GD: How to practice shooting games

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TrevHead (TVR)
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by TrevHead (TVR) »

I just thought ild post the link for Prometheous' Jam guide as the thread isnt stickied but this is..

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=34497
THX again Prom it was allot of help.

Im curious as to how many hours a day ppl will put into a shmup theyre trying to 1CC / high score? Although I pratice almost everyday when im seriously going for a 1CC, allot of the time ill only spend 20 - 60 mins per session (although at times i might have 2 or 3 sessions per day
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by RNGmaster »

Back when I played Touhou, I noticed that after 1.5 hrs. of play I got significantly worse and my fingers started to cramp. This came on sooner if I had been rage-quitting or rage-restarting a lot.

Now it's not so bad, but I start to get both bored of the game and mentally strained if I play for an extended period of time. 2 hours is a good limit, since you won't improve while practicing when exhausted.

Also, STGs are a mentally taxing activity no matter which way you slice them, and keeping your mind in a state of stress by constantly churning out run after run will only make you worse. Only play when you feel you want to and you're not just forcing yourself to.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by xris »

TrevHead (TVR) wrote: Im curious as to how many hours a day ppl will put into a shmup they're trying to 1CC / high score?
I have to say that it is rather important to play consistently when you are going for a goal like that. All of my clears, and when I am getting good(ish) scores come from when I am playing the same shmup almost daily over a period of time. Usually it is just one, or two runs only. Anything past that I notice frustration sets in, and I make big mistakes. Maybe once a week I'll play a few consecutive runs in a row. During this process, I make an effort to have the occasional throw-away runs, where I try really random things out, like letting a boss time out, or foolishly point blanking my way through the whole game, finding out if there are enemy dead zones, doing a completely different path through the level. This can lead to really positive results sometimes, and helps to relieve some of the pressure if you feel like you have hit a wall with your progress.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by PROMETHEUS »

When I get serious about a shmup I can play it like 3 hours a day. But normally, when I just practice one over a long period of time (months), it's more like 45min a day in average.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Frederik »

PROMETHEUS wrote:When I get serious about a shmup I can play it like 3 hours a day. But normally, when I just practice one over a long period of time (months), it's more like 45min a day in average.
It´s surprising how little you actually have to play to become significantly better at a certain game and at shmups in general. Whenever random people stumble across videos like the final Mushihime boss fight or these Tetris The Grandmaster "Invisible Tetris" clips there´s always these people who say "LOL I bet this guy nevar gets laid ROFL".

On the other hand, a lot of gamers waste significant amounts of time on games like WoW or Final Fantasy or whatever without actually increasing any skill at all. I can boot up Ketsui in MAME in 2 seconds and play for 10 minutes whenever I feel like - most regular games bore me to death even before the actual game has loaded up. Shmups are such a rewarding genre, and every second you play them will increase your skill - literally no second playing them is wasted with unskippable cutscenes, fetchquests or loading screens.

I think MAME perfects this formula: I can just make a savestate directly before the Vinogradov in Ketsui comes out and practice this part 20 times in a row. I will always play exactly at my recent skill level.

I´m not saying one thing is necessarily better than the other (whatever floats you boat!), but that´s one more thing I love about shmups in general. Daily practice, even in small sessions, will make you better at almost everything in life.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Icarus »

TrevHead (TVR) wrote:Im curious as to how many hours a day ppl will put into a shmup theyre trying to 1CC / high score?
It is less the amount of time you invest and more how you invest your time. As I stated earlier in the thread, "good practice makes perfect" - there's no point in grinding away for five or six hours if you don't have a good idea of what you're trying to achieve, and how you're going to achieve it.

For me, if I'm particularly bored, I can just play casually for a few credits - occasionally I find a few surprises with regards to strategies, as I'm not concentrating on score, just experimentation. If I'm particularly determined to do well, I'll session parts of particular difficulty in stage/boss select until I get a good idea of my best methods, and then practice them until I get them down in muscle memory and/or a replay. For example, yesterday, I was quite bothered about my current route through stage 2 in Crimzon Clover v1.00 Original being quite low scoring (about 300-350oku), so I sat down in training mode for a couple of hours, devising a personal route through for best scoring, and came up with this 632oku route: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp3gJItmT0Y

Make good use of your time, and you can quickly accelerate your progress. To use an old business saying: time is money.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Frederik »

Icarus wrote: Make good use of your time, and you can quickly accelerate your progress. To use an old business saying: time is money.
This.

It´s like weight training: You only need to train a small period of time, but you need the proper resistance to gain muscle. If you use not enough weight it you won´t get better - but if you use too many weight it won´t help you either.

I´m slowly becoming better at Ketsui, and this is mostly thanks to having the level start, the midboss, the second part of the stage and several forms of the bosses all on separate keys (which means my whole keyboard is filled with saves). Sometimes I feel like doing full runs, try to struggle through stage 4 or 5, or see how many rounds of stage 2 I can play without dying once. It makes the game a lot more fun for me than just doing full runs all the time.

So yeah, savestates are awesome.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by PROMETHEUS »

Frederik wrote:I´m slowly becoming better at Ketsui, and this is mostly thanks to having the level start, the midboss, the second part of the stage and several forms of the bosses all on separate keys (which means my whole keyboard is filled with saves). Sometimes I feel like doing full runs, try to struggle through stage 4 or 5, or see how many rounds of stage 2 I can play without dying once. It makes the game a lot more fun for me than just doing full runs all the time.

So yeah, savestates are awesome.
100% agreed, not only is it the best way to get better faster, it's also a lot of fun to play that way.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by PROMETHEUS »

Frederik wrote:Whenever random people stumble across videos like the final Mushihime boss fight or these Tetris The Grandmaster "Invisible Tetris" clips there´s always these people who say "LOL I bet this guy nevar gets laid ROFL".
I'm pretty sure this kind of comment stems from jealousy on their part. "I wish I was that good, it would be so cool !!! And this guy is !! Argg... but.. let's see... he must play all day every day, so he can't even have a social life ! Therefore there is no reason to envy him after all. My life is better than his, I feel all right again and can keep being laid back !"

The only gaming discipline where I know the very best players actually can't have much of a social life (at least one that includes going out / girls), because they practice so much, is Starcraft. The South Korean professionals need to practice more than 10 hours a day to keep up, because the game is incredibly deep and difficult. They really can't go out much. As players get older and are more and more interested in going out, drinking, social life, they tend to lose a lot more, so the very best players are between 16 and 23.

But really Starcraft is an exception, because of how deep it is, and because of how competitive its professional scene has become in that particular spot on the planet.
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more faster

Post by Limbrooke »

PROMETHEUS wrote:100% agreed, not only is it the best way to get better faster, it's also a lot of fun to play that way.
Save states surely help and their appeal is very tantalizing however, this is exactly my issue with them. In brief, if you have to resort to save states to improve in a game (in this case emulated) I really cannot see how this is fun. If anything it becomes like a job or an assignment and neither of these can really be interpreted as fun. This with respect to a video game or better still a game, not a job. In STGT, save states are invaluable especially if rapid progress if not total supremacy is the ultimate goal but in the end I think the fun factor gets sucked out just as quickly as progress is being made. Not to talk solely on STGT and or semi-blind tournaments in general but really fun factor isn't wholly the case for most people in these situations to begin with and as such save states could also be seen to speed up exposure to a particular game. Therefore, outside STGT I believe if you're using save states to promote progress then that game is probably not fun to that individual - there are lots of games out there, play the ones you enjoy not the ones you need to be better in. If you enjoy a game, you'll play it enough that progress will come naturally.
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Re: more faster

Post by captpain »

Limbrooke wrote:
PROMETHEUS wrote:100% agreed, not only is it the best way to get better faster, it's also a lot of fun to play that way.
Save states surely help and their appeal is very tantalizing however, this is exactly my issue with them. In brief, if you have to resort to save states to improve in a game (in this case emulated) I really cannot see how this is fun. If anything it becomes like a job or an assignment and neither of these can really be interpreted as fun. This with respect to a video game or better still a game, not a job. In STGT, save states are invaluable especially if rapid progress if not total supremacy is the ultimate goal but in the end I think the fun factor gets sucked out just as quickly as progress is being made. Not to talk solely on STGT and or semi-blind tournaments in general but really fun factor isn't wholly the case for most people in these situations to begin with and as such save states could also be seen to speed up exposure to a particular game. Therefore, outside STGT I believe if you're using save states to promote progress then that game is probably not fun to that individual - there are lots of games out there, play the ones you enjoy not the ones you need to be better in. If you enjoy a game, you'll play it enough that progress will come naturally.
So your advice is to forget what I find fun, assume that what I enjoy is not actually what I enjoy, and then play the game like you want me to? With the added bonus of making slower progress? Cool, wow, thanks!
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Re: more faster

Post by PROMETHEUS »

captpain wrote:So your advice is to forget what I find fun, assume that what I enjoy is not actually what I enjoy, and then play the game like you want me to? With the added bonus of making slower progress? Cool, wow, thanks!
Yeah I don't understand you either, Limbrooke. I just told you I think it's a lot of fun to play that way. Don't you ever have fun when working ? One of my major hobbies is level design. I do it because I like it. But it's work, a lot, lot of work. Still, it's so much fun, as a creative activity, that I always come back to it. Same thing with the projects we have to work on in architecture school. I'm learning to play the guitar, and although I'm always just learning new techniques and purely working on them, it is indeed a lot of fun, too. Most of the people who got good at something are people who absolutely loved working on it.

Working is fun because it is rewarding, it teaches you tons of stuff and makes you use your mind in new ways. Mere laid back entertainment is not the only way to have fun, and I actually have way more fun with more advanced activities. I understand if that's not your thing, but you can't tell me "I don't think you are having fun, you should actually play differently and really have fun now".
Limbrooke wrote:If you enjoy a game, you'll play it enough that progress will come naturally.
You know, if I had played without save states, my progress in DoDonPachi would probably have stopped around 150 or 200M, MAXIMUM. Because my progress would have been very slow, and because I would have gotten disinterested in the game pretty fast, since I don't think it's fun to repeat stage 1 and 2 and 3 when they have become extremely easy for me, just to have a chance to try stage 6 once and try to memorize something there. No, I want to get to my favorite part and work on something in tune with my skill level : I indeed have way more fun that way. It's not that I need to get good, like you said, I just want to, because it's fun and rewarding.
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Post by Limbrooke »

captpain wrote:So your advice is to forget what I find fun, assume that what I enjoy is not actually what I enjoy, and then play the game like you want me to? With the added bonus of making slower progress? Cool, wow, thanks!
First of all it's not advice, it's just my personal insight into a particular practice. No need for extreme sarcasm if your view is in contrast to mine. I am not telling anyone to do anything either, again I'm just showing my view of the topic.
PROMETHEUS wrote:Yeah I don't understand you either, Limbrooke. I just told you I think it's a lot of fun to play that way. Don't you ever have fun when working ? One of my major hobbies is level design. I do it because I like it. But it's work, a lot, lot of work. Still, it's so much fun, as a creative activity, that I always come back to it. Same thing with the projects we have to work on in architecture school. I'm learning to play the guitar, and although I'm always just learning new techniques and purely working on them, it is indeed a lot of fun, too. Most of the people who got good at something are people who absolutely loved working on it.

Working is fun because it is rewarding, it teaches you tons of stuff and makes you use your mind in new ways. Mere laid back entertainment is not the only way to have fun, and I actually have way more fun with more advanced activities. I understand if that's not your thing, but you can't tell me "I don't think you are having fun, you should actually play differently and really have fun now".
If by 'to play that way' means running the game that was never originally intended by the developers/programmers, go nuts. What is incredible is you somehow construe my opinion as fact/statement when it's nothing of the sort. There is no doubt that save states are very efficient and effective when it comes to practice, comprehension, and progress. I am of the opinion that there is more to this than "having fun" and really what is at work is a machine like need to simply speed up the process, churn out a good score and move on - which is isn't much fun, is sterile and hollow. I don't believe fun is goal at all but rather tallying up another victory over a game, that's what I think. I'm not saying fun does not occur but I am quite hard pressed to believe anyone has had fun the entire time during countless hours of save state practice.
PROMETHEUS wrote:You know, if I had played without save states, my progress in DoDonPachi would probably have stopped around 150 or 200M, MAXIMUM. Because my progress would have been very slow, and because I would have gotten disinterested in the game pretty fast, since I don't think it's fun to repeat stage 1 and 2 and 3 when they have become extremely easy for me, just to have a chance to try stage 6 once and try to memorize something there. No, I want to get to my favorite part and work on something in tune with my skill level : I indeed have way more fun that way. It's not that I need to get good, like you said, I just want to, because it's fun and rewarding.
And there you have it, the aim is progress - not fun. If enjoying yourself with the given game or task was your objective yes, 200,000,000 would've been the theorhetical end of the line. Did WTN have the luxury of using save states to get his 700,000,000 score? Did he need to? The answer is no in both cases. I also don't believe the guy was fond of medieval torture either so I doubt save states matter in this case. To me, getting of a score of that magnitude during normal practice signifies that individual truly enjoys the game. This is speculation but the evidence just showcased supports this idea. I say this since logging time in a game where having fun and enjoyment is a relatable since I've experienced it - running a game enough to the point where progress is acheived through enjoyment. Key thing here is to play games because the game is fun to play - not slog through the game to dominate it. Fun is defined by the individual and if a person decides going for the top score is fun, so be it - enjoy the ride otherwise it's going to be a long one saves states or not.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by cools »

I'd love to see how PROMETHEUS performs on a cab and PCB :)
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Re: more faster

Post by PROMETHEUS »

Limbrooke wrote:What is incredible is you somehow construe my opinion as fact/statement when it's nothing of the sort.
I don't think our replies were out of line considering you said :
Limbrooke wrote:Therefore, outside STGT I believe if you're using save states to promote progress then that game is probably not fun to that individual - there are lots of games out there, play the ones you enjoy not the ones you need to be better in. If you enjoy a game, you'll play it enough that progress will come naturally.
No offense, though.
Limbrooke wrote:Did WTN have the luxury of using save states to get his 700,000,000 score? Did he need to? The answer is no in both cases. I also don't believe the guy was fond of medieval torture either so I doubt save states matter in this case.
Really, WTN would definitely have used saved states if they were available to him. When you are into maximum performance, as every superplayer is, even more one that goes for such a crazy world record, there is always a point where you abandon "pleasure of playing" for more performance. The game is not just entertainment, it is something that you work on because you want to be the best. Being the best and playing extremely well feels great. When you play really well, you enjoy the game in a very different way. At this level of play, the absence of savestate to practice makes it actually way, way worse in terms of "pleasure of playing" : it will definitely get extremely boring to play the first stages 100,000 times.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make saying that playing for performance is "sterile and hollow". To me, playing casually just for the sake of "having fun" is way more sterile and hollow than working my way through to a goal, learning a lot of things along the way, which is also how I enjoy myself the most, by far.

Practicing games is not very different from practicing an instrument or a sport, chess, studying, etc. Many people will enjoy whatever activity they love more if they get better at it. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to speed up the progression. Even more if you really enjoy playing that way. Indeed, I don't have nearly as much fun screwing around in Ketsui without saved states than I have learning chains and scoring in DOJ in saved states.
Last edited by PROMETHEUS on Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by PROMETHEUS »

cools wrote:I'd love to see how PROMETHEUS performs on a cab and PCB :)
It's the same game, so it doesn't make a difference. You are only making me play with a controller I don't normally use, but if you build me a hacked keyboard I can do just the same, obviously. I'm not as good with sticks, not bad but can't expect to reach the same scores. I did do a 380M run of DOJ BL to 2-4 in a single try on a cab once though, at a shmupmeet in Rennes. That was back when I was practicing DOJ white on PS2 emulator with keyboard, at home (my best score on white was 449M at the time).

Who cares anyway ? I think it's become obvious to everyone that "authenticity" or "true meant way to be played" (one credit only on cab in arcade) do not make sense, when developpers released ports that you can play with sticks or pads, with level select or not, etc. To me that was always obvious. The game is about scoring as much as you can in one run. The way you practice, and the controller you use or the place you play do not matter : they are up to you. Game makers don't even have a say in this matter, really. Making the game doesn't give them the right to choose a "right" way to play and practice.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by cools »

That's pretty cool.

Regarding SOF-WTN - do you think the fact that he didn't have save states available helped him to achieve his WR score (due to having to practice even harder), or do you think he'd score higher if he was able to practice using your methods?
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by emphatic »

Save States = steroids :lol:
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by PROMETHEUS »

cools wrote:That's pretty cool.

Regarding SOF-WTN - do you think the fact that he didn't have save states available helped him to achieve his WR score (due to having to practice even harder), or do you think he'd score higher if he was able to practice using your methods?
I'm not sure he would have scored higher (it's nearly impossible to predict since the run he did is almost perfect, and even for an extremely good player the probability of achieving that run is likely under 0,1% each try), but he would definitely have reached that score playing about four or five times less.

Achieving this much faster, would he then have kept playing it to get a few more millions ? Would he have switched to a different game and achieved an additional amazing world record ? Would he have stopped playing for a while ? Can't tell !
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Re:

Post by captpain »

You know, when a serious musician learns a piece of music, they break it into tiny micro-sections, and practice those extremely carefully. Then, they slowly integrate them into larger sections with the ultimate goal of ironing out all the wrinkles and eventually forming a whole performance. It's very methodical, and very much akin to using savestates to practice. Yet, the process is constantly-rewarding, constantly-beneficial, and constantly-enjoyable.

What I find much less enjoyable is the frustration that comes from forcing myself through a game over and over, senselessly; I would go crazy if I tried to practice an entire piece of music through every time, and wouldn't be able to play hardly any of the musical repertoire I'm working on. It makes sense to learn anything this way, because you are putting in as much 'correct' as possible, and avoiding as much confusion and error as you reasonably can.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

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How to practice shooting games
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by ratikal »

I think it's more important to 1CC a game first before playing for score to an extent. I play for score usually on the first two stages and to the second extend in cave games. But the main reason I 1CC a game first is because is relieves SO MUCH pressure when playing.

Before 1CC in Daifukkatsu:
HOLY SHIT I'M ALMOST HERE OH CRAP AUTO-BOMB OH GOD MESSING UP ALL OVER THE PLACE I'M SO NERVOUS

After 1CC in Daifukkatsu:
Alright well, I already 1cced the first loop, so I'll just play for score and get that number up. If I die, no biggie, my score is higher than my previous one.

This was with my A-S and B-S runs respectively. I know nervousness control is a crucial part to playing shmups, but I think once you did something you know you've already cleared, it becomes less stressful.
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Drachenherz »

Ratikal, you practically derscribed me! Cheers! :D
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by kyuzo »

This got touched on a little bit, but I think there's a lot of value in finding replays that *aren't* superplay runs for reference if you can find them, at least for the people new to shmups. I've never been very good and have never had a lot of time to dedicate to a single game given wife/job and now a baby, so I guess I don't have an awesome success story to back this up, but it's helped a lot for me... :)

Specifically for anyone who hasn't 1CC'ed DDP DFK yet (today's my third day in a row getting the last boss to 10% and dying...), this set of videos has been amazingly helpful for me:

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7843130

Links for the other stages all the way through 2-5 (omote) are in the comments.

These replays are of a self-proclaimed noob at DFK (though he chains the first loop except for a small mistake) but are perfect for me in finding a safe route through levels. He also scores enough to at least get the second extend from mostly just 1-3, which is probably what I'll practice next if I don't get my 1CC soon ;)

As awesome as the superplay dvd is to watch, it's not yet concretely helpful to me...
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Re: RQ: How to practice shooting games

Post by Sumez »

BER wrote:Icarus touched on a few topics already, like gathering knowledge and strategizing. I would like to touch on a few other topics, too. There's a beginner's guide that I still like, but it's in Japanese:

http://galford.hp.infoseek.co.jp/biginar.html

I wrote some commentary on his guide, which you can find here:
Which point is giving you the most difficulty? It sounds like point #2, but I want to be sure.
Your page isn't working to me?
Looks like interesting reading, so I wish I could access it.

Thought this thread was interesting enough to be worth resurrecting, hoping to get the above stuff back online for everyone to read.
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Re: RQ: How to practice shooting games

Post by BER »

Sumez wrote:
BER wrote:Icarus touched on a few topics already, like gathering knowledge and strategizing. I would like to touch on a few other topics, too. There's a beginner's guide that I still like, but it's in Japanese:

http://galford.hp.infoseek.co.jp/biginar.html

I wrote some commentary on his guide, which you can find here:
Which point is giving you the most difficulty? It sounds like point #2, but I want to be sure.
Your page isn't working to me?
Looks like interesting reading, so I wish I could access it.

Thought this thread was interesting enough to be worth resurrecting, hoping to get the above stuff back online for everyone to read.
Luckily, you can still find GALFORD's beginner's guide here. Save it if you want:
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200501 ... ginar.html

I couldn't figure out some of the details of this guide, so if anyone can translate it, that would be great.

The old Gaming Journals entries weren't archived, however, so I may as well do some new commentary soon...
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Sumez »

Yeah, that's fortunate.... exept it's in Japanese :)
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BER
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by BER »

Sumez wrote:Yeah, that's fortunate.... exept it's in Japanese :)
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Turns out I saved everything except for the topic on talent. Here are the journal entries I wrote:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0JdUr ... M2Zh&hl=en

As for talent, well, it's something I don't like to think about (maybe that's why I don't have anything saved about it!). What would happen if you (1) know how the world record in a game was done and know how to improve it, (2) can come up with a plan to get there, (3) know how to dodge bullets in general, (4) have all the time in the world to play, and (5) have the best equipment and environment to play shmups—and still cannot beat the world record? Do you blame it on talent? Do you blame it on not having some natural ability to find the gaps in bullet barrages? Do you blame it on slow reflexes? Do you blame it on not being able to improvise? If you don't have talent, does that mean that even if you reach your potential in your dodging and shooting skills, it would never be good enough to break the world record? Is there even such a thing as having some maximum limit in your skills? Maybe not everyone can be a ninja turtle after all?

I feel like I haven't reached my peak yet, so talent has never been the limiting factor for me. I hope that talent isn't a limiting factor for anyone. I just don't know what to say to someone if he feels he has everything but talent.
Bernard A. DORIA (retired)
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Sumez »

Thanks!! :)
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Re: GD: How to practice shooting games

Post by Sumez »

As for talent, I think, sadly, various people might have different limitations. Obviously, some of the areas of the brain that you see improved with autistic people (for extreme examples, see savants like "Rain Man") would be an advantage with bullet hell shmups - this stuff could easily vary among non-austic people as well, or at least give some people with asperger (which is actually quite common) an advantage when it comes to getting an overview of all the bullet trajectories going on on screen at any time.

Even then, I believe enough training can help improve these skills for anyone, but obviously (and sadly), this will be easier for some people than others.
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