STGT08: Criticism and what to do next year

mikwuyma · Post by **mikwuyma** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:22 am

STGT went pretty smoothly this year (I think lack of Gaijinpunch helped), but as always, there were complaints and criticisms. So this is the thread where you can bitch about everything that went wrong.

Now before you complain, be specific, don't just say, "everything sucked", that's not helpful or constructive. You can say, "Doujin week sucked because anyone with a Mac couldn't play it", because that is a specific reason.

Okay, now on to my thoughts.

I thought the tournament went smoothly without too many problems. Sure, there was a little complaining about the games chosen, but that happens every tournament. I enjoyed Nomltest and Rayforce, and I enjoyed Progear before I started playing it for more than a couple of hours. And I absolutely hated Dangun time attack (damn you all for your Game Tengoku hating), I honestly threw that game in there because I knew people would want to play it :-/.

The only week that was really a problem was Doujin week, I won't do that again. The compatibility issues and the mixed reactions are enough reason not to continue Doujin Week. Also, for everyone who is going to ask why no X.X games? Two Cave games was already too much this year

.

STGT scoring system: The system was perfect IMO. It forced teams to actually play every single week (Namako team could have won last year without even playing the final week), and teams were appropriately punished for having bad weeks. Also, the fact every score counted meant there was actually some incentive to submit scores if you didn't get top 3 in your team. Finally, scores were easy to calculate, partly thanks to dex's scoring tool (everyone should thank dex!).

Potential weeks for next year:

Raizing Week

Hey, we haven't played a Raizing game since STGT '06

Possible choices:

-Mahou Daisakusen
-Battle Garegga
-Brave Blade or Armed Police Batrider - I'd prefer Brave Blade because we've already played APB, but I think it would choke on some people's computers and I'm sure there are some people who would just want to play APB again anyways :-/
-Kingdom Grand Prix (haha, I'm just kidding)

Psikyo Week

Again, we haven't played a Psikyo game since STGT '06.

Possible choices:

-Gunbird 2
-Strikers 1945 II - This seems to be the Strikers game everyone likes.
-Dragon Blaze - I'd rather not include this because this has been played before, but I don't think any of the old Psikyo games like Sengoku Ace or Blaede really stack up :-/.

NMK Week

Possible choices:

-P-47 Aces
-Thunder Dragon II - Make DEL happy!
-Rapid Hero - I think I know where the scoring exploit might be. I'll have to test things out to make sure if this game could actually be played for score without being broken too easily.

I'll admit, this week might not be a good choice because aside from those three games, NMK doesn't have much. Also, if Rapid Hero's scoring exploit is too easy to execute, then maybe I'll have to whittle it down to two choices.

Dragon Week

-Dragon Spirit (scoring might be too reliant on checkpoint suiciding)
-Dust Dragon (I know nothing about this game)
Cyvern: The Dragon weapons (need to ask Javel about this game and whether the scoring system is good or not)
-Dragon Breed
-Trigon
-Saint Dragon (I know nothing about the last three games)

This week could work. I'd just have to filter out the crap.

What I really don't want to play next year:

A Cave game. Two in one year is enough. Actually, more than enough.

One thing that must happen again next year:

Zebra Airforce's banners - They are masterpieces.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:33 am

Ancient arcade/single screen week.

spineshark · Post by **spineshark** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:34 am

<spineshark> next year imo:
<spineshark> third place week
<spineshark> minus UB and whatever lost caravan week
<spineshark> and then
<spineshark> the winner of third place week is the game that gets the least votes
<spineshark> obviously

I don't have much to say, scoring was good and I enjoyed the tournament fairly well.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:38 am

Strikers 1945 II - This seems to be the Strikers game everyone likes.

Pick 1945 III. It's way more fun. Unless there's some(score)thing I don't know about?

How about Gunnail in NMK week? That would piss some people off. Has graphics glitches, and I never bothered to play the whole way trhough so I dunno. Cool bass slapping music.

I'm pretty sure Dust Dragon is the first boss from Forgotten Worlds. Rob fought it in his Forgotten Worlds review but it's not up anymore. I'm still shivering! You should rename it Cyvern week and take out the other choices 8)

:o Josh and Szycag made awesome banners, too! :o

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:39 am

Rob wrote:Ancient arcade/single screen week.

Oh, yeah! Mad Planets, Astro Blaster, Vanguard...

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:44 am

ROFL Dragon Week just won't die (just like Dust Dragon).

Raizing and Psikyo weeks are obvious, then whatever I guess. I'd be down with NMK too. I'd throw in a hori week or 80s week for the old schoolers and because we're unlikely to get one otherwise. I wouldn't mind a 2008 redo week either to give Varth, RFJ, etc yet another chance.

Oh yeah, I would get rid of the bye weeks. 5 weeks feels like a month, 10 weeks feels like a fucking marathon.

bkk · Post by **bkk** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:48 am

Thanks dex!

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:51 am

Yeah doujin week would probably have to go unless you can find something which is free, cross-platform and actually good. (haha)

I've never taken part in a stgt before, but I enjoyed it. Caravan Feveron was really fun, and I had never played Rayforce before but now I have a small love affair with the game. I really didn't enjoy Nomltest and I didn't have enough time to play that week (although i would have made some time for it if it was Xed heh), so I skipped doujin week. Kinda "eh" about 19XX, I never really enjoyed that series of games much.

And c'mon this is shmups.system11.org you gotta play at least one cave game next year

Enhasa wrote: Oh yeah, I would get rid of the bye weeks. 5 weeks feels like a month, 10 weeks feels like a fucking marathon.

No, those are good. You would get sick of shmups (and videogames in general) if it was non-stop 5 weeks, it's good to have a breather.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:59 am

Maybe random bye week in the middle

mikwuyma · Post by **mikwuyma** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:01 am

Zebra Airforce: I think people don't like III as much because of the medal chaining, but I'm not really a Strikers expert, nor do I really know everyone's opinion. Why is III more fun than II?

Enhasa: Dragon week will never die, because I made it up

I don't know any good horis (I know Coop made some suggestions but they were shot down) or 80's shmups, except for section z

. I'm open to suggestions though. I was actually thinking of a Stragglers week consisting of games that didn't win this year, but I'll hold off on that idea unless if people really want it.

Danbo: No, we don't need to play a Cave game every year, the only Cave game I would remotely consider is Esp.rade, because we haven't played it yet and the scoring system isn't as strict as other Cave games.

Oh yeah, 5 weeks instead of 10, I like that idea because STGT is way too long as is. But I do think there should be a breather week in between week 3 and 4 (or 2 and 3).

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:02 am

every 2 weeks might work better? idk i think most people would just want the weeks in between during which they can focus on doing important things that aren't maximising some integer

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:04 am

- not just games where you shot things
- game where you get point just for when you go farthers in the game
- pictures
- someone teach them how play hardest games (by rob)
- codenames
- make it where you get money

Danbo · Post by **Danbo** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:05 am

We didn't have a Cave week but ended up playing two cave games in total. i think that says a lot about what the people want to play

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:08 am

mikwuyma wrote:80's shmups, except for section z . I'm open to suggestions though.

I wanted to do an early 80s arcade countdown thread before this tournament to help sort things out, but it's a hell of a lot of work. Maybe I'll beat the next one.

DMC · Post by **DMC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:17 am

every 2 weeks might work better? idk i think most people would just want the weeks in between during which they can focus on doing important things that aren't maximising some integer

I agree, but what made it feel like a marathon was that the breaks really didn't feel like breaks this year, because you knew which three games that would be nominated. So you better played them in advance and get prepared if you wanted to perform well.
So I would like it if the participants could be blind to the nominated games next year.

Oh yeah, 5 weeks instead of 10, I like that idea because STGT is way too long as is. But I do think there should be a breather week in between week 3 and 4 (or 2 and 3).

but this could also be an idea, especially if we all have to know about which games will be nominated.

about the scoring system, I agree it worked out better than last year. Maybe the best three or five players should get a few additional points to encourage improvement. But otherwise I like it linear.

spineshark · Post by **spineshark** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:51 am

DMC wrote:So I would like it if the participants could be blind to the nominated games next year.

but this could also be an idea, especially if we all have to know about which games will be nominated.

I agree that one of these should be the case. I'd prefer the 5 weeks thing just because the tourney really is long, but giving everyone a true break by putting the games on week by week could be made to work (though it's somewhat contrary to the voting system) and would be ok.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:59 am

I'd like to see the game picks for each week go back up, four would be good. It wouldn't have to be "let's tack an underdog on there" like DJ Incompetent liked to do, I think you could have four reasonable picks for a theme of a week. People just seem to get more bitchy over close ties, which there were a lot of, and I think with that few games people don't bother to vote sometimes.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:27 am

moar choices for voting pls

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:00 am

the breaks really didn't feel like breaks this year, because you knew which three games that would be nominated. So you better played them in advance

Now thanks to this thread we have a whole year to play the games in advance.

BTW, what's the reason we don't consider console shmups again? (I know, someone's going to say they all suck but aside from that) Unlike Windows-only doujins, there are a lot more options for console emulators and there might be more people who own carts/CDs vs. PCBs.

P_HAT · Post by **P_HAT** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:10 am

PS1 week
PS2 week
Dreamcast week
Good doujins week
16-bit era console week

f* the mame

P_HAT · Post by **P_HAT** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:10 am

Ed Oscuro wrote:moar choices for voting pls

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:45 am

I think we should just play Super Nintendo games.

P_HAT · Post by **P_HAT** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:10 am

Axelay weeeeeeeeeeek

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:42 am

Fuzzy Shooting

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:45 pm

I agree that the scoring system was perfect. Even an infrequent top-3 player like myself could feel useful by pushing down players on other teams.

I'd suggest not nominating more than 1 Cave game for all of next year's contest. Playing two games from the same developer seemed to take away the feeling of variety. (Though Dangun and Progear are very different.)

I'd like to see Thunder Dragon 2 show up again. Perhaps not an NMK week, but an "obscure games from less-known developers" week.

Some of the other ideas, like a 16-bit console week (MUSHA, Sonic Wings, Thunderforce IV) or single-screen week (galaga 88, galaxian, uh... space invaders) might be fun.

I'd like to see less-popular games get played. That way, most of the field will be learning from scratch so skill will be more important than past experience. Ideally, this would be accomplished by having five new games developed just for the contest, but stuff that nobody plays like TD2 is pretty close to that ideal.

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:04 pm

ED-057 wrote:BTW, what's the reason we don't consider console shmups again? (I know, someone's going to say they all suck but aside from that) Unlike Windows-only doujins, there are a lot more options for console emulators and there might be more people who own carts/CDs vs. PCBs.

Console emulators maybe, not console only stuff like Gradius 5.
Having said that, console-based shooting games like TFIV tend not to have any scoring systems of any kind, and are extremely easy. Arcade games and their console ports have a greater challenge.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:04 pm

MR_Soren wrote:I'd like to see less-popular games get played. That way, most of the field will be learning from scratch so skill will be more important than past experience. Ideally, this would be accomplished by having five new games developed just for the contest, but stuff that nobody plays like TD2 is pretty close to that ideal.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:12 pm

A pre-1985 game would be awesome.

Millipede for example.

maxi · Post by **maxi** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:35 pm

8-bits week.
And some caution with the choices of each week, because on the Doujin Week all the games were unknown and on this last week all of their score system were complex.

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:43 pm

And some caution with the choices of each week, because on the Doujin Week all the games were unknown and on this last week all of their score system were complex.

What is wrong with unknown games if they are good?

and please tell us, what is wrong with complex scoring systems??