Blue Revolver

[Squire Grooktook]

Believe me, I never said that depth is a bad thing or that adding it to a system isn't generally good (when it doesn't come at the cost of other things). But merely that I can tolerate a lack of scoring depth when a game does certain things well, and that furthermore, there are certain fundamentals that I personally feel are more important to my enjoyment of a game than how high the numbers can go.

It's a great tragedy that Capcoms Alien Vs Predator, Shadow Over Mystara, and Armored Warriors don't have thought put into scoring, because they're incredible combat engines could easily handle absurd amounts of depth in that department. But I can forgive that considering both (particularly AVP) are ludicrously replayable and exciting games that are pretty much flawless in every other regard. AVP is easily top 10 all time material for action games just by trying to 1lc it as smoothly and quickly as possible.

To have the best of both worlds and have those fundamentals alongside infinite depth would be great, but I'm very picky and very few games offer me everything.

For example, to me personally, a good sense of movement is always the most important aspect of any action game, and comes before every other consideration. But that's just me.

[Bananamatic]

honestly I disagree with cagar

doujin stuff generally doesn't have huge communities, will almost never get top level players or possibly even into double digits when it comes to players actually putting effort into it and absolutely no one will put thousands of hours into them unless it's touhou

make something complex which requires specific routing like futari bl original as a doujin and the potential will never be even remotely approached, and with no resources the game will be only played for a 1cc and then forgotten (like no one gives a shit about the cagar labels)

better to make something simple that everyone can appreciate for scoring at some level

also keep in mind that cagar always gets overexcited for some game for a week, then forgets about it and moves on to hyping something new (while not playing said game for longer than a few days)

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

What if those half-assed runs were actually all the depth that the games had to offer? It doesn't work.

I don't agree. I think that like the aforementioned brawlers, in many cases survival play is enough to facilitate replayability, excitement, and fun.

I mean, most classic, pre-danmaku shmups were exactly that. And those games still hold up today (and I believe, still hold a place in many jp game centers). So yeah, I don't see anything wrong with turning a "blind eye" to - or more accurately, simply forgiving - a lack of scoring depth if the game is fun enough and offers enough pressure and challenge to make every run nice and tense.

Again, adding depth is a good thing, and I'm not saying that developers shouldn't strive for it or that competitively minded players shouldn't search for games with depth. But it's not the end of the world if the developer can't, or chooses not to, pursue it further. Darius 1, R-Type, Ninja Spirit, AVP, Daimakaimura, Truxton, Hishouzame, etc. are still fully functional and substantial games despite their lack of meaningful scoring*.

And believe me, I do like playing for score. Just only when it gives me an excuse to do things I really like (speedkilling things, like in Dangun Feveron) instead of things I really hate (not speedkilling things, like in most chaining games).

*Technically the latter two do have scoring but it's based on, among other things, infinite loops. So I don't like it

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

So if STGWeekly and Jaimers' channel were just shitty average clears, and the "superplays" were replaced with "let's plays", you really think that it wouldn't make a difference to the popularity of the genre?

I didn't say that it wouldn't make a difference to the popularity of the genre. And I know that the games evolved the way they did to meet the demand of hardcore players, as most casual players and media abandoned them.

Rather, what I'm saying, is that a lack of scoring depth doesn't make the games inherently bad, deficient, or worthy of disdain. A doujin developer making something like, say, Satazius, which has a few scoring tricks but overall a skill ceiling that a dedicated player should be able to reach without 10 years of practice, isn't an inherently flawed game. It just chooses to put its focus elsewhere, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Again, best of both worlds is nice, and in the ideal world every game would do everything and be infinitely deep in its own way. But what I'm saying is that it's not the be-all-end-all final judgement factor on a game, and in many cases it's a sin that's forgivable.

The games WERE exactly that surface fun and excitement like you said, and they evolved. The systems got more complex and difficult over time. Why do you think this happened?

Let me just give one more analogy to make sure you understand what I'm saying here.

Let's say we took a great classic shmup with a unique system, great level design, nice difficulty balance, all around fun game...and gave it a deep Cave-tier scoring system that didn't interfere or nullify its already existing fun playstyle. Let's say Biometal.

Great! Awesome! The game is now better in that department.

But at the same time, Vanilla Biometal isn't a bad game and shouldn't have all the good things it does disregarded just because it doesn't have a competitive element to it. Just going for a 1lc of it is a rollicking good time anytime. It doesn't "not work". It's a fully functional and well rounded game that definitely "works".

Like I said. Scoring just isn't the only metric to judge a game by.

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

The game 'working' is not what you should strive for, that's just the standard you should try to at least satisfy.

I only used that word in reference to your own statement that a game without scoring doesn't "work".

Biometal is a personal pick and a bit more obscure (most people who aren't connoseurs of the funkier side of console exclusives probably haven't even played or heard of it), but I'm sure you could find plenty of analogues classic shmups in the honorable mention like R-Type, Gradius, Darius, etc.

How much a failed scoring system constitutes a flaw in my eyes (personally) depends on how much it impacts the game. Dangun Feveron (another personal favorite), for instance, would be shit if you took out the discomen and extra enemy waves. Many other Cave games would also be pretty baron if you took out their respective systems, since they'd all more or less be the same without those mechanics.

Something like Gradius V, on the other hand, already has a plethora of non-scoring related systems to master when playing it's various difficulty modes, so the lack of a "real" scoring system beyond the loops isn't much of an issue to me in that game.

And I'm not saying this based on my preferences or yours, it is what it is.

Well, if we're not talking about personal taste anymore, then we're on a completely different subject of conversation. Since this more or less started as "why I still like BR better than most bullet hell shooters despite not being deeper then the deepest ocean".

At the same time, the enduring fondness for games like R-Type, Raiden, Gradius, Darius, Hishouzame, etc. should be evidence that a lack of scoring is not an immediate disgrace in the eyes of the community at large, even if modern standards have shifted towards a preference for heavily optimizable scoring systems to be generally included and a major factor. I do agree that developers generally should strive to add scoring depth to their games, and there are plenty of games I love playing for score in. Again, pure scoring depth is just not the only factor for me personally. And I would wager that there are many others who would be willing to play and enjoy a game with unique strengths of its own even if scoring wasn't necessarily as deep as *insert cave game here*.

On that note, I don't think the community will trash Blue Revolver for having a skill ceiling that can be reached by 2% of the populace instead of 1%.

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

The game 'working' is not what you should strive for, that's just the standard you should try to at least satisfy.

I only used that word in reference to your own statement that a game without scoring doesn't "work".

A single game? Yeah, "working" is enough.

No-no-no, you misunderstand me.

It does far more than work. It already has the potential to be a 200% amazing experience on its own.

It just works in its own way.

And my response to your note: the players reaching the skill ceiling of the most popular games is probably even less than 0.1%, and that's telling. It has never been about players achieving it, it has been about the ceiling being so high that it's appealing and interesting.

At the same time, as Bananamatic noted, most players of a smaller game like BR aren't going to realize or understand the difference. The scoring depth of BR is more than enough for most people, and if it achieves its goal of being a "gateway" game into scoring for newcomers, than I think that's a noble goal to achieve in its own right and a boon to the genre.

[blackrabite]

The scoring depth of BR is more than enough for most people, and if it achieves its goal of being a "gateway" game into scoring for newcomers, than I think that's a noble goal to achieve in its own right and a boon to the genre.

I think this is the vertex of the argument here: Cagar is claiming that at this point, given where the genre has gone and the reasons it went that direction, it's obviously not enough, right? I think I lean closer to Squire's POV since I feel like every genre needs entry points, and Blue Revolver has the speed and the bullet patterns to advertise to the prospective newbie: "See how fucking awesome this shit is??" It isn't perpetuating the genre by stimulating the veterans as much as it is giving amateurs like me something else to play - demonstrating most of the qualities shmups attracted me with - and new players a great starting point.

From there, maybe the player investigates the roots of the genre. "Oh, these used to scroll left-to-right also, wtf? Wow, in this game I can actually see the backgrounds, this art is insane!"
Or maybe, from there, they push the limits of Blue Revolver and find themselves wanting more. Like speed? What's this Raizing group? Enjoy the crazy bullet patterns? I guess CAVE is supposed to have pushed those limits.

Eventually, we will need titles that push the envelope; titles that don't have us looking over our shoulders for whatever's next. Cagar, I think that's what you're wanting from these new releases? How do you feel about Crimson Clover - maybe not its system as much as what kind of game it sets out to be?

[Bananamatic]

psikyo games are as static as they get, the scoring is the exact opposite of complex, the loops are short as heck and the systems are super easy to understand yet are popular as hell and WRs are still being pushed further and further

you have all the break bonuses, optimizing the gauge usage/bombing for more power and different subweapons which will definitely be separated on the leaderboards
there's plenty to do if you're looking for optimization and if anyone thinks that what Jaimers got in probably less than 100 hours is the game being anywhere near maxed out, they're dumb as hell

of course balancing cagar labels is easy as shit when they're all just cave clones with cave patterns and the same old cave mechanics (neutered doujin style chaining, hyper, pointblank, cancels) that have been done a billion times so you have a ton of references to base the balance on and the bosses are just sprites that vomit bullets
anyone with decent experience in cave shmups can do that in a month

[Cagar]

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[Giest118]

As for your idiotic cagar label claims, I've never ever used a CAVE game as a straight reference to any of the changes I've done. The only thing might be adding glow around enemy bullets?

Pretty sure he's referring to the base game. And yeah TW3R absolutely is just a poor man's SDOJ. It's conducive to balancing because a lot of the changes to balance can be done just by shifting numbers around; that's what he's saying. If I were to move away from the straight-up CAVE bullet hell approach, the resulting game would be much harder to balance the mechanics of.

[Cagar]

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[Bananamatic]

sdoj is also a fundamentally busted game with a simple scoring system that's basically reduced to one stage, yet the shot/laser WRs are getting broken quite often despite the max being really close to 1,4tril and every new WR beating it by a very tiny margin that probably comes down to something ridiculously small
yet no one says "welp that's the max let's not play anymore"

a lot of people also seem to play it casually just for survival, trying to no miss hibachi or whatever their goal is
I'm also fairly sure that KSG (a wr holder) plays type B because hikari is his waifu, not for technical reasons

same with touhou mountain of faith, something like 99% of the WR tier score comes from perfect survival and the rest is just ridiculous optimization where you reset if you miss an enemy or two
and people still play it for score

We can go with his stance and never bother to even attempt to make shmups with potential again, let's just give up at the start and see how that goes.
It's completely short-sighted and ass backwards logic. You yourself play the games for the opposite reason. Weren't you in process of routing DDP right now?

I play shmups for fun, not to chase high scores for the sake of achievement despite what some people think
excitement from being on a run is part of the fun, once you clear and there is no excitement from survival play you naturally learn scoring to keep it fresh and interesting

making complex and deep shmups won't save the genre and making simple ones won't kill it

[Vludi]

The games WERE exactly that surface fun and excitement like you said, and they evolved. The systems got more complex and difficult over time.

I wouldn't underestimate the older games like that just because they don't have danmaku-style scoring, you still can optimize them to crazy levels as proved by the world records, not to mention that multi-looping the tougher ones isn't exactly in the reach for any player. I disagree that the games lack replayability/skill-ceiling just because they don't have Danmaku-style scoring, if anything the amount of optimization to score highly something like Image Fight or Parodius games look extremely demanding. However it's true that scoring decently in older games is more related to survival, while in modern games to score well you have to do stuff non-related to survival, it's just a different style that isn't inherently better imo, the least thing the genre needs right now is more homogenization of their systems.

[Cagar]

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[Shepardus]

Yes it's important to distinguish between "depth" (or "skill potential" or "skill ceiling") and "complexity" - often I find that the most complex games aren't any deeper than simpler games, and some of the greatest skill potential arises in some of the simplest games. I suspect there are a number of games that could be improved at all levels of play by removing complexity rather than adding to it.

That said I don't think it's lack of depth that prevents shmups from achieving greater longevity and sales, it's more that they fail either to make players aware of the depth or to convince players that said depth is worth pursuing. I can name plenty of games where I appreciate the amount of depth but have no desire to explore it myself, and even some cases where the depth actually makes the game less appealing to me.

SDOJ gets a lot of effort put into it because it's from CAVE, I'm not sure why there's an argument around that since it sounds like Cagar and Bananamatic are saying the same thing about it.

[Bananamatic]

tbh I don't even know why Giest calls his own game poor man's SDOJ, it's way better and similar only on the surface.

what is boss design (and no, having 4 damage sponge TLBs across the whole game isn't good design)
what is stage design
what are visuals
what is not reusing copyrighted music as if it was free
there is way more to a shmup being enjoyable and getting a playerbase than just depth and complexity and that part is far from the most important one

The game would've been laughed off and forgotten the moment someone got the first overflow, if not earlier because of the input lag and lackluster mechanics. You know it's true. No-one would give rat's ass about the game.

1) the input lag is a port only issue
2)

a lot of people also seem to play it casually just for survival, trying to no miss hibachi or whatever their goal is

from what I've seen a lot of people ignore scoring entirely and play it only for survival, because other than the broken scoring, the game is well made, balanced and fun to play (and honestly, it's impressive that the port being crap wasn't a total deal breaker and I still played it for a couple hundred hours because the game is just that damn good)

And the same logic applies to Mountain of Faith which is a touhou game.

Definitely not because the game is actually fun to play, has great music, nice visuals and is free from any sort of milking for a change, which is quite unusual for a touhou game?

Maybe we should change the entire term to 'skill potential' because that's closer to what I mean anyways and many people confuse depth with complexity.

Alright, get all the breaks in one run on Parallel and figure out the optimal bomb usage and suiciding for scoring while not game overing in the process, should be easy for you because the game is simple and basically maxed out already

epic serving

you did that to yourself when you ran in claiming that a month old game that only 1 dude played semi-properly so far has no depth, followed up with more classic shmupsfarm "saving the genre" nonsense and finished by claiming to be a balance expert when all you did was change a few variables in a dodonpachi clone with piss easy chaining

[Squire Grooktook]

Hikari is definitely best girl tho

[Shepardus]

Truth be told shmups generally don't have much of a "lifecycle" because they're dead on arrival.

Hikari is definitely best girl tho

ya

[Brochacho]

The DDP games are great for many reasons but the idea that they have deep and/or complicated scoring systems compared to other quality danmaku shmups is mostly an illusion. You look at the WR score and think "wow that's so incredibly beyond my abilities as a mere mortal" only because score in DDP increases exponentially, rather than linearly, until a mistake is made.

In a tamer scoring system (e.g. Dragon Blaze) a run with a few minor mistakes will have only a slightly lower score than a run with zero mistakes, as you would expect. In DDP, a run with a single minor mistake will have a far, far lower final score than the exact same run with zero mistakes. The difference in absolute score here is an illusion: the two runs are in fact very similar in quality, despite one having 300 billion more points.

I really don't want to knock DDP. I just think it's a shame how much the aesthetics and game feel of DDP/DOJ get overlooked in favor of their supposedly genius scoring systems. They're good examples of shmups everyone can enjoy because they have awesome explosions, great pacing, great controls, great art, great music, etc. That first time you play DDP mang you feel like a fucking boss the game is just that awesome

[Oniros]

Anyone here who streams with Nvidia Shadowplay? For some reason, I can't stream BR unless I allow the program to stream my desktop. :/

[Danbo]

Anyone here who streams with Nvidia Shadowplay? For some reason, I can't stream BR unless I allow the program to stream my desktop. :/

shadowplay doesn't support opengl applications for whatever reason, BR is opengl.

[Cagar]

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[Bananamatic]

It's either automatic chain even if you don't look where you're shooting (literally) or a small tough spot, and there's barely any flexibility in them

except sdoj isn't about difficult chaining but increasing the gp value through using lv6+ hypers and cancels with a hyper active, you'd know that if you actually played the game
the bosses kicked your ass, you immediately called it memoshit and quit it immediately like everything else you tried
I thought you'd at least bring up the 2 unfortunate safespots on the st3 boss (outside of expert) and the st4 boss final phase, not the fact that you have to put some effort into the game (which I thought was a good thing?)

regarding STGWeekly, the importance of good runs, etc.

Most casual watchers can't tell apart a futari ultra 80m every extend run (which is trivial if you have decent routes), a basic 1,4b clear and a counterstop clear, they just see the words ultra mode, clear and something impossible looking on the screen while the player is not getting the game over screen and people are impressed and possibly interested in the game

Same reason why people don't care about touhou world record runs (like cactu's EoSD run) more than about Jaimers' 1cc replays of touhou fangames done in a few days
I got into shmups after seeing a youtube poop uploader I followed back in the 2000s upload a touhou EoSD normal run that barely cleared and wasn't even on default starting lives, it seemed impressive and fun enough for me to get into the genre

the bar for "good" runs is set REALLY low when it comes to making people interested in the genre and keeping it alive and anything over the minimum (or god forbid scoring) makes no difference

[Giest118]

So you know what game is really cool?

Blue Revolver.

Damn this game is sweet. It has enough bullets to appeal to my throbbing bullet-boner, but it feels like it harkens back to the SNES days somehow. Like I'm playing a classic shooter that just happens to have lots of bullets. The music is rad, getting a big cache of x64 coins feels good, and the difficulty is intense but fair.

It's way better than that dumb TW3R game I made, which was a stagnant piece of shit that can't even really be called an improvement over my previous work and basically had no reason to exist.

I need to play more Blue Revolver. So does Cagar. In fact, everyone is failing ALL OF LIFE by focusing on things that aren't Blue Revolver. Are you at work? Go home early and play Blue Revolver. Are you trying to save the shmups genre? Play Blue Revolver.

[Cagar]

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[Shepardus]

If these TW3R and Cagar Labels and whatnot are so great and all why have their life cycles not fared any better than any other indie shmup? I don't think the things you're saying for a game's survival really matter as much as you seem to say they do. Clearly there's more to the picture here that's been missing from this discussion.