What If?

[f_symbols]

This question makes the overwhelming assumption that the programmers would have been able to develop the modern theories behind point-pressing techniques.  Also, realize that only a small fraction of theory is conveyed visually.  It seems like a fairly open-ended question that is entirely skeptical in nature; worth pondering, at least briefly.

Secondly, who?

[xelnia]

I don't think it would have happened right away, at least in terms of how long it takes to learn that kind of skill. Would players have taken that route before knowing there was a killscreen? Probably not. So, give it a year or so for the killscreen to become common knowledge and then for players to consider that the attract mode was actually conveying a useful method.

Surely there were KS-capable players other than Billy in that era, meaning they had solved the springs and could survive the pies and rivets. How many would be able to correctly analyze this theoretical attact mode? It makes me wonder how long it took Billy to really get a million once he started working on it. My guess is that he started after Sczerby got the record, and then got serious about it once Wiebe showed up. So it might have taken him a couple of years to figure it out.

So, I voted '83-'85. It still probably would have been Billy.

[marinomitch13]

When was the Life Magazine shoot again? If Billy got a KS then, he could have probably gotten 1m+ in the same year if he really wanted to.

[hchien]

It took Jeff Willms only a few months to reach 1.1M.  Of course you'd also need to know how to pass the other boards.  I'd say 1-2 years.

Btw, no one has ever finished a game averaging 13K per barrel.  So given what we know now, a 13K barrel board involves some luck.

[f_symbols]

Save states didn't exist back then, so the Willms factor should be disregarded IMO.  I still think Billy would have been the first to get it done.  I think it'd take about 2-3 years to develop the techniques for the "accessory boards" and to learn the idio-syncracies and nuances of in-game RNG- based situations; this learning essentially only comes from repetition.

[hchien]

Yeah I agree, save states do help a lot.

Another interesting question would be if the internet existed in '81 how long would it take someone to get 1M and would it have been Billy?  Many people here have reached 1M in under a year (of course this is with MAME and a higher "starting point" of knowledge).  I'd like to think a Jeff Willms ver. 1.9.8.1 is somewhere out there.

[ChrisP]

I agree with Mitch's assessment.

When Billy discovered the kill screen on his 874K game, which was mostly (or entirely) a top-hammer run, he would have known that he could get at least 100K more by simply getting all of the bottom hammers, never mind the fancy stuff he would have seen on this attract screen. The fact that Billy didn't go higher is probably because he already had the record (so why push it until someone beat him?) and there was too much going on in the arcade scene at the time to bother putting such inordinate focus on DK.

[LMDAVE]

I still think the killscreen is what drives point pressing. Given the goal is to get to the top of the board. Pac Man, for example, was to just to finish the board, but after someone got to the 9th key and no more blue ghost, then they can start thinking, what if I get all the blue ghosts (or maximize them) before the 9th key. That is why that Calvin Framptom theory didn't make sense of him pushing the score to 1.2M without even knowing the killscreen existed. *cracks open can of worms*

Think about how much trouble people were having just running the boards and still couldn't get killscreens back in the day, much less executing a 13K barrel board.

[johnbart]

I can't believe you just used the Frampton reference.  The next thing we'll be talking about is moods.

[hchien]

The decision whether to point-press is partially based on the fact that there is a killscreen.  But there is also some risk-reward analysis that plays into it. 

For example if there is a 100% safe way of point pressing (leeching DK on the rivet screen), people may still point press with or without a killscreen.  On the other hand, without a killscreen, it makes no sense to point press a barrel board.  (The following #'s are just estimates for the sake of argument.)  If I just run a barrel board, I have about a 99% chance of surviving and get about 8500 points.  If I point press at 12,500 per barrel board, I have about a 95% chance of surviving.  Now that's a 400%/5-fold increase in risk (1% vs 5% chance of dying) with only about 50% increase in points per board.  Meaning I could clear 5x's as many barrel boards without point pressing and only suffer a 33% reduction in per board score.  Makes no sense at all.  Of course the other boards play into the decision making, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.

Now I don't know the risk involved in DK Jr. point pressing as well.  I'd imagine it's similar.  There are certain tactics (jumping sparks) that are nearly 100% risk free while point pressing other boards may make no sense given the risk/reward ratio.   I could see someone jumping sparks without knowledge of the killscreen.  But it probably wouldn't make sense to point press a chain/key board unless you knew there was a killscreen.

I'm going to stay out of the Calvin Frampton argument, because what people do doesn't always 'make sense.'  So you could make an argument that he was point pressing just for fun even though it was illogical points-wise.

[stella_blue]

World Record for most insults to Vincent and fewest games of DK3 played-- 3.

Hey Hank,

Just noticed the updated signature.  Nice change of pace, but not entirely accurate.

I've played exactly zero games of DK3.  By my calculations, that places me firmly at the top of the worldwide rankings, tied with more than 7 billion others.   

[hchien]

I've played exactly zero games of DK3.

Screenshot or it didn't happen.

[Xermon54]

What a coincidence! I also changed my signature.

Screenshot or it didn't happen.

I demand a screenshot of your screenshot or it didn't happen.

If I just run a barrel board, I have about a 99% chance of surviving and get about 8500 points.  If I point press at 12,500 per barrel board, I have about a 95% chance of surviving.  Now that's a 400%/5-fold increase in risk (1% vs 5% chance of dying) with only about 50% increase in points per board.  Meaning I could clear 5x's as many barrel boards without point pressing and only suffer a 33% reduction in per board score.  Makes no sense at all.  Of course the other boards play into the decision making, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.

[LMDAVE]

I posted this a few months back, I may have played one more since then.

[hchien]

I demand a screenshot of your screenshot or it didn't happen.