Touhou discussion thread

[Squire Grooktook]

Thank you for the in depth explanation Sakurei. That helps a lot in deciding where to start.

[chum]

score.royalflare.net/th128/replay128/th128_ud0675.rpy Fairy Wars LNN!!!!

[yorgje]

that was quick.

[Seppo Hovi]

Returning to the scoring question, late due to the drastic drop in my activity and reluctance to post. My apologies for awakening a deceased discussion.

As someone who started playing for score with IN (and PCB), I disagree.

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As a beginner, the lower difficulty modes of IN and PCB are often found considerably simpler than those of SA, thus survival is easier. - Especially considering how SA (apart from Lunatic) and MoF greatly punish you for even a single death, thus reaching a pleasant score won't happen without a No-Miss run on the game. Also, to effectively gain score in the two games, especially SA, you have to spend a lot of resources against what a newcomers intuition would tell.

When you start out scoring on PCB and IN, a lot can be done just by damaging the foes unfocused for most of the game, and collecting items above the PoC (Point of Collection) when possible. - If the difficulty you regularly play on is too difficult for this, try starting out scoring on one difficulty below your regular one. With PCB, the next step after unfocusing, you could try not damaging the foes during borders and ending attacks, slowly forming a base to your "border route". For IN, you could slowly build up better cancels and stall different attacks for time milking. It can feel like a tedious progress, but come a few years, you'll be moving on to the very advanced scoring mechanics in the games.

The experienced scoring in PCB and IN is generally found to be very hard, and it includes some of the most tight optimization or tricks the Touhou series has to offer, but a beginner has no need to worry of the most difficult methods while getting used to the games.

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Quite a bit of scoring in EoSD can be done via just collecting items (via bombing in places where you can't normally do so), capturing spell cards and attempting not to die. The higher-end scoring requires a lot of silly tricks with the bomb cancels, as it does with PCB, but that's not something you need to think about for a good while. I'd still advice against playing the game due to the uncanny bullet hitboxes that can throw you off for rest of the games and often annoying RNG.

UFO in general (not just for scoring, but also survival) isn't a very good choice for a beginner. Some of it may feel quite bizarre, especially the item collection mechanic (via UFO's) which is quite unique to the series.

Scoring in TD is also very different from most of the games, as graze has very little weight, and the score gain isn't mainly via items and spell bonuses but the spirits gathered during trance mode. The execution is fairly simple compared to the other games, as you get to spend a lot of time under complete invulnerability (bombs and trance). However, the method is - again - very unintuitive compared to most of the older games and you will have to move very close to the boss and different stage enemies in order to gather trance, which often can lead into deaths due to ramming an enemy.

DDC would be another game which can be rather good for a beginner to score in, as deaths don't hurt you that much and major part of your scoring can be done by just collecting as many items at once as possible to gain multiple large bonuses. Capturing spell cards is also an easy method to gain score, considering the bonuses are higher in this game than any of the other new-generation games. The major bad side in DDC is that most people consider some of the boss mechanics extremely annoying. if you can get over that, early-on scoring in DDC is probably a good choice, as it teaches usage of the PoC mechanic while not being overly difficult. Once you get to the higher end of optimization, this game becomes rather dull, as most of it is about finding out the best methods to gain value from bombs.

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Obviously, these are just my own personal opinions, and not an immediate truth. Probably not even generally agreed upon, even. I would recommend you to pay all of the games a few credits and then decide on a few favorite ones you want to excel in.

As one final bit of advice, I would recommend you to remember that Touhou, along other shmups, are games meant to be enjoyed. Don't be too hard on yourself or others and try to have fun.

[chum]

Well that was funny

I especially like how pretty much the entire drop in stage 3 was the midboss nonspell

[Despatche]

not an official game but laserreimu is incredible

btw to configure keys you need to edit key.cfg and know key ids

edit: yeah this game is cool. it's like ketsui kinda.

grab big [P]s for half of multiplier. pointblank things for yummy bomb items, use bombs for other half of multiplier (try to keep it as high as you can). the three weapons trade off power for bomb items: all ofuda for stronger but less, all laser for weaker but more, hybrid (default) is somewhere in between

[Zil]

I decided to start tracking match-ups I've won against PoFV lunatic AI. Eiki should be able to beat anyone. Anyone should be able to beat Yuuka. Those can be very hard however. Lunasa is also strong. Unsure about Youmu and others. CASH beat Reisen with Cirno, so she's a consideration too.

One thing I've concluded for sure though is that I cannot play this game as well without a controller, so I'm gonna finally get my hands on a replacement and try kicking some ass with Lunasa and Eiki.

Also grabbed a few improved scores in PoDD recently, 107m with Kotohime being the highest non-Chiyuri score I've yet reached. I feel like I've learned a bit more about using her. I think she's definitely the next best character for scoring after Chiyuri, and considerably safer to use.

[ARF]

not an official game but laserreimu is incredible

btw to configure keys you need to edit key.cfg and know key ids

edit: yeah this game is cool. it's like ketsui kinda.

grab big [P]s for half of multiplier. pointblank things for yummy bomb items, use bombs for other half of multiplier (try to keep it as high as you can). the three weapons trade off power for bomb items: all ofuda for stronger but less, all laser for weaker but more, hybrid (default) is somewhere in between

Awesome, I was watching waah stream this last night, he got way over 2 billion points and unlocked the TLB!

[Despatche]

ooh, link? that's incredible for just a few days, i wonder how high it all goes...

i also wonder how high the dango go, i haven't been keeping track of what they actually do.

[ARF]

http://www.twitch.tv/waahst/b/492430874

The 2 billion run starts around the 55 minute mark.

[chum]

I have been researching and grinding this category almost non-stop these last 3 days. I learned that clock's run doesn't have a great route and I found a spot to spend 3 lives for an additional bomb and possibly a freeze extra, roughly 1 mil. This is a good place to spend lives but It's a very exact strat that is easily failed (in fact I've lost 2 possible WR runs because the strat did not work)

With only two suicides on stage 2, I still have 1 or 2 lives as a buffer (depending on freeze RNG, a third suicide on stage 2 is required) which is more than enough. clock dies stupidly I think three times in his run after all, and he has a planned suicide that i don't use (because it sucks) so it should be fine and another thing that bothers me about it is that he suicides twice on the three fairies third nonspell, he has effectively a leftover bomb from doing this and the earlier good freezes, and he doesn't use it on either the third or fourth nonspell for no apparent reason.

This is a frustrating category because you have to rely on RNG freezes to get enough bombs, and the three fairies goes overboard with disgustingly difficult frozen item collection, like Luna Child's leftover wave of the third spell stupid where she sometimes doesn't die to your ice despite having no pixels left in her healthbar, and even if you shoot it on the side a little bit when there are no pixels left, she still might not die to your ice.

Nevertheless this is a run that is 1,3 million behind after stage 2 and then gains a full million on the record on stage 3 thanks mostly to my new strat. A run that gets RNG and execution together for the most part should attain 58 million while 59 million is possible if someone works hard enough, but that someone will not be me - 58 million means I never play this category again. In this case, routing was way more fun than grinding is right now

[Lord Satori]

What's up with the Touhou wiki? Nothing's been updated there for awhile, and I have no way of knowing the latest Touhou news now!

[Squire Grooktook]

Anyone have any advice on clearing Kanako's final card (Virtue of Wind God) on Lunatic? In particular, I'm not to sure how I should be spending my resources. I usually have about 2 lives at that point, and I'm not sure whether I should bomb if I get walled or try to luck dodge (I can't sight read that good yet) and retain full power if killed.

[Zil]

What's up with the Touhou wiki? Nothing's been updated there for awhile, and I have no way of knowing the latest Touhou news now!

You're probably using the wrong wiki. Use this one. http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

Anyone have any advice on clearing Kanako's final card (Virtue of Wind God) on Lunatic? In particular, I'm not to sure how I should be spending my resources. I usually have about 2 lives at that point, and I'm not sure whether I should bomb if I get walled or try to luck dodge (I can't sight read that good yet) and retain full power if killed.

You should definitely bomb if it's likely that you'll die.

[Spark]

Anyone have any advice on clearing Kanako's final card (Virtue of Wind God) on Lunatic? In particular, I'm not to sure how I should be spending my resources. I usually have about 2 lives at that point, and I'm not sure whether I should bomb if I get walled or try to luck dodge (I can't sight read that good yet) and retain full power if killed.

Try to always stay on the middle and only leave it when necessary. Every wave after the first one is aimed, so having she aiming while you're dodging on the corner is going to make the card a real mess.

[Zil]

They're not aimed, I can assure you. :s

[Lord Satori]

What's up with the Touhou wiki? Nothing's been updated there for awhile, and I have no way of knowing the latest Touhou news now!

You're probably using the wrong wiki. Use this one. http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

*facepalm* Thats the one I'm referring to. Have you even taken a look there yourself?

[CStarFlare]

There seems to be plenty of page edits going on. Maybe there's just no Touhou news worth putting on the front page?

[dxk]

There seems to be plenty of page edits going on. Maybe there's just no Touhou news worth putting on the front page?

What do you mean by "news"?

[CStarFlare]

I meant items for the "official news," "wiki news," etc sections on the front page which I assumed he was talking about since there's been no new news posted in them in about a month.

[Zil]

I don't think there's been anything noteworthy like that in a while. The last game was DDC and aside from occasional manga releases I don't know what else would be put there. We're talking about a game made by one guy after all.

[dunpeal2064]

I want to try out a Touhou shooter, specifically for score, and was looking for some suggestions as to where to start. I know I don't want to play UFO yet, something a little more intuitive maybe. I believe I own 6-13, but I don't fully understand the scoring in any of them.

[Squire Grooktook]

Mountain of Faith is basically medal chaining + don't die.

[chum]

Yu-Suke brought SakuyaB up to 3.8 billion. I wonder if we'll actually see a 4 billion run eventually. I have no words. Replay is here: pndsng.wwww.jp/touhou/highscores/replay/th7_ud0283.rpy

Surely the greatest Touhou player of all-time.

[Nameschonvergeben]

I haven't seen the run yet, is it better than his reimuB run?

[CStarFlare]

That run made me yell. Possibly the best I've ever seen.

The idea of 4 billion seems ludicrous given what he had to do - that that I'm not hoping for it!