THE TTH FAQ

THE TTH FAQ


Questions:

1. What is Trimming The Herbs?
2. I thought TTH was beaten?
3. Why hasn't TTH been beaten yet?
4. I'm pretty sure I could beat TTH...
5. How is TTH so difficult? It looks very easy.
6. Why is TTH so difficult? It sounds very unfun.
7. Is it the hardest level in the game?
8. If TTH isn't the hardest level, why hasn't it been beaten yet?
9. But we know now. What's taking so long?
10. If TTH is easier than Bombs5, why don't we get Fast or Tea to clear it?
11. Okay, so why don't we ask the creator to clear it?
12. Okay, so why don't we ask the creator to delete it?
13. Okay, so who is playing TTH?
14. Where can I watch TTH?
15. Is there cheese in TTH?
16. Are the bomb spawns in TTH jank?
17. What is the bomb spawn jank, anyway?
18. Are there practice setups for the tower?
19. What happens if we don't beat TTH in time?
20. How will I know when TTH is cleared?
21. So, what's the deal with the controversy? Was TTH legitimately uploaded?
22. Are we sure it wasn't hacked?
23. How do we know the clear video wasn't spliced?
24. What about the 31 FRAMES?!?
25. Okay but seriously, what's the deal?
26. Could the clear video have been TAS'd?
27. What about Bombs5? Was that level legitimate?
28. When did this controversy start?
29. Why does any of this even matter? The herbs must be trimmed!
30. Does Ahoyo know that his level is the final boss of Team 0%?
31. I thought the creator's name is Ahoyoo? With 2 o's?
32. Why are there names written out in letter text in the TTH subworld?
33. It's a shame that Last Dance was beaten befo-



1. What is Trimming The Herbs?

Trimming The Herbs, or TTH for short, is the only remaining uncleared level in Super Mario Maker 1. It was made by Ahoyo, the creator of arguably the hardest uploaded level in the series, Bombs5, back in mid 2017. It has since gained a lot of notoriety for being exceptionally difficult for its time, with some players going so far as to question the legitimacy of the upload. There is an incredibly high bounty pooled by the community for clearing TTH, totaling thousands of dollars in value.

Upload video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siz4oB4CGKo


2. I thought TTH was beaten?

You probably just saw someone replay the clear video or beat a practice version of the level.


3. Why hasn't TTH been beaten yet?

TTH has not been beaten because it's really difficult! The level is densely packed with a lot of very strict movement and frame perfect tricks. If you want to see some breakdowns of TTH and why it is hard, there are the following videos:

Ahoyo (the creator):           https://www.twitch.tv/videos/168329991?t=0h1m29s
Yoshi (best PB):               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAKtY5ha6mI
Thabeast (good mm1 player):    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmikpEVCuZE
Grandpoobear (famous player):  https://youtu.be/que7FgF-DZ4?t=261


4. I'm pretty sure I could beat TTH...

No you could not. You can try if you want: D810-0000-0352-9244


5. How is TTH so difficult? It looks very easy.

Invisible difficulty is a tale as old as time. Much like people underestimating Bombs5 from a clear video, TTH followed the same pattern. TTH involves a very specific, niche, skillset that Ahoyo was very well practiced in. Tight momentum control, frame perfect drops, and specific controlled jumps/floats are some examples of this. A lot of things you primarily see today in precision levels are inseparably tied to bomb kaizo after the impact that Ahoyo left on the genre. I recommend again that you review the breakdowns provided by its creator and various other experts (see question #3) if you want to better understand where the difficulty comes from.


6. Why is TTH so difficult? It sounds very unfun.

While fun is a very subjective trait, it's true that TTH is way more precise than most players enjoy. The reason for TTH's difficulty lies in its origin. TTH was made for a gameplay-design competition that Ahoyo hosted around the time of its creation. People would submit 10s clips of gameplay and have them judged. This competition had multiple categories that levels could compete in, such as Flow & Uniqueness, but Ahoyo submitted TTH to demonstrate Difficulty. TTH was designed with the explicit intention to be as densely difficult as 10s could be. Ironically, Ahoyo would go on to be disqualified from his own competition for his level being 11s long.


7. Is it the hardest level in the game?

Well, it's the hardest uncleared. It's also technically the easiest uncleared! How TTH stacks up to other, already cleared, hard levels in this game is going to vary depending on who you ask, because difficulty is very subjective. Someone whose area of expertise is short sequences of difficult inputs would find TTH to be significantly easier than someone who is better at endurance levels or consistency levels. The general consensus seems to be that TTH cracks top 10 or maybe even top 5, but this is very unscientific.


8. If TTH isn't the hardest level, why hasn't it been beaten yet?

Because it's also not the most popular level. TTH had very little fanfare surrounding its upload, and for years since many people underestimated its difficulty. Levels like Bombs5 or Trials of Death were famously difficult, and so they, of course, got more attention.


9. But we know now. What's taking so long?

Truth is most of us didn't know until a couple months ago, and by then it may have been too late. We have some of the best in the world grinding. Fingers crossed that we finish in time.


10. If TTH is easier than Bombs5, why don't we get Fast or Tea to clear it?

It's true that Fast & Tea both cleared Bombs5, but it is important to note that this doesn't automatically qualify them to beat TTH. TTH is not just a shorter Bombs5, it is a densely compacted Bombs5. Ahoyo developed the fundamentals, and pulled from prior gaming experience, to be good at both TTH and Bombs5. You don't necessarily need to have those same fundamentals, though. You can be good at *just* Bombs5. To answer your question, however, we have reached out to Fast and received no response, and Tea is believed to be actively playing.


11. Okay, so why don't we ask the creator to clear it?

We do not count maker-clears as legitimate clears. We determined as a community that it goes against the spirit of Nintendo's rules, from which our philosophy regarding hacked uploads/clears stems from.


12. Okay, so why don't we ask the creator to delete it?

It is against the spirit of the team to delete legitimately uploaded uncleared levels. This would be a very depressing end to our mission.


13. Okay, so who is playing TTH?

A lot of people! Some big contenders include Yoshi, Somebro, LilKirbs, JankPickle, among others! Currently the best known run is Yoshi, who missed one pink coin & failed to spawn the final bomb. Sadly, having more players doesn't increase the likelihood of TTH being cleared as much as it does an easier level, or in the most extreme case an RNG level, because you need a very high baseline of skill as it is to tackle TTH. But we're all trying!


14. Where can I watch TTH?

Most people are playing off stream because it is easier to focus, and TTH demands a lot of focus. That being said, you will typically find people playing in the SMM directory on twitch. Additionally, people frequently post multitwitch links so you can watch all simultaneous perspectives on TTH at once. There is currently an attempt at an automated multi link in #teh-list.

SMM directory:         https://www.twitch.tv/directory/category/super-mario-maker
Automated multi link:  https://discord.com/channels/394519186610847754/395514867429408768/1068859234965524541


15. Is there cheese in TTH?

There's several different strategies for the end. Intended bounces off the final bomb while ascending and proceeds to do a very hard variant of the trims seen for the first three stacks. The first cheese found involved instead dropping the bomb onto the spike rather than trimming. This was found to be very difficult to do in time and with the momentum you have leaving the previous section, not to mention the ascending bounce off the bomb is hard as it is, so people instead began spinning off the edge of the noteblock to gain more momentum. This was incredibly annoying to perform, so one final cheese was discovered which surfs the bomb into a specific position and does a complex bomb dive at the end. Alternatively you can do mostly intended, but do a delayed bomb drop instead of a bonk trim.

First concept:      https://discord.com/channels/394519186610847754/859621932580077578/1197160929264152586
Noteblock:          https://discord.com/channels/394519186610847754/859077449881747456/1214810299740200970
Delayed bomb drop:  https://youtu.be/UAKtY5ha6mI?t=823
Bomb dive:          https://clips.twitch.tv/VibrantImpossibleToothTheThing-X5xWXalEoOqhJUdN


16. Are the bomb spawns in TTH jank?

Kinda! There are aspects to spawning the bombs in TTH that would typically be considered "jank" in a well designed level. However, that concept kinda breaks down when talking about a level like TTH. To understand why we need to explain exactly what jank is and why it is a problem. Usually, people complain that a level is jank when it "doesn't work". That is to say, when the player performs what the level is expecting, but something about the level isn't lining up, or isn't working correctly. This often has one of two underlying causes: either the maker didn't account for this possibility, or the player doesn't understand something about the level. When designing a level it is usually a goal of the maker to make it accessible to the target audience, so you don't want to require knowledge that they are unlikely to have. For the same reason that you wouldn't want to put an obscure mechanic like a shell jump in your traditional level, you also wouldn't want to put weird camera manip in your blind kaizo race. TTH, however, isn't bound by such limitations; it can be as hard as it wants to be, in any way that it wants to be. Everything in TTH is predictable and learnable, so anything goes.


17. What is the bomb spawn jank, anyway?

Basically, the final bomb spawn is determined by two things: how high the camera is, and how low mario is (relative to the camera.) By initiating the bomb ladder from higher up and/or controlling your jump that lands on the middle bomb you can guarantee its spawn. Additionally, the second bomb can go left or right depending on the direction that a mechanism's bomb is facing when the first bomb of the level explodes - this is determined by how many frames you spend between hitting the turnblock and spawning the mechanism in.


18. Are there practice setups for the tower?

Yeah, for the most part it is easy to set up practice for the bomb drop and ending, but the tower is a little tricky. You can find a set up here: https://discord.com/channels/394519186610847754/859077449881747456/1219035513126916196


19. What happens if we don't beat TTH in time?

We lose. People will likely still continue personally grinding it, but Team 0% will have failed.


20. How will I know when TTH is cleared?

It will be all over discord, twitter, and twitch. Honestly, how could you miss it?


21. So, what's the deal with the controversy? Was TTH legitimately uploaded?

The current understanding is that, yes, TTH was legitimately uploaded. It is an unfalsifiable claim that it was illegitimate, with little to no evidence backing it up. There are a couple people that believe it was too hard for 2017, but most, including Team 0% mods, recognize this is as a very flimsy argument. Any claims as to the illegitimacy of TTH is pure speculation/opinion.


22. Are we sure it wasn't hacked?

There are a lot of levels that were uploaded to SMM servers through hacking, but it is very unlikely that this was the case for TTH for one simple reason: the level has a clear video. In most cases of hacked uploads, the maker would alter save data for their clear-check, or use cheat codes/version specific glitches to beat their level in a manner otherwise unintended by the player. None of these methods produce a clear video, so in order for TTH to have been uploaded illegitimately, there would need to have been some alternative method for creating the clear video.


23. How do we know the clear video wasn't spliced?

If you want to look for a splice you can go ahead. There has been independent analysis on the clear video by several people at this point and absolutely no discrepancies have been identified. The timer adds up, the points add up, the animations add up, the sounds add up. Everything seems to line up. As for the low quality of the clear video, this was simply the quality of Ahoyo's capture card at the time of recording.


24. What about the 31 FRAMES?!?

Thabeast is silly, this is normal, next question.


25. Okay but seriously, what's the deal?

It's claimed that the timer lingers for one frame too long on the final second value of the level, but this is actually entirely expected behavior with the 30fps capture card and interlaced recording. There's nothing suspicious about the timer. Thabeast just likes to joke about it.


26. Could the clear video have been TAS'd?

This is the best argument for TTH being an illegitimate upload. Although still not a very good one. At the time of TTH's upload the only known tool for TAS'ing a mario maker level would be to play back inputs via a computer macro on the Wii U emulator Cemu. This was incredibly inconsistent at the time, and seems to still be to this day. You would also need to transfer save data to real hardware, as Cemu couldn't even connect online at the time. Since then there have been two "proper" tools developed for Wii U TAS'ing: uTas and TAS-Script Cemu. The former is a Twilight Princess exclusive tool that came out later that year, and the latter, which released half a year after uploads were discontinued, experiences the same desync issues that plagued macros back in the day. As for controller macros, they experience the same desync issues. Additionally, nobody has shown hardcoded input playback to be possible on Wii U hardware. The macros that do exist are very rare, and they only play back human recorded input, offering no way to code frame by frame. These macros would be next to useless in TTH.


27. What about Bombs5? Was that level legitimate?

Bombs5 is a topic of its own with a lot of ground that one could cover, so I'm going to keep it short in this answer. The long story short is that Ahoyo claims to have beaten Bombs5 twice, this is something he said when confronted about his clear video not matching the uploaded version of the level. A lot of people find it difficult to believe this claim, and use it to establish credence in the theory that TTH was illegitimate, too. It is important to note that beyond the claim beaten Bombs5 twice there is very little suspicious around the level, and whether or not Ahoyo beat Bombs5 twice is subject to debate in itself. However, even if Bombs5 was uploaded illegitimately, Bombs5 was uploaded 4 years after TTH and Bombs5's clear video would not have necessarily needed to be TAS'd. It is impossible to extrapolate from Bombs5 that Ahoyo would have the capability to TAS TTH.


28. When did this controversy start?

The Bombs5 discrepancies have been around, lowkey, for a while. TTH was not under question until very recently.


29. Why does any of this even matter? The herbs must be trimmed!

This matters because Team 0% has set precedent that illegitimate uploads are not counted. For example, there was an 81 mid-air level that was beaten via macro that we treated as a hacked upload. There has also been levels proven to be beaten with turbo controllers that, while viable for a human, we wrote off as unecessary. If TTH could be proven to have been hacked, spliced, TAS'd, or anything of the sort then we would not need to beat it to be successful in our mission. As it stands, however, only a confession from Ahoyo would be enough confirmation - there is far too much reasonable doubt otherwise.


30. Does Ahoyo know that his level is the final boss of Team 0%?

It seems so! A few people have noted activity from Ahoyo that has indicated his presence, although he has remained silent. The truth is that Bombs5 and TTH come from a very tragic era of Ahoyo's life, and he doesn't much like remembering it. Bombs5 was an obsession for Ahoyo, and in many ways led to a lot of instability in his life. Ahoyo wanted to leave Bombs5 in the past entirely, and stop thinking about it after the events that occurred. We are lucky that Bombs5 got uploaded at all, as he only did so out of panic when he heard, last minute, that uploads were being discontinued. Bombs5 had been clear checked for years before the upload occurred. Ahoyo very likely will not comment on any of this, so please do not pressure him or try to get in contact with him.


31. I thought the creator's name is Ahoyoo? With 2 o's?

It used to be, but when the name Ahoyo became available he snagged it as soon as he could. This has led to some confusion, as a Ahoyo fan took the name Ahoyoo to be funny - and multiple of Ahoyo's discord/youtube links now lead to the tribute account. If you see Ahoyoo, know that this is not the maker of TTH.


32. Why are there names written out in letter text in the TTH subworld?

These are just the names of regulars in Ahoyo's twitch channel at the time, as a sort of expression of gratitude.


33. It's a shame that Last Dance was beaten befo-

Shut up.