Ketsui is too brutal

[lmagus]

Played a few rounds to practice the stage 4 boss today. To handle the 4 way shot pattern i look past the screen and use my peripheral vision. This actually allows me to see my clearly in 4 directions. If I focus on the ship or any specific point around it, I always get hit. Attempting to look at the entire screen at once helps! Getting about 7/10 no miss on this boss now. : )

I like doing that too. Something else that helps me there is if you go up the screen and tap down with the bullets, the gaps become clearer. I always find that pattern harder to dodge when I'm closer to the bottom of the screen.

https://youtu.be/07re-Pgq7Ik?t=12m39s

[Bananamatic]

don't dodge that one on reaction, you can tell ahead of time what the next wave will be and what you'll need to do to dodge it

[MaXXX]

Ketsui Stage 5 is like a stage full of DFK Laser Wheels

[KoolKool993]

i got no problem to deal with slow bullet attack patterns.......but then some enemy featured with fast flying bullets appeared to be very troublesome

[PROMETHEUS]

suggestions to improve Ketsui :
* remove/fix empty lock
* change loop requirements : URA access if no miss (may bomb as much as you want) ; TSUJOU access if 100M score threshold

I play stage 5 around quite a bit these days (like a few times a day), I never managed a no miss no bomb yet (I don't have a optimized route just playing a sorta loosely known full stage 5 imperfect method). If the game didn't punish so hard for using a bomb it'd be better imo. The difficulty is good, the randomness is ok, if you don't punish the player so hard for using a bomb. SPS said, he gets URA access only 40% of the time. It's a good thing that the game is hard, if it's not what's the point of playing the first part right? But punishing hard a non-perfect play with end-of-run kind of thing is bad imo. I come from DDP and I would say, that's the main flaw of the game. [ofc it supposedly makes more coins in the cab]
There is something pretty damn good with Ketsui, is that patterns actually vary quite a bit more overall even from some small/medium enemies (for example the turrets in stage 5 they fire their blue pattern in different kind of spread every time) so it looks like you have to keep reading and doing a bit different everytime, I love that, but it's also likely tougher to make a perfect play so... DDP is super rigid in the scoring system so you'll tend to suicide into bullets if you're under pressure for the chain, I dunno HFD's percentage of NMNB on first loop, mine is like 33% (DOJBL) I'm sure he's got more but dunno how much. Anyway I'm getting tired of this overly punitive stuff^^ it doesn't reflect skill well and it has a bad effect on fun imo

overall I think it's important, that these games tell the players it's ok to use the f**** bombs for a reasonable cost, the game will probably still put you in near impossible situations even if you know everything, and if you don't that will DEFINITELY be the case. So let's think of the players who don't want to go for world records and are ok with trading some points for some smart bombing or something

[Bananamatic]

* change loop requirements : URA access if no miss (may bomb as much as you want)

this changes absolutely nothing, the game has no 1st loop patterns that are so hard you'd want to actually bomb them (unlike DDP and the 1-6 boss final attack) and when you're going for ura, 100% of your deaths will be due to stupid mistakes where a bomb wouldn't save you like making a bad move at near point blank

if you're ending up in impossible situations in ketsui, you need to practice more or improve your routes

[PROMETHEUS]

idk sometimes for example 1-5 midboss, the last pattern is very random, sometimes very risky I could just bomb there, sometimes no problem
or also the blue Type B at the end of the stage make different movements
or also patterns of the boss have quite a bit of randomness change the risk a lot, you could rly save your life from bombing when you detect the risk is too high yes
well of course it would change something, I bet someone like SPS could transform into a 90% ura access if he didn't mind the point loss for bombing once or twice (or maybe at least 60%)
I know it would make big difference for me cause I am rather often able to bomb last frame(s) or so before hit
(^^ just done a no miss no bomb of stage 5 now for first time)
nobody can guarantee bombing always before a hit like you say when you make a bad move at point blank kind of thing but allowing bombs would change a lot, I know for me in DDP (DOJ) it's a forbidden solution for not losing lives on some random patterns and stuff, I was doing that and getting a lot more runs into 2nd loop without miss in the beginning of last series but ofc score is "gone" ; anyway I'm just saying less punishing would be better imo, there are two different loops, maybe allow even losing some a life or two for URA or something, so that a good player can nearly guarantee access and not just restart games repeatedly which is boring imo ; especially when you have some sorts of hard goals for 2nd loop, which are very improbable since it is very very hard that you will manage all you want to do, so you need to be able to access it at least you know what I mean? and allow yourself some mistakes without crippling completely your run. Otherwise feels kinda like a waste of time and energy to restart and be subjected to a perfect or bye. Ketsui system is nice cause its not exponential etc, but URA access too restricted imo.

[Bananamatic]

The 1-5 midboss final and one of the 1-4 patterns are random as heck but they really shouldn't give you anything excessively hard that often to the point of it being an issue

The clones at the end of 1-5 are consistent, if anything it's the orange clones before them randomly going offscreen and taking ages to die sometimes but it's not really a killer part, you just lose some score if you fail to speedkill them

or even worse, missing the second extend due to the despawning glitch which will cost you a lot of score in ura

SPS could transform into a 90% ura access if he didn't mind the point loss for bombing once or twice (or maybe at least 60%)

I assume his ura rates are "only" 40% because of how ridiculously dangerous his routes are compared to most other players, if he scaled it down a bit he'd easily get around 90% or higher even without bombs
there's no way in hell a human could bomb on reflex when you're in enemies' faces all the time and rushing everywhere with the most common mistake being running into a bullet on accident

anyway I'm just saying less punishing would be better imo, there are two different loops, maybe allow even losing some a life or two for URA or something, so that a good player can nearly guarantee access and not just restart games repeatedly which is boring imo ; especially when you have some sorts of hard goals for 2nd loop, which are very improbable since it is very very hard that you will manage all you want to do, so you need to be able to access it at least you know what I mean? and allow yourself some mistakes without crippling completely your run

when you have hard goals for the 2nd loop you'd reset after a death anyways as the stage clear bonuses get doubled in ura and a single death in the 1st loop would cause you to lose a ton of score

omote requirements are fine, something like 2 misses/bombs combined for ura might be better but it wouldn't change a thing for high level play

[PROMETHEUS]

I'm saying there is not much room for middle ground in high level play, dunno if SPS could do a 90% with less risky routes but ofc 40% has to do with the risk of his routes too yes. Yeah he said himself "only 40%" I think.

Anyway what you said about the lives bonus I agree with, I just gave a few examples I'm saying I think the game(s) would be more interesting if it was less punishing. If you go for high level you have to play perfect or bye, because it makes more coins in the cab. That's what I'm criticizing. That's a major reason why I choose to stop reaching for better goals.

[Bananamatic]

How is it worse than Dodonpachi with the maximum bonus which lasts for the entire game? It's really the same thing except the all or nothing doesn't stop until late 2-6, unless you're playing just for survival where Ketsui is a bit more annoying

[PROMETHEUS]

Not worse than DDP, same flaw imo, DDP is worse in this regard. I'd be tempted to say Ketsui is the best game but it's still too punishing in some ways which I think is unfortunate. And you're right it's also more annoying in survival. I feel it's unnecessary and detrimental, this punishment. Imbalanced.