Autofire

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Beejay mentioned a few posts back about whether autofire should be used in recordings. I have suggested to Angry that this be voted on in a similar manner to the game ban lists, if say 10 people vote against it, then autofire is not allowed, and all games that use it will be banned.

Of course there is no solid proof to know if a person is using autofire or not, but it is usually pretty easy to spot.

-- JSW (jwilson@sv.net.au), January 12, 1999

Answers

re: Autofire

I have several new items to add to the voting list for banning game techniques/cheats. Since there are so many open items right now, I thought I'd let the dust settle a bit and clear the board out before adding to the vote list.

In the future, I'll try to have no more than 5 open items at once.

=Angry=

-- Angry (greggg@ix.netcom.com), January 13, 1999.


I agree with you...

JSW,

Only because this wasn't a option as part of the original controls on just about all the games from the past. But then again, neither is using a keyboard... Keyboard controls still doesn't compare to a human being able to hit a button 10-20 times a sec.!

Just my 2 cents.

Steve Krogman

-- Stephen Krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), January 14, 1999.


Agree with Steve

I agree with Steve. You guys are getting paranoid, it might be just me but the top scorers on this page seem to want to ban all teqniques that are "a little different" than normal,that they dont use themselves. But then again they defend their own teqniques. About points leeching, if a game allowed it in the arcade, there were certainly people who would do it,so if it was possible on the real games,why should it now be allowed for mame. Instead you could have highscores only for completed games.

Stig Remnes

-- Stig Remnes (sremnes@samsen.com), January 14, 1999.


autofires NO - playtactics ???

add another vote for NO AUTOFIRES....reasoning ? well, if you need an autofire then you shouldnt be playing ^_^ afterall, pushing fire buttons all day builds up um...something ? resistance to ??? i dunno...but if you need an auto on mame, then you DIDNT play it in the arcades eh ?

as for playtactics... a little different ? well, in the arcades points leeching wasnt really required as MOST games back then didnt store highscores. when they were off the scores would reset. people on here are just abusing leeching. i WILL defend my techniques to the end...i dont leech...but if SOMEONE leeched to beat one of my scores, HELL YEAH id leech to get that score back as it WASNT I who started teh leech war off...a fine example of this was the IMFAMOUS (to me anyway ^_^) black tiger BBH skeleton leech...sure i thought that was some of THE most grabby of points play id ever seen just to get a 1st place on a game...but if you can leech on a game i play, i CAN do it better...

and its not like id HOG an arcade machine for hours like Steve Krogman does on galaga :) unless it was absolutely necessary

LEECHING SUCKS, and i notice only the points grabby people do it on games they cant play very well...

however i must commend JGustavo (MC GUSTO) on his legendary inps on legendary wings (3 sets)...a TRU PLAYA if ever i saw another one :)

Krool 1 coin to start - continues DISABLED

-- Krool (kellyq@ihug.co.nz), January 15, 1999.


the most infamous points leeching ever?!

aw come on Krool, you make me sound like some despicable skill-less player. ;)

Maybe I did go a bit too far on that old Black Tiger recording, but let's face it... when the game has a timer AND a forced ending, you want to get every last point out of it, right? And the best way to raise your score is to kill those skeletons... and near the end just use all your lives killing them, then finish the game on your last life. I could have finished the game on one life, but I chose not to for a higher score... I think if you can PLAY the game then it's ok :)

Heck, there's a similar situation in Robocop... getting the highest score involves activating the Level 3 score bug as soon as you can, then waiting as long as possible building those points while leaving enough time (and Cobra Gun shots) to destroy the cranes at the end of the level.

-BBH

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.bom), January 17, 1999.



I would like to see the use of autofire banned or at least the auto/noauto games should be in separate categories. The reason for this is simple, the use of autofire is an advantage - the same player will get higher scores with the use auotofire than without.

If we don't aim for a level playing field with equality for all players then the whole point of hi-scores is meaningless. I would hate to see the hi-scores table become a matter of who's got the most souped up joystick.

Take for example starforc. Currently, the 1st place starforc playback uses autofire and reaches stage 20. The players impressive score is higher than my best effort of reaching stage 27 playing on an actual arcade machine I have at home (completing all 24 levels of the greek alphabet + 3 infinity levels). In my game I played 7 more levels (the really hard ones) but got a lesser score. The reason for the score difference rests on one factor - firepower, I can't press the fire button 20 shots/sec. Our game styles don't differ by much, it's just that in a fixed scrolling game with more enemies than you can shoot at any given time, the auto fire will win everytime. My point here is that I think that reaching stage 27 in starforc is a far more difficult and impressive feat than reaching stage 20 with turbo fire, but that doesn't reflect in game score which would place the auto fire first. I believe this anomaly applies to most games, especially shoot-em-ups.

I for one will always prefer playing back a game recorded by someone who is using actual game skills to fight their way through a level rather than a higher scoring game by someone using brute force fire power and lesser skill. Unfortunately game skill does not exactly equate to higher scores so many great recording won't get a look in unless this problem is addressed.

The problem is of course that it is hard to prove that someone is using autofire (unless they have admitted it). This means that each suspicious recording has to be put to a vote - which is of course a subjective approach. It would be great if an objective test could be developed, but it seems hard to think of one.

This issue is one of 3 that I am concerned about. The other 2 issues are the use of slow motion software when recording and pausing midgame to take a break and coming back refreshed. There are solutions to those two issue though, I'll raise these as a separate board item.

Cheers, Tim

-- Tim Morrow (tjmorrow@bigpond.com), September 18, 1999.


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