Systematic mistakes and bad habits

[bpe]

I haven't been paying much attention so if we went over this just last week, bury and delete the thread

But as a spin-off from the "worst way to die" poll, I was thinking that for me it is systematic mistakes, instead of random mistakes. That is, a bad habit that got in your system for some reason and now you keep doing it over and over again even though you know it will get you killed. And now I wonder if it's just me, or if you guys recognize this.

Number one: stop shooting when you're in a bind, expecting a speed-up. I'm sure this is from all those boss-fights in Cave games; if in a pinch, stop (laser) firing and run like hell for that last opening wayyyy over there. Unfortunataly this doesn't work in, say, Psikyo stuff... so instead of paying attention and trying to dodge, I go "forget the pixel-dodge, just dash for that opening"... except there's no dashing. Result, dead

Number two: having a preference for a certain position on the screen. For me, it's bottom center, maybe because technically that gives you the most options for dodging (well, dead screen center is better, but much closer to the boss). The trouble starts if bullets are slowly pushing you to the side, and for some reason you think "it's about time I started heading back to the center", and promptly crash into the bullets. Maybe a good example is DDP, final attack of final boss. Just dodge that shit, but no, I have to go "I've been twitching left left left a few times in a row, better make a right", kaboom. Yes, you'll have to make a right, just not now dammit.

Kind of related #3: bad habits picked up from playing with a PS2 controller using the analog stick. A dodge to the left is much more precise than a nudge to the right, kind of from the way thumbs work Result, if a boss is coming, my strategy degenerates to "move to right of screen and then nudge nudge nudge to the left". Then this gets into your brain and before you know it, that's all you can do, decent dodging as a skill is nowhere. So a bit the same as #2, but it's now it's an unhealthy preference for a direction, instead of a location.

What you say !! ?

[Icarus]

Gold Fever.
Should be self explanatory.

[Andi]

Panic bombing. I freak out a lot and blow my bomb load over really easy patterns.

[shoe-sama]

I always seem to die right before I push the bomb button.

[JBC]

#3 - I've had this sort of problem before. I believe i solve it most of the time by pausing for a little bit and coming back with the mentality of 'just react'. Like if a pair of scissors was flying at my head - i pronbably would dodge in whatever way just came naturally instead of wasting time on a particular tactic. This seems to help me in areas that i haven't yet memorized well enough and in spots were shots don't follow a particular pattern.

#2 - Also, sometimes it helps me to think of my ship as the one who is dangerous on screen as opposed to feeling like i'm being assualted. Think of the enemies shots as pathetic attempts at defense against you and just plow right through the spaces. This keeps me from hugging a (not so) safety zone in areas i'm still unfamiliar with.

#1 - I do this sometimes as well, but i've never really developed too much of a tactic against it other than to just remember 'keep firing!' Obviously sometimes it's beneficial as it can help you to better decipher whats happening on screen, but in most cases it just leads to my ship getting blasted because i let to many enemies exist on screen at once. More enemies = more bullets =

[JBC]

Gold Fever.
Should be self explanatory.

yeah, that too

[Plasmo]

i keep dying right after i press the bomb button.its like my bomb button would be a suicide button.

[BulletMagnet]

Panic bombing. I freak out a lot and blow my bomb load over really easy patterns.

I've got the opposite problem: I never bomb where I ought to, and almost always die with two or three bombs in stock.

[1up]

I always seem to die right before I push the bomb button.

Im pretty sure my bomb button is self destruct. Whenever I push it my ship explodes

[Ed Oscuro]

IT MUST BE DONE THE RIGHT WAY

EVERY TIME

-anybody who's played with bonuses in Toaplan games will know what I'm talking about.

I tend to do this with other games as well. *hits reset button*

I can usually adjust the way I play a certain area slightly; I'll do it if it gives me a higher bonus. The ironic thing is that getting powerup bonuses is worth 5000 at a time, but if you die it doesn't matter. That said, I don't see the harm in doing levels exactly the right way - it just takes forever learning them well enough that you can do this.

As far as dying goes, I tend to strafe out of the way of a bullet, and then back into its flight path. Horrifying.

[Herr Schatten]

Panic bombing. I freak out a lot and blow my bomb load over really easy patterns.

I've got the opposite problem: I never bomb where I ought to, and almost always die with two or three bombs in stock.

I do that a lot, too. I always think "I should better save my bombs for the hard bits", not realizing I'm already in the middle of those.

[Gorecki]

I cut my teeth on DDP and as such I've got into the habit of never bombing. Which is silly.

[RotateMe]

My #1: Freaking out because I dodge a bullet very close and stop watching out for new ones to come. When I see them I am doing some nervous action on my keys and then die.

My #2: Watching where I shoot at and not where my ship's at.

My #3: Starting thinking about what my hands doing and whether my fingers are at the right place. You'll ALWAYS die if you do that

[Turrican]

IT MUST BE DONE THE RIGHT WAY

EVERY TIME

Yeah, that one kills most of my plays too. I do a couple of decent attempts, then I die... Then I begin to say -"no, here, I have to do this / no, I must pick up that power-up there" and if the game has a quick "pause/quit" option, it's continuous resetting. After a while I tell to myself, "what the heck am I doing?!?" - and turn off the console.

[icepick]

This could actually be a pretty helpful thread, in the way of generally-acceptted "good and bad habits for playing STGs."

In general, I'm still at the point of figuring out what I can do and how to negotiate patterns and situations in levels, so I don't have a lot of systematic mistakes or bad habits since I haven't gotten to the point where I could play well if not for them.

Something that I've noticed recently is that in Under Defeat, I get WAY UP THERE on the screen, like a naive idiot. When I get to that battleship stage two boss in the distance, it's like a dog chasing a car.

Gold Fever.

I know how that is. It's like once you start, you can't stop.

#2 - Also, sometimes it helps me to think of my ship as the one who is dangerous on screen as opposed to feeling like i'm being assualted. Think of the enemies shots as pathetic attempts at defense against you and just plow right through the spaces.

I like this idea, but one of my main problems in certain games is that I get way too cocky.

Then, my ego is shattered and I end up going the complete opposite direction (quiet and careful), and end up dying anyway.

Panic bombing. I freak out a lot and blow my bomb load over really easy patterns.

I've got the opposite problem: I never bomb where I ought to, and almost always die with two or three bombs in stock.

I do either one of these two.

Usually, it's bomb-hoarding. Then, after I realize that I could benefit from the use of bombs, I use them altogether inefficiently. Eventually, I either have no bombs left when I could honestly use them, or I just forget about it and go back to forgetting that I have them. In all honesty, I don't mind the latter. I know that we've had this discussion a billion times, but I still feel cheap when I use bombs... maybe because I already play the "easier" shooting games.

I always think "I should better save my bombs for the hard bits", not realizing I'm already in the middle of those.

Ha ha ha. I've been there, with the "Yeah, that probably would've been a good time to use one."

My #2: Watching where I shoot at and not where my ship's at.

I have that one... and I can tell when I'm doing it because I don't even know what hit me. It's like, you have to keep an eye on what's coming while you keep an eye on where you are (in addition to keeping a mental image, at least for me), but sometimes I neglect the "where I am" part and I get a little bit ahead of myself.

It's weird, but in hectic situations I feel like my brain disconnects from my skull to handle everything that's going on. It's really weird, but when that happens I actually feel really calm, don't get as upset when I die, and tend to fare pretty well.

My #3: Starting thinking about what my hands doing and whether my fingers are at the right place. You'll ALWAYS die if you do that

Ha ha, I haven't heard of that one before, but I think I know what you mean. Sometimes I when I get tired of playing (but still want to), my mind starts to wander to real-life topics, and when that happens I usually have to simply turn it off and do something else.

[RotateMe]

My #3: Starting thinking about what my hands doing and whether my fingers are at the right place. You'll ALWAYS die if you do that

Ha ha, I haven't heard of that one before, but I think I know what you mean. Sometimes I when I get tired of playing (but still want to), my mind starts to wander to real-life topics, and when that happens I usually have to simply turn it off and do something else.

Yeah it's weird and it's annoying. It happens the most when I play shooters on PSP. After some time my thumb starts to hurt and I switch from D- to analog-pad. Then I think, man that feels much nicer. BADOOM!

[Rastan78]

I think my biggest mistake is going through a game trying to use only "twitch" skill and repeatedly eating it over and over until I get better. Face it, if you're playing Psikyo, Raizing etc. (almost anything but TG16 shmups), you've gotta have a plan almost 100% of the time. It's better to step back and use more thought to come up with a reliable strategy for each section rather than just forcing it. If a plan isn't working then you have to change it section by section. Funny how being away from the game and daydreaming about your strategies can be more helpful than playing credit after credit.

Maybe this sounds obsessive, but I think to you have to be able to picture a whole run in your head while you aren't playing the game. The places you can't remember what enemies come out or don't have a strategy in mind are probably the places where the most frustrating and random deaths are happening. Eliminating those deaths isn't really about pure skill, it's about coming up with a method that works repeatedly as long as you execute it the same way each time.

Oh yeah. That and staring at a gold coin waiting for that tiny white 2000 point flash when boom, a bullet hits me.

[zakk]

I have general consistency problems. There are sections I can do fine many many times, but I still randomly die sometimes. It's not enough to warrant a change in tactics, but just enough to ruin some good runs.

I also had this habit of not adjusting my tactics. Just figuring if I did it enough I'd 'get past' whatever the problem was. This SLAYED me in the first week of the tournament; I should have recognized I needed to change ships entirely instead of constantly messing up the 3rd boss.


Sort of the opposite of this thread: I've learned to embrace credit feeding to some degree. I used to play one credit, no more. Then I realized what was happening was I'd get further in the game, but die almost immediately due to unfamiliarity with the layout/patterns. Now I just continue in order to start developing a mental layout of the stages ahead. There's a point where it's not productive and times where I don't do it. I dunno what decides when I do or don't, I just know.

[bpe]

I think my biggest mistake is going through a game trying to use only "twitch" skill and repeatedly eating it over and over until I get better. Face it, if you're playing Psikyo, Raizing etc. (almost anything but TG16 shmups), you've gotta have a plan almost 100% of the time. It's better to step back and use more thought to come up with a reliable strategy for each section rather than just forcing it. If a plan isn't working then you have to change it section by section. Funny how being away from the game and daydreaming about your strategies can be more helpful than playing credit after credit.

Strange, I have the opposite problem. If I play a brand new game, I have no idea what's going to happen so I find I'm really concentrated, paying careful attention to the bullets and generally do halfway okay. The problem is, after a few runs you start developing a strategy... ofcourse that is a big help with bosses and tricky parts, but at the same time, now I pay much less attention to what is happening right now in front of me, and I'm already thinking about the next part etc. It's like when you have a strategy, you start flying too much on auto-pilot.. I guess it's about finding the right mix of paying attention to your strategy and at the same time pay attention to the immediate twitch-situation, but damn that's difficult. Pay too much attention to twitching and you forget the strategy and end up in an impossible place again ! Argg !!

[Rastan78]

... ofcourse that is a big help with bosses and tricky parts, but at the same time, now I pay much less attention to what is happening right now in front of me, and I'm already thinking about the next part etc. It's like when you have a strategy, you start flying too much on auto-pilot..

I know exactly what you're talking about. Sometimes my best runs are when I have been away from the game for a while just starting out fresh which brings back that first credit ever feeling. Once I hadn't played Raiden Fighters 2 for probably several months or more. On my absolute first credit back with the game I one life cleared the game and beat my old high score from when I was playing the game every day. My worst runs come when I'm restarting the same level over and over and just start losing concentration on auto-pilot.

Maybe a decent solution is to separate fuck around runs where you're trying to figure stuff out/just learn/have fun from the all out high score runs. Kind of like in music, your brain has to have the freedom to play around for fun and learn things while not having a shitload of pressure or frustration at first. Then the performance comes later when the musician has every part down 100% and just has to put it all together at once. Trying to put learning and performance together is kind of like rubbing your head and patting your stomach. Or was it patting your stomach and rubbing your head?

[dai jou bu]

Maybe I should try playing the Senko no Ronde drama CD when I'm doing score attack runs. I mean, this guy knows his stuff.

[Pirate1019]

I always think "I should better save my bombs for the hard bits", not realizing I'm already in the middle of those.

Amen.

[Blade]

blow my bomb load

Soooo wrong....

[Pirate1019]

blow my bomb load

Soooo wrong....

I missed the third word the first time too.

[JBC]

I've actually had some moments in shmupping that were almost awesome enough to make me do that to.

I bet i sound like it sometimes when the actions intense

[atro_city]

I really should follow this modified saying: "If it isn't in your way, don't dodge it."

[Ed Oscuro]

blow my bomb load

Soooo wrong....

Thanks, I was TRYING to ignore that...damnit!

[Arvandor]

Actually, about everything icepick said is about what I would have posted. So just apply that all to me too. Except getting up close in Under Defeat isn't a bad thing I don't think =/ Good way to direct fire, and some enemies can only be killed when you're further up the screen (like tanks in chapter 4 that are deep beneath a road that's blocking your fire). Also, I just fire well-placed missiles at the battleship on level 2. It doesn't get to fire very much at me. My biggest problem is the chapter 4 boss. I have to use a bomb or two to get through him safely, and usually do so just because positioning the vulnerable part gets too frustrating for me =P