How long does it takes to get a World Record?

[Uzumakijl]

A WR is objectively a huge achievement, but it's not anything deserving of praise or respect or recognition in my opinion.

It seems to me a lot of people play for recognition as opposed to playing for fun. It looks like a lot of people here, even some quite good players, don't actually enjoy playing that much.

So let me get this straight, Because ArrogantBastard and Gus kept playing the same thing until they got so jaded about it now the majority of players here do the same thing?

what's there to be proud of? That I dedicated over 5 years of my time into a video game? I remember telling Plasmo once via PM that "it's just a video game." No, I'm not proud of it. It's not a recognizable achievement or something worth sharing with your real life friends.

I like the part where they all play for recognition.

I hope that what you're trying to say is that a WR is something that comes naturally from being good at what you enjoy, Just look at NTSC-J, sikraiken, Plasmo, DEL, mrmonkeyman, PROMETHEUS and many other players, They acknowledge the efford they've put on their scores but i doubt most of them have those deep regrets about forcing themselves to do something, they obviously enjoy playing games.

[endoKarb]

stuff

ok, get back to me when you actually uderstand what i've written.

I'm out of this thread, thanks to the many people who shared their insight. Some of the post here are really amazing.

have fun.

[dannnnn]

EDIT: A WR is objectively a huge achievement, but it's not anything deserving of praise or respect or recognition in my opinion. That's the point I was sort of trying to make in a very very rambling and confusing way.

And the reason I think so is becuase the only way to get to such an enormous goal there is by having lots and lots of fun and loving what you do.

I'm not sure I'm following your logic. Sports are also fun, does that mean that when a nation wins the world cup, their team isn't worthy of recognition? Football is only a game after all. I doubt many professional football players had to force themselves to play everyday when they were growing up, more likely they did it simply because they loved the game. You could argue that it's different since it's their occupation, but what about all of the sponsored gamers these days? It's also their job to play Counter-Strike, SFIV, Starcraft or whatever the game may be. Do they still deserve no recognition for winning tournaments just because it's a computer game?

endoKarb, did you get anything signed by any of the Japanese superplayers at Stunfest? I'm sure many people did and I'm sure it was because they have great respect for their accomplishments. It's irrelevant to me whether or not it was their job to achieve those scores or how much fun they had doing it. I think a world record is an incredible achievement regardless and undeniably worthy of recognition. I also think there have been more than a few very respectable scores posted on these forums that were well worthy of the praise they received.

[Hagane]

Spending lots of time at whatever and getting better at it, is a remarkable thing in general and thus, of course, an achievement. I love watching people being good at something and taking it to the extreme. It impresses and entertains me.

Spending time is no skill nor remarkable by itself. How you spend that time is what makes the difference. As I said, if time was the only factor everyone would get the same results over the same period of time. You can spend 10 hours bruteforcing everything through pure memorization and getting frustrated, or you can spend those hours intelligently, actually understanding how the game works, developing strategies on the spot, consciously improving your execution, etc. Or you can even spend less and still do well later if you have a good training plan. Knowledge, thinking, execution, all those make a difference. Even though you say you are not a good gamer, you definitely have more skill than 99% of this board.

I've been playing Super Turbo for five years, and at least two I spent more than 4 hours a day playing it. I'm still a mid level player and struggle against more talented players who played it a lot less. I've played Sengoku Blade 400+ hours over 2 years and still can't ALL it. Erppo cleared the first loop in a day, and Saucy got the 2-ALL in three months. Obviously skill and natural talent matter and make a difference. You can somewhat close the gap with time and determination, but even then it's not enough at the highest levels. I'm sure I would not beat JGK-ALL at Sengoku Blade or have a better Bison than YuuVega even if I spent my whole life on the games.

[KAI]

WRs are so overrated.

[trap15]

Are you implying that playing for a WR isn't fun?

[KAI]

Exploiting scoring miscalculations and milking static bosses is not fun at all.

[Hagane]

I'm glad we have KAI to tell us what we should find fun or not. When does playing for score start to become not fun, KAI? When someone beats your score?

[trap15]

Exploiting scoring miscalculations and milking static bosses is not fun at all.

I find playing Pink Sweets Arrange Score Attack for score extremely fun, and that's basically all that game is.

[Plasmo]

Spending time is no skill nor remarkable by itself.

IMO it's the greatest skill of them all. If you can keep playing a game, the WR will come sooner or later. The reason for this is:

You can spend 10 hours bruteforcing everything through pure memorization and getting frustrated

Most people will stop playing a single game after such and such an amount of time because they get bored/frustrated/mad/insane/depressed. That's very likely to happen. You really need to enjoy the game very much to keep playing it for 15+ years.

Obviously skill and natural talent matter and make a difference.

Bullshit. Reason:

I've been playing Super Turbo for five years, and at least two I spent more than 4 hours a day playing it. I'm still a mid level player and struggle against more talented players who played it a lot less. I've played Sengoku Blade 400+ hours over 2 years and still can't ALL it. Erppo cleared the first loop in a day, and Saucy got the 2-ALL in three months.

I have to admit, I put it a bit to simple before. It's not just about the time you've spent on that single game, but of course the sum of all your gaming experience. The earlier you start playing, the exponentially better you get later on. I'm 100% sure that both Errpo and Saucykobold have played other games/shmups way more than you.
After all, you're doing great! 400 hours isn't a lot and you can already reach the last stage! That's quite fantastic. On top of that, you beat Saucy by score, which obviously shows, that you're the more experienced and that he was just going for a "quick" 2-ALL.

If you've cleared 3 Psikyo games, all with a 2-ALL, the fourth one will take you less time. Simple as that.

[KAI]

I'm glad we have KAI to tell us what we should find fun or not. When does playing for score start to become not fun, KAI? When someone beats your score?

Nope, when someone tells me that I'm an idiot for not playing seriously.

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT FUCKING GAMES?!

[RGC]

.

[Hagane]

Plasmo: Still strongly disagree. Time is the main factor for getting "better" at most RPGs, because time is pretty much all you need. For games that are heavy on execution and/or thinking like STGs, fighters or chess, your own abilities are the main factor.

When you say that if I beat 3 Psikyo games the fourth will be easier, you are right. But that's because I've understood how the games work, I've worked on my execution, have stronger basics, have better planning. Not simply because I've put hours in them. Some people may play the same amount of time and have worse execution, be worse at understanding the game, not have proper practice methods, etc. and will get worse results. I know for a fact that a lot of players can spend lots of time playing something on "auto-pilot" (this is very easy to spot in fighting games), without actually learning much.

You can improve your basic skills with proper training, with time and dedication - but still each person has a different improvement pace and ceiling. Your skills will do the difference at similar play times.

[Kollision]

i like the explosions of color of dodonpachi daifuckatsu very much
i go home play games now
give me my free play please

[Yield]

EDIT: A WR is objectively a huge achievement, but it's not anything deserving of praise or respect or recognition in my opinion. That's the point I was sort of trying to make in a very very rambling and confusing way.

And the reason I think so is becuase the only way to get to such an enormous goal there is by having lots and lots of fun and loving what you do.

I'm not sure I'm following your logic. Sports are also fun, does that mean that when a nation wins the world cup, their team isn't worthy of recognition? Football is only a game after all. I doubt many professional football players had to force themselves to play everyday when they were growing up, more likely they did it simply because they loved the game. You could argue that it's different since it's their occupation, but what about all of the sponsored gamers these days? It's also their job to play Counter-Strike, SFIV, Starcraft or whatever the game may be. Do they still deserve no recognition for winning tournaments just because it's a computer game?

Recognition is determined by the masses, regardless of whether that recognition is deserved or not.

And to that end, sports harvest far more recognition than playing video games does (which barely harvest any at all).

[O. Van Bruce]

There will allways be Ew-Sports

[Ganelon]

Since there's a debate over whether time spent is enough, let me specify that time spent is required. Nobody I'm aware of can spend only 500 hours and expect to attain a world record score for a longtime competitive game. But some desire to improve is also required. My opinion that time spent is not the sole reason for success was founded on my personal experience playing Super Smash Bros. Melee about a decade ago. I spent well over 1000 hours playing over the course of 4 years. I sometimes spent 6+ hours a day for a week on Melee.

I knew about wavedashing, L-canceling, and other advanced tactics but never bothered to practice them because I was already "pretty good" in my local group of casual players. I was content to just play as I was and not hungry to get much better, much less become one of the best in the world. As a result, I pretty much stagnated in skill to the point where I would still easily get blown out by weaker local tourney players when they came by. Therefore, I learned that time without an accompanying desire to improve isn't enough. It's possible to mindlessly play for a significant amount of time and not improve very much.

That pushed me to try Street Fighter II to see if I was just inept or if dedication was the key. And that's where I learned that you need both time and hunger. That's also where I learned that the common "natural skills override everything else" argument from folks who've never been to that point didn't seem to hold much water. My reactions have always been poorer than average and may have lengthened my development time but weren't blocking me from eventually being able to take matches from the best players in the world. Those with developmental disabilities are likely exempt from this rule though.

One pattern that I'm seeing from this topic is that these good players who are dejected seem to have a limited offline community to play and talk with. These players aren't attending local events often and/or aren't showing the same degree of prowess offline, either by choice or circumstance. I think having a real life community support and/or push you is critical to psychological well-being and self-confidence, at least for me it is. Perhaps I've gotten the cause-effect reversed but while I've met plenty of happy gamers online and offline, the most seemingly insecure people I've ever communicated with were all through online.

That matches my other experience in the Smash era when I 1CCed hundreds of games. At that time, there was no local sidescroller and shooter community so I was just doing this for "fun." I didn't and still don't feel accomplished for completing all the games and certainly never bothered to record any of the playthroughs or talk about most of them. Why bother when anybody with a week or 2 of spare time could do the same thing? Would I say that was a waste of time? Maybe, some of the selected games were probably a bit forced and not having an offline community to share experiences made everything not so special.

It wasn't until I played in offline tournaments with other players in Street Fighter II that I was motivated to be the best. If offline events disappeared for the game, I would almost certainly stop caring. I know others who do not feel the same way and wouldn't mind playing online forever but that's my own view. If someone here loves a game but isn't having fun, I'd strongly encourage that you hook up with your local scene; start by checking the Shmupmeets board here.

The main points of my post? Time matters a lot in improving (not spending an obscene amount of time = you won't be near the top no matter your ability). Desire to improve matters a lot in improving (not sure if sufficient time can substitute desire but if so, then it's much, much higher). Natural ability affects a player's time needed but isn't a limiter for video games (except in rare serious cases). An offline community can help a lot in maintaining a positive attitude.

[DMC]

I see shooting skills as consisting of three main components; attention/memory skills, motor skills, dedication.

Attention consists of being able to focus on what is relevant and inhibit what is irrelevant. Many people will have a stronger tendency than others to mind-wander during gaming, and when you mind-wander you're not efficient at what you're currently doing. Others will fail to ignore distractions such as bullets that are not threatining to your ship, or sounds that are interfering. Some people are consistently better than others at controlling their attention.

Memory skills consist of learning, storaging and retrieving important info, and all of them are closely related to your attention abilities. Some players will pay close attention to what just happened on the screen as they did some mistake - then learn from that mistake, store it, and then fluently retrieve that information when they encounter the situation again. Those who don't will probably make the same mistake again and again. Individuals differ greatly in their ability to learn, storage and retrieve info from long-term memory. And they differ greatly in how much info they can keep in their short-term memory, so some of us can attend several enemy attacks simultanously in a way that others can't.

Motor skills consist mainly of eye-to-hand coordination, being able to translate info on the screen to particular hand coordinations. It also involves setting up a complex plan for a sequence of behaviors (such as first dodging this enemy pattern, then get this medal, then dodge that pattern, before making a turn to get around that pattern and getting the 1-up). There are great individual differences in this set of abilities as well.
'
Dedication involves setting up long-term goals and keeping those goals active in the face of distraction. So instead of surfing around the internet, playing other genres, etc, some people are simply better than others at pursuing a long-term goal like scoring in a particular shooting game. Playing a game for a long time is not simply an indicator of too much spare time, but an indication of strong individual commitment to a particular goal. An anecdotal impression I've got is that many high-scoring individuals here also are university graduates, suggesting a general tendency to pursue long-term goals. Perhaps I'm biased though.

So, shooting relies on a number of skills in which I actually include "spending time" as a commitment skill not to be frowned upon.

However, I do agree that our lives are quite short, we can only devote it to a few things, so I think we benefit from asking ourselves the question "Is it worth the time I spend with it" from time to time. Arrogantbastard seems to have come to the conclusion "No" and ceased playing for score. Unfortunately, it is often not that easy to stop doing a habit, and there is a thin line between dedication and obsession. Therefore, I think some of us have difficulty stop playing for score once we're in the loop (pun intended).

The problematic thing is that shooting is a bit like gambling.
There is a low ratio of win/loss (only a very few runs end up being personal records).
And you never know when you win, so you "have to" play another run because that could be the one.

[RNGmaster]

However, I do agree that our lives are quite short, we can only devote it to a few things, so I think we benefit from asking ourselves the question "Is it worth the time I spend with it" from time to time. Arrogantbastard seems to have come to the conclusion "No" and ceased playing for score. Unfortunately, it is often not that easy to stop doing a habit, and there is a thin line between dedication and obsession. Therefore, I think some of us have difficulty stop playing for score once we're in the loop (pun intended).

The problematic thing is that shooting is a bit like gambling.
There is a low ratio of win/loss (only a very few runs end up being personal records).
And you never know when you win, so you "have to" play another run because that could be the one.

YES

you're speaking my language

[Ed Oscuro]

Agreed with the sentiment above. It's regrettable that anybody has expressed anything but admiration for the people who push the limits of play for WRs, and others who seek to emulate that success. However it's by no means the only good thing a person can do with their time, and it's by no means for everyone. Therefore we get a lot of assumptions thrown about that "good" in this arena is objective, and that everybody conforms to the same standard, when it clearly is not so.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Agreed with the sentiment above. It's regrettable that anybody has expressed anything but admiration for the people who push the limits of play for WRs, and others who seek to emulate that success. However it's by no means the only good thing a person can do with their time, and it's by no means for everyone. Therefore we get a lot of assumptions thrown about that "good" in this arena is objective, and that everybody conforms to the same standard, when it clearly is not so.

Agreed, given that shmupping is a leisure activity with no monetary gain outside of possibly selling a few Superplays to other players, then the only worth a WR or any other STG feat is what is what the players themselves deem it to be.

As someone who isn't likely to get anywhere near a WR without a healthy dose of dedication to a single game all I can say to any superplayer reading this is Thank you, besides giving weaker players something to strive towards your runs are very entertaining to watch and "what a waste of time" doesn't enter my mind as I watch them, only "wow leet skills! I wish I could do that".

EDIT

Some ppl shmuppers and non players alike have said that Ikaruga Double Play is akin to a virtuoso pianist which I think is very apt, since both performances can give the viewer joy and admiration of skill.

[Plasmo]

However it's by no means the only good thing a person can do with their time, and it's by no means for everyone. Therefore we get a lot of assumptions thrown about that "good" in this arena is objective, and that everybody conforms to the same standard, when it clearly is not so.

Agreed. But has anyone ever said otherwise?

Enjoying a certain activity of course is always subjective and therefore not for everyone.

[Ed Oscuro]

Agreed. But has anyone ever said otherwise?

Thread is four pages long, so...

[O. Van Bruce]

Agreed. But has anyone ever said otherwise?

Thread is four pages long, so...

The only person that seems convinced about an extreme psition is DTP, all the others admired WR players in some way or another, but there was this missunderstanding I explained earlier bettwen "scorers" and "casuals". The only difference bettwen our positions is if we were willing to go for a WR or not: that's the subjectiveness, and that's why I kept advocating for a way to make the "casual" side to be more interested about high level scoring by proving that it can be healthy.

[DrInfy]

I like to think that dedication is the greatest skill a person can have. If you don't have that, then it doesn't really matter how gifted you are otherwise. I like to think myself as a pretty gifted in a lot of things, but I'm not really great at anything. Once I start to reach a certain level of mastery at something, it starts to get boring and I find something else that keeps me interested. This means that in the end I'm good or decent at a lot of thing, but not really great at anything and I'm quite fine with it. However, I still admire people that can put hours and hours into something and achieve great things and I enjoy their demonstrations of dedication in shortened versions.

I think it is quite sad if you puts ridiculous amount of time into something and actually achieve what you were trying to do, but can't find yourself to appreciate it. I did actually waste something like three years of my life playing World of Warcraft and even as the stuff I achieved during that time probably aren't worth bragging about to anyone, I'm pretty proud of myself. Would I do it again, given the choice? No way, but I don't really regret a moment of it either.

[ncp]

Amount of time between release and world record is completely meaningless. World Records for the vast majority of shooters can still theoretically be beaten, even if just slightly. Like, people still set sprinting/swimming records to this day when these activities have been around since before humans were even a thing. I haven't really been keeping up with this stuff much so I don't know if it's still the WR, but the last time I watched a Futari BL WR it was ZAP and there was still room for improvement.

I did actually waste something like three years of my life playing World of Warcraft

I am quite familiar with this. I had something like 500 days of played time between my characters... my only regret is that I could have probably 2-ALLed a bunch of cave games with 12,000 hours of practice. It was fun, though. I slayed several hundred thousand poor souls and played arenas with some of the best players in the world.

Also, did Kamui used to be a guy? I swear someone here said it was a cross dressing guy before. Did I imagine this?

[KAI]

Time or ability, the eternal dilemma.

[AntiFritz]

Also, did Kamui used to be a guy? I swear someone here said it was a cross dressing guy before. Did I imagine this?

It's still a cross dressing guy, just she identifies as female. Afaik.

[endoKarb]

Time or ability, the eternal dilemma.

It's about neither. It's about fun. I'm out for real this time lol.

[Yield]

Also, did Kamui used to be a guy? I swear someone here said it was a cross dressing guy before. Did I imagine this?

It's still a cross dressing guy, just she identifies as female. Afaik.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nyu ... g-game-tri

And for the humble sum of $750 you can get a life-size pillow of that cross-dressing guy.