Fair competitive practice and shoot'em ups

[Deca]

Or is it you making excuses to justify the use of save states as it's way easier to improve in the games?.

Every other avenue of competition embraces new methods of training. There are all sorts of examples of innovations that have made the practice and training of various skill based competitive activities more efficient. Professional racing teams develop their own simulators so that their drivers can spend many more hours practicing than they would have been able to if they only had access to the actual track in an actual car, and I'm sure they practice specific stages of the track in isolation to improve their lines and consistency. We spent many decades racing without simulators, and none of the officiators or track/car designers ever "intended" for simulators to play into the picture as part of competition.

This is the first example that comes to mind, but many sports have all sorts of high tech specialized equipment that enables players to train more efficiently.

We have very efficient means by which to learn and practice these games today, if you choose not to utilize them you are handicapping yourself. You still compete on the same playing field as everyone else with the same set of rules, you choose what restrictions to impose on yourself beyond that. If you enjoy the traditional arcade experience and don't want to use savestates and emulators and all that then by all means go for it, but if you want to compete on any level you need to understand that competition evolves over time.

[Erppo]

Or is it you making excuses to justify the use of save states as it's way easier to improve in the games?

Why on earth would they be forbidden by default? And nice job ignoring the point about the ports (made by the same people who did the arcade games) there.

Player A is playing the game in MAME and has access to save states but has the choice to play full runs whenever he wants to.
Player B is playing the PCB and is only capable of doing full runs (unless he suffers from restartitis) so he has to use lots of time to practice the final stages by actually reaching them.

Is the above scenario fair competition? Please no "player B is an idiot for playing on original hardware" replies. Available play time is part of the equation obviously.

If B is smart, he will prepare well by studying the game and credit feeding every run to the end to get to practice the later things too. I agree that better practice methods allow people to learn games better in a limited timeframe, but that argument only applies to the STGT format and should have no business in the normal scoreboards.

You could say that people who have to spend a lot of time working should have separate scoreboards from the unemployed and that would make just about as much sense.

[PROMETHEUS]

Please no "player B is an idiot for playing on original hardware" replies. Available play time is part of the equation obviously.

Well, he IS an idiot, lol. Don't you understand ? Picking your practicing methods and planning and organizing your practice is CRITICAL. If you just play on "original" hardware, what is your edge ??? What is your plan ???

[Hagane]

I can't play a fighting game to save my life

This is probably why you can't see my point.

Pausing gives you advantages in both, when in a competitive environment. That's the point. It does not matter if the advantages themselves are not exactly the same.

[mesh control]

LOL THIS FUCKING THREAD

[chum]

LOL THIS FUCKING THREAD

Because any actual discussion is clearly prohibited on this godawful forum, and everyone should just go back to writing nothing but useless pap. You don't even post scores (do you even play shmups?) and have little right to criticize this thread.

[Hagane]

Yeah what the fuck let's make another trap thread instead.

[Thanuris]

you forgot the "kill yourself"

[Jaimers]

Is it an unfair advantage if you play on a bigger screen?
Is it an unfair advantage if you play in TATE?
Is it an unfair advantage if you play on a CRT?
Is it an unfair advantage if you play with a different input device?
Is it an unfair advantage if you played on a more becoming time of day?
Is it an unfair advantage if you have a bigger bladder?
Is it an unfair advantage if the room temperature is different?
Is it an unfair advantage if you have less stress in your life?
Is it an unfair advantage if you have better eyesight?

In any case you guys will never have truly beaten my scores unless you play in Yoko with -20 eyesight.

[KAI]

Life is unfair, get over it.
All this discussion just for a girl. I can smell the spring in the air ~<3

[Bananamatic]

"you lost because you suck"

[ebarrett]

All this discussion just for a girl.

[Ruldra]

Jesus Christ, you guys...

At this rate, any score that was not done on a real cab at an arcade with each credit costing money should be invalidated.

[Hagane]

PCB owners have an unfair advantage because, unlike arcade goers in Japan, they can play all the credits they want, at any time and for no additional costs!

[Naut]

You can only compete against your clone, and any credit not done on the same pcb at the same time at the same temperature and air pressure is invalid. Additionally, if your diet varied from your clone's at all over the past two weeks, your scores can also no longer be compared.

This is ridiculous. Pausing during natural breaks in gameplay (like between stages) is fine, you know what your intentions are when you pause, make your own judgments on whether or not you want to validate your score. Using different practice methods has always and will always be fine. We're not testing for the best innate shmup player in existance, we're competing to see who can get the best score in a single credit of a videogame on default settings, that's it.

Nominating thread for "threads of excellence," because this is amazing.

[Ed Oscuro]

PCB owners have an unfair advantage because, unlike arcade goers in Japan, they can play all the credits they want, at any time and for no additional costs!

[third_strike]

I just wanted a mature discussion in shmups forum.
I wanted so much
In the end Erppo was correct my post was 99% about make things for respect, but sometimes I forget which this is internet
Btw, Gus can't post here and all was said already.

[Sandlegs]

did anyone get the video before it was taken down? i'm gone for a day and this happens. would like to see what all the hubbub is about...bub.

[Zerst]

did anyone get the video before it was taken down? i'm gone for a day and this happens. would like to see what all the hubbub is about...bub.

You know those lines of bullets with one pixel gaps that are supposed to trap you in but you have a small chance of passing through them on the right frame? Imagine watching a superplay where someone weaved back and forth through one trivially, not as a display of courage, but as a preference to dodging the three aimed bullets coming their way.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

If you have the port, it should be on the leaderboard. Not sure if it was 360 or Arcade mode. Was it top 20 that get to upload replay?

[Despatche]

Your board, your rules.

Then the entire subforum is slowly becoming a dictatorship of Despatche.

we wil crash yoo wit mein freetz

TO ZA VICTORYYYYY

[third_strike]

Reading later posts now.
Let's resume:
Emphatic says: Touhou wins just because save states.
Touhou responds: Lot of jokes and offences.

Then I ask why the jokes and offences. Is that fear?

This is wrong, it should be:
Emphatic says: Touhou wins just because save states.
Touhou responds: Next year we will ask dex to ban save states in STGT and we will proof our supremacy winning in enemy territory.

Where is the challenge?
Let's claim Gus:

So your post basically amounts to "Crush my BL Maniac without pausing." Yeah, I think I can do that.

[Kollision]

jesus, epic thread is epic
too bad I haven't seen the replay.

on pausing - it's kinda useful, sometimes I need to do it to take a dump
on MAME - a shortcut
on cheaters - who cares, their loss - peace of mind is subjective

[NTSC-J]

Japanese top players who play their runs on pcb's also have access to MAME / console ports for practice and from what I've heard many of them do that too. Also I remember hearing about TAC and some other top players getting specialized pcb's which allow save states to practice for the Ketsui DVD. tldr; if you don't use the tools available for practice, that's your own fault but don't expect others to do the same.

One guy got a specialized Ketsui PCB that let him practice the DOOM fight. When news of this came out, everyone got upset, he apologized and his score (achieved on a regular PCB with defaults settings) was voided. The top Japanese players do not like save states or emulators, even for practice.

I understand the complaint about pausing, but if people really want to get to the most fair level of competition possible, that means no ports, no emulators, just get the PCB and good luck. I know this is where some people start to say "now hold on a second", but this is where you're headed when you start to talk about banning pausing.

[KAI]

The top Japanese players do not like save states or emulators, even for practice.

Peace of mind.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

I understand the complaint about pausing, but if people really want to get to the most fair level of competition possible, that means no ports, no emulators, just get the PCB and good luck. I know this is where some people start to say "now hold on a second", but this is where you're headed when you start to talk about banning pausing.

That would be pretty bad. I'm not even sure how much it'd cost to get PCBs or a cab to play them in. I'm definitely thankful that we have emulators and ports, and that allows a lot more people to compete. I wonder how much it'd even cost to get stuff like a ESPGaluda II PCB, Futari 1.5, Futari Black Label, Parodius Da!, and other games I'd be interested in if we were limited to PCBs. Obviously way too much, and I definitely wouldn't spend the money on PCBs and would easily not bother with the genre if the only way to play was PCB.

[Naut]

Emphatic says: Touhou wins just because save states.
Touhou responds: Next year we will ask dex to ban save states in STGT and we will proof our supremacy winning in enemy territory.

Enemy territory? Outside of STGT, I don't really use savestates or stage practice. In DOJBL, savestates make up maybe 5-10% of my play time. But sure, if you want to give us another advantage and completely gimp anybody without large amounts of free time, I'm down.


Anyways, there were some "decent" discussions going on before before mesh's thread annihilating shit post, and I'd like to touch on at least one a bit more before this thread cascades into oblivion...

Most fighting game tournaments right now are run in consoles, and pausing at a tournament instantly makes you lose the round.

Are you seriously comparing single-player games to versus games? I admit there could, maybe, eventually be an argument to be made over the issue but this is just completely bogus.

Imagine I'm quoting the entire Ebarrett vs Hagane text tree. So, the reason why this is so bogus is because pausing in a fighting game fucks the other player up. It directly affects their gameplay in an almost always negative way. Pausing in a shmup doesn't affect anybody else. Shmups are single player games, anything you do in them affects you and only you. It doesn't affect the other competitors. Now, in the same breath, I agree that pausing should be limited to between stages since there is a natural break in gameplay there, and the only reason it isn't an actual pause in arcade games is to ensure more people are getting a chance to put in credits. Hell, the breaks are really long anyway in games like DFK anyway, pausing won't make any difference. Pausing in the middle of a stage would be silly since it actually affects your gameplay (and essentially slows down everything for you to react to and plan for).

So, if nerves and a nerve control skill affect performance like I think they do, pausing should not be allowed IF we want to be in equal grounds with PCB players. Also, I think it's more fun and rewarding to learn nerve control :p

Nerves are irrelevant, if you can or can't deal with them doesn't matter, that's your problem. People should not be forcing other people under their silly conditions just because they're incapable of handling their nerves and somehow feel that everybody should be under the same stress as them. What if I don't feel any stress at all during a run? Am I at an "unfair" advantage because of this? Should I take drugs to make myself as nervous as you just because you can't handle the pressure and play with silly conditions that put you at a disadvantage? Do drugs that affect my state or mind at all even factor into this nerves discussion? Since that's all nerves are, a state of mind, I could just as easily down some THC in the breaks between stages and get similar effects.

The top Japanese players do not like save states or emulators, even for practice.

Is KET not considered a top Japanese player?

[Drake]

Even if KET wasn't part of the picture, there's a pretty clear correlation between "top japanese players" and "people who are actually willing to invest the time in the games required to become a top japanese player". I would imagine that the willingness to spend boatloads of time regardless would make them not using or liking savestates an irrelevant point. Not that I would call it elitism, mind you, it just seems like a natural consequence of putting in so much time.

[CStarFlare]

Do they generally draw a distinction between using save states and using practice mode in a port? Just curious.

[Hagane]

Shmups are single player games, anything you do in them affects you and only you. It doesn't affect the other competitors. Now, in the same breath, I agree that pausing should be limited to between stages since there is a natural break in gameplay there, and the only reason it isn't an actual pause in arcade games is to ensure more people are getting a chance to put in credits. Hell, the breaks are really long anyway in games like DFK anyway, pausing won't make any difference. Pausing in the middle of a stage would be silly since it actually affects your gameplay (and essentially slows down everything for you to react to and plan for).

Again, shmups stop being pure insulated single player games the moment you post a score to compete against someone else. Ketsui isn't the same as Final Fantasy, to make the point completely obvious. So, if you use something that helps you beyond your skills, then you are effectively affecting players that aren't using it. Otherwise following your reasoning, (I know they are not the same thing, but bear with me) TASing a world record run would affect no one but the player who made it either.

As for helping or not, it depends. Pausing the game in Gunbird 2 for example, allowed me to get through patterns I would struggle to figure out normally. And then there's the stuff PROM talks about, which is reasonable since the pressure of being near a new personal highscore is part of this competitive experience, and taking a break from action to cool off and think about what to do next does alter that.

I won't keep arguing over this though since, as I said to ebarret through PM, I don't really think it's such a big deal (I don't even care that much about the issue, but I can see why the people arguing against them do so), but it's undeniable that it does affect gameplay.