Skill

[DEL]

JL - Those 3 General tips you listed are 'Spot On', and would be very useful for players wishing to improve their skill & distance in many shooters.

The thing that intrigues me the most about skill, is the imperceptible increase in skill that comes with play after play after play. The brain does something to accomodate/habituate itself to a game. You do not notice it, but it happens.

Another thing about skill, is that those top Japanese and HK players seem to have what I call a higher 'Operating Level'. This is best seen in Clover TAC, NAL and Laos's 2nd Loop Replay of DOJ or ISO's Psyvariar Revision replay. My friend Mills has recently been experimenting with natural ingredients like Ginseng to improve his attention span & clarity.

[TVG]

ISO's Psyvariar Revision replay.

hmm, do you happen to have it, and if so, could you send it to me via msn, or give me a link to DL it?
that would be awesome.

[Ganelon]

My friend Mills has recently been experimenting with natural ingredients like Ginseng to improve his attention span & clarity.

Has it been working? I've always thought of trying a bottle of Red Bull but that might make me a bit too twitchy.

[MovingTarget]

I once prepared for a physics exam that I hadnt revised for by drinking a can of redbull. I got a B, which is pretty good considering the level it was at and the fact that the redbull meant I couldnt concentrate for the entire test

edit: But anyway, this ginseng has me interested too, please update on any noticeble results!

[DEL]

The vagrant - That Psyvariar Revision Replay came with my Jap Psyvariar Complete LE (like the DOJ replays that came on a separate disk with that Port). Unfortunately, I've misplaced the disk - I used to watch it mainly for the excellent music on the final stages.

Ganelon & Moving Target - I would expect that the high amounts of caffeine in Red Bull would ultimately give you the shakes. I don't think I would recommend it.
Mills is taking Ginseng and something else - I'll ask him at the London Meet on Saturday & get back to you.

Regs, DEL

[SpooN]

Mmh, caffeine does improve your reaction time for an hour or so but if you begin shaking by yourself it was sure too much.
Concerning concentration I can't say anything against caffeine but I'm used to it (and to be honest I never noticed any improved reaction either).

We all know that if we don't think we can dodge everything and if we start thinking (like "how am I going to dodge THIS" or "oh I'm doing very well") we do a mistake or bevome nervous enough to bomb unnecessary.
But this should not prevent you from thinking about what you are doing:
If you are just dodging you will only by luck encouter the system of a pattern and if you don't see the system you won't really improve your "skill" (here: surviving, scoring).
For me analysing is a very important part (you can stop analysing if you are good enough at one boss/part of the game but one will do that automatically).
Another point is repetition. Repitition and analysing together are the way to train a shmup and not only play it, you can play as long as you want with only little succes if you don't consider both things.
My lack of repetition in cho-rensha 68k in the later levels (because of resetting after every little mistake) is the reason why I could not improve my score although I know how everything works by heart.

Ok I'm sure I repeated much what is already said, sorry but I couldn't prevent me from answering after caffeine was mentioned .

[chtimi-CLA]

I am also one who thinks that practice makes perfect.

i don't quite agree. only perfect practice makes perfect, unperfect practice makes you better but can also reinforce bad habits or get you stuck with a far from optimal routine. that's one of the thing that standed out from Clover-TAC interviews (he said it with different words though).
what i mean by that is that you have to try different approaches, ideally with each play.
a more realistic approach would be:
-when you're doing good, only slightly differ from your current "optimal path"
-when you're going to beat your hi, stick to what you know and can do. play conservatively and have your bomb finger on red alert.
-but when say you die on stage1, or if you sucked on the current credit so far, take much more risks and try new paths.
-if you're playing like shit today, try the all-out offensive mode, don't bomb at all, and credit-feed the game to the end. you will still learn things this way, and the latter stages won't be terra incognita when you legitimately get there. and it will keep your frustration meter low.

[TVG]

chtimi: so much truth.

DEL: i see, damn i wish i could watch a replay for this game because i dont quite understand anything, besides rolling all the time is good and kill the bosses right before they leave i guess.
the only replays i watched were for medium unit, but revision is quite different.

was there a ST on the old board?
well i play on a pad with the roll button on (dont really care if its not legit, as the game is pretty enjoyable this way, i like it, tho the "bullet bouncing" ive seen in the medium unit video was damn neat, but i wont buy a hori just for that)

[Blade]

I think Disraeli said it best:

"There is no knowledge, that is not power."

If you're familiar with a game, you get good at it...simple as that. Forget the 1cc stuff....honestly, the ability to even beat the game at all is an accomplishment, don't feel inferior to others just because you haven't 1cc-ed a game.

This applies to any game that you can beat. Sure you may continue 5 or 10 or even 50 times...but if you win...take pride in that.

[MovingTarget]

How can you take pride in using 50 continues when pretty much anybody could do that?

[MovingTarget]

http://www.healthydirect.co.uk/HDSite/p ... =GooglePPC

[freddiebamboo]

Beer + cigarette with in between stage ash flick and beer gulp seems to do the trick for me

Although after a few, performance does go steeply downhill somewhat..

Still, I find it helps for the first hour

[DEL]

Better late than never,

Here's Mill's recommended natural supplement;

http://www.pentawater.co.uk

What is it? - Its just water but re-arranged.

Quote from the Pentawater site;
"(Water molecules typically bond with each other to form large clusters and chains. (www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/hbond.html and www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/..) These large clusters are too large to easily pass into your cells, so we believe that's one of the reasons why some people find even by drinking lots of ordinary water they still don't reach optimal hydration.
With Penta, we've reduced the average cluster size)."

The result is water that makes you alert & perhaps clear. Mills says it works. It may be just the thing to take before you begin a run on a Manic or similar game.


Regs, DEL

[cfalcon]

I'm tired, but this is a really good topic. It actually applies to a bunch of activities (and most video games).

If you'll notice on things like this, the people who are good at it usually have the time to practice it and belong to a society that approves of it. Back in grade school, *EVERYONE* played video games. Now, it was grade school, so no one was a champ at them or anything, but you would try to get better at them because there was positive *social* feedback in addition to the fun of the actual activity.

So, if you have friends or whatever to chat with (and this forum certainly counts), then that will help you.

Most of the other points I've seen brought up already, so I won't echo.

Oh, a cute trick: a little before you go to bed, try practicing whatever you are trying to memorize a few times, then crash. Next morning (after you are awake), see how much better you are at it.

[chtimi-CLA]

pentawater

no offense but that sounds like pseudoscience, like those anti-wrinkles creams. but let's not derail a good thread.

[DEL]

chtimi - You could be right, it may be pseudoscience, after all they may just be wanting to 'push' their product.
However, Mill's has tried it & says it has the desired effect. He's still got some of the stuff and is bringing it down to the arcade tonight. I will take a swig of the elixir and try a few runs of Mush. One things for sure, I need something to help me with the bewildering amount of button 'switches' that I have to make with 4 fire buttons on the cab

I don't think Pentawater derails the thread though, its bang on-topic (if it has a beneficial effect on Skill that is....)

Cheers, DEL

[neorichieb1971]

Practice does not make perfect at all.

Some people will never reach heights set by experts of any given field.

When I watch a superplay the intensity of the bullets of the last bosses are 3 or 4 times more extreme than the parts I am dying on. If the intensity and speed of the bullets is more, the chances are that I would die even quicker. The only way I could even begin to clear those obstacles is by powering up enough to defeat the enemies before the bullets came out.

You may not be born with a certain ability, but people do have natural strengths. Look at any pro Basketball game on the TV and most players are 6ft and up. I wonder why?

Why are pro pool players so good? I've played 5000 hours of pool and I ain't no master. Thats more than I would put into any videogame.

Some of us have to accept being average.

[devlkore]

Ok, I'm probably considered a mid range player, I've never 1CC'ed a shooting game, but I think I'm alright.

My problems are my loss of concentration after dying, the unconscious "zone" that I'm in, completely goes when I die, even though I manage to keep some "conscious zone".

The things I find that help are credit feeding, because it's no fun playing one credits worth, and dying in the same spot over and over again. Also, getting to see later levels before you "should" helps for when you do get to them on 1 credit.

Someone earlier mentioned the different focus points, like looking a bit ahead of your ship, and looking straight at it. Personally, the majority of the time in manic games, I sort of look all around my ship at the same time while not looking at the ship itself, it's like losing focus, but it works quite well for me.

Group the bullets in your mind logically: That is, when a certain enemy fires a clump of bullets at you, treat them as one bullet when they are far away from you and/or so close together that you can't pass between them. Then when the bullets have spread out and are closer, divide them into smaller "clump bullets" and move between them or whatever.
The same goes for insane boss patterns, normally there are very distinct "layers" of bullets, recognising them and dividing up your brain time so you only think about dodging the layers that are a current threat can be hard, but is (IMO) key to getting through seemingly impossible patterns.

I hope this helps a bit.

BYEEEEE!!

[Metal Gear Okt]

It's a combination of practice and inclination. I can breeze through Shikagami 2 because I've been playing a lot of it lately, but if I can still suck it up on level 6 of Gradius V, because it's an entirely different kind of shmup.

Likewise, because i do well at Cave-style shmups, i can pick up something like Progear and do well at it right away.

[jp]

My thoughts:


Shmupping is 30% skill and 70% time. Sometimes, just having natural uber-hand-eye-coordination allows you to 1CC anything you put time into within a week. While others have to spend months, maybe even years, trying to learn one game to 1CC it.

[Frederik]

ANCIENT THREAD BUMP!

Practice does not make perfect at all.
...

Why are pro pool players so good? I've played 5000 hours of pool and I ain't no master. Thats more than I would put into any videogame.

I like the "perfect pratice" approach of chtimi-CLA, and let`s put it this way: Practicing doesn`t work if you don`t put any method in practicing. Since I play my shmups in MAME, I usually make savestates for each level and each boss, and switch between regular play for scores and "practice mode". Arcade and PCB players have the disadvantage of having to play full runs each time they play - console and MAME players can play single stages on their own, to focus on their weaknesses. The methods Clover-TAC describes are a fine cure for the restarting sickness - if you do well, stay calm and try hard, if you mess up early, start exploring. This way, no single credit is wasted - and you can deal with screwing up a LOT easier.


I guess one of the reasons Batrider gave me such a hard time was the missing savestates (those would crash the game), and after a certain time I was really annoyed of playing full runs only. Now in Guwange I am switching between concentrated runs and more experimental level practices, which really boosts my development in that game.

I am also sharing Randoramas attitude towards skill - the only thing that might seperate most of us from japanese top players is the pure willpower. Either you choose to play games as a distraction, or you play them for concentration. I noticed about myself that in real life I am getting very nervous and unsteady if I just tool around, unable to focus - but when I sit down (or stand up) to do something in a systematic, concentrated manner, my mood really swings up. To me, playing a shmup focused and over a long time is a small model of how real life things are accomplished; with endurance and willpower.

Yeah, and if I wasn`t on the internet so much and would actually start what I just preached, that might even work

[LUNardei]

Ok, I think I can try to share my opinion again. Let's start with:

the ability to be good at a shmup depends on how well you're trained in:
- Visual awareness
- Hand-eye co-ordination and control
- Data to memory retention (being able to memorise routes, patterns)
- Hypothetical creation (coming up with ideas/methods to get past certain sections etc)
- Reactive ability

I totally agree. But imho we need to add that everyone has different "starting levels", and maybe different "improve limits". And this is not about racism or similar shit, it's science. Also, we need to say that external factors are really important. I'm talking about culture (ie a culture of perfection like the japanese one) and environment (japanese have arcades and daily bloody competition). So no, it's not all about willpower. Same old stuff, I know...

[DEL]

LUN wrote;

I totally agree. But imho we need to add that everyone has different "starting levels", and maybe different "improve limits". And this is not about racism or similar shit, it's science. Also, we need to say that external factors are really important. I'm talking about culture (ie a culture of perfection like the japanese one) and environment (japanese have arcades and daily bloody competition). So no, it's not all about willpower.

^I agree with LUNardei. Willpower helps, but is it enough to make us Westerners achieve the gameplay level of the Japanese, Hong Kong or Korean top players
Is there something we're missing here? Do we have the inbuilt capability that matches such players?
Is our max-achievable level less than that of those players?

[Randorama]

But imho we need to add that everyone has different "starting levels", and maybe different "improve limits". And this is not about racism or similar shit, it's science. Also, we need to say that external factors are really important. I'm talking about culture (ie a culture of perfection like the japanese one) and environment (japanese have arcades and daily bloody competition).

Since you like Pinker (if i remember correctly), "the blank state" is indeed a good reading on this topic. His homepage has a lot of free articles on this and other arguments, not exclusively about linguistics even. In case, this is the italian version.

So no, it's not all about willpower. Same old stuff, I know...

It's about determination to sit down and do things properly. Even if someone is far more gifted than e.g. average Joe at shmupping (or whatever), if he doesn't practice at all, it's a tad impossible that he will get results. Lazy bums usually don't get results out of nothing.
Then again, if Joe gifted and Joe clumsy practice the same amount of hours and for with same dedication and tecnique, something tells me that Joe gifted will become a *tad* stronger.
In the context of this forum, there's a certain amount of people that don't practice and wonder why Joe gifted gets results after practice. A tad stupid, i'd add

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[LUNardei]

Since you like Pinker (if i remember correctly), "the blank state" is indeed a good reading on this topic. His homepage has a lot of free articles on this and other arguments, not exclusively about linguistics even. In case, this is the italian version.

Ehrr, yes, you remember well, I like Pinker. And you remember that because during the last debate (MIB) I linked exactly that book (and btw, I've read the italian version, very interesting and enjoyable book in any way). The funny thing now is that I remember that you and NTSC-J were against my theories (theories supported by THIS book) on that thread

In the context of this forum, there's a certain amount of people that don't practice and wonder why Joe gifted gets results after practice. A tad stupid, i'd add

I totally agree, of course.

[Twiddle]

LUN wrote;

I totally agree. But imho we need to add that everyone has different "starting levels", and maybe different "improve limits". And this is not about racism or similar shit, it's science. Also, we need to say that external factors are really important. I'm talking about culture (ie a culture of perfection like the japanese one) and environment (japanese have arcades and daily bloody competition). So no, it's not all about willpower.

^I agree with LUNardei. Willpower helps, but is it enough to make us Westerners achieve the gameplay level of the Japanese, Hong Kong or Korean top players
Is there something we're missing here? Do we have the inbuilt capability that matches such players?
Is our max-achievable level less than that of those players?

As stated before, most of these players play the same games or the same game style for years. One of the few exceptions are LAOS, who happens to set a record at any game he plays for a couple weeks or so.

Personally, I'd go insane if I was only getting to the point of 100k improvements in points per month of Raiden Fighters.

[Dave_K.]

I agree the cultural aspect is quite important, not that most westerners are lazy asses , but that you need a level of fortitude that maybe isn't as common outside of Japan. Twiddle's last comment says it all.

[Frederik]

The point is that japanese players start very early, and get in the genre early too (that is what I suppose at least). If you`re exposed to shmups in a very early stage, your brain will have a much easier time learning shmup routines. Therefore, you`ll adjusting to new games much faster later on; especially in the case of Cave games, as an example, since they are more or less in a certain "style". That is the reason jap players get high scores so fast after a games release IMO.

As for me, I started playing shmups two, maybe two and a half years ago. And now I am 23, and learning already takes more time than if I was 15. The older you get, the harder learning NEW things get. So, the optimal learning stage might be over, but the thing is how much I IMPROVE, not what percentage of a WR I can achive. The PROCESS is the important thing to me, the relation to myself, not the comparison to the world records. That would be indeed discouraging.

Or, as I said to a friend of mine once, "It`s not good to whine about not looking like Johnny Depp, but trying to be the best YOU that you can". So, if you`re sitting in a wheelchair, playing basketball is already a big achievement - even if every second toddler can play better than you; it`s about what you can do in relation to your situation.

[Nemo]

The original point of this topic has been lost with all the dialogue about WRs. WRs are about resolve, skill is about innate ability, you either have it or you don't, it can't be learned.

[LUNardei]

skill is about innate ability, you either have it or you don't, it can't be learned.

Yep, in fact my opinion is that innate ability is what we're missing, answering to DEL too. And it's what I always talk about (sometimes receiving strong and senseless resistance).
Btw, you don't need to learn anything (outside the actual game, how it works and how shmups works, I mean). I think it's all about your starting level and how much you can improve it.