Subterranean Animism (Touhou 11; ZUN, 2008)

[lmagus]

Normal - ReimuA
lmagus - 213,900,630 - ALL - 0.0% - Replay

[moozooh]

Updated.

[EPS21]

EPS21 - 944,590,770 - Extra - Reimu A - 0.0% - Replay

I thought I had posted this before, guess it was another forum. The fruits of my efforts after 997 attempts, many of which restarting before even getting to Sanae. I want to break 1 bil but getting back into all the scoring tricks will take way too much time

[Heartbeam]

Extra:
Heartbeam - 978,891,890 - ALL - Reimu A - 0.1% - Replay

Wow! I never made the connection between the semi-recent UFO submissions and the long list of SA Extra runs from way back then. You should take part in moozooh's tournament next week if you have the time; you'll make for a great competitor in the small group of participants.

[EPS21]

Godammit heartbeam, now it looks like I'll have to get back into this hehe.

Sounds interesting, although I have a few midterms early next week, but later in it I could invest more time into that. Any more details?

[Heartbeam]

All there is so far. Nothing else in mind to say right now.

[moozooh]

Updated. Excellent scores!

[moozooh]

Thread necromancy time!

As some of you may know, UKT (previously known as yuki>t, or however it was spelled) has been on a Lunatic binge that recently culminated in an unprecedented score of 4.52 billion, which was even more than thought possible a year ago. This is a great and very educative run that I wholly recommend watching.

But what I would like to point your attention to is this 4.3 billion run by PondeSuika. If not for the three unwanted deaths, the score could have been over 4.6 billion! When you see the player get over 10k graze in stage 1 alone, you'll know what I mean.

This run also suggests that 4.7 billion has went out of the realm of theoretical possibility within the current players' direct grasp. So far these two players' combined performance would have amounted to 4.65+ billion by means of wasted end-of-game bonus and spellcard bonus opportunities alone, and now we have solid proof both that 89900 graze is possible to achieve by Orin's cash-in regular without any suicides in stage 5, and that it's possible to max-out the cash-in without suicides, making the last of them necessary back in mid-stage 4.

Now consider this. There are up to 7 star fragments to collect in stage 4, 7-10 in stage 5, and 9 in stage 6. What does this mean? It means, if you start stage 4 with a remaining life and a single star fragment (like these two runs do), you can finish the game with 5 remaining lives without any sacrifices in graze farming or cashing in point items (not to mention that it would even be beneficial to do so in that case, score-wise). Moreover, if you time the last suicide in stage 2 (that is only done to replenish power) a bit differently, or timeout Orin's second midboss non-spell in stage 5, you can do that AND farm a lot of special point items from the midboss padding enemies in stage 5, increasing the overall point item value way beyond what the CG multiplier allows by itself.

By my calculations, theoretical limit for Reimu-A Lunatic, assuming 5 remaining lives at the end of the game, capturing all spellcards that don't require bombing/dying, maxing-out multiplier before Orin's cash-in, and not suiciding past stage 4 midboss (all of which are known to be possible), is thus around 4.77~4.8 billion. Currently I see over 4.8 billion as impossible by any means, unless there is some sizable underestimation on my part. Still, that is already a fucking lot. For Marisa-B I see it possible to get ~4.6 billion, but that will probably be harder than getting 4.75+ billion with Reimu-A because of way more restrictive timing throughout and tighter control required to realize the full potential of the options. (Mildly) fascinating stuff.

[moozooh]

As some of you already know, pondeS made a new run scoring just a few million over the previous record by UKT, but up until stage 4 boss he was on pace for 4.7 billion, further proving my earlier calculations that 4.8+ (and even something closer to 4.85) billion is theoretically possible, even if too hard to realistically achieve. How crazy is that!

Per-stage graze breakdown (this is genuinely ridiculous stuff!):
st. 1 — 10549;
st. 2 — 29455 (40004);
st. 3 — 12813 (52817);
st. 4 — 22649 (75466);
89900 reached during Orin's stage boss opener, which is pretty much the perfect place to do so. Ended stage 6 with 2 lives, a spare star fragment, and 4.00 power.

The first four stages (up to the boss) are pretty much perfect with nearly every scoring opportunity used to the fullest extent. There were only two mistakes I would classify as major: bombing twice during the stage 4 boss, which made it pretty much impossible to skip the mid-stage 5 suicide (then again, at this point a deficiency of some ~0.2 points of a multiplier was hardly worth the 80+ million lost to build it up using suicides), and a sudden hit taken during Utsuho's first non-spell. Orin's cash-in non-spell was dealt with very defensively, which was probably worth it from the standpoint of safety, but otherwise wasted around a hundred million, which may or may not be considered a mistake.

At the current level of execution only around 14.5k graze points must be gathered in stage 5. So in this respect the difficult part becomes to get through Komeiji without using bombs, or at least using no more than one bomb. Assuming the player starts the stage with 3.00 power, rough calculations give me something like this:

exploding spirits 1 — ~3600 graze, –0.80 power (p=2.20);
yin-yang orbs 1 — ~400 graze, +1.60 power (p=3.80);
midboss opener — ~5700 graze, –3.00 power (p=0.80);
faith spirits + homing orbs section — ~2000, +3.00 power (p=2.80, needs correction);
yin-yang orbs 2 — ~200 graze, +1.20 power (p=4.00, needs correction);
exploding spirits 2 — ~3600 graze, –0.80 power (p=3.20, needs correction).

Thus, around 15.5k graze, which is 1k more than enough to max out. Now let's repeat the same with pondeS's given circumstances (starting at p=2.85), inferior grazing performance throughout, and more emphasis on survival:

exploding spirits 1 — ~3300 graze, –0.80 power (p=2.05);
yin-yang orbs 1 — ~300 graze, +1.60 power (p=3.65);
midboss opener — ~3500 graze, –2.00 power (p=1.65);
faith spirits + homing orbs section — ~1400, +2.35 power (p=4.00);
yin-yang orbs 2 — ~200 graze, +1.20 power (p=4.00);
exploding spirits 2 — ~3300 graze, –0.80 power (p=3.20);
Orin's opener and first spell — ~500 graze, +0.50 power (p=3.70).

That's around 12.5k, which is 2k graze points (thus 0.20 multiplier) short of the goal, and that is what, some 10-something million with every enemy killed and every enemy picked up? In this respect pondeS indeed made a wrong choice by suiciding because s/he would've maxed out early into Orin battle either way, and going for survival would actually bring more points even disregarding the life bonus, just because of greater base point value carry-over, which I believe would have offset the multiplier loss already during stage 5. The conclusion is: going through all three phases of midboss Orin to farm graze and star items is already counterproductive, especially considering the pretty much inevitable death/bomb on the spellcard. Suiciding there at such crazy graze counts is just feeding large chunks of score to the grue. Now if only somebody with the knowledge of Japanese could relay that to pondeS and UKT and convince them to never suicide in stage 5 we may have a slight chance to see a 4.65–4.75 billion run in foreseeable future.

[Dodgeballpvp]

Easy - ReimuA
Dodgeball - 419,604,000 - ALL - 0.050% - Replay

Easy - MarisaA
Dodgeball - 367,510,980 - ALL - 0.100% - Replay

So rusty, I havent touched this game for years... First attempt with scoring.

Many deaths in a row with Marisa.. That shot type is giving me a headache! I always die the same way. Bomb, rush to graze as much as possible and when the invincibility ends I get killed instantly.

[moozooh]

Wow, just realized I haven't received anything new for over a year up to your post. There's been barely any activity after the first couple months. Can't say there's no reason for that, but eh.

[lmagus]

eh, I really should go back to Touhou, after almost a year without playing anything but Cave games, I wonder if I can 1cc Hard/Lunatic yet..

SA is one of my favourites, I wonder why so many people dislike it.

sorry for the OT

[Naut]

Extra:
Naut - 980,168,240 - ALL - Reimu A - 0.0% - (Replay)

Posting to wake up Heartbeam. Stop hiding your scores

Also, T should be here too.

Also, in before BSM.

Also, UFO updates soon.

Also,

[moozooh]

Nice job! Who'll be the first to break a billion?

Also, who's T?

[EPS21]

Safespot grazing: the game.
I didn't know people still played this extra mode. Perhaps I'll go back to improving my score and hit the 1bil mark too. What's the current WR for this now?

[moozooh]

Check the first post. ;)

[Dodgeballpvp]

Nice job! Who'll be the first to break a billion?

Also, who's T?

Mr. T. already broke 1 billion. See the results here: http://lunaticred.proboards.com/index.c ... 364&page=1

[moozooh]

See the results here: http://lunaticred.proboards.com/index.c ... 364&page=1

I would, but any attempt to parse relevant information that forum makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Each post contains 3-4 graphic images completely unrelated to its content, and that's just the most obvious thing to mention. :\

[Naut]

I wanted to avoid directly linking them since it's their scores and they should post them if they want to, but you can just hop on Gensokyo.org and search up T and Secondaryfag to see for yourself. I'm still hoping that my post will lure them out so they can post for themselves. Plus I want to read another Heartbeam blog post, it's been too long.

Quick edit:
Lunatic Red is holding some achievement foolishness for each game per month, last month was Subterranean Animism, hence my score. T ended up winning the score compitition for Extra (beating my submitted 0.98), and another fellow who has been known to post around here won it on lunatic, so he better post his score too. This month is UFO, by the way.

[Heartbeam]

Extra:
Heartbeam - 1,047,520,960 - ALL - Reimu A - 0.1% - Replay

Plus I want to read another Heartbeam blog post, it's been too long.

And it (finally) occurs to me that doing such a thing in a setting of high score threads is grossly inappropriate. But you have the authority over there, you can smite my posts at will. I'll leave all my stories on that side.

[moozooh]

Oh wow, excellent score!

And it (finally) occurs to me that doing such a thing in a setting of high score threads is grossly inappropriate. But you have the authority over there, you can smite my posts at will.

So are you the one to the left or the one to the right?

[Naut]

Anybody else been watching saki, UKT and PondeS fight for the WR recently? Kinda expected them to fully milk Orin's cash in spell before this point but it's nice to see that saki finally brought it to the table. UKT immediately used saki's strategy to push his score a little higher, but so far PondeS has the best grazing, over 3000 more than both UKT and saki by the time they get to Orin (actually, PondeS has superior grazing on the first four stages, slowly increasing his graze lead by the end of each stage. Really looking forward to his attempt at the WR spot again, milking Orin's cash in with his graze levels should net him a considerable lead, especially if he improves his stage 5 ying yang orb grazing to their level). UKT currently has to the top spot, but his grazing is worse than both saki and PondeS, so there's still a lot of room for improvement. Looks like they're still suiciding before midboss Orin though, which is kinda disappointing (though at UKT's graze level, it was almost necessary).

Any thoughts?

[moozooh]

Yeah, I have. UKT's replay was pretty disappointing if I may say so. Kind of like when yukarin beat AM by abusing invincibility grazing more aggressively and having vastly inferior execution everywhere else.

I'm getting a vibe that they're thinking the amount of point items left from Orin's spell is enough the death, be it following or in the process. I don't think any of them even pondered the idea of not dying anywhere later. Probably because it's very hard to, indeed, and neither of them is HFD level to just cruise through the hardest 1/3 of the game unscathed. :\

So far ponde_S has superior execution skills, which leads me to believe s/he will prevail in hte long run if s/he keeps trying, but only with updated strategy. Otherwise there's no point, as the theoretical maximum is over 4.85 billion, and top three players attempting the game in the last two years shuffle between 4.5 and 4.6 billion as if they've hit the ceiling there.

[Funen1]

I notice there somehow aren't any non-WR scores posted for Lunatic. Might as well fix that. This replay of mine is a bit old at this point, but I'll submit it anyway as a benchmark.

Funen1 - 2,407,942,880 - ALL - ReimuA - 0.13% - Replay

As I'm still deep in the learning process for scoring in this game, you'll only see me supergraze a handful of things. I also had several stupid deaths across this run, all of which can be fixed in one way or another.

All this recent activity on RoyalFlare is getting me more motivated though. I'll be sure to study the new high scores for SA soon.

[moozooh]

Very powerful debut there, Funen1! Nice to see somebody step up to the challenge that is SA Lunatic scoring. Definitely not a walk in the park.

That being said, does anybody happen to have UKT's recent 4.17 billion (I think) teiki taikai replay uploaded a week or two ago? It's already been deleted from the Royalflare, but I'd love to have a look at it to see if there's anything new and/or interesting.

[duckman]

Normal:
duckman - 225,554,450 - ALL - ReimuA - 3.3% (Replay)
My first 1CC of this game too.

[moozooh]

Good job, board updated.

[CStarFlare]

First clear! Did extremely poorly for my first few runs, then no missed up to stage 5. Need more practice on the final boss, only been to her twice before so I bombed at least two spells I probably could have captured if I were more daring. Previous best was 225 mil, so this is a significant improvement for me.

CSF - 413,291,160 - ALL - Reimu A - .5%

If I'm going to come back and work on Normal, I need to learn how to bump my item value up. Pretty sure I was still in the 60k range when I took my first hit in stage 5.

Either way, excited to try Extra.

[moozooh]

What difficulty is that?

[CStarFlare]

Whoops! Sorry, it's Normal.