What happened to Trimming the Herbs?
This was posted by the Creator of that level.
"TTH was made to be unreasonably difficult and to cause a ruckus. I put effort into promoting it in 2017 so that it could be played, dissected, and scrutinized. Once that would happen I would announce that TAS existed for SMM. I did not expect that it would go unnoticed or perceived as easy from watching the video, or that it would take nearly seven years to be uncovered. The sunk cost fallacy of wanting to follow through with the failed troll, combined with new IRL responsibilities, allowed the nonsense to continue. I knew about Team 0% so I let things be until they would uncover it. I delayed uploading bombs5 until the uploads shut down because bombs5 is also illegitimate. I deserve no credit for either, and will not deny Team 0% their victory.
From attempting to upload bombs5 I developed tendon issues in my thumb. After some breaks and noticing they weren’t healing properly, it became unrealistic to continue. Once I accepted this, I felt a sense of relief.
Someone had messaged me about a TAS they were working on for the Wii U. In a video they sent, it seemed to me like they had it working, but they told me they were abandoning the project. The TAS was replicated by my friend after two days of building.
Because I had already resigned to leave streaming and pursue other things, and suddenly had a working TAS, I thought that the bomb guy should go out with a bang, so TTH was constructed. The PogChamp contest was made because I wanted there to be a venue for kaizo enthusiasts to gather. The judges were doing a live viewing of the contest levels, and I let them know that I (intentionally) broke the timer rules and that after showcasing TTH, they should disqualify me.
The past week, when the time bomb finally blew up, things escalated quickly, and the community was divided, which was not my intention. I’m sorry for the drama it caused within the community, and I regret the ordeal, but at least it was interesting. However in the end the truth matters most. Congratulations to Team 0% for their well-earned achievement! SMM is cleared, and The Last Dance was the last level!"
In case anyone else like me didn’t know, TAS = Tool-Assisted Speedrun
“More and more people were uploading evidence that I faked it, so I finally confessed. But only after people wasted countless hours of their lives trying to beat it. I was gunna tell everyone I swearsies, but only after I got attention. It happened so quickly, only 2 weeks after 6 years that I could have said something. I’m so nice, I could have uploaded another one I faked, but I didn’t!”
I don’t understand why this guy is getting a pass by so many people. “I will not deny team 0% their victory” what kind of egotistic statement is that? Am I understanding that he entered it into a competition, too?
I do get that more energy should be spent celebrating Team 0%, but the fake level guy is mentioned in all those same articles as “congratulating team 0%” as if his thumbs up means fuck all. Hacking is fun and funny, but absolutely not if it is to the detriment of other users.
Yea he sounds like a tool.
“I will not deny team 0% their victory” what kind of egotistic statement is that?
It’s not egotistic. The uploader is saying that it would’ve been their fault that 0% “failed” if they didn’t come clean, and they didn’t want that.
Not really sure why this person is getting so much grief, tbh. They uploaded a crazy hard level for fun, long before the attempt to complete every level. It was never their intention to sabotage that.
Not “crazy hard”. Cheated. I don’t know what kind of grief he’s getting, but he deserves it. If he didn’t want to sabotage their task, he should have admitted it right away when he uploaded it. Or 2 weeks ago when his level became the last level. Or a month ago when everyone learned about the task. Before people wasted hours of their life trying to beat a hacked level.
“I won’t deny them the victory” is a control statement. What he has done has allowed them to win. Delivery has connotation, and his whole message is one of explaining away what he did.
If he didn’t want to sabotage their task, he should have admitted it right away when he uploaded it.
Admit it to whom? The 10-15 people that made up 0% way before Nintendo ceased allowing uploads, back when Team 0% was another meme team?
You have strong negative opinions for someone who doesn’t seem to have any grasp on this community or the timeline in which this took place. No one told Ahoyo that their level was the last until they asked them if it was TASed. Ahoyo isn’t streaming nowadays, and isn’t spending their days going to streamers who played a game he played to see if one of the millions of levels was theirs.
Nobody told me, either. I just sort by Top-All. It was the top story on any gaming site for weeks. My son was also excited about this too, even he’d heard about it. It’s a cool story.
Yes, I took offense on the part of the people who I saw reacting very frustrated after they’d tried the level for hours without TAS. And it upset me his response wasn’t more apologetic. Team 0% having to include a statement not to attack him and keep the peace seems like I’m probably not the only one.
In all, though, that was my interpretation. I’ve never talked with anyone in 0% or Ahoyo. Maybe in Ahoyo talk, that’s a good apology.
I think the kids call this SDE
Yeah!
Wait, him or me?
Him lol
Ahoyo “confessed” as soon as people contacted them and asked. They were also a very well known member of the community, it’s not like 0% was discovering TTH, especially after we all saw bombs5.
Besides, since when do we not allow TASes in the Mario community? It is “faked” at a stretch of the word “faked”. There are plenty of faked SMM levels where the creator cheated the cleared for upload flag. TTH is completable.
Am I understanding that he entered it into a competition, too?
I feel like you aren’t even half assing reading that paragraph and trying to take it in the most negative light.
Ahoyo hosted a contest where people showed off levels, and TTH was disqualified by themselves.
But there was a level entry form. So he entered it, but then disqualified it? Or someone else entered it on his behalf?
This is why I asked, I wasn’t sure what exactly happened. I read multiple other articles (I didn’t come up with using ‘faked’ to describe it). There’s a difference using TAS vs using TAS but letting everyone believe that you didn’t for 6 years.
THH was gaming news for two weeks before he came clean. If he hadn’t heard the news, he still should be way more apologetic to all the people who wasted their time
But there was a level entry form. So he entered it, but then disqualified it? Or someone else entered it on his behalf?
Ahoyo hosted, and lots of creators were invited to submit. When Ahoyo discovered TASing tools for WiiU, TTH was his way of showing it off. With a tendon issue, they couldn’t make and play a hard kaizo level anymore. So, yes, Ahoyo entered TTH themselves, then made sure it was disqualified. The point was for people to see the playthrough and accuse it of being a TAS, which would be the reveal, as per Ahoyo’s message. The viewing of the levels with the judges was live streamed, so the audience was supposed to see the levels and call it out, too.
Then no one noticed, and the TAS tools seemed to have died out. <strikethrough is broken for me for some reason, just assume some nonsense here>
Edit: My bad, I heard talk of TASBot trying to get their jank tools to work for WiiU, I didn’t realize this but someone has already cleared TTH with TAS. Just those streamers going for last 7 days of RTA clear attempts.
I understand like 10% of what they have written. Most of it reads like incoherent babble. Interesting.
To me, not a player, it seems like there’s a long winded explanation/justification for why they uploaded a illegitimately approved run. In Super Mario maker, if you make a level you need to beat it to upload it. They beat it with a tool instead of skill, to ensure the sequence of frame perfect tricks could be completed, something nearly impossible to do by real players.
There were many top level players all at once playing that level non stop. So I feel for them. Training their muscle memory to execute robot timings for what came out to be not a legit level.
Most of what was said was irrelevant, they managed a life story in the middle of an apology.
The verification clear (done by the creator to upload it) was a tas meaning it was a cheated level
After watching the level breakdown that was my first thought. Thanks for the replies.
Yeah, you can’t have humans completing 13-ish? frame-perfect tricks in a row that were only uploaded through the use of TAS tools.
Anyone know if thab or anyone else got close?
There were a few decent runs, and a couple streamers getting consist improvement, but no one super close. Thab was not really close, made it to the 3rd plant about 35 times.
Anyone got a brief explanation for people out of the loop?
Nintendo turned off uploading new levels in SMM a bit ago. Now, because there’s no influx of submitted levels it’s possible for the game to be “beaten”, i.e., all user-uploaded levels in the game can be completed by someone. *Add in the fact that Nintendo is shutting down the servers for it in a couple weeks and it was a race against the clock.
The added wrinkle is that “Trimming the Herbs”, the only unbeaten level is so absurdly hard it must have been uploaded using a computer… Turns out, it was! The submitter recently admitted they used TAS tools to upload it (you have to beat your own level normally before it can be submitted). This makes sense, as it requires over a dozen frame-perfect (split second) button inputs in a row to complete…
Damn TASing the verification run is so dastardly not even an evil piece of shit like me could think of it.
That’s something that has been done in geometry dash too, but usually someone four d out about it.
You forgot to add that the servers will be shut down soon, so this was a race to complete all the levels before that.
Oops, didn’t realize I omitted that! Thank you, edited.
I fucking love that they made it TECHNICALLY possible to complete the herbs lvl to troll people.
I love it more that they came out after all this time and admitted it wasn’t possible as a human and made it public so that 0% could complete.
