any different?
You mean that settings in arcades and in mame are always the same?
Unless there is a bug in MAME, yes.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by mahlemiut »

PP. wrote:You mean that settings in arcades and in mame are always the same?
Why wouldn't they be? MAME runs the arcade game code, after all. DIP switches are just inputs to the game.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by BeeJay »

PP. wrote:Do we know what the manufacturer says about the mame version of Pacmania?
Is 'C' harder or easier than 'B' ?
Um, the 'e' of Mame is 'emulator'. All Mame does is provide an emulated environment in which to run the original manufacturers game logic. The original manufacturer's game logic has no knowledge of the fact that it's running in an emulated environment, rather than on the original arcade hardware.

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Re: Pacmania question

Post by Despatche »

Again, it needs to be understood that Pac-Mania uses soft dips, from which defaults can be reached by a button press. Arcade standards dictate that there are four difficulties and the second of these is the default, which the B of Pac-Mania's ABCD most definitely is. Sometimes this is blown up to eight difficulties and the fourth is the default, which is largely the same. One of these two isn't always the case--sometimes a game might use the absolute easiest difficultly, for example--but it is the case for the absolute vast majority of games. If C actually is easier than B somehow, then the other difficulties need to be checked and compared too.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by mahlemiut »

While it is entirely possible for documentation to be wrong, I'd be inclined to think that Namco has gotten difficulty settings pretty much right after using this same difficulty Rank setup for a fair while. You have evidence that the manual is wrong?
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by Despatche »

I am 100% in agreement with you, and am only trying (and obviously failing) to clarify the situation for PP. I'm also pretty sure Namco got this right, barring some mysterious Pac-Mania-exclusive bug. I'm not sure why only B and C are being considered here, when A and D should also be checked.

edit: oh. oop
Last edited by Despatche on Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pacmania question

Post by mahlemiut »

My answer is more aimed at PP, who seems to have a bit of trouble figuring this out. ;)
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