Phantom Mania X

[XaeL]

dude, slamming down pieces at a pace you control in 0G SRS is a world apart from being forced to maneuver in 20G ARS with 8 frames of lock delay.

I see what you did there.

[professor-l]

dude, slamming down pieces at a pace you control in 0G SRS is a world apart from being forced to maneuver in 20G ARS with 8 frames of lock delay.

Well, clearly QM is more than capable of doing so, so the point is moot regardless.

Besides, with a working memory as powerful as his, speed should be more or less irrelevant in determining his capacity to play like this.  Just because you've never seen someone this good doesn't mean nobody can be.  Human nature is pushing the limits of what others think is possible, and that's what he's doing.

From a cognitive standpoint, while highly anomalistic, QM's abilities are not out of the question.  At this point, your skepticism, while not wholly unwarranted, has crossed the line between healthy suspicion and unproductive dismissiveness.

He's the best in the world, it's that simple.

[mycophobia]

It's really "that simple" that he's the best in the world? On the thinnest of support you're willing to believe this? My skepticism is unwarranted because you want to take easily fakeable video footage of a seemingly superhuman feat at face value, without the assistance of any corroboration whatsoever, such as live stream footage of attempts or in-person verification by a trustworthy source or really any sort of presence in the TGM scene outside of these staggeringly bold claims to mastery? You really want to accept that using memory techniques is the explanation for this?

The only thing that is simple here is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[professor-l]

It's really "that simple" that he's the best in the world? On the thinnest of support you're willing to believe this? My skepticism is unwarranted because you want to take easily fakeable video footage of a seemingly superhuman feat at face value, without the assistance of any corroboration whatsoever, such as live stream footage of attempts or in-person verification by a trustworthy source or really any sort of presence in the TGM scene outside of these staggeringly bold claims to mastery? You really want to accept that using memory techniques is the explanation for this?

The only thing that is simple here is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Agree to disagree, I guess.  Sorry for upsetting you.

[mycophobia]

I'm not upset with you, I'm just genuinely confused as to why you're backing this guy up. He's done nothing but act defensively and straight up ignore more than legitimate objections. He didn't even bother to film his hand this time! I just don't get it.

[professor-l]

I'm not upset with you, I'm just genuinely confused as to why you're backing this guy up. He's done nothing but act defensively and straight up ignore more than legitimate objections. He didn't even bother to film his hand this time! I just don't get it.

Fair, you may not be upset with me, but you're clearly upset, and I'd rather just disengage.

[Lucas_Bomfim]

I believe in him because of what he has done previously. People can play with similar performance on regular and invisible tetris modes given enough practice. QM was the best at invisible already and had years of practice after that.

[mycophobia]

QM was the best at invisible already

You base this on...?

[Rosti_LFC]

It's nice to see some people actually supporting QM and his achievements!  I don't know why so many skeptics and haters always seem to come out of the woodwork every time he does something new, but it's really annoying.

Probably because it's really annoying when you've put thousands of hours of work towards honing a skill, and some guy just pops up with something that is literally unbelievable and people take it at face value. Then, when asked to give an explanation on his memory technique he provides an elaborate but debunkable explanation that involves a lot of backpedalling and corrections when things don't quite add up. When asked to give clearer videos we get stuff that's not even on the same level. When asked to give more or better videos we just get excuses and then a very small selection of vids from weird angles, picture quality, and framing.

And when it's suggested that maybe the best way to clear all this controversy up would be to do this in front of someone live, they then blow up and pre-emptively insist that there's nobody they could meet that we would believe (not true), nobody willing to meet to be a referee (not true), and that even if they did we'd find some other way to be sceptical (possibly true but I'd say still worth a go).

And yet despite the sheer incredible nature of the achievements, despite all the sketchy circumstances around it and the unwillingness to really engage on the side of providing evidence and proof, there are people who are not only happy to give the guy the benefit of the (considerably sized) doubt and believe him, but then also advocate for him being legit without any additional evidence? You really wonder why people who think this is fake feel it necessary to come out and repeat that they think it's fake?

I don't play TGM or have skin in this game any more and I still found it irritating enough having come across it that I'm bothering to reply to it.

If you look at one of his previous videos, it's very clear that he's got true skills.

If you look at a lot of his other posts, it's also very clear that he's got the capability to fake something like this. If someone is capable of modifying Nullpo code to write new modes then that opens up a huge amount of opportunity for shenanigans.

Some people thought he was watching a visible playfield that was out of camera shot.  Even if that was true (and it's NOT!), what he's accomplishing with one hand at these speeds is more than I can accomplish with two hands and a visible playfield, lol.

And none of that is suspicious to you? This guy is playing Tetris at a speed that's as fast as the fastest in the world. He's supposedly using memory techniques that are miles beyond what the world champions in memory competitions can do. He's completely crushing invisible Tetris on a level that nobody else has managed. And on top of all of that he's doing it by playing with one hand.

"But he's doing so many other impressive things as well!" doesn't help the cause, especially when those things could also be faked. When a guy posts an invisible Death Gm that's faster than the visible world record Death Gm, then I'm going to question if the invisible element is legit, but I'm questioning the legitimacy of the rest of it pretty hard as well.

Let's also not forget that he figured out a new playing forever technique that nobody even knew or dreamed was possible, AND his new technique was more optimized than the original AND is playable at 20G!

The fact that someone manages significant achievements in one area of something doesn't give them a free pass against scrutiny on something else. They're unrelated. If KevinDDR suddenly started claiming he could run 100m in under 9 seconds then I wouldn't just sit back and think "well the guy is one of the best in the world at Tetris so I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt". Especially if he was claiming he could do it while solving a rubik's cube blindfolded faster than most top speedcubers can with their eyes open.

Also lets not forget that the whole foray into invisible Tetris for QM basically started as a neat exploit that demonstrated the playing forever strategy. Not some obvious intent to be the best in the world at invisible Tetris.

I wish people could look past their own doubts and have enough sense to realize that the dude has true skill and isn't a scam artist ...

Honestly I wish people had a bit more scepticism and awareness as to what it's possible to (easily) fake given a bit of know-how and time. If you believe every video or record that QM posts and just take each one as an extension of that (he's done all this incredible stuff in SRS so of course he can in ARS!), then things seem believable. But if you stop doing that, and pull at the house of cards a little bit, then actually a lot of the stuff that's been posted just seems frankly very hard to believe. Not impossible, but hard to believe, and there are a lot of surrounding circumstances (lack of interest in other modes, live online play, no regular streaming, no willingness to show anyone in person) which all build on that.

I'd also like to make it really clear that in general QM wasn't met with scepticism and actually a lot of strong and established players did take things at face value and were genuinely interested in trying to learn from what QM was doing. It was only after those explanations didn't really make much sense that people started to scrutinise more closely and felt things weren't adding up.

This is a community fundamentally built on an honour system - a lot of the records on our leaderboards aren't officially verified by third parties. And for that to work then a layer of scepticism is healthy, and I would say necessary, in order to prevent abuse. If I suddenly claimed that I had TGM3 Classic GM and a 14 second 40 line record tomorrow, I'd expect a fairly high bar to prove that I wasn't just bullshitting (definitely more than just screenshots and some dodgy videos). Anyone posting best-in-the-world records should expect that, and acting defensive and angry about it (as opposed to working to find a way to verify it) just raises the suspicion if anything.

If what QM is posting is legit, then this is some epic stuff and he's one of the best Tetris players in the world in more ways than one, for sure. And that would be an important thing for the community to know. But the burden of proof has to lie on the player making a reasonable effort to show what they're doing is real, not just that the community takes everything as legitimate until someone can prove it's a hoax.

It's 2019. There are so many ways this guy could produce pretty robust evidence that what he's doing is real, and he's just made excuses or flat out refused to do so at every turn. Those calling bs haven't just called bs - they've also outlined what sort of stuff would change their mind. None of that has been convincingly produced.

It's not about people being "haters". It's not about random YouTube trolls who don't even play the game claiming it's fake. It's about people bothering to scrutinise when people post exceptional things so that our leaderboards don't just devolve into a farce of whoever can claim the best record and post the minimum amount of evidence to get enough people who are happy to just take things at face value (or want to believe that it's real) to say it's real.

[Shuey]

Dang, that looks like an epic reply!  I haven't even read it yet, but knowing that it's written by Rosti, I know it'll be good .

I've gotta finish up some last minute stuff for the day, but I'll read it in detail and reply back soon!

OK, I read the first paragraphs, and I totally get the gist of what's being said - I don't have the time at the moment to read the rest, but I totally understand the sentiment and agree.

If I was as good as QM claims to be, I would be completely motivated to do everything in my power to prove it - He simply hasn't done that.  And when questioned about it (and rightfully so), he does the opposite of what pretty much all of us would've expected him to do - he basically said it wasn't worth his time.  This makes no sense.... He supposedly spent hundreds (maybe even thousands) of hours becoming a God at invisible Tetris, and then when someone asks for more reliable proof, he says he doesn't feel like dedicating a couple more hours to doing something that SHOULD be relatively easy to produce (especially when compared to the actual achievements themselves).

And then what does he do?  He vanishes from the face of the Earth once again... it's all just too odd O_o...

[Shuey]

I posted a more detailed reply finally (posting this additional "fast reply" just in case my edited post doesn't trigger a notification to subscribers of this thread).

[Rosti_LFC]

Thanks for replying and I'm glad we're on the same page!

(Much shorter reply from me this time!  )