WTF Replay.

[Punk Kitten]

I have recently FC'd Monstrous Turtles! and when I go to view the replay, it misses a TON. Why are the replays acting weird? Is this happening to anyone else? I saved it, it's the only one saved in my replays.
Clickme!

[-FlukeRun-]

Originally Posted by Kibblre

Posts: 5

Yeah, I'm sure the OP goes on the forums a whole lot dumbass.

It's an issue that affects everyone. Don't expect a fix in the near future.

Don't expect a fix ever

[Punk Kitten]

Wow, really? I love how you troll on someone that doesn't use forums ever. I only do when it really called for it, otherwise I stay off. Also, I scrolled down the front page of the list of threads and there were none about it. Jesus Christ, forgive me for being in a rush.

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by Punk Kitten

I have recently FC'd Monstrous Turtles! and when I go to view the replay, it misses a TON. Why are the replays acting weird? Is this happening to anyone else? I saved it, it's the only one saved in my replays.
Clickme!

Replays have been screwing up for me, and everyone else for a while now. I'm sure it could probably be fixed with a little re-coding and a week or two of effort, but I doubt it will be fixed for a long time unfortunately. Which sucks, because every time I pull of a sweet score, the reply makes it look like crap, but it isn't that big of a deal, considering that if I wanted to host a "replay", I could always screen record a session of myself playing a song, and embed it on my profile page.

[Gun92]

Watching people get reamed for not using the forums constantly or having an honest to god question and not knowing how to look for it is really getting out of hand. The concept of just simply answering someones question is quite foreign to a lot of people now a days. Its pretty much, lol I have an opinion so I have to force it on someone. Its a tired act that really shows how immature people act and its quite sad.

On a related matter, good job on the FC and like everyone said, its something that has been around for a long time and chances are with the way the site is being handled lately, it will not be fixed in the near future or possibly ever.

[Silver_Brian]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

Replays have been screwing up for me, and everyone else for a while now. I'm sure it could probably be fixed with a little re-coding and a week or two of effort, but I doubt it will be fixed for a long time unfortunately. Which sucks, because every time I pull of a sweet score, the reply makes it look like crap, but it isn't that big of a deal, considering that if I wanted to host a "replay", I could always screen record a session of myself playing a song, and embed it on my profile page.

Replays have always had the avmiss problem.

[albaneenesk8r]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

Replays have been screwing up for me, and everyone else for a while now. I'm sure it could probably be fixed with a little re-coding and a week or two of effort, but I doubt it will be fixed for a long time unfortunately. Which sucks, because every time I pull of a sweet score, the reply makes it look like crap, but it isn't that big of a deal, considering that if I wanted to host a "replay", I could always screen record a session of myself playing a song, and embed it on my profile page.

yo the fiddler thing is amazing lmfao. vrofl.... ftw

[Go_Oilers_Go]

I remember it being explained a long time ago why the replays missed so often. It had something to do with the timing of the arrows and the replays registering keytaps IIRC.

[mhss1992]

Did they actually try to fix this? Or do they think that the replays are so insignificant they deserve absolutely no attention, no matter how many people complain about it?
Because, sincerely, if they fixed it in the game, it just can't be that hard, right?

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by Go_Oilers_Go

I remember it being explained a long time ago why the replays missed so often. It had something to do with the timing of the arrows and the replays registering keytaps IIRC.

It defiantly does have to do with the timing, considering the reply gets it's information from a .php file that tells it exactly when and where to hit. I was checking out the replays yesterday and messing with the .php file to see just what exactly controlled what, and it seems like instead of the reply taking the information it codes when the notes should be hit. Say you got a AAA on Excite bike (32-0-0-0-0) and you went to watch the replay, the replay doesn't hit the notes according to what notes you hit, but actually creates a time sequence according to the the following:
1) amount of notes hit
2) speed mod settings

If you change the speed mod in the script but leave the other settings the same, the script will still hit the button at the same time it would if you didn't change the speed mod, making everything miss or boo, which fails you. I honestly believe they could have changed the script around to make things a little easier instead of just having timing do all the work. They could have probably have taken the score results and coded a simple script that says something like:

on.arrow1(hit = 'perfect');
on.arrow2(hit = 'perfect');

...and so on. The script could build up, but better to have a long script and a working replay, than a shorter timing script, and have the replays screw up so easily. Plus, this would mean, that even if the replay lagged, no matter what, the end results would read the same score. If only someone was willing to re-code the replays...

[bLasTamos]

foxfire that's not why replays are ****. And you don't need that kind of script you said to make replays 100% reliable.

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by bLasTamos

foxfire that's not why replays are ****. And you don't need that kind of script you said to make replays 100% reliable.

Oh please, have you even looked at the files that make the replay work? The replay consists of a few files aside from the SWF:
1) t-ffrreplay.php
2) t-ffrststsreadembed.php

The first file consists of coding to time each and every note, as well as the song level, the speed mod settings, and who is replaying it. A part of the code as been placed below:

&levelid=996&username=Punk Kitten&songauthor=zircon&songname=Power&replaysettings=1.5|465|rising&replaydata=U,100|L,171|R,241|L,311|R,329|U,338|D,346|L,355|U,364|D,372|R,381|L,389|U,399|L,407|R,416|D,424|R,432|U,442|D,450|U,459|R,468|

The second file is the post game stats, which pretty much look to me like stats you would see if you playing FFR as "Anonymous". It's value has no say on how the replay works aside from after the replay is over. I am going to assume the following:
D = down
L = left
U = up
R = right

I am also going to assume that those numbers represent some value of seconds, not sure how much of a second is represented by one unit though.

You could modify this script to hit all of the notes correctly if you REALLY wanted to...but that would take forever, and I would also assume that just being off a few of those numbers, could change a perfect into a good, or even a miss. Altering the script so that an arrow is FORCED to be hit with a certain value, instead of the value being forced upon the replay, could very well solve the problem.

I think I know what I am talking about quite well...but you on the other hand, and probably just trying to flame me like everyone else that thinks they are better than everyone else.

[bLasTamos]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

I am also going to assume that those numbers represent some value of seconds, not sure how much of a second is represented by one unit though.

This clearly shows that you know exactly what you are talking about.
Those are frame numbers.
When the song reaches that frame, it hits the key on the replay data.
Even if it lags, you can tell the game it is still at that frame number, so there is no problem with that serialization.
The problem is, and always has been, AVMISSING.

And I know what I'm talking about, also I'm not flaming you.

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by bLasTamos

This clearly shows that you know exactly what you are talking about.
Those are frame numbers.
When the song reaches that frame, it hits the key on the replay data.
Even if it lags, you can tell the game it is still at that frame number, so there is no problem with that serialization.
The problem is, and always has been, AVMISSING.

And I know what I'm talking about, also I'm not flaming you.

Yeah, thanks.

I did not realize that until I started to mess with the replays a little while ago, because I have never had my replays lag much at all...simply because I don't usually watch replays knowing they suck.

Apparently one frame in a replay can make the difference between a "Perfect!", "good", or "Average" because I just AAA'd Excite bike, and modded every single note in the replay to hit an average, to obtain the lowest score without missing, or hitting any boos. Once I knew the approximate values, I had no trouble at all editing the replay. If you do coding, input this value into the server when loading a replay of mine:

PHP Code:

&levelid=296&username=foxfire667&songauthor=Saskrotch&songname=Excite Bike&replaysettings=1.5|465|rising&replaydata=L,72|D,75|U,82|D,90|L,93|R,100|U,111|D,118|U,122|R,129|U,136|U,143|U,150|D,154|L,165|R,186|U,193|D,201|L,208|D,211|U,219|R,222|D,229|U,236|L,240|D,247|U,251|R,254|L,262|D,269|U,276|R,280| 


This is just proof that I 100% know what I am doing, and understand the replay process as well as I say I do.

The thing I do not understand IS the average missing. The only possible way average missing could be an issue, would be if the replays decided to jump over certain parts of the song when creating the .php file for the replay. Sense there is no actual "MAX COMBO" information in the .php file or in the replay stats anywhere that I can edit, if someone got 20 misses on a harder song, those same 20 misses could appear ANYWHERE in the song, if the song was not coded properly. Notes just being missed though...it has to be an error in the code creation, because if I have a series of arrows, and they are all timed in the code, they HAVE to be hit.

[devonin]

The problem isn't with the replays or the recording process, the problem is with the version of the game engine that the replays use.

When you play, the replay saves all the song/speed/mods information, and then logs a series of "At time X, they pressed button Y" entries, and then when you play the replay, it manually re-plays the song as you watch, using the timestamp information saved in the replay log.

This all works exactly like you suppose it does.

The problem is that you played the game on a new updated version of the game engine where avmisses don't exist anymore, so you are getting perfect/perfect instead of miss/average/boo like you -would- have gotten, hitting the exact same buttons at the exact same time on the old engine.

So when the replay re-plays the game on the old engine, and hits the same buttons at the same time you did, you get miss/average/boo in the replay instead of perfect/perfect

[qqwref]

Shouldn't it be relatively easy (from a programming standpoint, for someone who is familiar with the internals of the FFR engine pre- and post-avmiss) to modify the replay engine so it doesn't have avmisses, or perhaps to modify the current engine so it will play replays? I heard someone say once that doing that might destroy all current replays, but if the replay itself is just stored as a bunch of arrow/frame pairs, that shouldn't be affected.

[Punk Kitten]

Originally Posted by Gun92

Watching people get reamed for not using the forums constantly or having an honest to god question and not knowing how to look for it is really getting out of hand. The concept of just simply answering someones question is quite foreign to a lot of people now a days. Its pretty much, lol I have an opinion so I have to force it on someone. Its a tired act that really shows how immature people act and its quite sad.

On a related matter, good job on the FC and like everyone said, its something that has been around for a long time and chances are with the way the site is being handled lately, it will not be fixed in the near future or possibly ever.

Why thank you sir.



Also, Foxfire, I personally believe that Synthlight could use you to fix the whole problem.

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by devonin

The problem isn't with the replays or the recording process, the problem is with the version of the game engine that the replays use.

When you play, the replay saves all the song/speed/mods information, and then logs a series of "At time X, they pressed button Y" entries, and then when you play the replay, it manually re-plays the song as you watch, using the timestamp information saved in the replay log.

This all works exactly like you suppose it does.

The problem is that you played the game on a new updated version of the game engine where avmisses don't exist anymore, so you are getting perfect/perfect instead of miss/average/boo like you -would- have gotten, hitting the exact same buttons at the exact same time on the old engine.

So when the replay re-plays the game on the old engine, and hits the same buttons at the same time you did, you get miss/average/boo in the replay instead of perfect/perfect

Now I do have to say this, I have only been playing FFR for the past 3 or so months, so I don't think I have ever gotten to experience the the average miss glitch (thank god, I'd probably punch walls in knowing the game is actually screwing up my stats), so I cannot truly understand how the average miss glitch originally worked or was coded. How the game is coded at the moment, and I would assume pretty much sense the game was started, was when you hit a key that represented an arrow, the game would send this value into the game, and if an arrow was there when you pressed the key, you would get a rating of "Perfect", "Good", or "Average", while if an arrow was not there, the game would count the key as a "miss" or a "boo" (except in older versions, when not hitting a key without hitting an arrow counted as a miss and broke your combo). If you send a key to the game and the game is coded to read it, it would be FORCED to count it as SOMETHING, which is why I do not understand how throughout a song, a miss could be possible, UNLESS that arrow was NOT hit by the user due to lack of a key-press.

As far as the replays go...if I have values that represent where EXACTLY an arrow is intended to be hit, and it cannot be altered by lag, the score is really forced to be whatever the code tells it to be (UNLESS it fails before the sequence is complete, due to excess misses or boos that are programmed in the script in a row). I honestly do not believe that if I had the replay script that should correctly implement an FC on lets say, Monstrous Turtles, for the sake of being on topic with the particular replay that was screwing up in this thread, that the replay would miss or boo (unless the script was programmed to do so). Yes, I COULD be wrong, but with the strong evidence I have given with my Excite bike replay modification, I feel that average misses are from one of two things:

1) An error in the code creation, which could make times for certain notes alter or be recorded incorrectly, maybe due to a compatibility issue of FFR versions, that could cause misses, boos, averages, or other incorrect stats in the replay.

2) Some sort of error in the replay shockwave flash object itself, which could make the harder songs in the game glitch up, and the script not be correctly followed. In other words, the average miss glitch everyone is talking about, for the replay. Although I find this to be rather tough to believe...I would need evidence of problem code, to support this.

Chances are, in my opinion, it is probably #1 of the two reasons, because, like I said, if you have a script, and the game is programmed to follow that script, it WILL carry it out. This also explains why if you hit "try this level again" after the replay is over, that is just misses all of the notes and fails, because the replay file is NOT reloaded, after the replay ends, and the page needs to be refreshed in order to re-watch it.

[foxfire667]

Originally Posted by Punk Kitten

Also, Foxfire, I personally believe that Synthlight could use you to fix the whole problem.

Thanks! I would love to try to fix the replay situation, if I was ever given the chance, but I doubt I will though. I think that if the administrators / moderators were to look into fixing the replays for a little while, they could come to some of the same conclusions I have made, and fix the problem as well.


Is it an issue of money FFR staff? If someone would go out of their way to even TRY to fix the replays in our behalf, I would gladly donate some additional money to help out the cause, and I'm sure others would as well.

[x After Dawn x]

Originally Posted by foxfire667

Thanks! I would love to try to fix the replay situation, if I was ever given the chance, but I doubt I will though. I think that if the administrators / moderators were to look into fixing the replays for a little while, they could come to some of the same conclusions I have made, and fix the problem as well.


Is it an issue of money FFR staff? If someone would go out of their way to even TRY to fix the replays in our behalf, I would gladly donate some additional money to help out the cause, and I'm sure others would as well.

The issue is that the admin that coded the new engine for the FFR R1 game and who was going to code a new engine for the replays decided to leave the site unexpectedly. I remember making a thread asking Tass a long time ago to hire new admins or something to fix the problem, but they ignored the request saying how it wasn't mandatory or something.