Final try to stop all leeching in Toki.

Discussion about MARP's regulation play

Moderator: BBH

What do we do about the leeching in Toki?

Poll ended at Sat Nov 02, 2002 8:48 pm

1 - Nothing, let's leech.
13
59%
2 - No leeching at all.
4
18%
3 - Leech on one life on Boss 1 & 2.
5
23%
 
Total votes: 22

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mahlemiut
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Post by mahlemiut »

Let's put it this way... How many here have felt hard done by when someone beats one of their score simply by leeching? Especially when far less skill is shown thoughout. I'd take skill over leeching anyday.
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Post by DaviL »

>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.

Yes, but if you leech and with last life you are able to finish the game your score will be highter. The better player will still be N°1. In a lot of game the secret for high score are to discover a bug or a sort of little leech.
I don't want to defend Destructor ( I'm still angry for X'Sleena) but I think this is not like X'S, were you can stay in a place to shot and gain lives forever. If this record is still in high Score, why to discuss Toki for much less ?
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Post by destructor »

DaviL wrote: This time i don't think Destructor leeching. Why finish a game with 4 lives left?
Frankie wrote: 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
I finished on last stage before last boss because my fingers hurts after leeching. I usually finished Toki 1 life only. This game is very very easy.

If after this vote leeching will be allowed i finished Toki with leeching :D ,
if not, I don't understand what will be counting points :? .
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Post by BBH »

I have to agree with the points that LN2 and Destructor have made in this thread. If you outlaw "leeching", then how do you determine who's the best player? There's no way to get a higher score than to spend extra time in some areas, so what's to stop someone from getting away with a few more seconds in certain spots in each level? Would confirmers have to watch recordings very carefully to make sure that nobody has violated the rules?

There is another way around this IMO. Implement some sort of bonus in the Special Rules that we add to the score based on the number of lives left over. Say, 200k for every life in reserve. There will still be leeching, yes... but it'll be how much you can get away with on one life, because if you fuck up and die or let time run out, say goodbye to a bigger bonus at the end. Is this really a fair way of determining who the "best" player is? I dunno... but it's something to consider.
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Post by The TJT »

If it's boring to watch it, wonder how boring it's playing it then :o
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Post by mahlemiut »

Well, he did say he was too tired to finish it. :)
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Post by Alpha »

BBH wrote:There is another way around this IMO. Implement some sort of bonus in the Special Rules that we add to the score based on the number of lives left over. Say, 200k for every life in reserve. There will still be leeching, yes... but it'll be how much you can get away with on one life, because if you fuck up and die or let time run out, say goodbye to a bigger bonus at the end. Is this really a fair way of determining who the "best" player is? I dunno... but it's something to consider.
I find that an excellent idea.
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Post by tmorrow »

Frankie wrote: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.
Boredom alone should not be sufficient to ban inp's, it is a subjective measure. This seems to be two bones of contention:

1. Many don't want to sit through the boring repetitive, cheesy leeching.
2. In order to get a top score other players will have to resort to the same cheesy leeching.

Clearly 2 makes 1 even worse. Unfortunately, easy games like Toki there really is no obvious way to get around these problems - even hardest setting doesn't help. I don't like the idea of artificial scoring (e.g. awarding bonus points for extra lives) as it forces people to play in an unnatural manner, not true to the arcade spirit.

Perhaps the punishment for leeching ought to be that no confirmer can be bothered to watch your inp (or gets pissed off after watching it) and so the inp doesn't get confirmed. If someone does confirm the inp then it is ok.
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Post by LN2 »

without watching the inp, how long does the flower seed shooting go on for?

Perhaps instead of the 200k/life which isn't a bad idea for this particular case. It would at least have it where you don't have to watch through many lives jujst shooting enemies at 1 spot until the timer for each of those runs out.

I agree BBH with the skill point but since when is the highest score for a game mean that player that got that score actually has the best skill for the game?

I think you just have certain games where the inps or even gameplay is boring and the high score doesn't really mean much. I don't think MARP should go adopting special rules except when absolutely necessary.

The reason of watching the inp is just too boring just doesn't seem to be a valid excuse to me. I'm sure when watching an inp like my 5-man q*bert run you get bored after the first couple of hours, if you watched it in realtime.

There is no golden law that all romsets must have high scores. Perhaps Toki should be one that's archived if many can complete it where the only score difference is based on leeching efficiency. Personally I think it's fine cuz anyone can do that if they choose. It does in the case of Toki result in a very boring game to play and to watch. However, that is getting a higher score without illegal leeching as described for other games cuz Toki doesn't have it. As we can see from the vote so far most agree with it despite the boring inp or playing it to obtain that score.
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Post by wuzel »

watching toki is boring? what about ninja kid 2 inp?? what about atomic robokid?? what about...... nothing comes 2 mine mind at this moment...but there are more bored inps that toki by des.
i really admire his play. a used 2 play toki at my local arcade but i have never been so good. only 2 see his performance at this games its worth 2 see that inp
i dont understand what is this all about... what about my unconfirmed inps for trojan? is this leeching? why nobody wants 2 say sth about that im waiting for about 3 months now.....and the toki case is still nr one? cant u just let the leeching go for this game or maybe the lobby of moderators and old members is so furious becasue they all playing toki ??
in some games where u dont gain points for quick finish of each stage (like in robocop) the only way to max your score is 2 find a place to leech or to gain some more points by shooting the right spot or sth else
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RE

Post by QRS »

Allow me to quote this from the MARP rules page :

"f) Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list. "

I don´t say that this is a rule (please don´t missunderstad this) I´m only saying that we should try to get rid of boring replays like this. That goes for all games, not just Toki.

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Re: RE

Post by tmorrow »

QRS wrote:f) Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list.
A meaningless rule since leeching in not clearly defined and never can be because it is a subjective concept and everyones view is slightly different. So is boredom, what bores one person is interesting to another.

The vote we are having is mostly pointless, this one seems to be drifting to the 'leech like crazy' preference. In 6 months after watching a 100 leeched toki inp's and taking the same issue to a vote again we may get a completely different result - even if the same set of people vote!

Remember, if don't believe in the leech technique, you don't have to use it. You won't get a high score but we all know that a high score is only one measure of skillful play (an in some cases not a good measure at all). On MARP we are and have always placed too high an emphasis on score alone, but that too is unlikely to change.
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Post by wuzel »

maybe i m 2 stupid but all i can see about leeching her is the fact that watching the inps with leeching technigue is boring
but the first contact with inp like that where u can see that someone discovered sth new is for me a very ql experience.
there are many inps as bored as for toki and xain sleena (for example : the clone of tiger road) what about them??? why they are confirmed as first place?? for me the leeching technigue in this clone of tiger road is very ql and when i saw the description "i will show u the leeching technique" i was really curious what and how and where....
this is fun

Sometimes leeching is fun :-)
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leeching

Post by gameguru »

if u can gain extra lives within a leech period (a life) then it should be banned!

If however you don't gain lives then no problemo?

Use can always press F10 to speed up the recording!

later

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Post by Chad »

I think boring is not the word to describe "bad" leeching. More like, bad leeching is only "repetative ungameworthy activities": seems like a better description of the kind of leeching that isn't admirable to watch. When you sit down next to a warm coin dispenser to watch the replay of a game, are you really going to study the # of times each leeched point is acrued? No sometimes; Yes others. A line needs to be drawn (proly on a case by case basis) what is good leeching and what is bad leeching. Ghosts and Goblins had Bad/boring/Ungameworthy Leeching. I don't care how many zombies are killed on the cave stage or what skill it takes to get a trilling/billion or million zombies, that's for a tricks tips page. The gameworthy part to watch is the part of the ghosts and goblins where leeching isn't going on.

Marp having a general rule against leeching is so we can appriciate the skills of players who play the game better and not who can leech better. Sometimes, what is called leeching IS really how you play the game, and thus why we have discusions...
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