Shooting Game Tournament 2006

[Icarus]

Blazing Star wouldn't be so bad if the stages were properly designed and balanced. I felt that stage5 should have been an earlier stage at least, stages 3 and 4 switched around, and stage6 properly designed to be more balanced and not reliant on the grenade chute at the end for all the points.

Then again, its not like people wanted the other choices to play. People skipped over SSF-Macross 2 which is perfect for a competition as it probably had no name recognition; I figured that Darius Gaiden was avoided as there are two forum record holders on one team for that game already; not everyone likes Sexy Paro; and Cotton... who the heck plays that?

Tournaments are strange things. You either gain a great appreciation of the games selected, or you learn to hate that game totally.

Hilariously enough, Star Force is the game I take the most pleasure on since the beginning of the contest... That is to say I'm a bit disapointed with the choice of the games...

You have plenty of time to play and compete in the games you like, whenever you like. There is always a chance the games that get voted don't appeal to you, but learn to deal with it. -_-;;

[Vincere]

Hilariously enough, Star Force is the game I take the most pleasure on since the beginning of the contest... That is to say I'm a bit disapointed with the choice of the games...

You have plenty of time to play and compete in the games you like, whenever you like. There is always a chance the games that get voted don't appeal to you, but learn to deal with it. -_-;;

Hey Icarus, didn't you get that I always groan about the games we pick and finally play them? That's my way to discuss ha ha. I am disapointed but happy to play with everybody. I'm always in a bad mood when it's about shmups ha ha.

[Rob]

or you learn to hate that game totally.

Not quite accurate. I mean BS is a bad pick for a week of comp. I'd rate the game maybe 7/10. It's a solid game with good ship variety, just for numerous reasons a pain for competition (half of the score in about the last 5 minutes the #1).

Star Force is similar to BS in half the score disproportionately coming from one simple to screw up task. But it's far less tedious to get there, for me. Gives out bunches of lives, mixes things up.

[Shatterhand]

Yeah, the Cleopatra bonus is really irritating, I screw up there, I just feel an urge to reset the game..

[Icarus]

I'm not a big fan of "one massive bonus decides your score" type games. The problem with Star Force being, that its not just the Cleo that contributes massively to your score, its the Great Bonuses as well, and with AUTO 5, it becomes an exercise in frustration trying to get them.

AUTO 3 at least would have been manageable. Smraedis tells me that Hisa at MARP (the 10mil recordholder, listed as Novice@Team2ch.jp) doesn't even use autofire (which is believeable since he was using an old version of MAME DOS), but manages an autorate of what appears to be faster than AUTO 1.

How I would have killed for an autorate faster than 5. At least the week is almost over. -_-;;

[Rob]

but manages an autorate of what appears to be faster than AUTO 1.

FFS!


Looking far into the future, Cave week simply must be GUWANGE. (going through various shooters in MAME since I've been forced to sully myself)

[Icarus]

but manages an autorate of what appears to be faster than AUTO 1.

FFS!

Direct quote from the team forum discussing the game:

Yeah, I know that he does use a stick and uses two fingers alternately when hammering the button, I think that what makes it look impossibly fast.

For your interest, a soundless clip of Hisa at the Great Bonus columns. A slow autorate is quite the handicap with this particular section.

Guwange for Cave Week would be quite nice. I can use the PCB then.
Either that or Feveron. No Donpachi. At least, not again.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm not a big fan of "one massive bonus decides your score" type games.

Just outta curtiosity, do "uber end bonus" games like Darius Gaiden count, or are you talking more about mid-game point skyrockets specifically?

[Icarus]

I'm not a big fan of "one massive bonus decides your score" type games.

Just outta curtiosity, do "uber end bonus" games like Darius Gaiden count, or are you talking more about mid-game point skyrockets specifically?

The latter.
At least with Darius, the end bonus directly relates to the your performance. Thats not the case with Star Force, where all you need is one lucky run with regards to the enemy formations and the 1mil is bagged.

[Twiddle]

I kind of gave up on this game and decided to dedicate my time to better games like Raiden Fighters instead

Got to 2-3 on a cab with the Metrotainment version. For some reason, the arcade stick has completely ruined me for the keyboard on MAME and I overcompensate or undercompensate and therefore I screw up little things like barely hanging at the dead zone of a turret (which, in Seibu games, can completely ruin your score. less than three Seibu).

[Atomic]

hey, i know im new but can i join?

[Edge]

I am sorry, Atomic, but the tournament have already begun 5 weeks ago. And we don't add players during the tournament, but you are welcome to enter the next tournament.



Regarding the prior finger pointing at people who haven't participated in games yet
I think it is absolutely justified to point at players who just play at their favorite games and skip all other weeks. Because this isn't the idea of the competition and it is hurting it's spirit. This is a team competition, everytime you skip a game out of personal dislike for a certain game you betray your team. And also if too many people skip disliked games, it may lead to more people doing this. Like most bad behaviors, people will wonder why they should bother about playing these games when everyone else just passes them...

However the tournament is not over yet and I don't intend to ban players this time. BUT if in the end we have a couple of players who just showed up in less than 50% of the playing weeks. I am seriously considering to ban them for the next STGT.

It is very low to don't post scores out of egoistic reasons like: You don't like game X; you are pissed game X won the poll over game Y; your score is not high enough so you rather don't post it to lose your face. I can't understand this one at all. If you are not good in a game you shouldn't be afraid to post some low scores too. Or if you don't want to push your score any further because the game is no fun. That is ok. At least you tried it and contributed to your team and the whole tournament. Just showing off in already known and liked games is pretty low. But posting scores even for games you don't like or posting scores even if they are at the bottom of the highscore table. That proves true sportsmanchip.

EDIT:
Offcourse I am not talking about people who don't have enough time or no access to the games. Just talking about the reasons listed above...

[Atomic]

groovy. count me in next time.

[The Coop]

YEAH! What Edge said.


For shaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmme...

**shakes finger angrily**

[Rob]

Guwange for Cave Week would be quite nice. I can use the PCB then.

I don't see a score listed for you in the hs thread. Have you played it much? This almost seems like one Cave crown I could take. Takumi-ish.

[mulletgeezer]

I agree on Guwange. Easily Cave's best IMO (actually i'd say easily the best shooter ever) and it would make for a really balanced and interesting contest. As this is such a MAMEcentric contest one would assume the choices could well be:

Donpachi
Dangun Feveron
Guwange
Progear

DDP is far too popular to make the shortlist, and i would guess that in the absence of DDP Esprade would also be too popular. Edge could also add the DF 5 minute game to make 5 choices. Personally i'd be happy with any of these apart from DP as they're all awesome but Guwange would be best.

[Icarus]

I don't see a score listed for you in the hs thread. Have you played it much? This almost seems like one Cave crown I could take. Takumi-ish.

I <3 Guwange. Easily Cave's best in style and execution.
Also hard as nails, and their most technical.
Its like Garegga in my games rotation, I play it every so often, .

[mulletgeezer]

Once again, Edge, i think your judgement on these matters is excellent.

Although we're only halfway through this competition i think we can already see ways to improve for the future. My own experience has been really good so far - i think a lot of it has been down to the simple fact we have a team forum, which has allowed our team to get some good strat talk going and is getting everyone really involved

And Involvement is what everyone needs. It would be great if we could have private forum areas for each team so everyone has easy access to team talk. This would help people to play as a team and get in to the spirit of the competition, to play each week for the end goal of competing and winning the contest and doing well on each game and not just bitching because their favourite game didn't win (i was very guilty of doing this with Blazing Star at first, but i saw the light and ended up having some fun with it, and now i'll play the games that get chosen even if i hate them.) Also i think every team should agree to reveal their best scores every 2 or 3 days - our method of holding scores back until the end is absolutely shocking

[Turrican]

However the tournament is not over yet and I don't intend to ban players this time. BUT if in the end we have a couple of players who just showed up in less than 50% of the playing weeks. I am seriously considering to ban them for the next STGT.

Offcourse I am not talking about people who don't have enough time or no access to the games. Just talking about the reasons listed above...

I'm afraid i'm one of them, Edge - I probably was a fool to enter the contest knowing that I had no access to MAME these months. I should've known better, only now I realize how much emulation is vital in these sort of things. Then again, I thought five-to-seven teams were made just to remedy to these problems.

It's unfortunate - I was really looking forward to retro week, but once again an arcade game was chosen. I hope I'll have more luck with the remaining weeks.

[Icarus]

It would be great if we could have private forum areas for each team so everyone has easy access to team talk. This would help people to play as a team and get in to the spirit of the competition...

Its not really difficult to set up a forum, either on your own server or by using a free forum provider. I'm surprised other teams haven't done this yet, and if they have, they're keeping it very under wraps. ^_-

I know some players are using the shmups IRC chatroom, which is just as good.

Also i think every team should agree to reveal their best scores every 2 or 3 days - our method of holding scores back until the end is absolutely shocking

No comment. ^_-

[mulletgeezer]

it's true everone else could make their own forum, but not everyone has that kind of initiative or maybe some people can't be bothered. If there's a way for the forum mods to provide this for everyone then all teams would be equal in this respect.

Something else that Rob mentioned was team balance, which was a good point. We have 2 Top Tier players and 4 good players in our team which is probably a bit unfair, but then again Team Cowboy have at least 3 Top Teir players which might have won the contest for them if they'd actually joined in. I think next time Edge should invoke the power of Team Edit to balance things out a bit, which shouldn't be too hard as he can look at the individual rankings at the end of this contest to work it out.

[Edge]

Our team is using a private forum for team communication since the beginning of this tournament, though it doesn't help too much if not all team members show up there...

[DEL]

mulletgeezer wrote;

I think next time Edge should invoke the power of Team Edit to balance things out a bit, which shouldn't be too hard as he can look at the individual rankings at the end of this contest to work it out.

Wot - Handicap our UK Team 1 because its too good - No Way! We are a small Country and we have to take on the Might of the USA and Mainland Europe etc. - WE should be the ones under pressure, not them!



also;

Something else that Rob mentioned was team balance, which was a good point. We have 2 Top Tier players and 4 good players in our team which is probably a bit unfair, but then again Team Cowboy have at least 3 Top Teir players which might have won the contest for them if they'd actually joined in.

Team Cowboy would still have a lot of trouble beating us overall, across the board of the various styles of games that the Tournament is covering.
(Excellent players nevertheless ).

[mulletgeezer]

Actually I think now i was wrong to suggest that

Although moving Top Tier players around and assigning one per team would make for a more balanced contest it would be a headache to do. Also i like the team we have and i wouldn't want it to be split up. The best thing would be for the other countries to distribute their players like we have, and maybe the cowboy team members could play for their respective countries. This would still only give 3 or 4 teams a realistic chance of winning the contest but that's better than the situation we have now.

[DEL]

ok

[landshark]

mulletgeezer wrote;

I think next time Edge should invoke the power of Team Edit to balance things out a bit, which shouldn't be too hard as he can look at the individual rankings at the end of this contest to work it out.

Wot - Handicap our UK Team 1 because its too good - No Way! We are a small Country and we have to take on the Might of the USA and Mainland Europe etc. - WE should be the ones under pressure, not them!

I'm gonna agree with mulletgeezer. I think you guys should be handicapped. Maybe you only get to use 1 hand? </sarcasm>

[landshark]

AUTO 3 at least would have been manageable. Smraedis tells me that Hisa at MARP (the 10mil recordholder, listed as Novice@Team2ch.jp) doesn't even use autofire (which is believeable since he was using an old version of MAME DOS), but manages an autorate of what appears to be faster than AUTO 1.

If he keeps that rate of fire throughout the entire game, he likely is using a controller with autofire. I've seen a few replays on MARP in the past (harder to come by now as they get disqualified if discovered) that DEFINITELY used autofire on a controller. One of which was a Final Fight. Noone can continuously punch that fast.

I use the double-finger on a single arcade button method to get all the bonuses in Star Force. Especially the 50k, 80k, and 1mil, and arrow/extra guy tiles. I double tap on some of the enemy swarms too to clear them out faster. Auto-5 isn't enough. It's why I can only play about 5-10 or so games per sitting (standing). My hand gets tired =)

[landshark]

For your interest, a soundless clip of Hisa at the Great Bonus columns. A slow autorate is quite the handicap with this particular section.
[/quote]

I dunno. That does look inhumanely fast, and he's keeping it up for the entire level. My guess is controller-assisted autofire. It's too consistent.

[DEL]

landshark wrote;

I'm gonna agree with mulletgeezer. I think you guys should be handicapped. Maybe you only get to use 1 hand?

Yeah, I use the other hand for Tea & Biscuits.

--------------------------

I dunno. That does look inhumanely fast, and he's keeping it up for the entire level. My guess is controller-assisted autofire. It's too consistent.

Well, controller autofire is all I have on my XBOX emu at the moment (I lost the dips access, so can't set any Mame auto). I've been using the auto on my Soul Calibur joystick and its crap - NO Way can I get the mid boss 50,000s . Its also way slower than Icarus's autofire in his latest replay (set at 5). So, controller assisted autofire does not compare to the Mame auto in this game.

[Smraedis]

To the Hisa autofire thing, I can only find this thread about it at the moment, and that video clearly shows that he is shooting faster than Auto 5, but you can tap with two fingers at a faster rate than Auto 5 too.

I don't really like the randomness of this game, you can end up with really hard patterns at the 80k bonus spot, or almost nothing at all.. and then when you get lucky on that spot, you mess up getting the 1 million bonus, even though you have played so well in the whole run.

Like Blazing Star, this is a alright game, but not so good for tournament play.