How long does it takes to get a World Record?

[endoKarb]

I was asking myself this question and wanted some precise numbers, so I looked up the most up to date Arcadia scores I could find (here) and did some researching. I have only checked CAVE games in depth for now.

Here are some interesting facts:


- The two fastest WR still holding are Futari BL Maniac Reco by Clover-TAC and Pink Sweets Lace by YOS. K. Both took 7 months from the release date.


- The fastest 2-loop WR is the Muchi Muchi Pork! Pink 2-ALL just 8 month after the game came out. Outside of Yagawa-ish stuff chrono's DFK 1.5 Ura A-Strong WR took 18 months.


- As for the WR which took the longest, SOF-WTN and JMB current DonPachi WR, with Type A and Type C respectively, appeared on the Arcadia magazine only a whooping SIXTEEN years after the game release. H.S. posted a score pretty close to JMB's one though, and only 2 years after DonPachi was released. Maybe WTN and JMB took a really long time to submit their scores, but achieved them much earlier


- Overall, Ketsui and Progear appear to be the hardest games by CAVE. All the current Ketsui WR took at least 7 years to be reached, with the Type B Omote WR taking 10. The Progear WR by R. required almost 11 years of practice. Ibara and Espgaluda II take the cake for the most complex single loop game, with scores still being updated 6/7 years after they were released.


- Six years is also apparently what it took for Clover-TAC and WSM-MKZ to get the current Esp Ra.De WR. That one really surprised me.


- In less then 1 year, Guwange had already been counter stopped by Yusemi-SWY with Shishin. The other counterstop would not be achieved until 5 years later.


- Futari BL Maniac mode appears to have much less depth than the other two modes. The WR scores haven't been updated since 1 year and a half after the game release, while the competition for the other categories continues to this day.


- No Battle Garegga WR is older than 2011. If you're aiming for a WR in that game, prepare to practice at least 15 years! All the others Yagawa games also have really recent scores, testifying the very high complexity of the genre.


- Many Psikyo games still have active competition. Apparently they are pretty though to optimize, even though they often have very straightforward scoring mechanics.


- The average time to get a WR in a CAVE game appears to be roughly three and a half years. I'd estimate that even the best players take about 4-6 months before they start submitting WR class scores.

I was quite surprised to find just how long it takes to get a really good score. Even a very simple game like Mushi Original took more than an year and a half to be optimized. I think the longest time I have spent practicing the same shmup regularly is ~20 days.

[Hagane]

Not sure if a recent WR on an old game means that the WR holder has been playing that game consistently since it was released. Most of the time it's much less time than that probably.

Psikyo games are indeed very hard to optimize. Even though the majority of your numerical score comes from advancing in the game, score progression beyond basic survival is extremely difficult. At higher levels, a 50,000 - 100,000 score increase is HUGE. A lot of people overlook this and think the games are shallow for score play.

[endoKarb]

Not sure if a recent WR on an old game means that the WR holder has been playing that game consistently since it was released. Most of the time it's much less time than that probably.

I know for a fact that the Garegga WR holder Kamui has been playing the game since release. Yozu and Clover-TAC have also probably played Espgaluda II and Esp Ra.De. (respectively), without too much interruption, for a good 6 years.

In many other cases, it's hard to tell.

What is sure is that top player spend a good 12-24 months playing consistently after a game that interested them is released, and sometimes much longer than that.

Clover-TAC is still practicing A-Shot in SaiDaiOuJou right now, and it's likely he has been doing so since the game was released last year.

I really wonder how does he keeps the motivation. He already holds the WR in that category and can No Miss up to Hibachi consistently. I think most people would just call it a win and go do something else.

Psikyo games are indeed very hard to optimize. Even though the majority of your numerical score comes from advancing in the game, score progression beyond basic survival is extremely difficult. At higher levels, a 50,000 - 100,000 score increase is HUGE. A lot of people overlook this and think the games are shallow for score play.

I was very pleased to discover that.

The thing that really surprised me is that it appears that most of the time it's the games by CAVE which turn out to have the lowest depth in regard to scoring.

I am really curious how long it took for the top wester player to achieve their scores and how they compare to the Japanese. I assume the Japanese improve much faster because of the very active community they have.
Most of them don't use emulators or save state to optimize their practice though, so who knows.

[Eaglet]

I assume the Japanese improve much faster because of the very active community they have.

That and availability.
Being able to walk into pretty much any game center in Tokyo and see high level play (or why not WR-holders at HEY/Ebi-cen) gives you a lot greater exposure to what you should do in order to excell at a game. Seeing the top players make mistakes and how they handle these is pretty much the most learning experience you can get when it comes to STGs. Something you don't get in superplay DVDs.

[Ed Oscuro]

What is encouraging is that new scores continue to be made for old games. It would be nice to see numbers for the initial, no-joke WR attempts though.

[Casey120]

If I recall correctly from the 100 Yen movie Clover-Tac has spend about 1600 credits on SDOJ just in the first month of release .
And he pays for them in the actual Arcade to make them all count .


Good Luck !

[Erppo]

While the data here is certainly interesting, I don't think you can make that many conclusions from it. For example, the fact that the DFK A-S record still stands is probably more of a case that nobody has been playing that particular ship and less of the old record being so good. The scores for the other Strong ships have been improved a lot recently and are currently way past the A score and I don't believe the ships have that big potential differences.

Psikyo games also tend to have multiple ships with many of them quite unpopular. I would guess that the scores for the "main" ships have been steady for pretty long? Ketsui Omote is similarly an unpopular category, with most of the top level attention going to Ura.

In any case the very highest scores for many game seem to come from different individuals who continue playing the games long past the usual top players who hold (or have held) records for multiple games have moved to something else. Because of that, I don't know how meaningful information you can get by comparing them with each other. It's still interesting so thanks for going through this.

[endoKarb]

Psikyo games also tend to have multiple ships with many of them quite unpopular. I would guess that the scores for the "main" ships have been steady for pretty long? Ketsui Omote is similarly an unpopular category, with most of the top level attention going to Ura.

I would have assumed the same, but, interestingly enough, categories such as Ketsui Omote, DFK 1.5 Omote and Deathsmiles No-EX which are very unpopular here in the west all have very recent WR, along with some older ones.
Apparently they still recieve a good amount of attention in Japan.

• Ketsui - Type A Omote - 504.404.889 - 05/2012
  Ketsui - Type B Omote - 454.777.765 - 02/2013
  Deathsmiles - Rosa No-EX - 551.531.889 - 08/2012

On the Psikyo side of things, the WR for the highest scoring ships is often the most recent, point to a still ongoing intrest in these games IMHO, especially with the Strikers game:

• Strikers 1945 - P38 - 2.350.400 - 02/2007
  Strikers 1945 II - Hayate - 3.424.100 - 02/2013
  Strikers 1999 - X-36 - 3.554.600 - 09/2012
  Dragon Blaze - Quaid - 4.179.500 - 07/2011
  Dragon Blaze - Sonia - 4.013.500 - 04/2013

I was really surprised to see so many recent scores in Psikyo games while many CAVE titles (Espgaluda, Mushi, Futari 1.5, Ra.De., Dangun, DOJ BL) haven't recieved any new scores in years.

In any case the very highest scores for many game seem to come from different individuals who continue playing the games long past the usual top players who hold (or have held) records for multiple games have moved to something else. Because of that, I don't know how meaningful information you can get by comparing them with each other.

Yes I definitely agree.

It's still interesting so thanks for going through this.

It was just personal curiosity. Glad you appreciate.

The thing that surprised me the most is that games that are easy as far as survival is concerned but have complex scoring mechanics (Galuda, Akai Katana, Mushi/Futari Maniac) get figured out much faster than other much harder but straightfoward games (like Psikyo).

[DEL]

endoKarb wrote;

- The average time to get a WR in a CAVE game appears to be roughly three and a half years.

You and I were talking about this stuff when we were waiting for NAK's God Mode run at Stunfest (or was it Kamui's run?).
Its at least heartening to know that it takes Japanese players years to perfect each game. So although they do have Godlike skillz, it takes them MONDO-HOURS to achieve the level of finesse we eventually see.
Clover-TAC admits he plays all day, Kamui - 10 hours per day
You cannot catch-up with this. Not unless you have nothing else in your life.

Like we were discussing in Rennes, the road to optimizing a hard game is a long one and there is no short-cut. Replays help but....its all about the man-hours.

[Ganelon]

I think measuring playtime in hours is ideal. When you measure in years, some folks misunderstand the actual effort involved. Someone might have played Raiden for a "decade" but that doesn't mean he spent even 0.1% of that decade actual playing the game. I know I've heard that a lot in the fighting game community where someone has played lightly for 10 years and wonders why he's still stuck in mediocrity.

There are definitely different paths of varying lengths though. Learning from others can potentially save huge chunks of time. I applaud folks who play new games and discover the tricks that are passed on to others. Alternatively, if you grind mindlessly without making an active effort to improve, you could spend a long time and achieve little (personal experience on this one). But yeah, in any case, it's not the difference between a walk in the jungle and a walk in the park; you're stuck in the jungle either way.

While this topic has some cool facts, I wonder how many hours players took to achieve these records. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour road towards becoming an expert seems reasonable to me but I'm not sure any of the top players could claim to have played a single game that long.

[CloudyMusic]

- Futari BL Maniac mode appears to have much less depth than the other two modes. The WR scores haven't been updated since 1 year and a half after the game release, while the competition for the other categories continues to this day.

I would guess that the fact that BL Maniac's mechanics are so similar to God has something to do with it. If you're good enough to compete in God mode, I could see why Maniac wouldn't seem as interesting. Just my guess, though.

[Hagane]

• Strikers 1945 - P38 - 2.350.400 - 02/2007
  Strikers 1945 II - Hayate - 3.424.100 - 02/2013
  Strikers 1999 - X-36 - 3.554.600 - 09/2012
  Dragon Blaze - Quaid - 4.179.500 - 07/2011
  Dragon Blaze - Sonia - 4.013.500 - 04/2013

Ayin and Katana (Sengoku Blade) have been getting scores frequently too.

I don't know if it's because Psikyo games are deeper though (that's hard to measure). Maybe some Cave games haven't been getting new WRs because people haven't figured a way to beat those scores yet (but the possibility is there), or with so many newer Cave games most people stick to those? If you want to play a Psikyo game, you have no choice but to play 10+ year old titles.

the road to optimizing a hard game is a long one and there is no short-cut. Replays help but....its all about the man-hours.

Of course it's hard, but this shouldn't lead to self defeatist thoughts like that. Man hours help to get there faster (depends on how you use those hours though, as Ganelon said), but no one forces you to play 10 hours to get to WR level in a couple of years. You could play less and reach that level later, and every tool you can get to speed things up (practice modes/savestates, guides, replays) does make a difference.

[brokenhalo]

some things that might effect the numbers here. 1.) some of the older games that are getting wr updates aren't necessarily due to competition, but to obsessives who wont play anything else and keep beating their own world records (ketsui, ibara, garegga, progear). 2.) maybe the reason cave games are "maxed out" so quickly is because there is more competition and people are going harder on those games in a shorter amount of time. probably because there's a new cave game every year or so and the top players move on to the next thing.

if cave ever goes under i'm sure people will be more apt to go back and start beating the old world records again. if you're a huge psikyo guy, there are no new games, so you have no choice but to work on an old game

[ArrogantBastard]

It took me 5+ years to get 2-ALL and 200m+ score in Progear.

Edit: The game is responsible for me never picking up or playing another shmups game again. I can't remember when was the last time I've played a shmup game, and I know it's been over two years now. Too burnt out and sick of the genre.

[DrTrouserPlank]

World records take obsessive dedication to the point of complete isolation from the outside world. The timescale as in how many months it takes is a bit irrelevant. You need to be playing 5-10 hours every day without fail. It will take months as well, but its not about the months and weeks.

Every day... practice.. practice.. practice. Practice until you literally see the game when you close your eyes. Practice until you hate the game. It's not a game anymore; it's your life.

1CC and WR's have this in common. There's so much BS on here about how people clear game on their "first credit"... sure pal.

Go read Gus' essay on his Futari ultra score. Gus wasted a stupid amount of his life playing that game and the hatred towards it is evident in what he wrote, but at least he's honest about the time he invested in it.

WR's are a job. There's no fun or anything else in them. Think that 5 hours a day is enough?... there's someone somewhere doing 7 hours. Think 7 hours a day is enough? there's someone somewhere doing 10 hours. Think 10 hours a day is enough?..........

[matrigs]

FIXED

World records take obsessive dedication to the point of complete isolation from the outside world. The timescale as in how many months it takes is a bit irrelevant. You need to be exercising 5-10 hours every day without fail. It will take months as well, but its not about the months and weeks.

Every day... practice.. practice.. practice. Practice until you literally see the field when you close your eyes. Practice until you hate it. It's not a sport anymore; it's your life.

championships and world cups have this in common. There's so much BS on here about how people score on their "first match"... sure pal.

EVER heard of the word "dedication"? that's so sad it's sickening, man.

[endoKarb]

1.) some of the older games that are getting wr updates aren't necessarily due to competition, but to obsessives who wont play anything else and keep beating their own world records (ketsui, ibara, garegga, progear)

I think all the people who where in Rennes can confirm that there was nothing obsessive about Kamui. She just really loves the game and has a lot of fun while playing.

How that is possible after more than a decade of playing the same game really is beyond me though.

Its at least heartening to know that it takes Japanese players years to perfect each game. So although they do have Godlike skillz, it takes them MONDO-HOURS to achieve the level of finesse we eventually see.

Yes, that's in the end kinda the reason I did all this research, to remind myself that it takes a REALLY LONG time to get good, and consequently to a bit more patient with my mistakes.

Hopefully this will help others get some prespective on the sheer magnitude of these kind of achievements.

[Uzumakijl]

Adding to what matrigs i find it pretty cute that DrTrouserPlank thinks anybody would be stupid enough to stick with a game for 10 years if it was a chore. The main thing that made these people get WRs and stuff was LOVE towards the game and the genre itself (in some cases), no one would be playing anything if they didn't find it enjoyable, it applies to pretty much every kind of hobby.

As for the topic itself, i just want to point out that the "fast" WR's...

- The two fastest WR still holding are Futari BL Maniac Reco by Clover-TAC and Pink Sweets Lace by YOS. K. Both took 7 months from the release date.

Were made by players with many many years of experience too and i'm pretty sure they can translate quite some of their skills in another game towards different ones

[DEL]

Hagane wrote;

Of course it's hard, but this shouldn't lead to self defeatist thoughts like that.

Huh?
What?
There was nothing self defeatist about that comment at all. It was just a statement of fact. That it takes many man-hours. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm totally positive, not defeatist at all. The question as to whether I'd like to spend 3 and a half years perfecting one game is another thing. ArrogantBastard explains the reasons for being cautious very well:-

It took me 5+ years to get 2-ALL and 200m+ score in Progear.

Edit: The game is responsible for me never picking up or playing another shmups game again. I can't remember when was the last time I've played a shmup game, and I know it's been over two years now. Too burnt out and sick of the genre.

It reminds me of a guy I used to weight train with, who would overtrain, spending 2+hrs on each session. It had the effect of scaring him off.
The old phrase "Everything in moderation" springs to mind.
EndoKarb explains how Kamui avoids this overtraining problem:-

I think all the people who where in Rennes can confirm that there was nothing obsessive about Kamui. She just really loves the game and has a lot of fun while playing.

[ArrogantBastard]

It reminds me of a guy I used to weight train with, who would overtrain, spending 2+hrs on each session. It had the effect of scaring him off.
The old phrase "Everything in moderation" springs to mind.

Yeah. I was obsessed and loved Progear a lot that I invested a lot of my time into it, but it ended up making me a hermit and obsessed in greater details on how to improve and maximize my goals I had set for the game when I wasn't competing with anyone at all since there wasn't any Westerner who would give me a run for my score other than sikraiken himself. I can't remember what kind of bad shit I had to endure during my Progear years, but it definitely had an effect on my mental health and relationship with everyone outside of video games. Thanks to Progear, I have pretty much grown out of playing video games, and since achieving the last Western record score for Progear, I decided to invest my time and a portion of my life into starting up two business ventures which leaves me little to no time / desire to play any sort of video games.

Not everyone is going to agree with me, but it's definitely everything in moderation.

Edit: I still get messages or emails from people to this day telling me to come to one of shmup meets or offering to me money to record a Progear run, and my response has always been a resounding no and I've retired from the genre. I just can't bring myself to get back to playing the game and it makes me sick thinking about it. Lol

[ancestral-knowledge]

@ArrogantBastard: A quick question: You said you quitted the shmup genre altogether because of Progear no Arashi. Why are you still active on this forum then? No offense intended.

[ArrogantBastard]

Force of habit. I rarely post here, and the same goes for other forums I'm a member of. I lurk and read a lot.

[RNGmaster]

Edit: I still get messages or emails from people to this day telling me to come to one of shmup meets or offering to me money to record a Progear run, and my response has always been a resounding no and I've retired from the genre. I just can't bring myself to get back to playing the game and it makes me sick thinking about it. Lol

I clearly remember doing this, sorry dude. But thanks for giving us an idea of what your experience was like - it's good to have perspective on high-level play that counters the really facile "GO FULL SHMUP" view that's been in vogue these days, which I think is kind of harmful. I can't imagine running a game that hard because I don't ever want to grow sick of these games or start to hate them.

I believe it's definitely possible to get a WR without making the game your entire life, it's just unlikely that someone in the arcade scene will do that, since there will be other players with even more free time working hard to beat you. It's a situation that encourages and even requires this sort of obsession.

[Hagane]

Games are about having fun, even if you want to go for a WR. If you ever get to a point where you are making your life miserable (like Gus), you have to stop playing and go see a doctor. That obsessive behavior probably won't stop even if you don't channel it to games.

[RNGmaster]

shots fired

I don't like that people joke about the "going full shmup" thing. Partially because it's a retarded catch phrase that exists so shmups forumites feel like they have some sort of culture and injokes, and partly because it is legitimately counterproductive and harmful. Go half shmup if you must, no more. That way lies madness.

[Uzumakijl]

If you truly love something you won't even notice that you've invested your everything on it and there won't be any reason for it to ever get old

[Ed Oscuro]

Thanks for the perspective, ArrogantB!

Games are about having fun, even if you want to go for a WR. If you ever get to a point where you are making your life miserable (like Gus), you have to stop playing and go see a doctor. That obsessive behavior probably won't stop even if you don't channel it to games.

Not so, it's really a matter of what kind of inputs you're getting from your behavior. I mean, people are damn obsessed[i/i] with eating, every day; they just don't stop for some reason. Of course, being a process in support of biological functioning, it's reasonable to keep doing it. Running two businesses would definitely take a lot of time but it's not necessarily going to hurt your mental health, especially as there are a lot more things to consider and come to grips in the course of real life than in the world of Progear (or almost any video arcade game). You can know Progear inside and out and never be surprised with anything. Unlike gods, total knowledge doesn't suit the human mentality very well, it makes us feel like we're seeing a wall at the edge of existence and that makes us uneasy at best.

Uzumakijl: So let's say that you truly love pressing a button and seeing the word "HIT!" on the screen. You sit there, doing nothing but that - that qualifies as "investing everything" into it - yet the experience never changes. Shmups have something like a factorial progression in the number of actual possible output states (i.e. frames seen), but at the same time they are usually heavily scripted and designed so that the actual number of experienced states is much less. And so when the choice is boiling down to essentially - do I shoot the enemy now, or maybe a few seconds later? - it's certainly not unpredictable.

Also, as I note above, arcade games in general differ from many other kinds of beloved activities because, as good as they are, they tend to have a very set kind of reward schedule. You don't win money or love from an arcade game alone.

[Ganelon]

I believe it's definitely possible to get a WR without making the game your entire life, it's just unlikely that someone in the arcade scene will do that, since there will be other players with even more free time working hard to beat you. It's a situation that encourages and even requires this sort of obsession.

While you don't need to devote your entire life, I've actually never heard of any gaming expert (among a couple dozen) that hasn't devoted 6+ hours a day at some point. That's in addition to the thousands of hours practice. Interestingly, I've never met anyone that just consistently played 2 hours a day over a long period of time and got really good. I suppose there needs to be a drive at some point that pushes you to become good.

Some folks may not have the mental fortitude to either practice that much (over 99% of players) or to keep the rest of their lives in order. The latter seems like an uncommon psychological situation triggered by obsessiveness that doesn't seem to happen in the majority of cases; perhaps this scenario happens more with shooters because it's such a lonely competition.

As for drive, it's important to not feel like you're slaving yourself but I would reword "fun" as "love of the game." At a tourney for example, I wouldn't really say the actual matches are fun; I go to support the game, prove my abilities in the game, and meet other fans of the game. If you're not loving the game, then you may want to consider stopping.

[Yield]

If you're going to go for a world record, at least make it something in which you'll reap some recognition, like most amount of raw algae eaten in one sitting.

Even with a SHMUP world record, you'd go unnoticed to everyone except for that guy with the bushy backhair and pink bodysuit.

And by the time you get that world record, you'll look into the mirror and realize that guy is you.

[RNGmaster]

While you don't need to devote your entire life, I've actually never heard of any gaming expert (among a couple dozen) that hasn't devoted 6+ hours a day at some point. That's in addition to the thousands of hours practice. Interestingly, I've never met anyone that just consistently played 2 hours a day over a long period of time and got really good. I suppose there needs to be a drive at some point that pushes you to become good.

Prometheus said his max daily play during the most intense times of his shmup attempts was 3 hours, and I'd say he's a pretty good player. Of course, I don't know if that was the case for his StarCraft play or his more recent DOJ scoring.