Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu [Cave 2008]

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:33 pm

Ruldra wrote:Japanese arcade owners must be pissed.

Fixed.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 6:40 pm

Yeah good news! Now I'll be able to buy the board sooner than 2 years from now. Not like I'm going to counterstop it (nor a majority of the people on this forum).

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:30 pm

Dave_K. wrote:Yeah good news! Now I'll be able to buy the board sooner than 2 years from now. Not like I'm going to counterstop it (nor a majority of the people on this forum).

So does that mean Cave will release a "fixed version" of DDP-DFK PCB in the nearby future?

It would be the smart and sensible thing to do -- satisfy your arcade operators first-hand with said remedy fix is the way to go. To see their hard-earned investment dwindle on a red-hot property PCB such as with the current DDP-DFK PCB exists now is a bad thing to begin with... ^_~

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:06 am

Aru-san wrote: At least it was a step in the direction of 'different'. Otherwise, then players would be complaining about the game 'being the same as DoDonPachi (or Dai-Ou-Jou) only with better GFX and new BGM'.

I do agree with stanski when he says "put in more digits than giga wing 'just in case'", because you never know when these milking situations will arise. That, or Cave could potentially follow Udderdude's advice and tweak said scoring system by adding a decimal into the scoring algorithm (or something). =3

Yeah, I agree with that too and I like that they have been innovating. When I saw this bug occur it highlighted some unneeded absurdity to the size of the score and how the scoring system works, I think it would be interesting if Cave revisited some more oldschool styles using their experience they've gained with art direction, intensity of bullet patterns, etc.

I'm not saying scrap all scoring mechanics, but I think Cave could really make a hard hitting difficult game in their style without relying on a scoring mechanic as the driving feature to keep it an earner.
I feel like it is a bit crazy that the game is mastered (or experienced in full) so quickly (not counting credit feeding), there are great players out there..

I guess one reason for the emphasis on scoring systems is that Cave doesn't have unlimited resources, it is arguably easier to make a game that offers replayability and earns well by use of a scoring mechanic rather than an epic gauntlet of stages and challenges.. But it would be pretty interesting to see Cave try a game with epic length, maybe in more of a systematic/programmed route.

I guess another thing is that Cave can't get too far outside the box due to how they need to make money from these games.

kinda rambling.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:19 am

I'm not saying scrap all scoring mechanics, but I think Cave could really make a hard hitting difficult game in their style without relying on a scoring mechanic as the driving feature to keep it an earner.

Yeah, just like with Ibara?

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:41 am

I guess Ibara is a good example

I probably associate it with Raizing style stuff, but it was definitely different for Cave to do

..I want to see Cave's interpretation of Raiden.

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:42 am

Right. Because Ibara was done in their style and didn't have a scoring mechanic.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:43 am

I hear what you're saying, kemical. In my mind, some of the more recent Cave shmups can be compared to the pinball trend of the late 90s.. some tables which are great fun, but sometimes with scoring systems that take advantage of the technology to such a great degree that they become a chore to play.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:34 am

it290 wrote:I hear what you're saying, kemical. In my mind, some of the more recent Cave shmups can be compared to the pinball trend of the late 90s.. some tables which are great fun, but sometimes with scoring systems that take advantage of the technology to such a great degree that they become a chore to play.

Care to mention a few pinball tables that are a chore to play? Blame Williams for that problem...possibly the Pinball 2000 series for starters?

Btw, the Pinball 2000 series was what lead Williams to their downfall on their pinball division...sad but true. When you have to juggle both the pinball & mini video game screen portions each with their own seperate scoring systems in place -- it was innovative and groundbreaking for it's time + costly to develop & manufacture as well. Is regarded as William's swan song, pinball-wise...

Somebody at the CAX 2007 show asked if Stern would ever manufacture such pinball tables like William's Pinball 2000 series and the answer was no, they want to make the modern-day pinball games that the die-hard pin fanatics want to buy/play with...so be it.

I can see why it would be a better deal to buy such the newest Stern pinball game if you're already commited to spend a few grand here and there as opposed to buying the latest arcade shmup PCBs that Cave has to offer...neither is cheap to begin with. Now if you can get one of them at wholesale pricing, that's even a better deal... ^_~

Now back to the DDP-DFK topic at hand...

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 2:02 am

This is really WRONG. A DDP game should not be counter-stoppable at the end of loop 1. If it were me doing this, I'd say the game felt incomplete because of it. So... just take the high score off the ingame screen to make some room, and give each player 16 digits potential- just as a precaution.

The bullet cancelling hyper system must stay. These insane 5-figure combos are a part of DFK, and reneging on that isn't good.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:42 am

gameoverDude wrote:This is really WRONG. A DDP game should not be counter-stoppable at the end of loop 1. If it were me doing this, I'd say the game felt incomplete because of it. So... just take the high score off the ingame screen to make some room, and give each player 16 digits potential- just as a precaution.

The bullet cancelling hyper system must stay. These insane 5-figure combos are a part of DFK, and reneging on that isn't good.

Even with the correct number of digits, it's still messed up when the first 4 stages are worth about 8 billion points and then the 5th is worth over 90 billion.

orange · Post by **orange** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:51 am

maybe there should just be medaling and shit instead

MrMonkeyMan · Post by **MrMonkeyMan** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 7:31 am

zakk wrote:Even with the correct number of digits, it's still messed up when the first 4 stages are worth about 8 billion points and then the 5th is worth over 90 billion.

Yeah, that's the main thing that bothers me too. You could get something like 10 billion points out of the first four stages maybe, but you can get over 100 billion points on stage 5. Getting over 90% of your points from a single stage really makes scoring on the other stages seem rather pointless. Most Cave games seem to be split around 50% for the first stages and 50% for the final stage.

Here's the thing about the stage chains. A good chain for each stage ends with a point value of no more than 3 million. A good chain on stage 5 pretty much starts out with a point value of 3 million and ends up being worth almost 18 million points at the end. That's how many points you get for each hit, double that if you have a full hyper meter. It works different for cancelling bullets with a hyper.

They either need to force a chain break in there, or lower the point value of the enemies on the stage because the amount of points you can get there compared to the other stages is ridiculous.

I could understand if you carried your chain from stage to stage like Guwange, or the Takumi games, but your performance on the earlier stages has no effect on your score for the later stages. Well, it seems the bomb bonus is still around, but I don't think it has much of an impact here.

Bah, I'm probably just bummed because I got a buggy PCB, returned it the next day, and when I get it back again only two days pass and it turns out everybody got a buggy PCB and I'll probably have to send it back yet again. Long sentence. Hurray.

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:26 am

zakk wrote:Even with the correct number of digits, it's still messed up when the first 4 stages are worth about 8 billion points and then the 5th is worth over 90 billion.

Might have something to do with the stage being overly long, though (~7-8 minutes for the first loop, ~9-10 for the second). Forcing a chain break via forcing a stage break would be even more sensible.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:29 am

Forcing a chain break via forcing a stage break would be even more sensible.

From a programming perspective at this point, it won't happen.

Gwyrgyn Blood · Post by **Gwyrgyn Blood** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:25 pm

It would be kind of difficult to force a chain break anywhere due to the way the new system works. For one, you can hold out a long time by entering hyper mode, or you can just not have a hyper in stock and you'll get some slop but at least keep most of your combo. The gap would have to be very long, which might hurt the pace of the stage.

They could instead just put a cap on the +Bonus value, so even if you can chain the whole stage together, the point value doesn't keep exponentially rising.

overkill55 · Post by **overkill55** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 7:03 am

Problems like these are why I will always prefer medaling to chaining enemies

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:56 pm

zakk wrote:
gameoverDude wrote:This is really WRONG. A DDP game should not be counter-stoppable at the end of loop 1. If it were me doing this, I'd say the game felt incomplete because of it. So... just take the high score off the ingame screen to make some room, and give each player 16 digits potential- just as a precaution.

The bullet cancelling hyper system must stay. These insane 5-figure combos are a part of DFK, and reneging on that isn't good.
Even with the correct number of digits, it's still messed up when the first 4 stages are worth about 8 billion points and then the 5th is worth over 90 billion.

Very true. In the 5th stage, your possible scoring goes up by roughly a power of 10. As it is, someone could say fuck combos on the first four stages, only to go hog wild in the 5th. Look at the hit value which goes up to well over +10000000 a piece if you have the combo going THAT long.

Another 1000 hits? BAM! There's another 10 billion and then some.

Maybe DFK should've been a 6-stage game with what we see as stage 5 broken into two parts. Stage 5 is double length, and that's too long considering the chain potential. The boss you get at 4:15 should be where stage 5 ends, and everything after that should've been stage 6. Even in this alternate hypothetical case, an extra digit or two on the score counter as a precaution wouldn't be a bad move.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:21 am

It would be kind of difficult to force a chain break anywhere due to the way the new system works.

Actually, it wouldn't. It just has to be programmed in.

If I'm not mistaken, stage 2 forces a chain break just before the boss if you don't trigger the midboss. Someone w/ the board can confirm, but I was told that after I tried (in vein, many times) to carry a 1000+ chain with my hyper guage full to the boss and it turned read immediately every time. Hyper gauge not full, it worked.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:38 am

But who wants them to totally neuter the game? They should add another 11 digits and add around 900 more enemies to the first four levels

MrMonkeyMan · Post by **MrMonkeyMan** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:58 am

GaijinPunch wrote:
It would be kind of difficult to force a chain break anywhere due to the way the new system works.
Actually, it wouldn't. It just has to be programmed in.

If I'm not mistaken, stage 2 forces a chain break just before the boss if you don't trigger the midboss. Someone w/ the board can confirm, but I was told that after I tried (in vein, many times) to carry a 1000+ chain with my hyper guage full to the boss and it turned read immediately every time. Hyper gauge not full, it worked.

I've managed to carry my chain through to the 2nd boss once with a full hyper meter, but I have no idea if I triggered the secret midboss or not.

I usually just activate my hyper right close to the end and feed off the bullets to keep my chain alive.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:18 am

This is what ramd21 was telling me as I was swearing at the cab. He just had a confused look and said, "yeah, I think you lose your chain there unless you triggered the special mid".

Udderdude · Post by **Udderdude** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:43 am

MrMonkeyMan wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:
It would be kind of difficult to force a chain break anywhere due to the way the new system works.
Actually, it wouldn't. It just has to be programmed in.

If I'm not mistaken, stage 2 forces a chain break just before the boss if you don't trigger the midboss. Someone w/ the board can confirm, but I was told that after I tried (in vein, many times) to carry a 1000+ chain with my hyper guage full to the boss and it turned read immediately every time. Hyper gauge not full, it worked.
I've managed to carry my chain through to the 2nd boss once with a full hyper meter, but I have no idea if I triggered the secret midboss or not.

I usually just activate my hyper right close to the end and feed off the bullets to keep my chain alive.

Honestly sounds like a bug to me (Forced chain break not happening due to unexpected player decisions)

Mills · Post by **Mills** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:19 pm

Counter-stop on any shump title just seems wrong period.

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:42 pm

Cave are taking PCBs back to fix the counter

oh and throwing in an extra character to say sorry!

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:46 pm

Is that true? Could you provide any more info on the changes?

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:52 pm

Thats all I got

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:04 pm

hmm i really hope mines fixed then as it was shipped yesterday

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:15 pm

It isnt

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:32 pm

Actually, before anyone gets excited about an extra ship, that might be a translation thing, ie character = number. Oops. I'll check.