Unpopular opinion / Hot take thread - get it off your chest!

[Squire Grooktook]

I think Truxton is the worst possible example but it's otherwise fine if you telegraph it. IE put a warning sign where they're about to spawn.

[mycophobia]

quit huggin the bottom of the screen. theres a lot of screen to be in

[EmperorIng]

Variety is the spice of life they say. Different type of challenges keep shmups fresh especially when they force you to move or react unconventionally.

Image Fight wouldn't be nearly as good without the enemies harrying you from behind. Doujin devs often fall into the touhou/cave trap (or rather a false perception) that everything needs to be readable and dodgeable the first time you see it. This makes for stuff that can feel overly safe and dull.

Re: warning signs - Thunder Force V/VI go overboard with them. I don't always need to be told "DON'T BE HERE, STUPID."

Myco is correct, as well. This ain't galaga my d00ds

[Squire Grooktook]

Lukewarm take but I think everything should be dodge-able on the first try through perfect reaction. However unlikely it may be.

[floralcateyes]

Hot take: bananamatic had superplays of shmups AND JRPGs. He is therefore the greatest of all time.

Hot take: autobombs that don't fully deplete your stock aren't always the Devil Himself. Particularly when (1) the effect of an autobomb is much smaller/weaker than that of a manual bomb and (2) when bombs are essential for scoring. If you're going for a base clear, autobombs are helpful in the way that using up all of your bombs manually is helpful. And pushing for higher scores will naturally involve learning to rely on them less and less, until you don't rely on them at all. Bit of a shitpost solution, but "just don't get hit" as a reply to complaints about autobombs has some wisdom to it.

I'm not sure what's worse - having your enjoyment of a genre linked to the degree at which others enjoy and participate in it, or thinking it's okay for stuff to kill you unannounced from behind like a coward

Warm take: I enjoy dealing with enemies that enter from the bottom of the screen, even in games where a collision with an enemy sprite means death. Probably kill you once or twice, but you'll remember after a few encounters anyway.

No seriously, I'd honestly like to know how this is enjoyable! It's one thing that puts me off spending more time with Truxton. The odd occasion to ward you off being at the bottom of the screen (Flying Shark, Fire Shark) is kind of fair game - but if I want to deal with that level of memorise or die on a regular basis, I'll play something like R-Type when I'm feeling calm enough

Guess that take wasn't just a warm one, lol. I firstly don't get frustrated with them because I usually end up playing a game over and over and over again (don't we all?), so I already know they're coming. And imo they're memorable precisely because they're so infamous.

As to why I actually enjoy them: basically what EmperorIng said about variety, and what I said above about dodging dangers from every direction. It's fun! And it gets you to be aware of every area on the screen, not just the area around your ship or the area directly above it. Now I'm wondering what a downward-scrolling shmup would be like. Like Downwell, maybe, but less platformy. Don't have a screen to tate upside-down

Mycophobia makes a good point too. The middle of the screen is a great place to live.

[Lethe]

The sensation of "oh god how the hell does this work" upon seeing a new pattern/boss is the most satisfying kind of blind death. Seeing it coming is part of the experience. Getting blindsided by something I had no reason to know was there doesn't work for me - it's fine, I'm gonna play the game again anyway, but there's nothing to it that gets the gears turning, it's just another thing to remember. (This isn't anything to do with enemies from behind specifically, I don't have a problem with them)

[Flobeamer1922]

Here's one. I don't consider Truxton II's pacing to be a serious issue. I stand by what I've said in the past about how it's kind of jank and unpolished, but I've personally never found the game to be "hard and boring". Now, it is a slower game that has (for shmup standards) very long stages, and I do understand how this wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but at the same time, I don't think that kind of design is inherently bad.

[Sengoku Strider]

It's pretty simple, I spent a long time lurking here and on the discords, which have a lot of the same guys. I'm not ricardo, mods can check the IPs, I live in a different country entirely. Nice baseleless accusation though. "Durr you agree, so you're the same guy!" Genius.

Uh huh...

Real talk, 2 weeks ago, Ricardo tried to get several new members banned on discord servers using alt accounts and even going as far as asking moderators to ban them in their DMs.
You can add to that some light harassement in people DMs, calling them paranoid and other things.

...BRB, need to call Batman to find out what a VPN is.

quit huggin the bottom of the screen. theres a lot of screen to be in

That's...actually a pretty good take. Consider me swayed.

[Pearl]

Garegga's bullets are easy to see, while Ibara's bullets are impossible to see.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Enemies coming from the sides suddenly low on the screen can be just as dangerous as directly from below. I really like how games like this warn you:

• Deathsmiles and Rolling Gunner have a quiet warning symbol or aura that appears as every enemy comes in. You don't have to memorize a section to avoid smacking into something.

• Solid State Survivor only has warning icons for particularly fast enemies, or enemies coming from the bottom. They're audible noisy beeps to alert you (since only a few specific hazards like GIANT LASER BEAMS) actually attack from below.

Rapid Hero has enemies that come from below at the left and right sides... good game otherwise but you gotta memorize where you gotta stick to the horizontal middle of the screen lest you get smacked...

I dig life bars when implemented like in Strania.

They're really just lives dressed up to look like a life bar. Same thing as Espgaluda. I dig it too though, where taking a hit makes you get visibly knocked away instead of exploding then respawning.

Great examples here why I skip just about every post by users with a moeshit avatar.

The worst part is combining a waifu avatar while using the name of an actually cool manga character.

[Gus]

I did ignore your cherry picking. I don't care what goes on in the off topic section, shmups are what interests me here and other shmup communities.

I don't think it's cherry picking if you're specifically accusing people of being rpg fanatics, let alone jrpg fanatics. The whole cringy Ricardo definition you posted was talking about it as if rpg's or jrpg fans in particular are some sort of insidious lurking threat trying to destabilize communities via subterfuge. Doesn't seem to have as much force when were talking about genres closely related to shmups in almost every way, some of which qualify as sub-genres (ie run and gun games).

Personally, as I mentioned a few pages ago, I think the analysis is all wrong. It's not that "casuals" are demanding a "slophouse", it's that generally speaking when you have a hardcore niche forum for long enough, off-topic inevitably becomes more active as long time veterans slowly run out of things to talk about or their time and schedules change leading to them no longer focusing on the hobby as intensely. Whether its shmups or your favorite space opera or model trains or whatever the fuck, there's only so many years you can discuss them feverishly every day until you run out of things to talk about, and then you're just left with the dudes you made friends with shit-talking in general. It doesn't mean this old guard weren't fans, or still aren't fans, which is what your whole "jarpig" definition seems to be implying.

This cope is total weaksauce. If there was any issue with people running out of things to talk about in long-standing communities, you'd actually expect shmups to be more resistant to it. As I said, it often takes hundreds of hours simply to get a solid grasp many shmups, let alone going for top tier scores. Instead there's a trend away from shmups and towards more disposable game genres. Those genres are what end up getting the in-depth discussions of mechanics and strategy that most actual shmups never got here.

I'll tell you what's actually happening. Bullet hell have that exotic Japanese appeal that attracts a lot of jarpig weebs to give them a shot so they can impress their friends. However, their difficult nature means most of these people only play them for a bit but then drop them. But, either because they don't want to give up the e-friends they made along the way or they don't want to lose their hardcore gamer cred, these people tend to be reluctant to just leave when they lose interest. Instead, they exert immense pressure on the people in power to cater to their whims so they can simply switch to talking their preferred genre (usually jarpigs) in a shmup space. As a result, you soon end up with shmup players becoming a minority in their own community. Still, that small minority of players continuing to pump out content plays a crucial role in continuing to allow the community to call itself a "shmup space," so the secondaries who neither watch nor play the games to be able to comfortably continue calling themselves "shmup fans." When these players threaten to leave and create a space that doesn't allow off-topic, they're met with all kinds of slander and strawmans to try to strongarm them back in place.

I understand what I said above can seem pretty ridiculous, but it's really mostly what I've seen with my own eyes in my 1 1/2 years of running my discord. I've definitely seen people leave, pressure me into making an off-topic section, and even try to talk me into banning players once they realize that there's no room for jarpig talk in my community. This can even be seen in this thread with people calling to ban Akagi because of being "rude" and "harassing" members. Meanwhile, someone can dox me and walk away scott-free. Or Roo can scrounge up a post I made in my teens to take a dig at me for having autism. It's all fair game. Let's be real here that people simply didn't like what Akagi was saying.

As for the claims about jarpigs not being anything special, I think you're forgetting a few threads.

What [not shmup] game are you playing now? (AKA the jarpig novel thread)
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FALCOM Thread
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From Software 'n such
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To be clear, I have no issues with secondaries or with secondary spaces. I simply feel compelled to respond to this slanderous hate campaign against me and my fellow players.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Or Roo can scrounge up a post I made in my teens to take a dig at me for having autism.

I was pointing out that you weren't entirely truthful with why you were previously banned then (something others have also since pointed out), whilst trying to be sympathetic and cut you some slack in that it's not necessarily your fault you're unfortunately seen as abrasive. Oh well. Since you're determined to be dishonest and manipulative, if the woe-is-me victim act where you pretend there's a conspiracy out to get you makes you feel better, go for it I guess.

The crowd you've fallen into from 4chan/8chan appears to be having a predictably bad influence on you, and I genuinely pity you for that.

[Pearl]

cope

rent free + there are more shmups than bullet hell cmon dude

lol

[MathU]

"JRPG" is a non-genre that originates in ironic shitposting. People who've adopted its use unironically didn't lurk hard enough. Another tragic case of a community that gets its laughs by acting like idiots being invaded by those they mock.

[Kiwi]

You know, we could stop talking about this once and for all if we just asked for an example of how offtopic has negatively impacted real players and discuss that. We'll either get some good examples or we won't, but that's the only way to actually see this conversation through to its logical conclusion. I'll start so we can get this done: can we see some specific examples (and links to those examples) of how not deleting offtopic has negatively impacted hardcore players of the genre? Additionally, if you show an example of misinformation, is it by a shmup player and/or has it been corrected by another user in the same thread? If not, why haven't you corrected the record yourself?

Keep in mind I'm not taking part in the discord vs forum stuff, I don't care what people use. All the shmup discords I'm in are fine and I think people should enjoy whatever format they like. This is specifically referring to the offtopic debate.

[trap15]

Garegga's bullets are easy to see, while Ibara's bullets are impossible to see.

Strongly agree

[Kiwi]

Garegga's bullets are easy to see, while Ibara's bullets are impossible to see.

Strongly agree

Until they're literally invisible

[Despatche]

Garegga bullets are fine. You want actual invisible bullets, go play the desert stages of many older games.

Hot takes, huh? Here's a relevant one.

I really hate how the community cares so little about shmups or any other arcade games, yet I cannot stand this "new" breed of elitist going on about jarpigs to the point these clowns call me that now.

It's pretty simple, I spent a long time lurking here and on the discords, which have a lot of the same guys. I'm not ricardo, mods can check the IPs, I live in a different country entirely. Nice baseleless accusation though. "Durr you agree, so you're the same guy!" Genius.

It doesn't actually matter if you're all different people when you literally all talk the same. There is no value in treating you as separate individuals, because you're aren't separate individuals. You are a hivemind, raised in the same "environment", living the same lives. You talk as if you're some kind of shmup cult, because you are a cult, and like any good cult you are interested in something completely different from what your cult is supposed to be about. Can't wait for you to start charging people!

Guscord and any other "personal communities" like that are where the slop comes from, not something general like this forum. Please do not kid yourselves.

Oh, and Gus has absolutely not changed in eight years, likely eighteen years, and that post everyone keeps whining about is exactly how the elitists do their thing right now. It may as well be the manifesto of that crowd.

Ricardo is toxic, Akagi is toxic, Gus is toxic, they're all toxic because it's a toxic elitist hivemind. They're the real secondaries, people who have no actual love of this genre or any other arcade genre, and just want to bring everyone else around them down. They're just... tryhards. They don't really enjoy what they're doing and just want to look good to others to such a degree that they can drag themselves into depression at any time. Imagine a cult around such a thing! Go tryhard fucking CSGO, and leave shmups alone, you fucking assholes.

Oh and uh...

But yeah, forums are dying.

Forums are "dying" because people are being told over and over again that they "must" die. That's all it is. It's not interesting, natural, or necessary. People only know what they're told. God, you'd think after everything that happened in the last few years, especially in 2020, people would finally realize just how much of one's life is seemingly decided by others and try to do something about it. Guess not. Fuck. That's something to actually be depressed about, not whether or not people like you because you play some game less than 1% of the world's population has ever heard of.

...

"decentralization is good" oh for fuck's sake just use irc already if you want fucking decentralization, something else you care nothing about

Sorry, one more thing.

Yes, of course, I just wanted to point out where the "loli in shmups" idea started (IMHO).

"I just wanted to point out this (not) fact, IMHO"

Touhou is not where this started. This started with Cotton.

Touhou is not even a great example because a lot of characters in the series are not really perceived as "little girls" by anyone except, specifically, members of this forum who wish to shit on the series for no particular reason.

[Kiwi]

Guscord and any other "personal communities" like that are where the slop comes from

...

They're the real secondaries, people who have no actual love of this genre or any other arcade genre, and just want to bring everyone else around them down. They're just... tryhards. They don't really enjoy what they're doing and just want to look good to others to such a degree that they can drag themselves into depression at any time. Imagine a cult around such a thing! Go tryhard fucking CSGO, and leave shmups alone, you fucking assholes.

Pretty sure these parts are incorrect, Gus clearly likes Futari lol

"personal communities" can have their merits too

[Despatche]

It's not actually clear at all, at any point. You would not believe how many people try so hard at something solely for attention. Sometimes they can even trick themselves into believing they really do care. I know this because I've been told so many times that I'm just a faker and I don't actually care about the things that I do. I ignore those people, or at the very most tell them to "fuck off", because such an accusation means so little to me. I know that I care and that I actually enjoy or dislike things, I don't need anyone to tell me that I do or don't.

I would love to believe that, but I have been shown time and time again that these kinds of personal communities do not really benefit anyone except the person running them. Which makes sense, because that's the entire point. It is particularly endemic in Discord due to how "easy" it is to just make a server. Guscord is not some new thing that has never happened before in history.

[DietSoap]

Gonna have to second that Gus clearly likes Futari.

[BIL]

Came for the hot takes, stayed for the crybaby pity party starring Gus and ArtificialPenis.

I too am an autist From a majority-black nation in the 1970s I have time-travelled here to advise you to learn to regulate that shit!

Spoiler

wtf I love BIL now!

Everyone does, I blame muh tone

Imagine taking BIL's shitpost seriously.

I never shitpost! :O

Shumps Chat requirement: $ 2 Shumps STs
OT requirement: $2 OT STs

WARNING: If they are shitty, and advise that crashing Rayforce's fourth boss onto the Future Apartment Block will get you points, when it doesn't, you get IP BANNED 4EVER

Anyway, that is my SHUMPS DREAM >¦3

You want actual invisible bullets, go play the desert stages of many older games.

I know right 3;> See also ~Teh Sunset Sky~

Spoiler

WORST OF ALL THOUGH is The Tin Star, now that one can SUCK ME DRY Still like it though

Spoiler

WILD WESTERN is nearly as bad! PERSONALLY, I would MUCH rather a shump HIT IT FROM THE BACK than do that shit!

(A definitive Hit It From The Back feat. IMAGEFIGHT)

[Kiwi]

Ok what's an ST

[BIL]

Here u go ;3

[Kiwi]

Here u go ;3

tfw I don't know strats

[Squire Grooktook]

Look Gus, I don't want to make an enemy of you* or talk any shit on you, but you're talking a lot of shit about a place I generally enjoy with a good few people I generally like, and I feel the need to respond to it.

*(though I know Cee and a few other peeps around that community already stalk me and talk shit about me behind my back, they've admitted it to my face and I've seen them doing it in one of the old /shmupsg/ threads, so I'm sure I'm already on some naughty list or other with your crowd even though I've barely interacted with any of you. But whatever, you've never done that AFAIK so I'm trying to remain as civil as I can)

If there was any issue with people running out of things to talk about in long-standing communities, you'd actually expect shmups to be more resistant to it. As I said, it often takes hundreds of hours simply to get a solid grasp many shmups, let alone going for top tier scores.

And why should we expect that instead of the exact opposite? The very fact that shmups require such a time investment should be all the more reason that as people get older, they lose freetime, drive, or form new responsibilities that change their schedules, that they simply can't put the time into grinding danmaku games daily or weekly or get as much enjoyment out of it as they used to.

And that's exactly what I see when I look around this forum. I don't see a bunch of newcomers with moe anime avatars jumping into off topic to discuss Fate Grand/Order or whatever with the occasional shmup post as you seem to predict: I see a bunch of old-ass-fogies (no offense) who joined 10 years ago or more and have post counts in the thousands treating the place as a casual, chill hangout. Again, if someone with a 5000+ post count spends more time in off-topic then they used to, that doesn't mean they didn't like shmups or don't still like shmups. You can change your priorities but still like or even love something.

It's again, not something I've seen limited to shmups as your analysis about "exotic japanese appeal" predicts. I've seen off topic gain comparable popularity in fighting game forums. I've seen off topic become the most popular in servers about Japanese Table Top RPG's (irony). And every single time, it wasn't because of newcomers, it was because the old guard gradually just began chatting in off-topic a ton. There are exceptions of course, but it's a common and natural pattern and not the result of some malign conspiracy.

I'll tell you what's actually happening. Bullet hell have that exotic Japanese appeal that attracts a lot of jarpig weebs to give them a shot so they can impress their friends. However, their difficult nature means most of these people only play them for a bit but then drop them. But, either because they don't want to give up the e-friends they made along the way or they don't want to lose their hardcore gamer cred, these people tend to be reluctant to just leave when they lose interest. Instead, they exert immense pressure on the people in power to cater to their whims so they can simply switch to talking their preferred genre (usually jarpigs) in a shmup space. As a result, you soon end up with shmup players becoming a minority in their own community. Still, that small minority of players continuing to pump out content plays a crucial role in continuing to allow the community to call itself a "shmup space," so the secondaries who neither watch nor play the games to be able to comfortably continue calling themselves "shmup fans." When these players threaten to leave and create a space that doesn't allow off-topic, they're met with all kinds of slander and strawmans to try to strongarm them back in place.

See, this is why your group keeps pissing people off and why these threads get heated and filled with shit-slinging. Look at this rant you just typed. You are literally calling people posers who lie about liking something they don't like in order to make friends, and then engage in some sort of malign conspiracy to control communities.

And you don't expect people to be pissed off at you for calling them and their friends fucking liars?

At the end of the day, all of this reads like a slight against people who don't share your level and type of interest and passion, and an attempt to rationalize their motives as something malign and dishonest:

"Little Timmy enjoys going for 1cc's, but not for scores, therefore he must not BE A REAL FAN, HE'S JUST A CLOUT CHASER!!!"
"Little Timmy has a lot of interests and responsibilities, online and off, so he only puts in a credit of R-Type every few weeks SO THAT MUST MEAN HE'S NOT REALLY ENJOYING IT BUT IS JUST A JARPIG WHO'S TRYING TO LOOK COOL!!!"
"Oh, little Timmy is now kinda pissed that I keep talking shit about him? SEE!? HE'S MAD THAT I'M FORMING MY OWN COMMUNITY AND BEING MORE HARDCORE THEN HIM!!! SEE HOW JARPIGS ACT WHEN YOU TRY TO TAKE AWAY THEIR SLOPHOUSE???"

It all reeks of circular reasoning. I interpret someone's motives as malign, slander them, and then when they naturally get mad at me about slander, I take that as proof that my original interpretation was correct and that they're the bad guy for not liking me anymore.

More to the point, you cannot honestly tell people they're not "real fans" because they don't meet some arbitrary criteria you've set for hardcore dedication or because they like a thing for different reasons than you like it. When I was like 8 or whatever and my Mom bought me R-Type 3 from a pre-owned game store, I didn't know what the fuck a 1cc was let alone scoring, I just knew it had fucking sick awesome monsters and that ha ha charge shot go boom. But I was enjoying it, and to tell people similarly that they're lying despicable manipulative jarpigs because they want to talk about shmups but aren't as competitive as you, well, again...It's naturally going to stir up shit.

As for the claims about jarpigs not being anything special, I think you're forgetting a few threads.

What [not shmup] game are you playing now? (AKA the jarpig novel thread)
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FALCOM Thread
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From Software 'n such
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I mentioned the Falcom, Fromsoft, and Phantasy Star threads in my post. It's also worth noting that some of Falcom's games (the Oath/Origin/Ark trilogy in particular) have some relevant shmup/danmaku elements. But that's not really relevant. Likewise, [non-shmups] discusses action games just as much as anything else, and in all the times I've posted or lurked there I can't say that jrpg's had a massive noticeable presence compared to anything else.

Still, the point was that you can see the pattern, the arcade thread is consistently 10x bigger than threads dedicated to competitors in the genres you name.

I simply feel compelled to respond to this slanderous hate campaign against me and my fellow players.

I don't know all the ancient history, but here and now it looks like this topic would never have come up if you and your friends hadn't broached the topic and felt the need to throw in your forced meme jarpig bullshit to "slander" everyone else.

I'm gonna be honest, every time I've seen you on this forum or on discord talking about this forum, you're always ranting about some nebulous group of posers dwelling here. You're always implying everyone is a fake fan or aren't enjoying games the right way, even if you don't name anyone specific to say it to their face. Surprise surprise, people don't really like being called liars constantly. Maybe knock it off a bit and things won't get so heated next time.

[BIL]

Here u go ;3

tfw I don't know strats

Not a problem! Pick a game you like (there's fousands!), PLAY HARD and write down your observations. Maybe start a GD (game discussion) instead! Eventually, particularly if your GD attracts fellow shumpers, you'll have enough material for a basic ST (shumps treatise)!

And through the magic of internet, your ST can always be updated and expanded! So if you do claim dropping the fourth boss onto the Future Apartment Block gets points, when it doesn't, that can be fixed!

[Kiwi]

Here u go ;3

tfw I don't know strats

Not a problem! Pick a game you like (there's fousands!), PLAY HARD and write down your observations. Maybe start a GD (game discussion) instead! Eventually, particularly if your GD attracts fellow shumpers, you'll have enough material for a basic ST (shumps treatise)!

And through the magic of internet, your ST can always be updated and expanded! So if you do claim dropping the fourth boss onto the Future Apartment Block gets points, when it doesn't, that can be fixed!

Ohh, I see, I thought ST must have stood for strategy, but it's shmup treatise. To be honest I've been thinking of dumping some info on Mushi that I've gathered over time, so maybe an ST would be a good place to start...

[BIL]

Additionally, it looks like there's a few Mushi GDs in the Strategy Forum Index. This one looks promising! Holy fuck, I remember 2005. Good year! FOR ME ANYWAY Man I love forums.

[ZPScissors]

I simply feel compelled to respond to this slanderous hate campaign against me and my fellow players.

What fucking hate campaign? This topic would never have come up if you and your friends hadn't broached the topic and felt the need to throw in your forced meme jarpig bullshit to insinuate that everyone here is a poser.

This, right here. Truly the shmupg way, just go in to a place and shit it up then blame everyone else when it causes drama.