Button Mashing vs Autofire/Turbo Button

EXEXEX · Post by **EXEXEX** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:06 pm

Hi! Just a new topic

Which would you prefer when you're playing shump, button mashing or autofire/turbo Button?

Also one question, when I saw some of the non shump gaming forum, the usage of autofire is considered cheating and some said that autofire is for pussy players, and mashing is the part of gaming skill. Is this true?

Stevens · Post by **Stevens** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:12 pm

Depends on the game, if auto doesn't break the game it's fine.

Mashing is not a skill, it's an endurance exercise/self torture.

Harpuia · Post by **Harpuia** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:25 pm

Earn't some Japanese cabinets in arcades modified with autofire buttons and selectors? Regardless, button mashing isn't fun and Autofire is fine as long as it doesn't break the game.

CloudyMusic · Post by **CloudyMusic** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:41 pm

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56282

Post by **Ghegs** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:45 pm

The same thing was asked just a few months ago here, it's a question that pops up again and again. Please read though that first.

Harpuia wrote:Earn't some Japanese cabinets in arcades modified with autofire buttons and selectors?

Yes, yes they are.

EDIT: Keres beat me to it.

trap15 · Post by **trap15** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:59 pm

Lord not this again.

Shepardus · Post by **Shepardus** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:06 pm

I usually mash unless it gets so bad that I wouldn't want to play the game without autofire. I feel this way about Raiden and most other games where you have to press the button for every shot you fire. I'm more tolerant of games where you can press the button a couple times a second and get full or most damage potential, like Cho Ren Sha and many Psikyo games (in Dragon Blaze and Gunbird 2 tapping also saves me the trouble of handling four buttons).

If a game has characters with built-in autofire and others without (like Thunder Dragon 2) I stay away from adding autofire and usually play the characters that already have autofire, since the developers must have considered autofire and made a conscious decision not to include it for balance. If the game has a setting for autofire in its config/dipswitches (like Dodonpachi and Darius II) I'll usually turn it on.

Darius Gaiden's a bit of an oddball in that the default firerate feels just a bit too slow for the stages but 30hz autofire trivializes the bosses (the first few especially) too much for my liking (especially in a series like Darius where the bosses are so important to the game's identity). As someone who hasn't cleared the game yet I don't feel like I'm fit to judge what the appropriate firerate is for a balanced experience (does this place need a faster firerate or do I just need to git gud?) so I just play with default autofire rate and mash when I feel like I need a bit of extra power. Though autofire is tempting especially since even the attract mode demo plays seem to use it...

pegboy · Post by **pegboy** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:08 pm

Games without autofire are poorly designed.

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:30 pm

https://youtu.be/YKYUKsZW6UA

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:47 pm

It really depends on the type of shooter. Many games are designed such that precision firing is part of the intended skill set to be tested and this often doesn't work out well with turbo fire (Galaga, the original Darius, etc.), or is outright broken by it (Image Fight, Darius Gaiden, Metal Slug, etc.). I like both high-shot-volume-type shooters and precision-shooting-oriented shooters so I don't really have a preference for one or the other.

I will say that there there is a certain satisfaction to button mashing in some games that I think it lost with fully automated firing sometimes. The developer of Cho Ren Sha 68K also explicitly recognized this in their retrospective on designing the game, explaining their decision to have button presses launch a burst of automatic fire rather than settle on allowing the player to simply hold a button down. I think a ton of other doujin developers and arcade designers such as Takumi and CAVE recognize this too. I usually play my shooters on a keyboard/arcade top where I can put my whole hand into mashing something without supporting the weight of a controller at the same time though, and maybe button mashing isn't quite so easy or fun on a controller.

Imhotep · Post by **Imhotep** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:52 pm

Plasmo wrote:https://youtu.be/YKYUKsZW6UA

Cool! What technique do you use?
I'm the fastest with alternating index and middle finger on the same button, but it gets tiresome after a while. Would love to find a more consistent method, as I prefer not to use autofire in many games.

Hagane · Post by **Hagane** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:09 pm

I'm sure that most of the players who hate tapping play on pads; it's indeed very annoying to do and you can't match the speed and ease of good Japanese buttons that are very sensible and easy to tap. Even on keyboard tapping is not a tiresome thing unless you tap at full speed all the time for some reason.

My preferences change from game to game. With Psikyo games I prefer no autofire, it confuses my timing for charge shots and feels uncomfortable to have shot and charges in separate buttons. I appreciate autofire in Dariusburst, though, since tapping would be distracting with all the precise bursting necessary with Assault.

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:40 am

Imhotep wrote:
Plasmo wrote:https://youtu.be/YKYUKsZW6UA
Cool! What technique do you use?
I'm the fastest with alternating index and middle finger on the same button, but it gets tiresome after a while. Would love to find a more consistent method, as I prefer not to use autofire in many games.

I only use my index finger.

But then again, the mashing you have to do in Strikers 45 is rather slow. I probably wouldn't like to play Darius Gaiden without autofire.

But in general I don't mind it too much. I don't feel too much of a difference between mashing and not mashing. You just gotta adapt to the new game and that's about it.

Despatche · Post by **Despatche** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 2:46 pm

Mashing is a skill. It should be treated as the default way to play games without autofire.

Turning off or otherwise ignoring the game's autofire to get a better fire rate, as you would do in Darius II, Ray Force, and Viper Phase 1, is a much more grievous issue.

Some games are fundamentally busted and should be played however you want, like Darius Gaiden.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:39 pm

It mostly depends on the game, unless there is a reason why I shouldn't be covering the screen with my bullets (like rank, scoring opportunities, limited ammo, etc.), or if the default fire rate per tap is laughably low, then there is little reason not to use autofire just to save yourself from the trouble. I'm okay with tap-to-spread/hold-to-laser controls since I don't have to use other buttons which I can press by accident, though. Button mashing is just a tradition, for the most part.

Despatche wrote:Mashing is a skill.

so is performing QTEs
the only SHMUP where I felt mashing was actually integral to the game is beam dueling in G-Darius because of that climactic struggling feeling (like the very final QTE in The Wonderful 101)

davyK · Post by **davyK** » Sat Mar 26, 2016 8:55 am

Plasmo wrote:https://youtu.be/YKYUKsZW6UA

Looks like a nice cabinet!

chempop · Post by **chempop** » Sat Mar 26, 2016 4:54 pm

Plasmo wrote: only use my index finger.

I use my middle finger. And I use my index to bomb, yup I reverse the 1 and 2 buttons for many games, I guess that's cheating

davyK · Post by **davyK** » Sat Mar 26, 2016 5:18 pm

Manual rapid fire is OK for shorter games like caravan but for a longer haul I don't see why it should be imposed on the player. Modern games seem to not require it. Thank goodness for that.

However using a turbo controller does feel like cheating to me.

To Far Away Times · Post by **To Far Away Times** » Sun Mar 27, 2016 8:44 am

Generally speaking, I think Autofire/Turbo settings are okay since many Japanese arcades have modded autofire buttons on the arcade machines.

It really is on a game by game basis though.

Darius Gaiden is probably the most well known example of a game that changes significantly with autofire.

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