Solo Shmup League Week #2 - DoDonPachi (closed)

[VHS-porn]

Well I don't really care now, but I remember when I started playing STGs reading post such as these from time to time, it really made me feel worthless at the time.
I don't think it helps newbies to post in topics like that when they are proud of their own progress and suddenly see this.

[trap15]

The goal should be self-improvement, not beating others. Be proud when you reach a milestone, but never forget that you can always do better.

[Zengeku3]

it really made me feel worthless at the time.

Pretty much everyone is worthless. Get used to it.

[chum]

A staggering amount of egotism is required for someone to feel offended by someone's else's comment about the value of their own play.

Seriously. Think about your own progress instead. How could it possibly matter to you that a better player isn't satisfied with their own play?

[VHS-porn]

Think about your own progress instead. How could it possibly matter to you that a better player isn't satisfied with their own play?

It has nothing to do with that, hearing someone do much better than you and just afterward claim that he is "terrible at this game" can be a bit frustrating, I know thats how I felt when I started and I'm sure other people must feel that way too. I'm certainly not telling people how they must think or evaluate themselves, I just think some overly harsh and self-deprecating comments sounds -a bit- like a small fuck you to players learning the game, thats all...
I'm also very critical of the way I play, but if I see some less skilled players around me I won't start shouting "wow, I just did 10x better than you but really, I suck", which is kind of what I hear with comments like that.

[Zengeku3]

Learn to deal with it.

[VHS-porn]

wtf, like I said previously I don't care, this had nothing to do with me personally, but whatever...

[Battletoad]

| SSL | 27,766,780 | picture | 1-6 | C-L | Shmupmame 3.0b

That score actually exceeded my expectations, and I'm dead serious.
Don't think I'm going to play this for score ever again. Great game in most other regards though.

[chum]

if I see some less skilled players around me I won't start shouting "wow, I just did 10x better than you but really, I suck", which is kind of what I hear with comments like that.

Then you have a problem, because nobody said anything like that. Not even close.

wtf, like I said previously I don't care

You don't care... which is why you brought it up and started acting like a jackass. Makes sense to me!

[DocHauser]

I think what VHS is getting at is whether or not certain players are really being modest or if it's false modesty. I mean, clearing the first loop on your first ever time playing the game then saying you suck sounds a bit like false modesty.

If you've played the game for hours and aren't happy with your progress, then it's fair enough to admit your skills are limited. But if you just got to 2-4 and 2-6 after playing the game for about an hour, then claiming to be 'terrible' is a bit rich.

Or, maybe it's just someone's sense of humour that doesn't come across well on the internet, and VHS is taking it too seriously

[trap15]

Compared to top players, they are terrible though.

It's just that the rest of us are fucking trash If you feel insulted being told you're bad at something you're bad at, might want to re-evaluate how you think about things.

[VHS-porn]

You don't care... which is why you brought it up and started acting like a jackass. Makes sense to me!

Wow, thats nice, I was actually just asking something you know ? And don't quote me out of context please, this I really don't like.

Honnestly I just really tought that kind of "wow, I really sucks" was some disguised way of using less skilled player to reasure oneself, like some kind of "I'm pissed because I can't do as good as I'd like to, so lets shit on some other players". I'm glad I misread these, but most answers I got were far off, tbh I kinda wish nobody answered me back there, wasn't worth it.
But you know what ? My point still stand to a certain degree, I'm no going to bother people any longer with it, but I'd hate to let you think I changed my mind

Compared to top players, they are terrible though.

It's just that the rest of us are fucking trash If you feel insulted being told you're bad at something you're bad at, might want to re-evaluate how you think about things.

Its not beeing told that you suck actually. If you're told by someone that you suck you'll very likely dismiss it, its easy.
But imagine a new player coming into a thread like this to post his scores, even if it's not all about scores he will still be a bit concerned about it, trying to see how good he's doing compared to others. Now if he makes some progress and is happy about it, seeing a post like the one I originally quoted will have far more impact, because guess what, it's not an insult.

It's just a really good player that knows what hes talking about claiming to think that what he did is crap. Now don't you think some people reading this would feel like their progress was equal to nothing ?

I don't know, maybe it's just me, I do have low self esteem and I sometimes felt it when I did my first scores, in any case I don't see why a question like this would make me look so stupid :/

edit.

Or, maybe it's just someone's sense of humour that doesn't come across well on the internet, and VHS is taking it too seriously

Yeah, thats always what I think at first, but I've seen a lot of good players do it (such as smreadis or prom), and I just decided what that was about when I saw it in this tread. It was a legit question, really

[Jaimers]

Really the thing here is that as your own skill increases with these games, so does your own sense of what you consider good for yourself.
Thus you will start to get harder and harder on yourself, this doesn't mean I have low self-esteem, not at all, it's just more incentive to improve myself.
It's a matter of perspective really. I mean no disrespect to other players.

Also it should be mentioned that I practiced all the chains beforehand. That first credit was just the actual first credit.

[Drake]

Real answer: Whenever a player says they suck, it is never from an absolute reference frame. It's from the frame where they're comparing themselves to whatever is above them and what they personally think they should be able to accomplish. When you don't achieve that usually-lofty standard (which is often), you get "wow I suck" because the player expects themselves to be able to not die on certain patterns, or be able to keep a chain going, or achieve some certain score, or whatever. It doesn't matter whether or not you're new or you're at WR tier; half of the issue here is that the better you are the more critical you will be of your more minute failures, whereas newer players are more concentrated on their overall ability to do anything at all. There is a clash between what they mean by "I suck" and what you think "I suck" means that needs to be understood when you're in the midst of a community of players who are mostly better than you.

The fact of the matter is nobody intends to make newer players feel bad, and more importantly it has nothing to do with any other players at all. It's easily understandable why you would think that better players casually saying they suck is somewhat esteem-dropping when you compare their play to yours, and it isn't immediately obvious to new players that they're only talking about some completely relative standard that they're comparing themselves to. There aren't any signs anywhere saying "RELATIVE TO WHAT I THINK I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO". Hopefully after it's pointed out what they actually mean when they say "I'm so bad at this game", you'll stop perceiving the personal over-standards of other people as something for you to compare yourself to.

I think that's part of why this is getting so contentious. You don't have the proper context. If you were totally aware that people saying "derp I suck" is generally about their own play relative to more of their own play, then saying you feel super conscious about your not-as-good play is like, "well stop that". You're inserting yourself into others' frame of reference and it would be only your own fault for feeling bad about it.

[heisenbergman]

Updated the OP. Last 24 hours or so for submission of scores Thanks.

[Chaos]

| SSL | 19820790 | http://i.imgur.com/5HY1ELq.png | 1-5 | C-S | ShmupMAME 4.2

[Aleksei]

Wow, I just noticed that I play better with C-S because of the shot slowdown, I made it to the second loop!!

| ASV | 81,041,660 | http://postimg.org/image/twttnglwf/ | 2-3 | C-S | MAME 0.150

[Zengeku3]

Okay, this is it for my final submission.

| SSL | 142,043,260 | Screenshot | 2-6 | C-S | Shmupmame 4.2

Finally got a run that went according to plan. The plan being NMNB stages until 1-5 boss, then drop two on it because i don't know how to deal with it. Then during stage 1-6, get back to maximum bombs and NMNB the 1-6 boss, then maintain the maximum chain until 2-3. 2-1 and 2-2 are both quite easy and i ended up being able to do NMNB 1-5 and 1-6 with good consistency (not that hard for a touhou player lol) but there was one nasty wild card, namely the final attack of the 1-6 boss. I am not consistent on this. I spent most of this week training stage 1-5, 1-6, 2-1, 2-2 and 2-3 so i only had to use three credits before i made it past the 1-6 boss without choking on the final attack. I'm pretty good at dodging that attack with A-L which is what I usually use in this game but I just couldn't pass up on C-S's amazing screen coverage for a thing like this.

Unfortunately, my survival skills are pretty mediocre as far as Touhou players goes so as soon as the 2-3 boss came along, i had to hammer the bomb key hard. I even died with bombs in stock on some occasions. Really lame

This was a fun week and I'm both surprised and happy about getting this kind of score. Though i guess the score really isn't very good at all, it may just be that the maximum bonus is worth more in this game compared to something like DOJBL where the chains give a considerably larger chunk of your score. Maybe. I don't know for sure but it doesn't matter. I should try to 2-all this when i get better.

[Chaos]

update


| SSL | 24956160 | http://i.imgur.com/D5jUCK3.png | 1-A | C-S | ShmupMAME 4.2

[Jaimers]

| SSL | 213,251,940 | Screenshot | 2-7 | C-S | Shmupmame 4.2

Broke my goal of 200M for this week so I'm happy at least.
Replay in case this is my last submission.

[ciox]

| SSL | 26,298,330 | http://i.imgur.com/3pvYUTM.png | 1-5 | C-L | mame

FINAL

[DocHauser]

| SSL | 29,479,250 | snap | 1-6 | C-S | shmupmame4.2

Think I'll call it a day with that.

[Zengeku3]

213m awesome :3 Go for that 2-all and show everypony what the power of Touhou can do.

[Emuser]

:<

first run in like 3 months and having been aware of this topic since only a couple days ago and only NOW being able to sit down longer than an hour and play a bit, I had 101M on the 1-6 boss and proceeded to once again break down in the 2nd loop for reasons I can't comprehend.

| SSL | 118,374,100 | http://i.imgur.com/2G8Qgrx.png| 2-3 | A-S | Shmupmame 3.0b

[Zengeku3]

Whoa, A-S :3 That's pretty rad. Nice!

[PedroMD]

| SSL | 19,742,130 | Screenshot | 1-5 | C-S | ShmupMame4.2

Oh so close to the extend. Managed to no miss up to stage 5, was hoping to bullshit through the rest of the game with the insane amount of bombs the game gives out, then proceeded to lose all my lives in rapid succession with full bomb stocks. Oh well.

I don't know if this happens to others, but when I die once I lose the rhythm of the game and the other deaths follow soon. It's all right when I can see the death coming, but an unplanned death where I could have bombed throws me off completely. It kind of sucks.

I can do better (and can see the 1-all in the horizon), I just don't know when, since consistency is not one of my strengths. I'll leave this score here just in case.

[Zeron]

Hmm close one

SSL | 158,157,850 |http://imgur.com/fP5s3Gq | 2-7| C-L | Shmupmame4.2

[Erppo]

SSL | 290,780,150 | http://i.imgur.com/gwTr1QG.png | 2-7| C-S | Shmupmame4.2

A bit disappointed since I wanted better but ended up not having any time to play today. This will have to do then.

[Emuser]

hot damn C-L 2-7 score and Erppo with nearly 300M, where have these kind of scores been in like the past 3 years lol

[Aettaa]

Type B is the way to go.

SSL | 33,009,670 | image | 1-6 | B-L | Shmupmame4.2

I need to learn to chain
And not die to easy stuff.

My 1-ALL scores also happen to be worse than this one.