tournament 2023 VGS NES Weekly Contest - Tournament Finals!

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

17 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

I did make a couple efforts at the 100 yard dash. Even a few quick playthroughs destroyed my thumbs, and I got nowhere scorewise. Being out of the running, it was easy to say no thanks on that..

I had a feeling that was what happened. When we played Track & Field, I felt it for weeks. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:07 AM, BlackVega said:

I can understand throwing accusations under suspicions of cheating because there were some bad apples caught in the past. Billy Mitchell is probably the most popular example of that and exposing him was very good for the entire community but hey, you were just throwing guesses about how this game works and you are factually wrong here. Next time you accuse someone of cheating you better have absolutely hardcore evidence because if you are unsure (like here) you can create a very bad and disgusting situation for no reason. That was an extremely dick move on your side. Honestly if I was that stupid enough I wouldn't care and just manipulated my previous runs to almost 100% TAS levels of score according to that logic. Also you shouldn't throw arguments that are opinionated

@BlackVega I wasn't throwing accusations "because there were some bad apples caught in the past;" it was because everything I saw from you in this tournament was bizarre and seemed out of place.  First of all, I missed like half the season, so I wasn't around whenever Battletoads & Double Dragon was played and your scores were initially called into question, or any other weeks there after - I didn't know you from Adam heading into these last three weeks, so if you're legit, then all hail to the King, but here's how it all looked from a regular Joe's perspective:

So we all played Boulder Dash out of the gate, on literally the toughest conditions possible, and none of us are able to even get out of the first stage -except- this one new guy I've never heard of who has no-deathed the entire final world!  Wow, that's strange, unless this guy happens to be ungodly at action-puzzle games or something, but whatever, we'll give him benefit of the doubt.

Next up we have Galaga and Commando.  On Commando you make one really strange comment about how you got to the third level without shooting a single dude!?  Very odd again, since I've played through it dozens and dozens of times by this point and not once have I seen all the enemies vacate the screen on their own at a level-ending base, never mind twice in the same run.  But once again, maybe you've got a killer strat or something, I don't know.  As for Galaga, you post an insane score with all (or almost all) of your reserve ships unused on Stage 31, meaning you either no-deathed to that point or you died maybe a single time.  Once again, that is absolutely insane!  Not many people are operating at that level for shooters, that's for sure.  It took me many many hours to do it, and I limped over the finish line with one ship in reserve to come in second place.

And now we come to the piece de resistance: the final week.  At this point you're five points up on me and the entire field has basically checked out of serious competition other than you and I and maybe PII; all you need to do to secure an easy tournament win is come in second place in both categories of this two or three horse race, at the absolute worst.  So what do you do?  You spend hours and hours learning Rolling Thunder inside and out and developing this crazy strat that no one else in the world has ever thought of based on aspects of the game no one has ever even considered in order to put up a ridiculous score that rolls the counter and goes over a million points, with a half-mill score below it for back up!!!!  Does that not seem even the least bit bizarre to you?  Is there like a 20k cash prize I don't know about or something?  FYI, here's what you actually needed to do in order to win this tournament: beat 2-8 and get to 2-9 before snapping your pic: yeah, literally beat one level, probably half an hour's work, and you're done, but instead you spend all this effort in developing one of the most obscure and singular-use strats in the history of video games: point-scumming the final boss of Rolling Thunder to beat one other guy in a tournament that you've already clinched!?!  So many questions come to mind:

-Why did you feel you needed to point-scum at all when progress was the marker and almost no one was even going to beat the game?
-How did you decide on the final boss as the target for your objective?
-How did you know the clock stops on the boss so that it's even feasible? (Seriously, who's looking at the clock during an intense final battle?)
-How did you know that running out of bullets wouldn't be an issue due to their replenishment rate?
-How did you know that his shots slow down if you just hang around with him for a while?
-Why did you feel that you needed to spend so much time going all the way up to a million freaking points!  A MILLION!!! Like WTF!!  We're you thinking, "Oh man, what if one of these guys gets to the final boss and develops the same strat as me and gets 800k points?  Damn, not worth the risk, I better hit seven figs just to be sure..." 

Anyway, I'm sorry man, but if you can't see how your scores and actions in the last three weeks have looked completely out of place within the context of a normal dude participating in a normal competition, then I don't know what else to say.  You didn't even have any of the game-specific banter that guys throw in when they're really into some game of the week, like tips, tricks, perspectives on some aspect of the game we're all playing, nothing but short weird comments like "controls suck!" (that was from your Boulder Dash No-Death run) or "tournament, more like torment" (from your illustrious million point Rolling Thunder endeavor).  You gave me no real reason to believe in my heart that you weren't cheating, to be honest with you, and I know I'm not the only one here who feels that way...

Now it's cool that you posted an emulator video, but in this crazy age of deep-fakes and AI and TAS's and all that stuff you'll forgive me for not putting too much credence in your video, especially when a menu with words like, "config, tools, and debug" are staring back at me through the entire playthrough.  I don't see anything out of place myself, but again, it's an emulator, and it's not even a video of your actual run, so not really admissable if I were the judge and jury.

You mentioned Billy Mitchell in your response, and the thing is, he was considered a legend - one of the best - they didn't catch him for decades, so if you're playing the long game, you've probably already won.  But if you truly are legit, then I can say without a doubt that you are far and away leagues beyond the abilities of even Bert Sampson with the scores you're putting up in literally all genres, and you're thinking further outside of the box than anybody else here ever dreamed.

Like I said earlier, whatever the show runners decide is totally fine with me, but it'll be tough to change my mind after everything I've seen; you know what they say: if something seems to good to be true...

Edited December 14, 2023 by Dr. Morbis

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Who knows, maybe he's just @rdrunner in disguise

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

34 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Who knows, maybe he's just @rdrunner in disguise

Rdrunner wouldn't play a save-state-scumming TAS on his pc and then feed a still image to his CRT to take the final picture, and then make another TAS to prove that a strategy that would never ever be discovered during the course of normal play was actually possible to do.  Just saying... 

Seriously, I know it's not popular, but we should just bring back game room videos for the finals.  That Batman speed run competition was fun, as was Mega Man 2, and Castlevania... bring back the video evidence!  There's no where to run and no where to hide when everyone's actual skills are laid bare...

Edited December 12, 2023 by Dr. Morbis

[mbd39 | 2,024]

7 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Rdrunner wouldn't play a save-state-scumming TAS on his pc and then feed a still image to his CRT to take the final picture, and then make another TAS to prove that a strategy that would never ever be discovered during the course of normal play was actually possible to do.  Just saying... 

Seriously, I know it's not popular, but we should just bring back game room videos for the finals.  That Batman speed run competition was fun, as was Mega Man 2, and Castlevania... bring back the video evidence!  There's no where to run and no where to hide when everyone's actual skills are laid bare...

Even cheating to roll the score in Rolling Thunder would have been a weird amount of effort for someone who already clinched first place.

[BlackVega | 583]

I am very dedicated for NES and Famicom and always have been. NES is literally 50% of my life, the other 30% is fighting games and the other 20% is eating and sleeping

[SuperJimtendo | 1,123]

1 hour ago, BlackVega said:

I am very dedicated for NES and Famicom and always have been. NES is literally 50% of my life, the other 30% is fighting games and the other 20% is eating and sleeping

And

[Richardhead | 2,813]

So we are calling people out publicly now instead of just messaging a contest mod? What a strange world we live in. I feel the doctor might just be the only person playing next season. Congrats on your 2025 win.

[mbd39 | 2,024]

7 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

So we are calling people out publicly now instead of just messaging a contest mod? What a strange world we live in. I feel the doctor might just be the only person playing next season. Congrats on your 2025 win.

I'll play next season. And I only hope that I play so well that I get accused of cheating.

 

[Richardhead | 2,813]

1 hour ago, mbd39 said:

I'll play next season. And I only hope that I play so well that I get accused of cheating.

 

I’m afraid of being too good at a game now.

[JamesRobot | 5,800]

1 hour ago, Richardhead said:

I’m afraid of being too good at a game now.

What, like that one time with Adventure Island?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

3 hours ago, Richardhead said:

So we are calling people out publicly now instead of just messaging a contest mod? What a strange world we live in. I feel the doctor might just be the only person playing next season. Congrats on your 2025 win.

I mean, why not?  If something smells fishy, it's probably fish.  The burden of proof should be on the accused, and personally, I'd rather know who my accuser confront me face to face.  That said, the good doctor is a hyper competitive dude IRL, and is very outspoken when he thinks he's been wronged, whether or not he actually was.  Honestly, short of people posting their full runs, he's always going to think shenanigans are involved when he gets beat by a wide margin.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

2 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

The burden of proof should be on the accused

In that case, I accuse @Richardhead of stealing the 2016 title from me. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

1 hour ago, JamesRobot said:

What, like that one time with Adventure Island?

Triggered

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

Speaking of astronomical scores whatever happened to @Tablew/chairs

[BeaIank | 1,621]

2 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Speaking of astronomical scores whatever happened to @Tablew/chairs

Moved on with life, most likely. He was insanely good. One of the very best to ever honour this contest we do for fun with his presence.
I hope he is well and still effortlessly crushing games.

Anyway, while life batters me away, work is being super busy due to holidays season, left hand pretty much gave up and will be replaced with a bionic one late 2024, I still managed to get this done:

 

[mbd39 | 2,024]

AFAIK, Tables still participates in the NES completions thread.

 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

AFAIK, Tables still participates in the NES completions thread.

 

Yeah, but that doesn't mean he comes around all the time like if he was playing regularly for the contest.  Playing games for fun on your own time is a whole different ball game than playing a game religiously for a competition.

[guillavoie | 1,210]

24 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

Anyway, while life batters me away, work is being super busy due to holidays season, left hand pretty much gave up and will be replaced with a bionic one late 2024, I will managed to get this done:

 

My God, is this true, you're going the cyborg hand route?

[BeaIank | 1,621]

5 minutes ago, guillavoie said:

My God, is this true, you're going the cyborg hand route?

Yep. Even updated my avatar to better represent that since I already shopped around and paid for the prosthetic hand so I just have to claim it and fit the stump weeks after surgery. Made peace with that long ago.

[guillavoie | 1,210]

Just now, BeaIank said:

Yep. Even updated my avatar to better represent that since I already shopped around and paid for the prosthetic hand so I just have to claim it and fit the stump weeks after surgery. Made peace with that long ago.

I'm not sure if I should feel sad or relieved about it, the idea of replacing a natural hand for a bionic one seem absolutely uncomfortable, but I know at the same time you're doing it for your own good, so I wish you the best with that my dear Bea!

[BeaIank | 1,621]

Just now, guillavoie said:

I'm not sure if I should feel sad or relieved about it, the idea of replacing a natural hand for a bionic one seem absolutely uncomfortable, but I know at the same time you're doing it for your own good, so I wish you the best with that my dear Bea!

Shit happens, so you have to deal with it. It will be all good. At this point, the bionic hand will be able to do more than my normal hand. And thanks!

[mbd39 | 2,024]

15 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

Yep. Even updated my avatar to better represent that since I already shopped around and paid for the prosthetic hand so I just have to claim it and fit the stump weeks after surgery. Made peace with that long ago.

Wow. What's the story with your hand? I hope everything goes alright.

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

11 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

Shit happens, so you have to deal with it. It will be all good. At this point, the bionic hand will be able to do more than my normal hand. And thanks!

Bea doesn't have setbacks.  She just figures out ways to become even more intimidating.

[BeaIank | 1,621]

1 minute ago, mbd39 said:

Wow. What's the story with your hand? I hope everything goes alright.

 

Kienbocks + completely fucked up nervous system which made surgery for kienbocks not an option.
At the end of the day, you will have to play and bluff your way into success with the cards you were dealt with.