Thoughts on moving from an intermediate to expert player

[Rastan78]

So I've been seeing topics about how to get started as a beginner in the genre and wanted to talk about moving to the next level.

Say you're at the point where you can get a 1cc or 1 life clear on a game and you've decided you want to really push on for score instead of just switching games and picking up another 1cc. Now you're at he point where advice like "pick a game and stick with it" or "try using save states and training mode" will still apply, but won't be the whole picture.

I don't consider myself to be an expert, but I thought I'd lay out some thoughts and principles that might help others or open up a discussion. So I'm interested in hearing anyone's thoughts even if they are a beginner.

Read this wall of text and distract yourself from the damn election like I'm trying to do!

1. Consistency!: In my mind this is the most important thing. So you've gotten a 1cc, but could you do it 10 times in a row? Probably not. If you want to get really high scores you have to be able to clear the game over and over. To get there you have to play air tight, having your routes down to the finest detail with the ability to repeat them exactly. Almost robotically. Even on the easy parts you already think you know.

Take notes of your exact positioning and timings and do your best to repeat them. Starting from the earliest levels. Even if you beat a level without dying almost every time, it still won't hurt to eliminate variables by trying to play exactly the same way every credit. Use any HUD or background elements to help remember really precise positions. Watch the screen scrolling and remember exact timings and locations when enemies enter the screen.You probably got the 1cc while only just kinda sorta remembering these details.

This consistency doesn't mean you're not flexible in your approach or open to changing your routes. Removing any sense of flailing will also help you identify what needs to change. How can you make minor adjustments to a route that changes a little every time you play anyway?

If you make a change on the fly or have to adjust to the games RNG it will now be deliberate and not random.

2. Accept that you're on your own. Even if you pick a popular game, you may end up competing against another 2 or 3 people at best on the forums. So really you're competing against yourself. There are a lot of people who collect shmups, play them, enjoy them and don't want to take it too seriously and that's totally cool. If you really want to chase scores, accept that you'll be in the minority of a minority. Or build a time machine and go to Japan circa 1992. Your call.

3. Know that now you'll be doing more work for smaller improvements. In the beginning there's a lot to learn. Beating a new boss without dying for the first time is exciting. Now you have to be satisfied that you figured out a super difficult strategy to destroy one hidden propeller on that boss which only gives 20k points. Now it's all about the little things. It will be harder to maintain your motivation once you've knocked out some of the bigger goals and have to shift to things that are more tedious and require even more attention to detail.

4. Ask yourself why you died every time. Instead of getting mad, look at deaths or big mistakes as an opportunity to point out what you don't know or understand yet. Watching replays of your runs might also help.

Don't just make a mental note of it. Actively study that section and make an adjustment to your route before doing another full run.

5.Learn everything! At this point there's no detail too small. You don't want to let a single enemy slip past you. Does your position effect where enemies spawn? How and why? Really get detailed on how enemies behave. At this point you're not just learning how to blow everything up before you die, you're trying to understand how the game works under the hood. Ever tried not blowing anything up and just observing enemies full patterns and behavior? Or how about just timing out a boss without firing?

Even learning enemy names or inventing your own can be helpful. Your brain will register 4 green bastards followed by 6 pukers better than 4 of those guys followed by 6 of these things.

Get interested in art, guide books, soundtracks etc. Anything that kind of helps you be immersed in the game and understanding it might help you pick up on details you never noticed before. Its hard to be an expert at a game that you're not a fan of.

6. Don't always just grind runs. If you are playing a game over and over without new information or ideas you will probably plateau at a certain score and stay there for a while. Other types of work might become more helpful. This is the best time to watch superplays because you will be equipped to noticed how they played differently. And you'll have a better chance to understand why a player does what he does.

Taking notes, writing down your thoughts, or drawing maps might become a big help in conjuction with just grinding away in training mode. Thinking about the game while not playing it is a good way to test your memory. Work smarter, not harder as the saying goes.

7. Accept the game at face value. I've seen this also in fighting games where a player will stop improving because they blame the game. I lost only to a "cheap" tactic or because the game is unbalanced. At this point the game is not changing, so it's up to you to accept the challenge as a given and figure out how to improve your own play.

So what are your thoughts? Would love to hear from any of the actual experts out there.

[miwa]

I find this incredibly helpful, thank you!

[EmperorIng]

Great topic, because it's not often that someone passes the 'intermediary' stage (not that there's anything wrong with that, as an average/above-average player myself).

I think probably the biggest thing that helps you move on to a higher skill-level is by studying better players via replays. This is certainly the most efficient. By the time you've reached a competency in the game, you want to see how top-tier players do in the stage and incorporate some of their best strategies into your own. This doesn't mean abandoning all of your routes (especially if you've come about some novel tricks of your own), but it can help you set up a practice routine to establish consistency far more quickly.

A final point on watching replays: In my opinion, a big mistake people make to jump ahead is studying the very best replays, when realistically they should study the ones that are a little ahead of them first. You will gradually learn and incorporate harder techniques into your own run.

This is a small example since I'm nowhere near top-tier, but for the longest time I referred to Bananamatic's 1cc of Psyvariar Revision he recorded ages ago as a benchmark for making progress. As I got closer and closer to reaching his score, another player, fogg_manatic, told me that I should start focusing on a higher-level replay (so I watched his, ha ha). While some new scoring tricks were difficult (and I'm still practicing them), the cumulative effect worked and launched me to the 2nd place spot on the leaderboards on the forum. The major takeaway was that I referred to strategies that were a little closer to my skill level before 'moving on up.'

[Rastan78]

Yeah I would consider replays to be almost totally necessary to reach a certain level. Barring any players out there who are just total shmup geniuses.

I agree that it can be not so good to watch replays way above your level. Or if you do, at least have have a goal in mind. Like I'm just going to see what weapon or powerup they grab for each stage or boss. Or watch for a specific pattern or safe spot you can't figure out on your own.

Another key is don't throw away every run where something goes wrong. As you get better and better and start pushing for scores dropping a chain, a medal, multiplier, powerup, etc. can be worse than a death. Don't put yourself in a mindset where only your potential best run ever is worth playing. This mindset will come back to bite you when you are finally on a good run because more nerves will kick in. Final bosses just love it when you're nervous.

I think the really hardcore players in Japan used to do a lot of restarts when going for a WR because they actually had score deadlines to submit for an issue of Arcadia magazine. But those are already way beyond expert elite players. And that's a miserable way to play a game.

EDIT: Unless you're playing an early Gradius or Darius game. After a death you'll probably be restarting whether you like it or not.

[Sengoku Strider]

2. Accept that you're on your own. Even if you pick a popular game, you may end up competing against another 2 or 3 people at best on the forums. So really you're competing against yourself. There are a lot of people who collect shmups, play them, enjoy them and don't want to take it too seriously and that's totally cool. If you really want to chase scores, accept that you'll be in the minority of a minority. Or build a time machine and go to Japan circa 1992. Your call.

I'm not even an intermediate player, but I've taken to viewing it as a competitive genre that actually has a lot of overlap with how to approach fighting games, except here the game itself is Daigo. It's going to dunk all over you until you raise your level, that's exactly what it's there to challenge you to do. It always tells me who doesn't get the genre when a reviewer complains about a shmup being too hard, it's like complaining you picked up a fighter and are mad you couldn't place top 16 at Evo within your week-long review window.

[Rastan78]

I totally agree with this. I was lucky enough to live a few blocks away from an arcade where players of that level played Capcom fighters all the time. I picked up CVS2 and Third Strike. Played a lot there first learning way back in the 2000s. One guy there did win at Evo for CVS2 and even smoked Daigo in pools one year at Evo in SFIV. One of the US best Tekken players was there all the time and I played a lot of 3S against him which he was also really strong in.

What I can speak to is the level of just feeling like total crap at first playing those guys. Eventually I could take wins. But at first I just remember feeling so depressed. It was like walking into a brick wall. I was practically stumbling out of that arcade after the first few times. And I had thought I was at least pretty ok going in. Also I was a bit naive, not understanding who certain players were or what I was up against. A lot of times when I came a across a top player at first, to me he was just a dude I didn't know playing by himself on the CVS2 machine so I put in a quarter. Just kept going back for more ass whuppings. I never had any intention of being as good as the top players but I at least got to where I could hold my own. And I could take a win off anyone there on a good day.

But in a weird way it was a bit easier than getting competent at shmups bc you picked up so much from watching other people and playing against them. Up to a certain point you could become pretty solid just by soaking everything in by osmosis and simply playing in that environment. In shmups the road to getting good can feel a little more mysterious. Having the opportunity to actually watch over the shoulder of somebody beyond your level in person is huge. I think there's a reason why its so rare for somebody outside the Japan arcade scene to actually have gotten near that level completely on their own. That and the pressure of other people watching you every time you play and having to throw down actual money. You got better waaaay faster.

[Rastan78]

Warning!! Self thread bump incoming

Had some thoughts about the late stage grind of improving scores. I mean when you totally plateau at your current skill level or are getting close to chasing WR but big shiny new point sources and new PBs are few and far between.

Bear with me, but my take is that your immediate goal at this point when grinding out runs should NOT be to get a new PB.

Take a hypothetical player and game where the world record happens to be 16 million. Your PB is 15.4M, but your average or baseline clears come in more like 14.8 to 15M any given day. It's better to be more aware of where these baseline runs come in at and set the goal for most runs just above the average while more or less ignoring the PB run. The goal should not be to beat the PB. But to gradually make average scores more consistently close to it. Or in other words to eventually be able to repeat your PB run with the greatest of ease.

The natural inclination would be to say ok my PB is 15.4 so my next goal should be 15.5 or above. My advice would actually be to focus on consistency and set your goal for each run at 15M or 15.2 even though that's less than a new PB. I'll try to illustrate why I think this is a smart approach:

1. Your PB is not always an accurate reflection of your current skill, it's a bit of an anomaly. The reason it's your PB is bc you got lucky and had a run where multiple things you don't hit consistently came together in the same run. Being aware of where your average scores usually are and analyzing those runs via replays will tell you more about where you're at and what you need to improve than looking at your most flawless run. Your goal when playing at a high level should always be learning and improving consistency, not to keep rolling the dice until you get lucky and restarting when you don't.

2. You need positive reinforcement along the way. Early on new high scores come quickly and it's easier to feel good about progress. Later on if you simply set a pass/fail type of goal of new PB or bust, you will feel disappointed after 99.9 percent of runs and burn out quicker. Here's where you'll move on to other games and the WR level scores will never happen, bc it's just not fun anymore. Give yourself a wider range of scores you can feel happy about. More than likely your worst score is one you would've felt very good about when you first picked up the game.

3. You will actually notice the effect of small point gains when focusing on improving your average score. Eventually you might hit the point where you're looking at small point gains of 5k, 10k or even less (if playing a Takumi game add few bazillion to this) over many sections of a game in order to improve. Hitting training mode and gradually adding these small but important gains to your route will probably not be felt immediately via a new high score, but they will soon make a noticable difference to your baseline scores over time. This in turn increase motivation to keep learning.

4. Aiming for a goal that is normal at your current skill level will allow you to play with less nerves and less restarts. There has to be some margin for error for the game to remain fun and for learning to happen on each run. You can say if my PB is 15.4M. I'm only going to feel bad if I drop below 14.5 bc I know I should do better. Anything above 15 I'm going to say Yessss! out loud in the voice of Napoleon Dynamite.

5. Focusing exclusively on highest score, especially when you're at 90 plus percent of WR and gains are slim, can create the illusion that you're backsliding or actually getting worse at the game. So I've been grinding, learning and adding better routes, but I can't beat a score I did 2 months ago? Your consistency and average high score has probably improved significantly, you just aren't noticing and giving yourself a pat on the back bc all you see and value is the current high score.

A good way to break the habit of focusing only on new records over gradual overall improvements is to write down all of your all clear scores. Or even bust out a calculator and average them out for a given week or month of play. Just because you haven't gotten a new best in a long time doesn't mean you're not improving slowly.

Another way would be to set a realistic score somewhere below your PB and try to hit it on one run every time you get to play some credits. Or see if you can hit it once every day for a week.

[copy-paster]

This quality thread were made years ago and why did I miss this damn, nice insights and advices!

I would like to add that when doing high score grind/harder clears, turning in-game music off OR changing it to your desired OST somehow increase my focus. Taking a break for days after grinding would help too, or play some chill game to relax your mind.

[third_strike]

If I can help, ...

You know which you is starting to get good when you start to feeling the Daifukkatsu meh!

[Rastan78]

This quality thread were made years ago and why did I miss this damn, nice insights and advices!

I would like to add that when doing high score grind/harder clears, turning in-game music off OR changing it to your desired OST somehow increase my focus. Taking a break for days after grinding would help too, or play some chill game to relax your mind.

Yeah sometimes I play the best on my first run after a long break. Then go downhill from there.

Good advice to switch up the music. Gotta get relaxed. I like to have a podcast or stream going in the back. Unfortunately in my current game I do need audio cues from the music in a few places lol

[Lethe]

Bear with me, but my take is that your immediate goal at this point when grinding out runs should NOT be to get a new PB.

I think this is kinda applicable at lower levels of play as well. I've found that my best improvements in both innovation and consistency come right after a PB, because I'm no longer preoccupied with doing the minimum necessary to get a result. I've definitely underestimated the element of the mental process of playing at a decent level. Ideally I'd like to cast off the PB chasing concept entirely and just play the game a lot without preconceptions - after all, that seemed to be the standard approach in the past - but it's not always practical, and it becomes hard to justify at a truly high level.

I go back and forth on the music thing. I think it depends on your level of burnout. When morale is good game audio is helpful, when it's low something different is helpful.

You know which you is starting to get good when you start to feeling the Daifukkatsu meh!

Does this mean I was always good?

[Rastan78]

I've definitely underestimated the element of the mental process of playing at a decent level.

Yeah I've seen a few top players like Yusemi and Kamui IIRC say they played only for fun and their scores are sort of a byproduct of having fun. If they didn't have fun anymore they would quit.

Makes perfect sense, but I think when you're trying something difficult and potentially very frustrating, mental attitude makes a big difference. You can set yourself up to enjoy the process more and feel less burnt out. Or you can play in a way that leads to boredom and frustration sooner.

IMO the antidote to burn out (aside from taking breaks) is learning. Like if you're super bored you might be playing too rigid and doing the same thing over and over expecting better results. Just push yourself to learn something new even if it's only one tiny detail.

[davyK]

It's all in the head.

You need dedication and intelligence applied to structured practice. It's needed in this genre perhaps more than in any other. Versus fighting is probably its equal but you need a human opponent of superior skill to hand.

Skill will increase. Talent may be required to reach the very top re WR play, but skills will increase to at least allow you to 1CC games and tackle 2-Alls.

But skills will only increase with dedicated and intelligent practice.

Bit like life really.

[Sengoku Strider]

I would like to add that when doing high score grind/harder clears, turning in-game music off OR changing it to your desired OST somehow increase my focus. Taking a break for days after grinding would help too, or play some chill game to relax your mind.

Unless you're playing a game that doesn't let you turn off the music

"Dodonpachi only having 3 songs during stages is part of the challenge!"

[copy-paster]

Unless you're playing a game that doesn't let you turn off the music

Turn off your speakers (for TVs) or in-game music from volume mixer, simple as.

[davyK]

I created a shooting game playlist that I use sometimes. Have it in my Amazon Music subscription. Just made up of some tunes I find pleasing and in line with how I feel when playing a shmup. I just turn the volume on the TV way down if the game doesn't let me change the soundtrack. Means I might miss some audio clues- depends on the game if that is significant.

It can be beneficial doing that. This goes a long way back - I remember playing 2600 games on the family TV as a kid and sometimes there was music being played by my sister or brother in the background - and at times I found it beneficial. It somehow helped me get into the zone.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

"Dodonpachi only having 3 songs during stages is part of the challenge!"

At least the music's pretty good and the audio quality is crisp and clear. Donpachi's got different stage songs for each stage... but the songs themselves aren't great, and the audio quality is horrendous.

Turning off the audio to the game itself is an option, but then you lose the SFX, and hearing the "pop" of enemies can be useful for both survival and scoring purposes. However, if it makes the difference between enjoying the game and not, then yeah, turn the audio off.

I'd love to see a no-music Donpachi hack; the SFX quality's actually quite good, it's just the music that suffers.

[NMS]

I'd love to see a no-music Donpachi hack; the SFX quality's actually quite good, it's just the music that suffers.

On MAME you can simply turn off specific audio channels in "Slider Controls", I just tried and it works perfectly fine for Donpachi, there's 2 channels for SFX and 2 for music (one for each speaker). I didn't play for very long that way (only stage 1), but it seems to work like a charm with SFX only, didn't feel like something was missing. You even keep the announcer (most important thing in the game) or the warning siren before a boss. It won't work perfectly for every game, but for Donpachi it's good.

Anyway, excellent thread, good advice that works even at a lower level.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Neat, this is very helpful advice. I'll give it a try for Donpachi. I guess it's just a matter of figuring out which channels are used for music and which are for SFX and then you're set.

[Sengoku Strider]

Unless you're playing a game that doesn't let you turn off the music

Turn off your speakers (for TVs) or in-game music from volume mixer, simple as.

Well, not really. It removes the problem of music you're sick of, but creates the larger problem of no audio whatsoever. Sound effects create the impact and viscerality of a game, removing them really lessens the experience. Some games have well-crafted enough visual feedback to carry them without sound, some don't.

Gotta admit, as a non-PC gamer I'm kinda jealous of that MAME trick, that's cool.

[WeedyRainfall]

I will never 1cc ddp because of the soundtrack. I just can't listen to that for the amount of time i would have to practice.

[To Far Away Times]

I would like to add that when doing high score grind/harder clears, turning in-game music off OR changing it to your desired OST somehow increase my focus. Taking a break for days after grinding would help too, or play some chill game to relax your mind.

Unless you're playing a game that doesn't let you turn off the music

"Dodonpachi only having 3 songs during stages is part of the challenge!"

LOL. So true. They are all pretty good songs, but there's only three. You're going to here those songs a lot. If you have chronic restart-itis, as I do, it's even worse.

[copy-paster]

I will never 1cc ddp because of the soundtrack. I just can't listen to that for the amount of time i would have to practice.

That's just hilarious excuse, the posts above have solution to turn off the bgm but keeping the sound effects, if you're using MAME. I don't know if it works on Dodonpachi but if it's not you could turn it off and pick your desired OST from your player.

[To Far Away Times]

I'm not gonna lie I jokingly had the same exact thought about the tedium with the soundtrack being part of the "challenge" when I was practicing the game. They really couldn't delay the game a few weeks to add some songs? The cost would only be the labor hours to program some new music? I know some musicians work faster than others, but tons of professional musicians are able to knock out songs from scratch to finished, recorded product, in a few days. A four chord loop and some improv guitar riffs would be fine.

[FRO]

I'm not gonna lie I jokingly had the same exact thought about the tedium with the soundtrack being part of the "challenge" when I was practicing the game. They really couldn't delay the game a few weeks to add some songs? The cost would only be the labor hours to program some new music? I know some musicians work faster than others, but tons of professional musicians are able to knock out songs from scratch to finished, recorded product, in a few days. A four chord loop and some improv guitar riffs would be fine.

I thought DDP only had the 3 tracks because of a memory limitation (or expense), since they're all FM tracks sampled at a pretty high rate.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

2. Accept that you're on your own. Even if you pick a popular game, you may end up competing against another 2 or 3 people at best on the forums. So really you're competing against yourself. There are a lot of people who collect shmups, play them, enjoy them and don't want to take it too seriously and that's totally cool. If you really want to chase scores, accept that you'll be in the minority of a minority. Or build a time machine and go to Japan circa 1992. Your call.

I just wanna reiterate the above. It's very true. Shmups are already a relatively niche genre compared to a lot of other games, and stuff like speedrunning is far, far more popular and well known than score attacking or even aiming for 1CCs. There's a lot of great shmups out there that don't get much love simply because there's so many games out there, and not every game is going to click with players, whether it's due to gameplay elements or aesthetic. There's nothing wrong with that, and you just gotta appreciate the folks who do enjoy the game like you do. =)

although I do wish more people played SideLine, ah well ;3

There's also plenty of games that people enjoy and think of fondly but don't submit scores for because they're not happy with their scores or think they're noteworthy enough to be worth submitting. I say submit away anyways, no shame in low scores, especially when a scoreboard's empty! But you gotta be prepared to accept that some scoreboards will be pretty sparse (especially if you make a scoreboard, bump it a day later to complain about the lack of posts, and PM random people directly telling them to submit scores, all while not submitting a score of your own (ง •̀ w •́)ง ).

[BIL]

Great thread Rastan, sorry I missed it.

[Despatche]

But you gotta be prepared to accept that some scoreboards will be pretty sparse (especially if you make a scoreboard, bump it a day later to complain about the lack of posts, and PM random people directly telling them to submit scores, all while not submitting a score of your own (ง •̀ w •́)ง ).

I was wondering what the hell was happening with that thread. Unfortunately, I have no way of running Minishoter at the moment, or I would have submitted something forever ago. Also, uh, I think PEPOSOFT threw in the towel anyway, you have to go like Caiman or somewhere to get those games anymore. Might be on the Archive though.

[Fingolfin]

Not sure if this is intermediate to advanced play but hopefully this will prove good food for thought and might help some others increase ability/add to skill sets.

Something I’ve been playing w/ since end of October w/ M2 Kyukyoku Tiger/Tiger-Heli release, I want to share with this most excellent community:

Auto fire setup x2
One button highest autofire
One button lowest autofire
3rd button bomb/bomba

Set buttons to your preferences/what’s most comfortable and effective.

High autofire allows point blanking mid bosses and bosses and is great for playing @ top of screen for vertical STGs and right side for horis.

Low autofire allows for spread and no gaps/less gaps when working beneath the top 1/3 or left of right 1/3 of the screen.

Takes some getting used to but now I’m using this for almost all M2 and Aca Arcade vertical shooters and M2 Darius games and most Aca horizontal shooters. I think it works well for my mediocre motor skills and w/ a lot of practice I have slowly (very slowly) been improving my game.

FWIW
Only noticing a double benefit of increased autofire on Aca Saint Dragon when both high autofire button and low autofire buttons are employed simultaneously; I’m certain that w/ Saint Dragon you do in fact increase beyond highest autofire when employing what I have described above: there is a slight but noticeable uptick in fire rate when both high and low autofire buttons are used together. All other games where I’m using this setup autofire is limited to the highest setting (there’s no benefit at all to using two autofire buttons simultaneously).

I stated thinking about autofire settings after seeing Rastan78 writing about Raiden expert players preferring lowest autofire for spread/no gaps.

Thanks Rastan78 and all other contributors who help others improve as this thread so clearly demonstrates.

Happy New Year to all @ shmups.system11!

[Rastan78]

Found this post to be really interesting. It's a player who played Darius Gaiden way back at release chasing WR tier scores. He says he lacked the raw skill to ad lib through the game as the best players could and describes in detail his methodology for catching up to their scores.

A good read if you can suffer through Google translate like I did or understand Japanese.

https://blog.tinect.jp/?p=72222

You know the score chasing is getting real when you bring notebooks to the arcade.

TL;DR he's talking about how important it is to put things into words. By verbalizing exactly what you're doing, it helps you identify and repeat what's working and what's not.

Also realizing a route or tactic in words will eliminate ambiguity and make the route much easier to repeat consistently.