[magnum12]

Magnum raises a good point here. Let's have a debate on the pros and cons of a number of similar issues.

In this category fall the following:

* Team Blast Glitch
* Freeze-game-clock glitches
* Doublespeed Duration
* Going through walls (whether nonexistent, or by zipping)
* Others that don't come to mind right now (somebody help me out with these)

Now the reason these can be grouped into one category, is because they are all abuses of the game's programming, in different ways.

The one thing that distinguishes TSC from other competition sites, for mine, is that if the game allows you to do it, it's allowed. (I think this is a direct quote from SM? confirm/deny?) The one exception to this point in time has been Doublespeed Duration, and I imagine that is due to its stacking ability.

On issues like this, there is no middle ground. Either you can abuse it to your heart's content, or it's completely disallowed. As it stands, DD is disallowed, while TBG runs rampant. Personally, before we decide on whether the "point of no return" has been breached we need the views of sonicam and eredani. But until then I consider it to be in the same category of glitches as anything else that abuses a programming error, and therefore the same ruling should be applicable to all. If that means unbanning DD, so be it.

-I understand your arguement and agree that there should be no middle ground, but I feel like it didn't answer my question. Glitch A (permanent time freeze) is more powerful/abusive than glitch B (DD) yet glitch A is allowed but not glitch B. Why?
-At least this debate is giving me some advice on how to deal with issues with TMC when TSC4 is born. I'm planning on finding as many potential issues with games before establishing competitions as part of "sheathed sword" tactics refered to by sirlin's articles. The universal rule for all games will be no glitches are allowed as part of "sheathed sword" ways of preventing balance problems between versions (if any) and to insure no double standard complaints. This should not be a problem since MM games are relatively clean when it comes to bugs. Most of the rules will focus on banning of super exploitable things that are intentionally in the games, such as dark chips, forms with infinite Giga Attack/similar moves, fusion elves, etc. that sonicam, Psyborg, and myself all agreed would turn competitions into a joke. BTW, if you're there Psyborg, have you discovered anything that would be as abusive as Dark Chips in MMBN6 yet?

[magnum12]

I've got some stuff for what TMC will be like.
http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=1590.0
http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=1444.45
These two links to other topics provide attachments as to the basic structure of TMC (early doc based prototype). The first link has the latest build of the site, a guide designed to make playing the Zero series a little less painful for new players, and a weakness chart for the Battle Network series. The second link has the TMC competition charts (including one revised by sonicam, which is the latest version of it, along with weakness guides for the classic and X series. Note: I'm thinking of adding an Ultimate Zero division to the MMZ2, 3, and 4 games as exceptions to competition rules for those games. (No cyber elves in Z1 and Z2 and no fusion elves in Z3).

[Shadow Jacky]

The only thing that caught my eye on the proto doc was that NES MM2 on normal is not the same as easy on MMAC MM2.  Easy on MMAC MM2 just gives you more defense and more health/ammo pops up, while NES MM2's normal reduces RM's denfense to be able to kill them faster.  Playing on Difficult is the equivalent to playing on Normal in MMAC MM2.

Also are there any other guides for little tips tricks with the classic series/MMX games?  I wont b able to get into the MMZ series myself until I get my DS one of these days.

[magnum12]

The only thing that caught my eye on the proto doc was that NES MM2 on normal is not the same as easy on MMAC MM2.  Easy on MMAC MM2 just gives you more defense and more health/ammo pops up, while NES MM2's normal reduces RM's denfense to be able to kill them faster.  Playing on Difficult is the equivalent to playing on Normal in MMAC MM2.

Also are there any other guides for little tips tricks with the classic series/MMX games?  I wont b able to get into the MMZ series myself until I get my DS one of these days.

Really? I thought the only difference in MM2 between difficulties was boss defense power. (Unless I was thinking of the NES version at the time.) I'll revise the document to reflect that.

[magnum12]

I'll try to find out the weaknesses of mini bosses. I think my weakness guides cover wily/sigma fortress bosses.

[sonicam]

You have a lot of say in things SJ, you're records are excellent, your scores are omg and I thought that I used to specialize in that. The only reason why you aren't champion is because your boss times are terrible. If you do bosses, you're champ, simple as that.

Hmm, I know some weaknesses for some of the Sigma fortress bosses.

For X:

Spider Boss (Sigma 1): Shotgun Ice
Face boss thing (Sigma 2): Chameleon Sting
Truck boss thing (Sigma 3): Boomerang Cutter
Sigma's dog (Sigma 4): Shotgun Ice/X-Buster
Sigma: Electric Spark
Final Sigma: Rolling Shield

X2:

Violen: Bubble Splash
Serges: Silk Shot
Agile: Magnet Mine
Zero: X-Buster IIRC
Sigma: Not sure
Neo Sigma: Not sure

X3:

No idea. ;/

For the rest of the games I don't like Special Weapons at all so I never use them, I'm not sure of enemy weaknesses.

[magnum12]

Here's some of the weaknesses straight from memory. (They're all in the guide in the second link.)
X2
Zero: I think you can also use the splash damage from the speed burner.
Sigma: Sonic Slicer
Neo Sigma: Strike Chain

X3 (going off of memories here,)
Doppler: Acid Burst
Sigma: (1st) Crush Claw
Kaiser Sigma: None

X4
Colonel: Frost Tower (dangerous to use if not used properly, you want to drop it on his head from afar).
Double: Double Cyclone
General: Twin Slasher (weak attack power)
Death Sigma: Rising Fire
Sigma (2nd): Lightning Web
Giant Head Sigma: Ground Hunter (Can't remember name of Stingray's weapon right now)
Gun using Sigma: Soul Body.

X5:
X: Ground Blazer
Rangda Banga 2: (Varies with target)
Sigma (1st): Volt Kraken's weapon.
Sigma (2nd): Tidal Whale's weapon.

X8:
Vile: Drift Diamond. Knock him off of his mech with Green Spinner.
Sigma: Shadow Runner
Devil Sigma: Shinning Ray
Lumine (1st): Varies, depends on ultimate attack used. Only some of them provide openings.
Lumine (2nd): None

MM2
Dragon: Quick Boomerang
Wall things: Bubble Lead
Guts Tank: Quick Boomerang
Wall Sentries: Crash Bombs
Wily's space ship: Crash Bombs (save for second form)
Alien: Bubble Lead

MM3
Turtle Machine: Shadow Blade
Yellow Devil: Hard Knuckle
Fake Mega Men: Search Snake
Crab Tank (1st): Spark Shot
Crab Tank (2nd): Shadow Blade (most reliable)
Gamma (1st): Hard Knuckle
Gamma (2nd): Search Snake or Top Spin (instant kill if done right).

[magnum12]

This topic is for everything TMC related.

[magnum12]

Sorry. I made a topic specifically for TMC, so the off topic stuff here can be moved there if wanted. Any way, back on topic. In all seriousness, we should have dealt with this back in summer of 2004 before it became too ambiguous in regards to records. Maybe this time we'll end the discussion once and for all.

[PsyBorg]

BOOM.


Man, I haven't thought about this in ages. I should really get back into MMBN sometime later.


Um... I like MMBN?

[magnum12]

Its good you're here. I have a question about BN6 for potential rulings. Is there anything that might need banning due to being too abusive? (Like dark chips.)

[sonicam]

Also, I'm rather confused on what the divisions are going to for for Battle Network games. Is it just going to be Boss Battles? As for the earlier games, will we just use Version 3 Navi battles, or will we make seperate divisions for all 3 Versions.

[yse]

Do you guys want me to move the MM-related stuff from other topics in here, or leave them as-is?

[sonicam]

It'd be great if you can move them, I was trying to do it myself, but I don't have mod powers.

[PsyBorg]

Version 3? You're not counting the "omega"/SP versions, I believe. And yeah, it's pretty much just bosses. That's all that's really time-attackable.


As for my ruling on Dark chips, I'm considering freestyle options at the moment, but I don't have an "official" ruling as of now.

[sonicam]

Yea, I forgot about them, but they are one time only bosses (referring to MMBN3, I only know much about 1-3).

[magnum12]

I don't think competitions for Mega Man ZX are viable. The new mission structure doesn't work well for it. However, discussions about the game should be in the MMZ General Forums. It's a great game, but asides from the Omega secret boss fight (cooler than the Z3 version) and the final level, it wasn't very challenging.

[Shadow Jacky]

Ah thanks sonicam!  my goal from when I go back into SH was scores only, but a few are tough for me still (mainly Rose).  then I dabbled in TAing and got that far with it.  And yeah my boss times really suck (really really really really really...)

Also thanks for the list...I still gotta get myself X8 (not getting X7) one of these days and I hardly play X5 and 6, but for X2 and 4 was really helpful. 

One more thing too, anyone know if the 2nd mini-boss in Magna Centipede's stage (MMX2) has a weakness?  Thats the only one I cant figure out.  Also will the Hadoken and Shoryuken be legal for competition?  *I have to look at the charts for this*

[sonicam]

No prob SJ, just don't beat me too badly, lol.. ^_^;

Zero competition from the PS2 games will be from me... :(

Hmm, you mean that robot that gets powers from your scans? Hmm, I have no idea if he has a weakness, but I'm thinking Bubble Splash for some reason, but I have no idea.

Hadoken and Shoryuken should be banned. Freestyle it?

[PsyBorg]

Ah yes... I ignored 1-3 :O


Yeah, in 1-3 it will be v3 bosses... in 4-6 it will be SP bosses, as they are the ones that are found in the wild and are really the dudes to time attack.

[sonicam]

Oh, ok. Also, there are time attack Navi battles to fight in the Secret Area in MMBN3, but the catch is, you have to use an Extra Folder... ;o Just incase you guys forgot about that or just don't play 3 much. Perhaps that can be a division, if we haven't already thought of it...?

[magnum12]

I completely forgot about those moves. They should not be allowed, although I personally found their use impratical in a heated battle.
-Edit: I conducted some research for MMX8 competitions. It seems that the game stops the clock when you reach the final room of the level and ignores how long you take to defeat bosses. However, the no infinite Giga attack form rule still applies because the 2nd to last stage assumes the 8 bosses are part of the time it takes to reach the end.
-Experimental evidence for above conclusions. 1. The first time I cleared Giga Bolt Man O War's stage (the flying bike chase stage), my time was less than 2 minutes. Apparently the game only took into account the time it took to damage him enough to trigger the boss fight.
2. Curious about this observation, I had my little brother play thorough Burn Rooster's stage as fast as he could, a stage I know is one of the longest in the game. He beat the boss and did the post stage escape, (something that should have taken a grand total time of at least 10 minutes) but ended up with a time of about 6 minutes, which is about 30-60 seconds slower than what I get for this stage, once again suggesting that the game stops the clock when you reach the lair of the boss.

[magnum12]

-Sorry for the double post, but this is very important. The near final builds for TMMC (Assuming Mario Center gets the TMC abbreveation) site prototype and competition charts are finished. The new prototype expands on site's competition rules to account for new games to compete in. The charts have undergone a massive expansion. I've just added ultimate divisions for Zero 1-3 (don't know how we're going to enforce anything with Zero 4 due to its reworked cyber elf system), Battle Network 1-6 sections, Maverick Hunter X charts (the game doesn't track times), and charts for Mega Man Powered Up (not only does this game track times and scores, it is also more diverse in terms of competition divisions than Sonic Adventure 2). I still don't know how we're going to deal with games that don't track times, but I've got a temporary back-up solution in which we initially only implement games that track time. (Discussion is needed.) Even with that, we still have 20 (21?) games that we can have competitions for right away.
-I'd like to know what you all think. When everything's good to go, all that needs to be done is for these (and my .doc format guides) to be sent to Rolken for the final conversion to web site format and TMMC will officially be born.

[Rolken]

I should note that I still don't intend to get subsites up until TSC4. The F-Zero folk I'm allowing early because their community is in its death throes and I'm doing all the work manually, but I don't have the bandwidth to manually set up and administer 5 sites on TSC3 while still trying to finish TSC4. :(

[magnum12]

Take your time. I wasn't trying to rush you, I was trying to get as much stuff with the proto types ready for everyone to see (and for as much feed back as possible for the sake of fixing all potential problems), then wait until TSC4 is ready before submitting the final prototype. :)

[sonicam]

Take your time Rolk, don't get overwhelmed.

magnum: Hmm, MegaMan 1 scores I think should be scrapped. I mean, enemies are very easy to duplicate and I dunno, just seems silly and IIRC, the score bonus at the end of a boss is random, so just makes it worse. If Powered Up has a much more balanced and logical Score count, then just use Powered Up scores. I haven't played Powered Up yet due to no PSP.

Regarding the MMBN rules, this means that for Battle Network 3 that the Omega versions must be used since they are the strongest versions of the Navis, but they are only fought once. I'd say make a divisions for V3 Navis and Omega versions, or scrap Omegas, because I'm sure no one wants to restart their games. Also, for MMBN3, you forgot MistMan.

Seems like Battle Network only has Boss Divisions, how about game completion (one for obtaining the Yellow Star [main story beaten and this time is shown to you at the end] and one for acquiring 100% [maybe?]).

Yes, having all of these games probably isn't a good idea since a good portion of them require manual timing and that's incredibly questionable and the alternative would be to vid all the runs (NES/SNES emus) and mods can time them, but that's too time consuming and no way I'll have to patience and time to do that. ;X Maybe scrap all games/divisions that don't track records in any way?

For MMZ 1 and 2, what's Ultimate Zero? Is it Ultimate Mode?

There are some other things that I can't think of right now... ;/

[magnum12]

Ultimate Zero is Ultimate Mode. Powered Up's score system is much more balanced. From what I've played, boss battles are always worth the same amount. In addition, time bonuses are given out on a percent modifier to the boss section of scoring. The addition of the game completion times for BN is a great idea.

[sonicam]

Ah, ok, calling it Ultimate Zero is misleading. I was thinking it's a code or something, like Black Zero.

Oh, ok, then we should just use Powered Up instead of MM1.

How about the Omegas and V3 problem? What do you think about that? Also, I stated before that there is a Time Attack area in the Secret areas in MMBN3 where you are forced to fight using your Extra Folder (a preset folder that you cannot modify). Seperate division for that, or redundancy?

[magnum12]

The newest versions of the prototype site stuff are ready. For the charts, I've added game completions, extra folder mode, added Mist Man, changed the wording in MMZ to Ultimate Mode, moved the challeneges in MMPU to be in the extra sections, and cut out all games that don't record times, resulting in much cleaner charts. For the site prototype, I've cut out all games that were cut in the charts and reworked the BN rules so the strongest form of a boss that can be fought multiple times is the standard (final and secret bosses are an exception).

[sonicam]

Hmm, Extra Folder Mode? It's not a mode, it's just where you battle Navis with only the extra folder in the Secret Area. Do you remember it? It's when you speak to the Navi ghosts and they tell you your current record for "so and so" and ask you if you want to battle again. It would be a seperate division for the Navis (I think they are V3 Navis, not too sure). Division could be 'Extra' I guess.

Grave Beast? Isn't it only called Grave in the anime. Let's stick to Gospel. Actually, come to think of it, you are never told of your time when you defeat the final bosses, I know that's true for the Life Virus, Gospel, Alpha and Duo, and I doubt for Fake Bass in MMNB2.

It's JapanMan in MMBN3, not YamatoMan. It's going to cause confusion.

Hmm, I'll get you the Legends stuff soon since that's missing. It's not much since there aren't any "levels". Well, for Legends 1, it's:

Game Completion: Easy, Normal, Hard
Races: Course D, Course C, Course B, Course A.

For the races, I'm not entirely sure, if that's the amount of races, I'll look into it when I can.