What do you hate in shmups/ shooters

[Pixel_Outlaw]

To avoid bad gameplay, let us make a list of bad gaming ideas in shooter developement.

1. Bad bullet patterns.(Ones that don't leave any escape)
2. Instant death upon unexpected surprises
3. Low firing rate for player.
4. That one weapon that is useless and the powerup is everywhere.
5. Collision boxes rather than sprite based collision.
6. Bland enemy patterns.
7. Too much enemy recycling (I do like palette swapping however).
8. Slow movement with player ship.
9. Too big collision box for the player ship.
10. Three bullet sprites in the whole game.

add your ideas.

[mice]

1. Bad bullet patterns. (Ones that don't leave any escape)

Mars Matrix and GW handled this well.

2. Instant death upon unexpected surprises

Is this a serious question?

3. Low firing rate for player.

Like 1942?

4. That one weapon that is useless and the powerup is everywhere.

Can't recall a game where this happens.

5. Collision boxes rather than sprite based collision.

The player wouldn't know the difference.

6. Bland enemy patterns.

Makes a game look cheap.

7. Too much enemy recycling (I do like palette swapping however).

Works in DDP.

8. Slow movement with player ship.

Works in Ikaruga.

9. Too big collision box for the player ship.

Works in every game before 1990.

10. Three bullet sprites in the whole game.

Gradius had, what, 2 types?

You won't find a recipe for a good shmup. You have to try and try and try again until you get the perfect game created. But still, people will complain.

[captain ahar]

4. That one weapon that is useless and the powerup is everywhere.

Can't recall a game where this happens.

happens in fire shark i'm sure, but i kind of like how it handles it. it's like,"you want to keep your favorite weapon? huh? take this!"

[Pixel_Outlaw]

@ mice. I'm not critisizing professional already made shmups, nor am I trying to make a perfect recipe. I'm just stating things to avoid while making a homebrew game. I have made quite a few and I've seen alot of crap in homemade games. I'm just trying to make a simple list of things that most people don't want to see or play with in games.

[SuperGrafx]

Standard nemies (not bosses or larger sprites) that take an obscene amount shots to bring down.

19XX has a bit of this.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Standard nemies (not bosses or larger sprites) that take an obscene amount shots to bring down.

19XX has a bit of this.

Like the ones that you can't kill until they are alnmost colliding with your ship?

[SuperGrafx]

Standard nemies (not bosses or larger sprites) that take an obscene amount shots to bring down.

19XX has a bit of this.

Like the ones that you can't kill until they are alnmost colliding with your ship?

Precisely what I had in mind.

[Fenrir]

4. That one weapon that is useless and the powerup is everywhere.

Can't recall a game where this happens.

R-Type Leo The straight laser is too tiny almost useless for the levels structure, yet you can't help taking it due to the power-up cycling and their often weird positions.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

One flaw i noticed in some games is that you have too many enemies firing at once and you simply are not powered up enough to defeat them before they all push you into a corner and shoot aimed shots all at once/

[doctorx0079]

The number one thing I hate is :

Getting stuck when you have no power-ups.

This is sometimes referred to as "Gradius syndrome" around here. It seems to be getting worse and worse. It should be POSSIBLE to survive with the basic peashooter and no power-ups, at any point, no matter what. Difficult maybe, but possible. Do-able for humans. At least at normal difficulty. Which leads me to number two :

"Easy mode" should seriously be easy. "Normal" should be normal, and "Hard" should be hard. "Very Hard" should be very hard, not normal, and "Easy" should be easy, not normal or hard, etc.

I also don't like this stuff I'm hearing about "controlling rank". You should never have to "control rank" in my opinion. The rank should keep pace with you so that you are always challenged, even if you have power-ups. Ideally higher rank should also offer higher score, but there should definitely be a limit on rank. Rank shouldn't be based on how long you survive. It should be possible to 1CC and one-life a game when you are very very good. It gives the player a sense of hope and accomplishment. Making the game so that it tries to totally crush you and you have to fool the program, doesn't seem like fun to me.

Making a harder game for better players, is what difficulty settings are for, see above.

Some more pet peeves that apply to video games generally :

Not letting you change the controls
Not letting you change the difficulty settings (no excuse for this nowadays)
Not giving you special stuff for beating higher difficulty

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Gradius syndrome...huh, I think that's what I meant id does tend to happen to me in the Gradius series.

Thanks for the thoughts some really good points too.
I think that sometimes we as developers try to push an idea out too fast and we forget to test for the basic fundimentals for gameplay.

[kemical]

sprite based / pixel perfect collision is pretty much pointless for a shooter, and I can't think of any which use sprite/pixel perfect collision. But I generally agree with the other points you listed!

[doctorx0079]

AFAIK a lot of older shooters use a bounding box that is very close to the sprite. Asteroids uses hexagons for example (according to The Winner's Guide To Video Games (1981) ).

[Grindie]

I really hate shmups (or any game) that lets you keep your score when you use a continue after losing all your lives (damn you Metal Slug and Street Fighter!). I think it makes hi-score tables in those games pointless.

Oh yeah, I hate any shmup with the name 'Gradius' or 'Parodius' in the title.

[RippleScythe]

Tight spaces and High speed scrolling don't mix.

[R_Typist]

Tight spaces and High speed scrolling don't mix.

Then you're going to hate a particular level from Gradius 3.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Sometimes my mind just blanks out when tring to fly through some danmaku shot patterns.

[ASK]

Enemies from behind.

As for the useless power-up comment, I think Omega Fighter is a lot like that, or rather, a lot of the time you spend a lot of effort trying to dodge the gun you're not using so you don't have to start all over again.

[stuffmonger]

Enemies from behind.

YES! although... salamander 2 does well with this were you can shoot either direction. KAmakazi enemies are also a piss-off. ships that move faster than you, and are only there to run into your ship faster than you can get out of the way (ghost pilots/1943)

[JBC]

I really dislike enemies that pass by you and THEN fire an aimed quickshot from the bottom on the screen less than an inch away from your ship. That makes me pee.

Aside from that i really dislike when a boss is firing an obscene amount of pattern shots at you and in the midst of that starts firing a sweeping stream of vulcan shots with no breaks in it's flow big enough to pass through. How the hell are you supposed to dodge that without using your bomb?

Any shmup that awards you for bombs at the end of the level should never absolutley force you to use them. It's just annoying.

[RippleScythe]

Another thing I hate is enemies that burst in bullet or debris clusters when you destroy them.

[Dennis]

I hate it when I die when all my powerups fly to the top of the screen.

[MovingTarget]

I hate stuff comin at me from the front, sides and behind all at the same time!

Thats why I might give Ketsui a miss

[CodeMonkey]

Bullets that are hard to see can be frustrating. I prefer all of the shots to be bright neon colors. It's not as bad if the bullet can be shot down (like a missile).

I also gotta agree with the posts about being shot from the bottom of the screen.

[dai jou bu]

Bullets that are hard to see can be frustrating. I prefer all of the shots to be bright neon colors. It's not as bad if the bullet can be shot down (like a missile).

I also gotta agree with the posts about being shot from the bottom of the screen.

Enemy Commander of shmups made between 1999 to the present: "okay men, it looks like we have to change tactics against our new enemy. All of the machines you will be piloting will have the firepower ten times of what you're normally used to. However, there is one catch: they're only mounted on the front, so once you pass the enemy, you cannot fire at them at their blind sides. Not only that, but we've designed the turrets so they're spread evenly enough to prevent friendly fire from occuring."

**Massive outcry of protest from soldiers**

Soldier 1: "Who devised this?"
Soldier 2: "Not only do these things fly or move on autopilot, now we can't take advantage of their greatest weakness?!"
Soldier 3: "Why can't we have a compromise of moderate firepower with at least one full rotational gun turret?"

**Commander raises one hand to silence the soliders**

Commander: "This is because it is not honorable to be able to fire at your opponent at close range or from their most vulnerable sides. We already have a numerical advantage over them. Let's at least have some dignity."
----------------------------------------

Like I said in a thread a long time ago, it shouldn't take a supercomputer that achieved sentience and went insane to figure out that this kind of tactic is flawed.

[CodeMonkey]

Bullets that are hard to see can be frustrating. I prefer all of the shots to be bright neon colors. It's not as bad if the bullet can be shot down (like a missile).

I also gotta agree with the posts about being shot from the bottom of the screen.

Enemy Commander of shmups made between 1999 to the present: "okay men, it looks like we have to change tactics against our new enemy. All of the machines you will be piloting will have the firepower ten times of what you're normally used to. However, there is one catch: they're only mounted on the front, so once you pass the enemy, you cannot fire at them at their blind sides. Not only that, but we've designed the turrets so they're spread evenly enough to prevent friendly fire from occuring."

**Massive outcry of protest from soldiers**

Soldier 1: "Who devised this?"
Soldier 2: "Not only do these things fly or move on autopilot, now we can't take advantage of their greatest weakness?!"
Soldier 3: "Why can't we have a compromise of moderate firepower with at least one full rotational gun turret?"

**Commander raises one hand to silence the soliders**

Commander: "This is because it is not honorable to be able to fire at your opponent at close range or from their most vulnerable sides. We already have a numerical advantage over them. Let's at least have some dignity."
----------------------------------------

Like I said in a thread a long time ago, it shouldn't take a supercomputer that achieved sentience and went insane to figure out that this kind of tactic is flawed.

It's so true. Too bad our allied scientists still haven't figured out how to make a ship that can turn.

[dai jou bu]

Most of the time the ships that players tend to pilot only work well flying in one direction. The only ship I can think of that can do what you're describing off the top of my head would be the Border Down ships, since they have thrusters placed everywhere. Okay, the Silver Hawks from Darius also count.

[r-shmup]

To be taken back to the start of the stage / last check point
That's why I cant stand R-Type and many other games, just when you are getting into rhythm BAM you get killed and taken back. I want to restart right there, amidst the action!

Bombs that turn boss fights into a piece of cake
Yummy! But no thanks! When you get into a boss and discharge your 3 bombs and everything is over.... So lame! I wanna prove I'm skilled enough to face a mean boss, so make it possible! sometimes the only way to get rid of the bullet shower is to throw a bomb... So is not always the player's fault...

[zabuzafreak]

Yeh, the gradius thing.... wow.... I always loved that game... still do, but man is it filled with some major BS. So far, I've seen a few people complain about the bullet showers... with changing patterns.... I really like the Touhou series... and well... as those who played it should know... its friggin bullet hell.

I wanna make a game with the same kinda thing... just massive showers of bullets that actually take skill to dodge... and I realize that when I make a shooter... I'm not going to make Boss patterns be Iron Cutrain, and Bullet Hell on Easy... but dammit! Shouldn't I be able to make Extreme Difficulty have just massive obliteration? Of course it will be possible... but I don't want it to be lame 3 pattern set bossess that you can dodge by moving left, then right... (castle shikigami 2, final miniboss) I want to create a sheet of massive layering... Blue bullets going right, Green bullets diagonally, with the red laser beam that shoots to where you were when it charged and continues for like 3 seconds (which is a lot....) while yellow spirals emerge. I mean... it sounds worse than I picture it really.... I just like fireworks patterns... that are possible to dodge. Oh right, my question is... can I implement that, into extreme mode, for a boss... and still have my shmup be liked? Not hated?

[dai jou bu]

I wish more shmup boss fights were like Senko no Ronde's.

They have Touhou speed danmaku, but the positioning is dynamic at times, and there's little possibility of sometimes evading those bullet showers, just like how WEAPONS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting fed up with danmaku unless it's implemented in a unique way like it was in Mars Matrix, Ikaruga, or Shoot the Bullet.

Someone give me a shmup boss that can only take one hit like you can (or has three "lives" represented as direct hits), but is just as mobile as you are and reacts accordingly to your attack patterns, and doesn't have "OMG WHY DO YOU HAVE MORE THAN ME EVEN THOUGH WE'RE THE SAME SIZE?!" firepower.