Using the hi-score board makes you a better shmup player?

[Necronopticous]

Yeah, great post Icarus. This is a genre of games where you really take out what you put in. Even the best players among us started somewhere.

[spadgy]

you really take out what you put in.

Like with one of those mini-trampolines gymnasts use to launch. I thought they were called trampettes, but apparently that's bunkum.

[cools]

Okayokayokay I'll cycle Psyvariar back into a cab soon and see how bad I've become

Way offtopic but your avatar is too awesome.

Actually for this site I was gonna use a TNZS avatar of Tiki riding a duck that I used elsewhere, but I figured this forum wasn't big enough for two kiwis.

Mine needs animating. Maybe I'll get that done today.

(Nearly chose him riding the duck/swan instead of this one too. I'm not certain whether the smoking kiwi is actually Tiki, but he's clearly cool enough to be the same)

[Twiddle]

Realised I havent really answered the original topic question. This answer is from my own personal experience, and may not exactly apply to everyone else.

BIG POST INCOMING. ->>

I actually think that taking part in short tournaments such as STGT is more beneficial to players looking to improve, as you have to learn to play efficiently (less of the constant stage one restarts), make good use of the time you have available, and to stay focused during your play sessions. Short tournament formats also encourage you to develop keen observational skills, and quick-and-simple strategy building.

What the high score forum gives you is a more casual form of competition - you have as much time available as you're willing to invest in the game, you can build long-term rivalries with other players, and you can take breaks as often as you want, as you can play in your own time. A short tournament condenses all of this into a smaller timeframe, adds a restrictive deadline you have to fight against, and adds pressure on players to perform well with what they have available (in terms of strategy and technique).

For me, taking the highscore forum mini-competitions seriously, and taking part in the past few big tournaments, has helped my play and my approach to strategy immensely. However, I'm naturally quite competitive, enjoy the challenge of playing against other people, and strive to improve my skills, so your mileage my vary depending on what kind of player you are.

Just to give you an idea of my progression: about eight or nine years ago, my scores and abilities were well below what would be considered the forum average. Through a methodical approach to strategy, and a competitive mindset, I've got to the level I'm currently at. However, I'm not the best player here, not by a long shot, but I've always looked to improve, to understand more about the games I enjoy, and that's what gives me motivation to improve my scores and skills further.

</textwall>

PS: Raizing might be my favourite company, but I play a lot of different shooters from lots of different companies. Variety is the spice of life - you stick with one company, and you'll narrow your skill set greatly, to the point where you'll be unable to adapt to new games. Learn to play different shooting game styles well, and you'll find your skill range starts to improve across the board.

sorry i only play cave games and i don't post in hi score threads because of my gorging (buttery) superiority as a cave merchandise collector

[captpain]

This week is going to force me to actually attempt scoring in a Raizing game. I am Raizing-retarded, so this is going to be a big problem.

Hopefully I'll see some improvement.

[jpj]

i'd like raizing week to be ibara, but it wont be

[captpain]

i'd like raizing week to be ibara, but it wont be

It also can't be.

[jpj]

because of the C-word?

[getbonus]

Yes. I love competing for score, and though I'm not great, the rankings are strong motivation to improve my game. The only thing I don't like is how underused they are. It would be far more interesting with more people competing.

[Enhasa]

because of the C-word?

CASH

BTW I don't know the order, but it's not the one listed in that thread, i.e. pretty sure the first week won't be Raizing.


edit: ps cools, just saw another kiwi (TVR) so I'll rock it too

[Ruldra]

Raizing will definitely be the last one.

[Aru-san]

Raizing will definitely be the last one.

No matter, KET's pretty much the de-facto winner of that week.

[spadgy]

The only thing I don't like is how underused they are. It would be far more interesting with more people competing.

Spot on. However - I've spotted a couple of people who've said this thread made them post scores, so we're getting somewhere!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Okayokayokay I'll cycle Psyvariar back into a cab soon and see how bad I've become

Way offtopic but your avatar is too awesome.

Actually for this site I was gonna use a TNZS avatar of Tiki riding a duck that I used elsewhere, but I figured this forum wasn't big enough for two kiwis.

Mine needs animating. Maybe I'll get that done today.

(Nearly chose him riding the duck/swan instead of this one too. I'm not certain whether the smoking kiwi is actually Tiki, but he's clearly cool enough to be the same)

Not another tiki, they seem to be breeding like ferrets! I can see other tikis popping up in various poses inc many pics of tiki in pervy s&m pose's. Soon this forum will be overloaded with tikis and we will need to call the wallrous in.

I put up tiki think i wouldn't see any others in a shmup forum and another 1 pops up aswel as enhasa's flying tiki which was my 1st choise of tiki but i ended up with this one out of sheer lazyness.

I know im quite new here but here's my 2 cents anyway about the main topic: I believe that is we need more low end scores to encourage new ppl. How about picking a few popular games to increase the scorecap to 50 or 100 (whatever the modorator can handle), including 2 or 3 freeware noob friendly PC shmups. (BWR+, Rrootage or p47 springs to mind as alot of noobs play these titles) And to get ppl posting on them we could sticky a post telling everybody about them and that low score posting is encouraged, just dont eveytime they manage to beat their own scores by 10 points to save on the busy work.

Another thing that can possibly be done is to not allow the higher tier shmuppers to not post on those theads to give more room for other ppl and it will also give them more incentive to improve their ranking if they are the sort to be turned off by really high scorers Perma banning shiftace for the pc games springs to mind as when I see his scores for some of the doujin shmups i feel like hanging myself. How can any1 be so good using the keyboard boggles me

I know the exclusion of some ppl on those theads can be unfair but how about if there is sufficent demand to create two thead one for the noobs and 1 for the pros.

Another way could be to encourage the pros to not post so much on the easy mode of a popular highscore thread and leave them for the less experianced gamer to compete with each other.

[Aru-san]

I've thought of an idea that may or may not work.

Maybe I can show the top and bottom 5 of each score listing. Even though there's middle-man discrimination, I'll resort to external scoreboards to display every score users upload to a certain game.

I'm applying this strategy to my PatriotDark scoreboard.

[Enhasa]

Well, I wouldn't say anything needs to be done to the high end. Everyone here accepts that there will always be better players out there. Being far below the top score isn't nearly as discouraging as producing a score you consider not half bad, checking the thread, and finding out it is near the bottom. For many games, our top score is only a mere fraction of the world record anyway.

Increasing the scorecap wouldn't help for the vast majority of boards since they're not capped anyway. Really the matter of fact is just that more people need to play for score and submit the scores that they do produce. Since the former is a preference and something that people won't change just because someone else says to, that's why it's easier to focus on convincing people that submitting a low score is better than not submitting.

rRootage would be a real pain in the ass to keep track of, since IIRC there's no total score provided. Either the maintainer has to keep track of every single stage individually (out of the question IMO), or the submitter needs to figure out the total score himself. The source is available though, so someone could probably write a little app to do that. Anyway, I've been very slow backburner working on the all160 for years (I don't know how common this is but I've never heard anyone talking about it either way), but my goal is to start a score thread after I've done that.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I do know that banning ppl maybe abit draconion but i was just trying to bounce some ideas around. I don't moderate any threads myself but i would love to see more participation in highscore posting as would everyone else in this thread

I think Aru-sans onto a good idea with his highscore table. With there been no middle ground or two many slots i dont think it would be good for all threads tobe like that. But having different types of tables can only be a good thing for the highscore section as a whole.

[Aru-san]

rRootage would be a real pain in the ass to keep track of, since IIRC there's no total score provided. Either the maintainer has to keep track of every single stage individually (out of the question IMO), or the submitter needs to figure out the total score himself. The source is available though, so someone could probably write a little app to do that. Anyway, I've been very slow backburner working on the all160 for years (I don't know how common this is but I've never heard anyone talking about it either way), but my goal is to start a score thread after I've done that.

With the help of spreadsheets (Excel, OOCalc, etc.), I'm going to go headstrong into this challenge. Keeping track of not only overall high scores, but also individual scores as well. It's definitely going to be a wild ride for me.

[Enhasa]

You're already going to see my post there, but the way I was going to do it was just keep track of total score and stages cleared for each subgame and also whole game. I was gonna compile an exe that people could stick in their base rRootage folder that they could run that would compute these stats without having to do any manual calculations or even load the game, but this isn't necessary since individual levels are already being tracked and now I have an excuse not to do it since I'm lazy. I mean, I just realized a prog to spit out a txt of all individual scores as well as the summary stats would be useful even now.

Also, you might have a wild ride just with the fluctuation of work you have to do. Usually none, then a ton all at once when someone submits. Lots of people play them, but non-Touhou doujins seem to get very few score submissions. Kamui is extremely popular and beloved, but even it has only 3 players on the board. Although really, the Touhou play for score ratio is probably even worse, it's just that Touhou is played by magnitudes and magnitudes more people, so even a very tiny fraction of that will produce a healthy scoreboard.