[hfactor66]

According to the competition rules for this game, flying as Sonic & Tails together is not allowed due to a glitch that allows Sonic & Tails to earn two rings even though they only collected one.

However, never is it mentioned that I can't make Tails fly, I just can't fly while holding onto Tails.

Technicalitieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Using this, I was able to make Tails fly up and collect the 10 rings without ever flying as Sonic & Tails together. (actually in the video, I got 8 of them with Tails, and got the last 2 with Sonic's lightning shield lol but you get the idea.) Video below. I got bored and recently started playing this again.



My question is, is this allowed? I didn't want to post it to the charts without confirmation, since this kinda feels like a gray area for this rule, (or maybe I'm just dumb) and no one else seems to have attempted this, as simple as this is honestly.

[SpinDashMaster]

>Asking this forum for rulings in 2018

Fairly certain no one's even monitoring this place anymore.

[Zurggriff]

There should be someone active on this site that can(will) answer this question. If not, then that is a problem which should be resolved. This is a relevant question about competition on the site and it would not be the first time a forum post or discussion ,such as this one, did not receive recognition from any of the site administrators.

As far as the ring attack goes, the run looks like it clearly does not break the competition rules, but that is just my opinion. Nice find.

[hfactor66]

>Asking this forum for rulings in 2018

Fairly certain no one's even monitoring this place anymore.

I know there's a discord server, I just don't have discord. lol

There should be someone active on this site that can(will) answer this question. If not, then that is a problem which should be resolved. This is a relevant question about competition on the site and it would not be the first time a forum post or discussion ,such as this one, did not receive recognition from any of the site administrators.

As far as the ring attack goes, the run looks like it clearly does not break the competition rules, but that is just my opinion. Nice find.

Yeah, forum activity is very low nowadays, this is about the only reason I would use it. I didn't think the run broke any rules either, since Sonic & Tails never flew together, which is the only restriction to using Tails' fly ability as Sonic listed in the rules, but I still thought I would ask, since as I said in the original post, it seemed sort of like a gray area for this rule. I'm sure its original intent was to discourage using Tails' ability to fly altogether, (or using AI Tails at all as Sonic) so as to prevent players accidentally getting credit twice for a single ring, which is understandable. However, it doesn't seem like anyone considered the possibility of making Tails fly as Sonic and avoiding catching onto him to obtain rings Sonic can't reach on his own, hence why I decided to ask.

I know, it's a revolutionary tactic, right? It'd be cool to bump Sonic up to the 235 max Tails & Knuckles can obtain with ease.

[SpinDashMaster]

Were you controlling Tails in his flight? Controlling both S+T in game modes that have S+T is generally disallowed.

[Zeupar]

My question is, is this allowed? I didn't want to post it to the charts without confirmation, since this kinda feels like a gray area for this rule, (or maybe I'm just dumb) and no one else seems to have attempted this, as simple as this is honestly.

Yes, it's allowed. That clever strategy has been used in the past. We appreciate that you asked.

This is a relevant question about competition on the site and it would not be the first time a forum post or discussion ,such as this one, did not receive recognition from any of the site administrators.

You are completely right, and I apologize for not getting back to you sooner in that other topic. The questions raised in your thread are more complex, though, so I was planning to message you on Discord for a more efficient discussion. I will seize this opportunity to finally do that. Hopefully, we can get Vicklaw and others interested involved as well.

[hfactor66]

Were you controlling Tails in his flight? Controlling both S+T in game modes that have S+T is generally disallowed.

Ah, so I see. I did use Sonic to try and steer Tails towards them, which is easier than it sounds when he's off screen, evidenced by the fact that I just up and got the last two with Sonic's lightning shield. I can't control where Tails flies directly, except for how high he goes. Otherwise he just follows Sonic. A second controller was not used to control Tails in any way. I don't even know how you would get a second player to control Tails on iOS in no save mode, lol. This was done on real hardware, no emulation. My iPhone SE has built in screen capture, which makes me happy.

Yes, it's allowed. That clever strategy has been used in the past. We appreciate that you asked.

"If something seems iffy, you probably should not be doing it. Or at least check with someone before you do." I mean, it's right there in general rules. Nice to see I'm not the first one to try this, but it seems like I'm the first to try this on S1 2013. If everything has been cleared up, this thread can be closed and if this is all within the game's rules and general rules, I'll bump Sonic up to 235 after five years since the game's release.

I love pioneering RA stuff.

[SpinDashMaster]

Well, what's happening in S&K is that tails is grabbing the rings through his own AI control. As long as you're just fudging with Tails' AI and not directly controlling Tails, you're fine.

[hfactor66]

Well, what's happening in S&K is that tails is grabbing the rings through his own AI control. As long as you're just fudging with Tails' AI and not directly controlling Tails, you're fine.

I watched Rusty's RA vid on Death Egg 1 to compare it to what I've done here, and in that run, I could see he manipulated Tails using Sonic to drop down a hole and grab 16 otherwise unobtainable rings. No player control, just AI manipulation. The same could be said about what I've done here, manipulating Tails to fly up using Sonic to grab some otherwise unobtainable rings. The noticeable difference though is that getting AI Tails to fly up in this game requires some direct input from the player to get Tails to fly and to keep him in the air, which is why you see me jumping constantly whenever Tails is airborne, because otherwise he just comes back down. You get him to fly by pressing jump twice while looking up, the first press makes Tails jump, and the second one makes him fly. It's sort of like a one and a half player thing, since you're meant to grab onto Tails, THEN you can freely control where Tails flies, but since I didn't grab onto him, as it's forbidden by the game's rules, I have to manipulate where he goes while keeping him in the air.

As I said, I can manipulate where AI Tails goes by moving Sonic around once he's in the air, so I don't have 100% control of Tails, but I have to use Sonic in a specific way to get him in the air and to keep him airborne. If up+jump as Sonic to get Tails to fly using Sonic and spamming jump to keep him in the air counts as direct control, then I suppose that would nullify this run.

[SpinDashMaster]

This is honestly a gray area that I haven't seen discussed. I'm surprised it wasn't brought up when Mania came out, either. Tails has similar behavior there.

This needs an open discussion, but imo this type of Tails control should be made explicitly legal as opposed to the typical 2P control.

And in the case of Mania (Not S12013 for obvious reasons) I'd suggest that flying as S+T should be perfectly legal.

[hfactor66]

This is honestly a gray area that I haven't seen discussed. I'm surprised it wasn't brought up when Mania came out, either. Tails has similar behavior there.

This needs an open discussion, but imo this type of Tails control should be made explicitly legal as opposed to the typical 2P control.

And in the case of Mania (Not S12013 for obvious reasons) I'd suggest that flying as S+T should be perfectly legal.

I think in the case of Mania, this wasn't really an issue because there was no glitch with S+T where they earn credit twice for one ring while flying together, so there wasn't a need to ban the use of flying together as S+T, whereas here in S1 2013 it exists to prevent players from doubling as many rings as they can.

CyberScore's rule on this reads "Flying as Sonic & Tails in such a way as to obtain credit twice for any single ring is disallowed." Essentially, you can still fly as S+T, but if you earn credit twice for a single ring, your run is nullified. It does allow for more possibilities as Sonic (like 155 Marble 3) but it also seems more difficult to enforce without video proof, although I suppose the 1st place mandatory video proof rule can take care of that, but I'm not sure how strictly it's enforced.

I'm personally fine with banning flying as S+T together completely, because it makes sense why the rule exists, but I also feel like a runner shouldn't be punished for accidentally grabbing onto Tails and jumping off without collecting any rings when they were trying to set something up and failed to avoid grabbing onto him, as I've done many times in practice on GHZ 1 and Scrap Brain 3, where I was experimenting with a possible technique similar to my GHZ 1 technique here to top Sonic's long standing 123 rings record.

Had to reset many times due to briefly flying as S+T together in recording my GHZ 1 run to showcase for this thread. It doesn't look that hard, but if Tails is right on top of you when you put him into flight, you're pretty much guaranteed to grab onto him. >_> that's why I was usually trying to move around and put him into flight simultaneously.

[SpanielWare]

Just chiming into this dead site :P to say, concurring SDM, I think it's pretty sensible to allow cleverly manipulating Tails' AI (so long as gameplay's kept 1P), in keeping with the classics like the strat Zeupar pointed out, and the rules should be revised to explicitly clarify this.

One could argue both ways for allowing S+T flight in S1 2013 so long as double ring credits aren't earned, vs. banning it outright; personally I think the former, à la CyberScore's ruling, is best and the lesser of two evils. I feel players have a responsibility to ensure they don’t earn double ring credits with S+T flight, and if it's too difficult to manually track they should record their runs, which I don't think is much to ask for this in this day and age to be honest; I also feel, like hfactor66, players shouldn't be penalized for accidentally grabbing onto Tails where it doesn't otherwise affect the run (which can unnecessarily complicate some strats).

Ultimately more active runners of the affected games need to discuss both of these rulings (on TSSC or wherever convenient) and come to a consensus; it's good of you to check and raise the discussion hfactor66.

On a side note, the "difficult to verify without video proof" argument could be extended to numerous legal tricks and at the end of the day, you have to operate on a merit and trust system in cases where video proof isn't mandatory (but yeah, it is here universally for 1st place stats anyway, at least).

Finally I also feel it's a given S+T flying in Mania should be legal as there's no reason it shouldn't be (we still need official rules for Mania derp).

[SpinDashMaster]

There's nothing to ban in mania, which it why it doesn't have its own page. Explicitly stating that S+T control is legal is important, however, considering what I said earlier: that controlling S+T in basically all other games is banned.

As for S1 2013, I think the rule could simply be revised as you both have mentioned: "Collecting a ring while flying as Sonic and Tails together voids your stat."

I'd fix this myself but 2012 was a thing.

[hfactor66]

Uh, I think I just discovered something that will completely turn the tables on this entire discussion...



The dupe ring bug occurred WHEN THEY WEREN'T IN FLIGHT.

THIS.
CHANGES.
EVERYTHING.

This needed to be brought to light. I discovered this while playing this level one night and noticed one time after falling at the beginning that I had 5 more rings than I should have had, meaning I duped some rings without even flying as Sonic & Tails, so I recreated it as such for this video to demonstrate that flying as S+T is now not the only known circumstance in which duping rings is possible.

Given this information, this changes my view on allowing Tails as an AI partner for RA, since this duping bug seems to occur in more ways than one. This makes verifying a record in the future much more difficult in this category without video proof to ensure that no rings were duped. I see this going one of three ways.

1. All S+T RA records requiring full gameplay video proof, and ensuring that no rings were duped on a case by case basis, which I don't see happening, but it is one way to go about it in the future, ensuring that the player is aware that if any ring they collect is counted twice, their stat is void. (If some other lost soul decides to pick this up in the future anyway, lol)

2. Ban the use of Tails as Sonic altogether, and only allow Sonic alone to prevent duping rings from ever needing to be brought up again. This seems like the most likely option, since it eliminates the problem altogether, and makes for a lot less hassle. As much as I want to delve into exploring some of these levels with S+T in this game, the fact remains that if this bug can be triggered even without them flying together, then it is reasonable to assume that something this easily exploitable should be banned, since it can be done even unintentionally.

3. This is just an idea I've had for a while now, but it's similar to the Sonic Adventure games' rules that apply to Knuckles and Rouge's treasure hunt missions, which go like this;

Sonic Adventure: Rings you dig up and collect as Knuckles don't count.
Sonic Adventure 2: Any rings dug up and collected as Knuckles or Rouge, or thrown by enemies, don't count toward your total.

I don't see why we couldn't have a similar rule for this situation, like perhaps subtract 1 ring from your total for every duplicate ring you collect. I don't see that as an unreasonable proposal, since SA2's rule flat out says this in parenthesis. "If you can keep track of how many rings were obtained that way, you can subtract them from the final displayed total." If keeping track of rings that shouldn't count in SA2 and subtracting them is perfectly acceptable, then why not in this case too?

That's my proposal, I'd like to see your guys' perspective on this. If S+T does end up getting banned completely, then my 116 rings on Marble 3 with S+T should be revoked. Hell, I think it should get revoked anyway until an official ruling on this is decided, it doesn't seem very fair to submit a new record that could be in violation of a potential rule change due to a new discovery.

[SpinDashMaster]

Thing is, you're probably not the only one.

With as little communication with players as there is today, there may be no other choices but to either allow the shenanigans or nuke the sonic rings charts for S1 2013.

As for stats you feel are in violation, you can just submit 1 ring until you can replace it with a non-violating stat.

[hfactor66]

Thing is, you're probably not the only one.

With as little communication with players as there is today, there may be no other choices but to either allow the shenanigans or nuke the sonic rings charts for S1 2013.

As for stats you feel are in violation, you can just submit 1 ring until you can replace it with a non-violating stat.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who has had this happen.

And yes, I've done that 1 ring resubmission before with an S3&K stat when I submitted a stat to the wrong level. If I were gonna replace it with anything it would just be a 113 run. I submitted the 116 run before I found out about what I showcase in the video, because it didn't seem to violate any rules. You could argue it still doesn't, but with that video in mind, is it really fair to let that slide? I just feel unless something changes to validate or invalidate the run, it shouldn't be up the same way I didn't submit the S+T 235 run.

Man, what have I started with this thread? I can honestly say I didn't think this is where it would end up, with the thought of nuking an entire chart coming up.

[Zurggriff]

Nuking the ring charts is overkill. The argument is most submissions do not have proof that no rings were duplicated. However, this argument could also be applied to all records on the site that do not have a video, or any stat on the site for that matter, as there is no way to prove that no rules violation occurred for those submissions.

I think revising the rules to prohibit duplicating rings would be the best option. Record stats already require video proof and if it is of sufficient quality, spotting ring duplication should not be a problem. If we feel that people are too likely to duplicate rings without noticing it, then require video proof for all ring and score submissions. If any stats appear to be impossible without duplicating rings, then proof call those submissions.

[SpanielWare]

Congrats on the discovery hfactor66 haha; who knows where else this bug permeates. Curse you programmers and testers for making our lives harder! :P

I still stick to my guns feeling that the best solution for competition would simply be having players keep track of rings collected in their runs and subtract potential duplicates (and in the case of a score attack, thus amend the score), recording the run to watch back if need be. Thanks for the treasure hunt mission analogy hfactor66; I'm not saying we should favour consistency over reason but if such a ruling appears to work effectively elsewhere and is also perfectly reasonable in this context, why not utilize it here? People can just ring/score attack Sonic-only if they're unwilling to do this and sacrifice a few rings only attainable with Tails, after all. Yes banning S+T would eliminate the issue but I feel it unnecessarily stifles competition and optimal strats.

Allowing the ring shenanigans outright seems a bit gratuitous to me, introducing unnecessary RNG. Nuking the charts, agreeing with Zurggriff, seems overkill; the rules strongly imply double ring credit earning is illegal so it's not like players have been in the dark about its validity, so agreeing with Zurggriff the "most submissions do not have proof that no rings were duplicated" argument could be extended to any stat on the site. S1 2013 ring/score attack competition looks pretty dead these days (so I think nuking the charts would be a waste) and skimming the charts, potential double ring credit earning doesn't seem to have posed a problem thus far anyway.

Also yes we could require video proof for every ring and score run performed with S+T but again, I feel this is a bit excessive for stats of all calibre; we should operate on a system where we trust players to verify the validity of the stats they're submitting (then again, in this day and age I don't imagine recording and uploading videos being a hassle for most and am thus pretty nonchalant about this; still I think chart competition should be as accessible and convenient for players as possible).

Finally while I don't think it's a big deal what with the lack of competition, may as well revert your 116 Marble 3 stat hfactor66 until there's a verdict, for the sake of chart integrity.

Think I've addressed everything; of course I'm just a lowly user here but merely my two cents. Hopefully admins and mods soon can come to an agreement and revise the rules. Long live S1 2013! =P

[Zurggriff]

The rules for Sonic 1 (2013) and Sonic 2 (2013) have been updated to specify that earning credit twice for a single ring is prohibited, whether or not Sonic and Tails are flying together. This meets the intent of the original rule which was aimed at preventing rings from being counted twice when collected. Flying together is still prohibited as there was not enough support to change this rule which would affect the number of rings that could be collected on some levels. Manipulating Tails to fly without Sonic is still allowed.