Scoring Trends

[Deca]

Have you ever noticed that in modern shooters stage 2 consistently has some section that allows you to get a LOT of points without too much trouble. The corridor leading to the boss in DOJ (and to some extent DDP), the ship turrets in ESPgaluda2, the jellyfish in Mushi Futari, the rocks in Volcano in Death Smiles (just assuming that's what most people use as their second stage). I'm sure there are some more examples that I'm not remembering right now, I think there were some non-cave examples as well...maybe the scaffolding that reveals all the medals in the Desert stage of Raiden Fighters Jet, or the flamingos in Battle Garegga.

It just occurred to me some time ago and ever since I've sort of wondered why that is.

EDIT: reworded first sentence

[Paradigm]

Have you ever noticed that in modern shooters stage 2 is almost always the highest scoring stage in the game?

No, because it isn't.

[CStarFlare]

There is probably a conscious decision to make second stages 2 give a lot of easy points, to encourage players via extends or simple score improvements. Stage 2 is rarely more heavily weighted than later stages, but if the player isn't skilled enough to take advantage of scoring in more difficult stages, 2 could be a significant contributor to his overall score.

[Deca]

No, because it isn't.

Yeah I suppose in the grand scheme of things on proper run they aren't going to offer near as much score as later stages. However for someone less skilled or new to them game it definitely will be the bulk of their score, offering a lot more points than stages 1 or 3 a lot of the time.

I guess I should have said the most EASY points.

But anyway, thanks for your contribution to the discussion.

[DMC]

I think it's more the case that the first stage gives extremely little relative to the others. Which is good, because if it is too many advanced tricks in the first stage that makes a huge difference in your end score, it could ruin your run way too early. Feeling that your run is ruined in the first stage gives you little value/fun for your credit (and makes you restart in mame/console ). On the second stage tho, you're more in the middle of it, and it is time for you to get some challenge for your credit. So I think this is a nice balance (and as a mame/console player, of course, you more rarely restart on stage 2)

I like batrider's first stage. There's a lot of stuff to do, so it's fun even after hundreds of credits. But although it is intense, the difference in scoring is quite small, so you can still proceed with a good scoring potential even if you had a mediocre first stage. And you are warmed up for latter stage. Perfect balance!

Raiden fighters series on the other hand...

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive heard the RF games are an restarters knightmare. As someone who does suffer from retarting fuckups in stage 1 (aka restartitus), a relativly easy first stage both for suvival and score is a good thing, still there is a balancing act for devs to make a stage 1 easy but not too easy or boring.

One thing that I think is too common in shmups is the player is awarded for hoarding his bombs, while this is good in a way that it awards ppl who dont bombspam but I would like to see more shmups that award ppl who use their bombs strategically to increase their score like in Genetos where bombing is tied into the chaining system and can rack up some ultra high chains, plus I think Zen-ichi does aswell by increasing the number of blue cubes from destroyed enimies.

[shadowbringer]

haven't played the first RF, but it takes a week or less to learn how to enter the special medal mode in RFJ and RF2 in the first stage (though not very consistently). At least, if you make a mistake in the first stage, it's easy to figure out what went wrong and fix it in the next run.

Often, when learning games (or trying to), I don't know how much grinding stage 1 is more/less beneficial, but there were times when the scoring potential from the first stages wasn't worth the time I've invested in trying to do better at them.. one example being Eden's Aegis, where being hit on the final stage (especially in the middle of that stage) is a severe demotivation

Imho I prefer balanced risk/reward, no matter what stage it is (though it's okay if the game has one big opportunity early, not as big as the ones in later stages, since if you want to have that extra early score, it's your decision to keep restarting). I often tend to believe that more risk yields more reward, but there are times when it doesn't happen (for example, playing safer and reaching further in the game, alive, yielding more points than risking yourself and failing, provided that you've chosen to take more risks during your run, in average)

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Imho I prefer balanced risk/reward, no matter what stage it is (though it's okay if the game has one big opportunity early, not as big as the ones in later stages, since if you want to have that extra early score, it's your decision to keep restarting). I often tend to believe that more risk yields more reward, but there are times when it doesn't happen (for example, playing safer and reaching further in the game, alive, yielding more points than risking yourself and failing, provided that you've chosen to take more risks during your run, in average)

As Ive just posted in another thread I revisted my old favorites that i played when 1st getting into shmups. It highlighted how my playstyle has changed and helped bring to light some of my strengths and weeknesses. My most major weakness been that I play too aggresivly allot of the time and take too much risk even when i dont need to. This is why my 1CCs take so bloody long as when Im working out scoring routes instead of pure suvival routes.