Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object

[Dodgeballpvp]

moozooh, I couldn't quite understand your instructions for skipping the blue UFO in stage four. Starting from the 'proceed as usual' you're stuck with a leftover UFO token and two more to be dropped by the yin-yang orbs. The only other way I see is following the beginning stage four flashing token until it is ready to be picked up and collection of the UFOs from the aforementioned yin-yang orbs can commence, much like Reprise did in stage two with prolonging the UFO token's escape. That's probably what you were saying, but if I'm wrong then I'd to see clarified instructions if possible.

Well, the only thing you didn't do right about that in your most recent replay is that you summoned the UFO slightly later than I intended, missing a bunch of power items from large fairies. Aside from that it was all correct.

I also thought about the possibility of swapping the last blue UFO in stage 4 with a multicolored one, but the more you rack up your point item value by that point, the less of a return it gives (unless you skip all grazing in stage 3, it's not profitable). So there's one thing certain: it's definitely not worth it to skip any blue UFOs from this point on, which might indicate that your UFO route for the first five stages is optimal.

Stage 5 likely needs to be reconsidered from the standpoint of using bombs for grazing (Nazrin's sc?) and collecting items at the points where PoC isn't reachable (for instance, the three large fairies appearing after your first UFO).

I'm still unsure about stage 6, there might be something there. I was pondering a possibility of a 3-UFO item collection plan (green x 165, blue x 420, blue x 303), but even under ideal conditions it gives ~30 less million compared to your current method. Another thing we can be certain about. This puts the maximum base point item value gain from UFO tokens at 53k (meaning that a decent Lunatic run will probably have over 100k by the time it reaches stage 6).

Nice job on the last replay, btw. A shame that you missed that UFO in stage 3, it would have been enough to put you at about 1.53 billion. Anyway, keep up the good work! Meanwhile I'll be taking my part in the STGT.

[EDIT]
I see LYX is already up-to-date with the current UFO route. He'll likely break 1.6 billion with Marisa-A if he's up for it.

That was really amazing replay. That missed UFO was worth 19 million, its a real shame he missed it.

33,000 base item point value
145 point items
x4 multiplier

33,000 x 145 x 4 = 19,140,000

1,488,788,480 + 19,140,000 = 1,507,928,480

[moozooh]

You forgot the UFO token it would have released for additional 1k base point item value, which would give about ~20.5 more million by the end of the game on its own. The items themselves weren't as expensive. That last multicolored UFO was mistimed partly due to that mistake, costing him another 4-5 or so million. 1,507 + 20 + 4 = 1,531, there you go.

[Heartbeam]

There's nothing like being graced by your post for some motivation!

Easy - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 1,558,451,270 - ALL - 0.220% - [Replay]

This run was a very wild ride, and any confidence I had in quickly burning down the last three bosses was gone, fearing for my life. For instance on Byakuren's first spell where I lost some 750K. Mistakes that immediately come to mind are:

-miscounting Sanae B's bomb invulnerability and losing a life prematurely during Ichirin
-ending stage three with a green UFO token
-trainwreck before S5 Nazrin
-last flashing UFO not filled all the way
-ending Shou's opener early
-losing some point items in the beginning of S6 and forgetting to set off the bomb early during Nue's last appearance

Summon the flashing UFO earlier? I was thinking of the exact opposite because of the difficulty in obtaining the token from the first yin-yang orb (all that's needed, really), but such is the rigor of scoring. If summoning later I thought about babysitting the flashing UFO in S4 instead of summoning with the green one, but that UFO will do. But because I started with a green UFO already it threw off where I expected to pick up the last token, which was anywhere but near the bottom of the screen.

Stroke of luck and survived inside Unzan's eye for the longest time, but there's obviously (didn't really check) some leeway in the safespot so I wonder if it's not too much to try and dodge the other lasers in there.

I considered planting the bomb a little later for S5 Nazrin and grazing her attack, but that would throw off any chance of receiving five pairs of fairies which is already cut close enough as is (previous run didn't get the fifth pair) with the pre-emptive bomb.

Anyway, thanks for your post. It's great to have external motivation.

[moozooh]

Whoa, kickass! It's 04:13 and I thought of going to bed, but I'll just won't be able to fall asleep knowing about the existence of this replay. :D!

[Heartbeam]

Don't lose too much sleep over it, it's just a poor copy of suggested routes and innovations from Reprise's run, plus a lack of risk taking (no grazing on Kogasa, didn't utilize Unzan's eye immediately). Well no, you don't need to be reminded of that because you'll recognize it immediately.

Oh, and grazing Murasa's noncards are going to be a hassle. I've yet to visualize a good distance from her when the wave starts and the graze jumps all over from 10 to 50.

Aside from the pressure going on during that run it looks very...underwhelming looking back at it.

[moozooh]

Ok, I watched the replay. It's this constant feeling of "oh god he's so close to making a mistake now" that makes it especially exciting. Without needless flattery, I really think you're being too harsh on yourself, don't forget that even HS参謀's best runs contain significant mistakes; only few world records are actually flawless in that regard. For instance, the current Normal mode score by ISO is far more improvable than yours.

What I'm more worried about is that improving this score further is going to take inadequate risks for diminishing returns, so you should concentrate on perfecting most effecting graze sources first. I guess you could start with grazing Kogasa's first boss sc and using LYX's large fairy grazing trick after midboss Ichirin (those should give 27–28 million in total), then try slightly more aggressive approach to Ichirin's second boss regular (by sneaking in several lanes of the same contour or mild perimeter-grazing, another 7–9 million if you're lucky). The survival time you got on Ichirin's last sc is pretty mind-boggling, this is probably going to take major luck to replicate. Actually I didn't even understand what killed you the second time — I thought you were right in the dead center of the safespot (unless the center isn't really the safest part). I think you shouldn't bother with Murasa's opener for the time being, as it's a dangerous but not a very effective grazing source compared to all stage 3 regular attacks and Kogasa's first boss sc. It's very unlikely that Easy mode will ever see a 20k graze run, anyway.

All of that, as well as more confident play in the latter half of the game will already be enough to push you over 1.6 billion, and that's a big enough feat by itself. Your efforts right now are very commendable, and I'm certain that you should have that WR at least until far more experienced players start competing with you. Reprise may be better at finding new stuff, but he's certainly not significantly more skilled. You can beat him.

By the way, I mailed the webmaster of Royalflare on topic of official th12 board opening and the small numbers to the right of the scores in per-category view. This is what he responded with:

Opening th12 scorebord is scheduled on September 11 or later.
It is sales start date of th12 in all doujin shops.

( The amount of the game disk that have been distributed in the
comic market is too insufficient every year.
Most of the touhou players can't buy th12 yet.
So i'm releasing the scoreborad in the shop sales start date
every year for impartiality.)


> Also, what do the small numbers next to the scores mean? For instance, in
> "☆643,660,240 (68.2)", what does "68.2" stand for?

It is "standard deviation" in the section.

[Momijitsuki]

Oh, that reminds me that I preordered UFO from Paletweb about a month ago. It should ship soon!

[Dodgeballpvp]

Ok, I watched the replay. It's this constant feeling of "oh god he's so close to making a mistake now" that makes it especially exciting. Without needless flattery, I really think you're being too harsh on yourself, don't forget that even HS参謀's best runs contain significant mistakes; only few world records are actually flawless in that regard. For instance, the current Normal mode score by ISO is far more improvable than yours.

What I'm more worried about is that improving this score further is going to take inadequate risks for diminishing returns, so you should concentrate on perfecting most effecting graze sources first. I guess you could start with grazing Kogasa's first boss sc and using LYX's large fairy grazing trick after midboss Ichirin (those should give 27–28 million in total), then try slightly more aggressive approach to Ichirin's second boss regular (by sneaking in several lanes of the same contour or mild perimeter-grazing, another 7–9 million if you're lucky). The survival time you got on Ichirin's last sc is pretty mind-boggling, this is probably going to take major luck to replicate. Actually I didn't even understand what killed you the second time — I thought you were right in the dead center of the safespot (unless the center isn't really the safest part). I think you shouldn't bother with Murasa's opener for the time being, as it's a dangerous but not a very effective grazing source compared to all stage 3 regular attacks and Kogasa's first boss sc. It's very unlikely that Easy mode will ever see a 20k graze run, anyway.

All of that, as well as more confident play in the latter half of the game will already be enough to push you over 1.6 billion, and that's a big enough feat by itself. Your efforts right now are very commendable, and I'm certain that you should have that WR at least until far more experienced players start competing with you. Reprise may be better at finding new stuff, but he's certainly not significantly more skilled. You can beat him.

By the way, I mailed the webmaster of Royalflare on topic of official th12 board opening and the small numbers to the right of the scores in per-category view. This is what he responded with:

Opening th12 scorebord is scheduled on September 11 or later.
It is sales start date of th12 in all doujin shops.

( The amount of the game disk that have been distributed in the
comic market is too insufficient every year.
Most of the touhou players can't buy th12 yet.
So i'm releasing the scoreborad in the shop sales start date
every year for impartiality.)


> Also, what do the small numbers next to the scores mean? For instance, in
> "☆643,660,240 (68.2)", what does "68.2" stand for?

It is "standard deviation" in the section.

Reprise broke 1,7 billion. And guess what, he broke 20k graze. At the end of stage 3 he already had 18,000 graze... There are still few spots where he could get even more graze points!

[moozooh]

3.1k graze after stage 2. Very efficient stage 3. Two spare lives by the end of the game. This guy is definitely not to be underestimated.

It also seems that over 23k graze might be possible on Easy, at least with Marisa-A (and probably Marisa-B). It will be harder to break 20k with Sanae, but that doesn't seem impossible.

Very impressive indeed.

[Heartbeam]

1.7 billion? I've fallen over my chair...it's reassuring to know that you can at least dodge the lasers inside the eye.

[Dodgeballpvp]

Easy - Sanae B
Dodgeball- 819,431,270 - 6 - 0.350% - Replay

Once again, small improvement... Stage 4 failed again! I waited too long at the beginning of the stage and all the ufo tokens disappeared from the screen and then near the end of stage I summoned blue ufo too early and filled it with red power items. the result was 8 x 0 = 0. The good thing is that I was able to get Nue part right in stage 6 for the first time. But then I died to Byakuren's Light Magic "Star Maelstrom". Not surprise because I have never been able to capture it. Useally I just bomb it, but this time I had no bombs or lives left.

[EPS21]

Not that I'm complaining, but I think you got someone elses score in the Extra section with mine

Wish I could put more time into this crazy game, monitor is all tated-up for the STGT09 though. Looking at all the theorycrafting for maximizing scores on the easier mode is a bit of a turn off though.

[Dodgeballpvp]

Easy - Sanae B
Dodgeball - 843,645,010 - C - Replay

Heh, at least I cleared it this time

Still little bit unhappy, because yesterday I messed up my best run.. I had well over 700 million in stage 5 but the I failed against Shou and didnt even make it to stage 6

----

edit: LIDERA is back in the game http://lidera.blog116.fc2.com/

He is doing UFO extra stage and easy mode score runs. I watched the easy mode replay. It was nothing special, just a safe run. Maybe his first try? But I did like how he did Shou's Buddhist Art "Most Valuable Vajra".

[Heartbeam]

Lunatic - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 343,514,060 - ALL - 0.150% - [Replay]

I think the bomb key saw more use than the shot key.

[Dodgeballpvp]

Easy - Sanae B
Dodgeball - 1,048,702,250 - C - 0.210% - Replay

YESSSSS! I have done it, I'm so happy right now

Now, I can take some risks. Time to start practising supergrazing and learn the new stage 2-3 path. I still use old tactics.

[EPS21]

Lunatic - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 343,514,060 - ALL - 0.150% - [Replay]

I think the bomb key saw more use than the shot key.

Congrats on your Lunatic clear! I'm curious what the highest Japanese scores there are, it would be crazy to imagine anyone doing it without farming up on lives or bombs.

[moozooh]

The Japanese haven't passed 600 million yet, many of them are in fact complaining it's too hard. :o
We'll probably have to wait for several months or so unless ASAPIN or some other awesome dude comes up with a good score. Then again, if ISO challenges Lunatic, it won't take him long to get a decent score.

Good job on getting that clear, Heartbeam! I still love you more when you run Easy mode, though. :D

By the way, LIDERA is making tests with Sanae-B and thinks 1.7 billion is impossible. Personally, I don't see why it would be.

[Dodgeballpvp]

Normal - Sanae B
Dodgeball - 509,321,320 - 5 - 0.220% - Replay

Well, I started practising normal mode score runs.. Harder than I thought... Stage 4 is killer. So many bullets, that I cant even see the ufo tokens... Maybe I should forget my plan and just summon random ufos and hope to get lucky. And of course stage 5. Ugh...

[Momijitsuki]

About time.

Normal - Sanae A
Momijitsuki - 207,255,240 - C - 0.1% - Replay

[Heartbeam]

Easy - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 1,604,870,770 - C - 0.180% - Replay

Finished with two lives too many. So it's clear that burning down endstage Nazrin's last spell with 3.00 power doesn't outweigh the sacrifice of point items, but fun to do nonetheless. As is midboss Kogasa's spell with 3.00 power, midboss Ichirin's spell with 3.00 power, etc...

I don't know, maybe I'll leave this score for a bit because it looks so pretty like HS参謀's Phantasm record. I won't ignore practicing, however. At least half an hour each day to remain familiar with the UFO route (maybe every other day), some to try out the other grazing tricks and positions.

A question about MoF and the third post down this thread. Given the context of the situation I don't think the POC lines were merely added to be there after the screenshot was taken, so it's a modification to the game?

[moozooh]

Your grazing of Ichirin's midboss attack was so strong she twitched in disgust, LOL.

This is a very tasty run. Your UFO timing was pretty much impeccable, I don't think I've seen better. Feeding had a couple flaws, though. I've yet to do a full comparison between your and nyanko's run, but you graze better in stages 1 and 3, which are the most important ones score-wise. I'll investigate your point loss shortly, it isn't very obvious considering that your grazing was on par with nyanko's. Meanwhile, congratulations on finally nailing 1.6B!

[EDIT]
Alright, a ~30 million point loss occurred in stage 6 due to a feeding mistake. About as much was lost to lack of grazing.

Btw, I crunched some numbers in regard to Murasa's anchor spells. Grazing the anchors can give you about 650-700 graze points (~40 per volley, there are 16-18 volleys in total, iirc) which roughly translates to at most 4 million of net gain if you milk them to the last second. In case you were unsure about it, there's no need for milking on those but it's a good idea to graze the anchors while shooting.

As for the MoF thread, no idea.

[Heartbeam]

Easy - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 1,644,379,810 - C - 0.210% - Replay

Oh damn it, I need to quit taking it slow. Unexpected early death put me in a bad spot to risk endstage Ichirin's second noncard (yeah, go restart or graze it anyway) and I still fail at using the eye safespot. Pretty sure I missed a UFO token in stage four along with a fairy for the summon, but pushed on to make sure the rest of the run played out like it should. No grazing with Kogasa, I'm the worst.

The positioning problem with Kogasa's first endstage spell, first wave...maybe because her legs are extended a bit when moving into her spot and that throws off my reference point, too wary of sprite collision, something like that. I don't know, only tried four times so far and they were all days apart.

9/28 - Feeling very good about Ichirin's second endstage noncard now, but the full run will commence another day.

[moozooh]

That's probably the first time I've seen Ichirin's midboss spellcard done in 6.95s. Excellent pointblanking all around!

I still groaned a bit when you didn't milk all of Nazrin's regulars, that's over 6 million down the drain right there, and it's probably the easiest thing you can do. I don't want to scare you, but, according to my calculations, you're losing about 23-28 million by not graze-milking stages 1 & 2 to the fullest extent. That being said, you still manage to graze better than nyanko on Nazrin's 1st SC, as well as the non-boss part of stage 3. This is definitely a good sign since it gives you a clear advantage. You should aim for 2600 graze after stage 2. 2800+ is also possible, but hardly feasible at this point. Consider milking Kogasa's last spellcard as well, since 200 surplus graze there roughly translate to 3.2 million of gain later on (lost SC bonus value subtracted).

You missed about 132 multiplied point items on stage 5, though it went much better than nyanko's even like that.* Stage 6 was nearly flawless. Great job.

Btw, why don't you submit this to Royalflare? Do you want to hit 1.7 billion first?

* — The optimal stage 5 path seems to be 40 + 275*8 + 60 + 80*4 + 200*8 + 214*8 + 192*4 + 528*8 + 190 (Shou) ≈ 11100 multiplied point items (some will be dropped inevitably). Stage 6 is thus 40*2 + 210*8 + 360*8 + 64 + 303*8 + 287 (Byakuren) ≈ 7400 multiplied point items.

(I wonder if there is an error in my calculations?)

[Dodgeballpvp]

Easy - Reimu A
Dodgeball - 844,671,220 - C - 0.150% - Replay

Just something to fill the empty spots, the board needs more scores. This run was not too bad I guess, it was the very first score run with this shot type.



SanaeB runs are going little bit better I guess... I did 2 runs yesterday and both times I had a chance to get 1,1 - 1,2 billion but I made 2 bad mistakes and the final score was little bit over 1 billion. The other run... Well, I gave up when things started to go wrong.

Ichrin's first safe spot and unzan eye safe spots are pretty hard for me. No matter how much I practise that stage, I never get it right...

[Heartbeam]

Easy - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 1,723,870,960 - C - 0.440% - Replay

I need to work on the second bunch of green lasers for Nazrin's spell. Best stage one so far has ended with 1,536 graze. After doing so many runs the random factor finally catches your eye and becomes a taunting sight. Midboss Ichirin's noncard, maybe her endstage opener (don't pay enough attention to the graze count but the graze sound certainly changes) and I'd like to know the success rate for Reprise and nyanko against Ichirin's final spell. Some of the lasers just come together at a bad angle to consider dodging.

Sorry for forgetting to answer your question, like it hardly matters now. Where I'm at exams fall on early December, May, July, and August.

Let's see, the bomb in stage four is more of a cushion with a little graze on the side so what else could it be used for? I was eyeing the 60 items in stage four for a blue UFO, say if Sanae B were to collect it at 63,000 point item value but the 2,000 item value bonus for the rest of the game outweighs it by just a bit, and there's the 2M+ loss from the 275 Blue UFO because the one spare token isn't grabbed immediately. That's scrapped then for this difficulty, what would be a good spot for the suicide before midboss Nazrin? Murasa's last noncard is the only thing that stands out to me.

I shouldn't have rushed with the last UFO summon in stage four, there was plenty of time to take out that one other fairy. Also reminds me, I should pick up one of the UFO tokens before destroying the first blue UFO after Nue. Can't believe I overlooked that.

[moozooh]

Extra — Sanae-B
moozooh — 141,159,580 — X — 0.3% (replay).

Put a couple credits into this a few days ago, promptly got my ass handed to me by midboss Kogasa. And to think it looked so easy in replays, haha! I guess I can get at least 250 million during the main stage if I actually make an effort to learn the UFO route. A placeholder score until then.

Easy - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 1,723,870,960 - C - 0.440% - Replay

Such an exhilarating run, I shook my head in disbelief when I saw you supergraze Ichirin's second regular like that. Dayum! And congratulations on getting your WR back. ;)

I need to work on the second bunch of green lasers for Nazrin's spell. Best stage one so far has ended with 1,536 graze. After doing so many runs the random factor finally catches your eye and becomes a taunting sight. Midboss Ichirin's noncard, maybe her endstage opener (don't pay enough attention to the graze count but the graze sound certainly changes) and I'd like to know the success rate for Reprise and nyanko against Ichirin's final spell. Some of the lasers just come together at a bad angle to consider dodging.

I can ask nyanko on her blog. (Even if she's not a girl, having "catgirl" as a nickname surely isn't very manly.)

Let's see, the bomb in stage four is more of a cushion with a little graze on the side so what else could it be used for?

Grazing Murasa's 3rd regular, I'd guess. You should have just enough time to to a zig-zag sweep before critical damage is dealt.

I was eyeing the 60 items in stage four for a blue UFO, say if Sanae B were to collect it at 63,000 point item value but the 2,000 item value bonus for the rest of the game outweighs it by just a bit, and there's the 2M+ loss from the 275 Blue UFO because the one spare token isn't grabbed immediately.

That's correct, summoning a blue UFO there leads to an immediate loss of 32+ million, while the most you can get from that UFO is 29-30 million. Basically, for UFO route improvements, you should look at blue UFOs that bring less than ~40 million and multicolored UFOs that bring less than ~20 million in the first place, as they are eligible candidates for skipping. However, as the first two stages already have the minimum possible summon count, stages 3 and 4 are the only ones where further reduction might be possible.

Summoning additional UFOs doesn't seem feasible anywhere as far as I can see, because the gain is by far outweighed by the stages 5 and 6' haul. EDIT: And I stand corrected! See what ycw did in stage 4? This guy certainly did his homework…

what would be a good spot for the suicide before midboss Nazrin? Murasa's last noncard is the only thing that stands out to me.

What about the 60-item part? So that you could get all of them safely and have some free graze as a bonus.

[Heartbeam]

Extra - Sanae B
Heartbeam - 616,367,930 - C - 0.250% - Replay

Once again truly ready to bore myself to death with Easy mode grazing, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm caught up in the moment.

[lmagus]

Normal - Sanae B
lmagus - 185,612,980 - C - 0.000% - Replay

Woah I had completely forgotten about this game... Been trying to 1cc some games on Hard and forgot I hadn't 1cc'd UFO Normal yet... so there it goes, first try.
Very close call =P

[moozooh]

Almost half a year without activity, huh? Well, anyway.

[EDIT]
Due to new information the post has been updated throughout.

The player most of you know well as AM is trying his hand at getting 3 billion, and this time he has really done his homework on the strategy part of this goal. His current test run for stage 3 alone earns over 28.5k graze (which is, for the record, more than all the previous runs have gotten by that point on the first three stages combined). His last full game attempt, had it not been thwarted by a premature gameover, would have broken 2.9 billion easily. And even with that it exceeded 41k graze by the end of the fight with Shou.

Now for some points of interest.

• The combined graze value for stages in HECATE's and AM's so far best runs exceeds 46.4k. If counting AM's practice replays, it even exceeds 48.9k! The breakdown is as follows:
stage 1 — 3258 (AM v8, non-clear);
stage 2 — 3761 (HECATE v1, non-clear);
stage 3 — 28510 (AM's practice run);
stage 4 — 2527 (AM v6);
stage 5 — 7350 (AM v6);
stage 6 — 3549 (AM v5).
Thus, expect a successful 3 billion run to have 46k graze or more. Over 49k doesn't really seem feasible at this point unless you go specifically for maximizing graze.

• AM's current plan pretty much enforces no unwanted deaths/bombs anywhere whatsoever. For a game as mind-numbingly hard as UFO that is really ballsy, especially considering you don't have a spare bomb for the entire Byakuren fight. In fact, I think there aren't even enough bombs for optimal scoring at certain points.

• Theoretical threshold for Lunatic seems to be around 3.075 billion, but I don't think it will be feasible unless there are qualitative changes to either strategy or execution of certain points preceding the latter half of stage 4. 3 billion is perfectly feasible, though, if one can effectively no-miss the entire game. >_> Since that last part is somewhat easier on Hard, Sanae-B scores there may reach 2.65–2.7 billion if AM or Hirona challenge it.

[Fu]

Hello does anybody know why scores are so low on the first stages for the top scores I see on royalflare ?
I often beat LXY'score Normal after stage 2 or 3, and it doesn't look like strategy for grazing more on spellcards or saving UFOs for later stages