How long does it takes to get a World Record?

[wasurechan]

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?..........

do you have a link for Gus' essay on his Futari ultra score? thanks

[AntiFritz]

It was in this post.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 33#p869733

[O. Van Bruce]

I think that making a big score isn't the way to go if you want take your gaming experience "further". Yeah, you can have a great sense of satisfaction by getting a bigger score but competition on popular games like Ketsui or Dai-Ou-Jou is so big and vicious that you may wreck your live only for getting some numbers on a screen.

The other factor why people may try to reach those high scores may be getting the acknowledgement of the comunity but there are safer and more productive ways to get that like helping other people get their 1cc's and providing then with safe ways to improve.

Now, if you really like the feeling of difficulty that comes from improving yourself constantly in a game you like then go for a WR. The main issue here can be getting obsesed so staying in contact with normal people or the comunity and taking their recomendations could save your soul from falling to Tartarus.

[endoKarb]

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.

In my experience, that is REALLY REALLY hard to do.

If you can keep up a slow and constant pace, result are absolutely guaranteed to show up. But the temptation to "binge practice" has always been to strong for me and regularly killed my will to continue practicing.

Ultimatly getting a WR class score has nothing to do with playing 100+ hours a day. It's just about starting a game, and never ever stopping. Even when progress starts slowing down to a crawl.

Even if all you can manage is a couple hour of practice a week (who doesn't have time for that), eventually one gets there.

Of course we can just tag all good players as antisocial obsessive-compulsive wrecks and condone compulsive game-switching and lack of focus and dedication as prefectly healthy and normal behavior. Apparently it's really popular mentality around here.

[Casey120]

Of course we can just tag all good players as antisocial obsessive-compulsive wrecks

After just reading part of Gus' essay on Futari Ultra that conclusion crossed my mind a second but then I see people like Clover-Tac being very social and friendly ....

[Drachenherz]

Having dedication for something usually is a comendable thing. But for me, investing so much time, dedication and lifeblood into something that gives me so little in return (except some very intense feelings of exhiliration/short-timed joy) is nonsensical.

I'm no stranger to enduring pain, suffering and hard times, but never in my life would I invest all this energy in a game. Or in a sport. Or even in the job.

But for my family, my friends and even for a stranger in a real need, I am willing to take quite some suffering and hardship on me.

Why? Because... For me, in such situations, I actually receive more than I give. It gives meaning to my life, it fulfills me on a level that material gain or fame and fortune cannot even compare with.

But to each his or her own, if going fo a WR gives you this kind of... Satisfaction? Meaning? Then go for it. But don't forget your peace of mind. Because: there are always people who will be better, who will push harder, who will invest more time, energy and lifeblood than you.

This has one fatal disadvantage that can really ruin ones life: it leads to a state of being of never being completely happy with what you have, with what you are - always striving to be better. Always striving to BECOME something instead of BEING. Always looking for something, never really fulfilling the craving for something, anything. Instead of treasuring and cherrishing what you already have.

Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on people who have this kind of dedication to go after a world record. But I just want to raise a question:

Is it worth it?

[Kollision]

After just reading part of Gus' essay on Futari Ultra that conclusion crossed my mind a second but then I see people like Clover-Tac being very social and friendly ....

Well, it's easy to be like that when you're the star of the show.

[endoKarb]

Having dedication for something usually is a comendable thing. But for me, investing so much time, dedication and lifeblood into something that gives me so little in return (except some very intense feelings of exhiliration/short-timed joy) is nonsensical.

I'm no stranger to enduring pain, suffering and hard times, but never in my life would I invest all this energy in a game. Or in a sport. Or even in the job.

But for my family, my friends and even for a stranger in a real need, I am willing to take quite some suffering and hardship on me.

Why? Because... For me, in such situations, I actually receive more than I give. It gives meaning to my life, it fulfills me on a level that material gain or fame and fortune cannot even compare with.

But to each his or her own, if going fo a WR gives you this kind of... Satisfaction? Meaning? Then go for it. But don't forget your peace of mind. Because: there are always people who will be better, who will push harder, who will invest more time, energy and lifeblood than you.

This has one fatal disadvantage that can really ruin ones life: it leads to a state of being of never being completely happy with what you have, with what you are - always striving to be better. Always striving to BECOME something instead of BEING. Always looking for something, never really fulfilling the craving for something, anything. Instead of treasuring and cherrishing what you already have.

Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on people who have this kind of dedication to go after a world record. But I just want to raise a question:

Is it worth it?

Ok...

Here's a silly pic of Kamui to make you feel better

http://viewfinder.thestudio-uk.com/game ... 50.jpg.php

[Drachenherz]

http://viewfinder.thestudio-uk.com/game ... 50.jpg.php

What stick-holding technique is that?

[Casey120]

Well, it's easy to be like that when you're the star of the show.

I heard he took time for everyone at stunfest festival !

[Erppo]

Of course we can just tag all good players as antisocial obsessive-compulsive wrecks and condone compulsive game-switching and lack of focus and dedication as prefectly healthy and normal behavior. Apparently it's really popular mentality around here.

I completely agree. I find a lot of the mentality displayed here pretty stupid and wish people would be more open-minded in a forum that's supposed to be about shmups.

What I also wish is that people could tell apart simply learning to play something well, and playing something at the very highest level. The difference between those two is enormous, probably even bigger than the one between moderately well and badly. I don't find you usually need all that much work and dedication to learn to play a game "well", at least after you have gathered enough basic experience. It's hard to define what I mean about that but if you pick an average Cave game, you're playing it "well" when you can clear it and execute a good scoring strategy at a basic level while doing that. To really master the game from there, you will need to start optimizing every little detail of the previous strategy and be able to do all that with a fair amount of consistency, since you're going to want to get 100% of that right some time. That's a huge step above from just doing everything with possibly couple of failures and overall less than optimal gain.

Personally, I rarely find the motivation to focus on a single game for extended periods. I just enjoy the process of learning a game from scratch so much I often feel compelled to switch at some point. However I can fully understand people have different personalities and I'm sure some people find focusing on one game to completely master it more satisfying. These are the people who will eventually get the top scores and I really don't think most of them don't enjoy doing it.

[Icarus]

I get the feeling that about 90% of this forum pick up a controller, herpaderp and flail about while going "wheeeeeeee, explosions!" like a six year old child on a massive sugar rush for a few hours, and call that "practice".

There's a big difference between playing something, and playing it well. The most important thing is how you make use of your time when you sit down with controller in hand for your next session. High level players have probably spent these "years" refining coordination, control, and execution to a level far beyond anyone else.

I also don't understand the correlation between high class play and antisocial behaviour: the people I've met that play at the top end of the ladder not only have time to manage jobs and relationships, but are very outgoing and sociable. By all means, continue to use it as an excuse for how mediocre you are at playing, but understand that not everyone becomes a hermit in the pursuit of excellence.

[Hagane]

By all means, continue to use it as an excuse for how mediocre you are at playing, but understand that not everyone becomes a hermit in the pursuit of excellence.

This should definitely be stressed. It's very sad to see people find whatever excuse they can come up with to lessen other player's abilities or justify your lack of results. No one becomes a hermit for striving to improve; you become one because you have an antisocial nature.

It's fine if you don't care about improving your game, everybody has different ways to enjoy stuff. But finding such excuses is the polar opposite of the "FULL SHMUP" philosophy and equally sad.

[matrigs]

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.

Try, just for a minute, to get inside the mind of Gus or Prometheus or any other professional player or player who has achieved a WR or at least a half-decent score.

Everything, absolutely EVERYTHING there is about shmups has been discussed, said and done. There are strategy guides for every game, youtube replays, a few hundred pages with discussions about any single shmup ever produced. There is Prometheus' guide for noobs, as well as dozens of topics about how to get better for advanced players.

And still nearly every week there is a discussion on this forum on "how to get better at shmups", which usually starts from "i suck at shmups - what do".

Now, what i'm getting at is: What are these pro players supposed to say? People are either to stupid to use the search function or unable to read, or have any other major disfunction which completely disqualifies them from playing shmups in the first place.

The absolutely ONLY thing they can tell them is "go full shmup". And see - it works. "go full shmup" is the perfect slogan. Dummies have something to think about. It's perfectly vague and undefined and yet i see whole essays on this topic. It's the goddamn EVANGELION of gaming.

Truth is - "go full shmup" doesn't even define anything. It doesn't even specify how much time you have to invest. It just means to take the game serious - the same as any other thing that someone wants to be good at.

I thing that what mainly grinds the gears of pros taking shmups serious is, that for some reason, a lot of people are right out forcing themselves to play them even when they suck at it, somehow trying to convince themselves it's "just a game" for casuals. Now that, is wrong. Shmups are by design (well, the majority) meant to be difficult. Why doesn't anyone ridicule someone wanting to climb the Mt. Everest in two days? Well that's because those people are dead.

Furthermore, instead of showing some respect to these few good players they are mostly ridiculed as being "no-lives".

"go full shmup" is far from being ignorant. People asking about it are.

[O. Van Bruce]

Some people here are taking the definitions about shmups made by Trouserplank and are putting then in a lot of people's mouths.

Anyway, people tend to think only no-lives can get those uber records because they haven't tried to get a little more serious about the games.

The question is not if people that play at higher level are no-lives; it is how you can become a high level player without becoming a no-life...

We have no way to know if the majority of super players are normal people or not since probably those no-lives stay on the shadows or only show their achievements on the scoreboards and not in person. The best you can do is try showing people how you can become a good player in a healthy way.

Finally, about how people ask the same stuff again and again, I'll just refloat this thread:

[Drake]

This has one fatal disadvantage that can really ruin ones life: it leads to a state of being of never being completely happy with what you have, with what you are - always striving to be better. Always striving to BECOME something instead of BEING. Always looking for something, never really fulfilling the craving for something, anything. Instead of treasuring and cherrishing what you already have.

You can be perfectly content with what you already have, but still strive for what's beyond. You can do this forever, and always be perfectly content with what you have. Continually striving towards a goal does not mean you can't appreciate whatever you've already accomplished, and I'd reverse that notion entirely. Being happy with what you have to the point where you have no inclination to continue improving, is one of the sorriest states of all in my opinion.

[Uzumakijl]

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.

Well, I can't particularly speak for any superplayers really as my list of game related achievements is pretty small but rather significant to me.

I have few examples on top of my mind (The years i spent playing Jump Ultimate Stars online to the point where i could beat hackers with infinite Special Bars and infinite HP <You had to ring them out> and things like that and the years i still spend on Pump It Up! <Korean DDR>) and i haven't gotten bored of any of those.

As a more recent example, I have 1829 hours on Dota 2 and there's times when i would play 8 hours a day on weekends and 4~6 hours on weekdays but i had to stop due to quite some reasons (mental health, sleep schedules) and i know this are horrendous examples since these games seem much more open than "linear" shmups (Even though i don't consider any of them linear since they always have hidden mechanics and stuff like that) but to this day i've spent almost 2000 hours on Dota 2 and it hasn't gotten old in the slightest, I've been on every skill pool (Low-Normal-High-Very High all which had 3 individual skill tiers) and i can tell you there were some ridiculous parts like getting out of the medium tier of normal and the last tier of high (Both horrendous and some of the worst experiences i've ever had <Racism, everyone thinks they are amazing and overall snob attitude> and so far my biggest achievement was being in the same pool as a pro player (Also got paired with him in matchmaking) and the skill ceiling in this particular game is way bigger than anything else i had played before and i feel like achieving 100% mastery of the game would take a lifetime, part of this is why i enjoy it so much, the other being the competitive aspect of it.

Personally i doubt anybody who spends actual time, even mashing a single button on anything can be brainless enough to never get anywhere with it, folding towels, cutting paper, any mind boggling activity has even a little bit of depth to it and some tricks that you learn just with time and achieve some degree of mastery to it.

Maybe shmups are quite predictable and you could dissect an entire game to know it inside out, but the creativity to do it efficiently is something that very few people want to use. Mashing against a wall will get you somewhere eventually but there's many smarter ways around it.

Anyways i sincerely hope this doesn't come off as completely offtopic since i'm just trying to explain how some people can devote themselves to a certain videogame just because they like it, part of liking it starts that healthy obsession of wanting to know every little detail behind it and i don't particularly see a problem with that, people get scared about how Clover-TAC can play SDOJ all day but i think they are taking it too literal, he also eats, does whatever work he needs to do, uses the toilet and does all the common things someone can do, thing is, maybe he doesn't spends a couple hours of TV a day or watches movies or does whatever other activity besides playing shmups because he would rather spend his time on shmups because he wants to, no one is forcing him to do so and i'm sure if he was tired/bored/frustrated he could do any other activity he wanted to, he's not chained to SDOJ by necessity or anything, he does it out of enjoyment.

Maybe i'm one of those shallow people that get enjoyment from "simple" things like videogames rather than "complicated" life matters, and i'm not lying when i say that i think the MON DOJDL 2-ALL run is about as impressive (if not more) as other "important" feats you could achieve on life.

[RNGmaster]

Truth is - "go full shmup" doesn't even define anything. It doesn't even specify how much time you have to invest. It just means to take the game serious - the same as any other thing that someone wants to be good at.

I agree with what you're saying except for this. I've only seen that phrase used in reference to making shmups the sole priority in your life and devoting ungodly amounts of effort to them.

oh and this

Try, just for a minute, to get inside the mind of Gus or Prometheus or any other professional player or player who has achieved a WR or at least a half-decent score.

I like to think one or two of my scores are half-decent

However I can fully understand people have different personalities and I'm sure some people find focusing on one game to completely master it more satisfying. These are the people who will eventually get the top scores and I really don't think most of them don't enjoy doing it.

I think that part of being a World-record tier player, as I was ranting about in some IRC channel recently, is not being able to be satisfied with your accomplishments. To be able to attain that level you have to be able to criticize every single thing you can do. I know of a few Touhou players who set WRs, fucking WRs, and didn't upload the replay because they were ashamed of one or two mistakes in it. To be able to say that something 99.9% of the playing community wouldn't have a chance of pulling off somehow isn't worth seeing, that sends me a message that these guys will never be happy with their play. So why continue to play if you will always be unsatisfied? It seems like a vicious cycle of self-hatred to me.

I respect high-level play, I just think that most really good players are kind of depressing people to be around, and for that reason I'm not really interested in taking my play to a high level. I don't want to have a shitload of crazy accomplishment and claim they're nothing special like some of the Touhou guys do. I find I'm happiest being mediocre and not pinning too much of my self-worth on how I do at these games.

[pestro87]

So why continue to play if you will always be unsatisfied?

There's an enormous difference between thinking:

a) "Man, I did pretty bad at that section. I'm horrible at this game..."

and...

b) "Man, I did pretty bad at that section. I need to practice it because I want to get better"

Whenever I see aspects of my playing that I'm unsatisfied with (in a game that I really like), I feel a bit of happiness because that means that I haven't fully mastered the game and it gives me a reason to keep playing it.

EDIT: It also brings happiness to me as I feel myself get better at those sections that I weren't satisfied with earlier.

[Ed Oscuro]

Some people here are taking the definitions about shmups made by Trouserplank and are putting then in a lot of people's mouths.

This, so much.

I almost went out and criticized Planky's post to ward off some of the obvious strawmanning that would start in earnest, but didn't want to bring too much attention to it. However seeing Icarus' also rather thoughtless and entirely point-missing post has me wondering what anybody can do about it. However:

I also don't understand the correlation between high class play and antisocial behaviour: the people I've met that play at the top end of the ladder not only have time to manage jobs and relationships, but are very outgoing and sociable. By all means, continue to use it as an excuse for how mediocre you are at playing, but understand that not everyone becomes a hermit in the pursuit of excellence.

Your logic is flawed. A collection of anecdotes about the few WR players in no way disproves a correlation. Your argument is essentially of the format "I heard that 90% of people like Coke - I know people who don't like Coke - therefore whoever said that doesn't know what they're talking about." Likewise, it shouldn't be assumed that if a person points out that some people don't have the temperament for long-time playing of shmups, that this is an indictment of the idea. If we could steer this discussion away from trying to blame people for their personalities - at either end of the WR temperament spectrum - and back toward strategies that could help people cope with discipline and repeated play problems, that would be great.

Following immediately from this, matrigs, I don't think the phrase "go full shmup" resolves anything. It's just a phrase which is meant to trigger, as far as I can tell, some knowledge assumed to be innate to each of us.

The most valuable piece of advice a person can get is to determine for themselves, before they even touch a joystick or keyboard, whether or not they have the patience, dedication, and a tolerance for routine. Most of the strategy discussions overlook this critical psychological factor. It seems reasonable to people who all share the same competitive mindset to not go over this piece of information, but the WR mindset is more or less foreign to many people and yet they still feel they should play well. If I were talking about people who feel that it is worthwhile to try to achieve a complete collection of things, like NES games, we probably wouldn't have so much difficulty seeing that the goals and the benefits proceeding from the goals need to be understood from the start. So, just like the simplistic phrase "go all out," if the most important information a person needs isn't out there, it's of no use.

And what means "going full shmup?" If it means "play for 12 hours a day," in Planky's ridiculously simplistic view of it, you can see that a person can fail to fit the strategy to their own person. Motivation and play isn't just a "have it / don't have it" switch that you can flip with the right application of knowledge at the right time. It's more like a bunch of dials; crank something to eleven and you're likely falling short somewhere else. It's hard to see how the phrase "go full shmup" means anything other than "absolute rights" are discussed by extreme libertarians. Playing all day or having rights means that you are trading away some other things which are actually good. More time in front of the machine is less time to grow and learn in other aspects of life. Is that bad? Well, not necessarily. However it is bad to argue that there's nothing being lost.

I think we can all agree that even top players know when to take breaks and the like - not only do they know these limits, they must observe those limits. We also have to admit that getting a WR is not the only great achievement a person can attain, even in a regimented society. (So here we are arguing about philosophy and the economics of personal time instead of playing shmups.) I would leave it to each person to decide for themselves, but if a person's search for a WR ends up being too much of a time or sanity drain, they might not be taking a path that's good for them. So what if it takes a few years more to achieve a competitive score as a result, and you can only fit 5 master-level scores into your years of competitive play, instead of 6? You're still going to end that run somewhere.

[matrigs]

Truth is - "go full shmup" doesn't even define anything. It doesn't even specify how much time you have to invest. It just means to take the game serious - the same as any other thing that someone wants to be good at.

I agree with what you're saying except for this. I've only seen that phrase used in reference to making shmups the sole priority in your life and devoting ungodly amounts of effort to them.

It's a general idea. People will have different opinions on its' meaning.

Try, just for a minute, to get inside the mind of Gus or Prometheus or any other professional player or player who has achieved a WR or at least a half-decent score.

I like to think one or two of my scores are half-decent

Sorry but this was not meant to be a post directed against you. In fact before i posted it i edited it heavily as there was a huge amount of "you" and it wasn't my intention to make this personal. I don't know your scores, but i can see your post count so i bielieve you've seen some stuff.
.

[Erppo]

I know of a few Touhou players who set WRs, fucking WRs, and didn't upload the replay because they were ashamed of one or two mistakes in it.

Except you just made that up or completely failed to understand the circumstances.

[O. Van Bruce]

Is it really neccesary to argue about people we don't know, that doesn't affect our lives and doesn't restrain us from liking shmups?

We've got 2 positions here that are more closer than what we think but the missunderstanding is still here, despite being enough evidence in this thread to clear it.

Even so, both sides keep thinking the other is calling then an "omg you are a loser, go get a live" or a "don't touch me you filthy cassual". Whatever side you are, that doesn't stop us from loving the genre. Besides, Gus and Trouserplank are the only people I know in this forum that calls other people the way I mentioned before... then , Why both sides think the other is critizicing or mocking then the same way they do? let's chill out for a moment geez

As far as I'm concerned, the only issue here is the danger of shmups eating you normal life and how you can prevent it, that's all. Why not focus on that and finish this endless stream of acusations?

[Eaglet]

Not really gonna add as much as i could to this topic since Erppo and Icarus has said most of what i was gonna say but i'll just further stress the difference in investment required to reach those upper 10% of WR-scores.
Getting an E score with Golden Bat in Garegga is something that can be done with on and off practice in a year if you know what you're doing. Averaging about 4 hours a week on the game.
However getting a G/H-score requires so much optimisation and practical knowledge of the game that you have to make it one of the higher priorities in your daily life (getting at least 2 hours of practice every day) in order to even come close. The same thing is true for every other top percentile in any game.

[Bananamatic]

I know of a few Touhou players who set WRs, fucking WRs, and didn't upload the replay because they were ashamed of one or two mistakes in it.

Except you just made that up or completely failed to understand the circumstances.

it's true though

[RNGmaster]

Except you just made that up or completely failed to understand the circumstances.

I didn't want to mention the specific individual, but yeah, dot_asp set a new WR in PCB Extra which is very intensely competitive, and refused to publish the score because it contained a significant mistake. I can understand not wanting to put it on the scoreboards if you think it'd be easy for other players to beat, but I asked him for the replay and he refused. It's like he was ashamed of a fucking WR because it wasn't perfect enough, and to me that's depressing.

I've also seen people saying that having multiple Lunatic No-Bomb runs of some of the harder games in the series is "nothing special" and just requires a time investment - e.g. anyone could do them. This may be true, but it's still an accomplishment that requires a great deal of skill and time investment, and it's worth recognizing that. I think the good players are so used to being able to play at a high level that they don't recognize how remarkable that, in itself, is. Consequently they tend to undervalue their own accomplishments, and by extension, those of others. I can see some of this in myself, too. I'm very disappointed with Dragon Blaze runs that only make it to the 2-1 boss, but for most people, even making it that tiny bit into the loop would be remarkable.

[DrTrouserPlank]

Score, "ability", and success in these games is a function of time.

There's nothing more to it.

Can a player who is innately slow to pick up the genre get a WR?... yes.. with hour upon hour of obsessive dedication and practice. Some people might be able to get there faster, but like any achievement it is a result of practice; obsessive practice. The player who is lesser by nature can supersede those with more "natural" ability if he plays more than the "gifted" ones. Of course once the "gifted" players are spending 10 hours a day playing it is difficult to beat them... but therein lies the dividing line between "natural" ability and learned ability and the results it produces.

Who is willing to spend months playing a game like a job in order to get a WR?. Go watch the replays and find out. No doubt by their own omission their WR's were the result of a "couple of hours practice" and the "odd run here and there"

[Eaglet]

DTP, your problem is presenting assumptions as fact.
Your entire theory (because it's nothing more than that) is also false.
Success in anything in life is based on problem finding (i don't know how to dodge this pattern, my lats aren't strong enough for pull-ups, my stamina sucks etc.), analysing the problem in order to realise what you have to do to solve it and then apply a proper exercise regimen to develop skills (muscle, endurance etc.) to solve the problem in practice.
Mindlessly wasting several hours of your life just "putting in the hours" will quickly lead to burnout and not give you the gains you want to see.
Your mind and strength of will is what's holding you back.

Vill man så kan man.

[O. Van Bruce]

This 2 last posts perfectly resume thiis thread. Is like watching 2 persons shouting at each other having bettwen then a 15 centimeters thick glass.

[1up]

It was in this post.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 33#p869733

I think Gus wrote my favorite quote ever:
"In short, the shmupper is a man who goes full shmup."