Cheating in Armed Police Batrider??

[MrOldSchoolCool]

Maybe cheating isn't the right word, but is it okay to turn the service mode on? In STG weekly, they said to turn the service mode on (in MAME) or else the rank will default to something too high. They say it's really important if you're going for score, but what if you're just trying to 1CC normal mode? Is that okay?

[trap15]

Yes it's normal.

[MrOldSchoolCool]

Okay, good to know. I thought the difficulty on Stage 2 seemed balls out before

[Aquas]

Yes, please press Start instead of another button when you start the game from service mode. That will start at minimum rank.
On the other hand, I like to sometimes start with "default" rank and jump into Special Course for the crazy boss patterns.

[MrOldSchoolCool]

Yes, please press Start instead of another button when you start the game from service mode. That will start at minimum rank.
On the other hand, I like to sometimes start with "default" rank and jump into Special Course for the crazy boss patterns.

Dude, it's Aquas himself. I've never actually seen you on the boards before. I guess I'm not on here often enough. Haha

[MathU]

I don't really see it as cheating because the machine will naturally lower to the minimum difficulty level if left on long enough anyway. Server mode start simply ensures a level competition and gets you to this point fastr. The only arguable change is that the item cycling instead of changing every time you play becomes very predictable.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

So if you start the machine from a fresh boot, its default rank is really high for some reason? Why isn't the rank reset at the start of every game?

Oh Yagawa, you troll.

[trap15]

Not as bad as Bakraid though.

In Bakraid, the starting rank is determined from the previously selected difficulty setting, and starts with "Normal".

So if you boot up the machine and play Advanced, you get Normal starting rank. If you then go play Training, you get Advanced starting rank. Then if you go play Boss Rush you get Training starting rank.

Yagawa's such a great troll

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Do you think these rank issues were intentional for the sake of making more money or something by motivating people to play on the machine more to lower rank? Seems hard to imagine rank related bugs exist in Garegga, APB and Bakraid, since they all display some rank weirdness instead of default rank being reset on the start of a new credit...

[trap15]

Nah, they're definitely intentional.

For Garegga and Batrider, it's to make it so that a more popular machine cycles players more quickly, getting more income.

The reason Batrider starts at really high rank is because he wanted to get rid of the ability to use the 'reset the machine to reset the rank' trick.

Not quite sure what he was going for in Bakraid though

[MrOldSchoolCool]

Interesting. Any idea what happens in Garegga?

[trap15]

It's the same in Garegga and Batrider; the rank carries over between runs, but decreases by a set amount every time the attract sequence loops. The only difference is that Batrider by default starts at a really high rank when you reboot the machine (unless you hit Start on the service menu's Game Mode), to discourage players from rebooting the machine to reset rank like they would do with Garegga.

[To Far Away Times]

Wow, I never knew about the Bakraid rank changes.

[MrOldSchoolCool]

It's the same in Garegga and Batrider; the rank carries over between runs, but decreases by a set amount every time the attract sequence loops. The only difference is that Batrider by default starts at a really high rank when you reboot the machine (unless you hit Start on the service menu's Game Mode), to discourage players from rebooting the machine to reset rank like they would do with Garegga.

Ah, I see. And how does the Saturn port of Garegga behave?