The BIG thread of Shmup grievances.

[nasty_wolverine]

I've already got a 1CC, so the "get a 1CC first" step has already been completed.

okay, then
- try the steps i mentioned
- watch some videos of it being done
- try some more

If you still cant do it, this game is not meant for you. be a man and go play something else. be a man and go play
MARS MATRIX.

[trap15]

If you cant do it, then just stop whining about it and play something else.

But that'd be too easy!

[Shepardus]

Yeah, it's because the Touhou games are vastly divergent in terms of difficulty at "Normal".
My first 1CC ever was Imperishable Night on Normal, and it took me a couple weeks. A similar amount of time with SA Normal didn't yield anything close to a clear (I never got past stage 4). When I played MOF a year later, I cleared it on Normal on the first afternoon I played it. The reason had nothing to do with my increasing in skill and everything to do with the fact that you can bomb-spam your way through MOF without even looking at the screen.

I'm not even talking about different Touhou games, back in December I beat my highscore in Imperishable Night, Normal difficulty, on my first try after having not played the game for probably three years. I also went back and cleared UFO on Normal on my second try, then cleared it with all the other characters to unlock the extra stage for them, when it took me weeks to get my first clear. SA took me a while longer, but it also took me much longer to get my first clear on that way back when. Feel free to believe that I didn't improve at all in those years and that you can't improve either, but you're just deluding yourself that way. I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as talent, but you're attributing way more to it than you should be. Even talented people need to practice for their talent to manifest.

[Icarus]

If you still cant do it, this game is not meant for you. be a man and go play something else. be a man and
COMMIT SUDOKU.

[Obscura]

You already had the memorization (yes, even over three years; I can go back to NES/SNES games I played as a kid and haven't touched in two decades and still operate mostly sub-consciously on them), so of course it was faster.

Or, to put it this way: the other day, I played two credits of DOJBL (which I hadn't touched in over a year), second one made it to the brown canyon + big tanks section at the end of stage 5. Was being able to get so deep in the game "on my second try" (in quotes because I had played the hell out of the game a couple years prior) because of my general skills improving? No, it's because the routes were still rolling around in the subconscious part of my head, and seeing the backgrounds and enemy formations was enough to trigger my memories on what to do.

EDIT: Encouraging someone to kill themselves sure is classy, Icarus.

[Icarus]

Don't get me wrong, I jest. I wouldn't want you to really off yourself.
Watching you thrash around all clueless and incapable of understanding why you continually fail, even when people point you in the right direction and offer you encouragement and advice that you seem to not be able to take or even comprehend at even the most basic level, is far more entertaining. Doubly so when you vomit out classic quotes attributing people's hard work and effort to some kind of magic ability bestowed on people from birth, an ability that whatever deity out there forgot to give you when you were in the queue. Please, keep going.

[Shepardus]

As you've just said yourself it's at least as much memorization as it is raw talent. So figure out what you need to memorize to get into the Ura route, and you should be able to repeat it consistently years later if you understand what you're doing. Just because it takes you longer than average to get the hang of it doesn't mean you'll never get it as long as you want to get it. Hell, you've cleared DOJBL, that at least shows you can press the buttons needed to get into DFK's Ura route.

Edit: Also, just for you I've just recorded two MAME input files of me triggering the stage 1 Ura midboss through scrub-tier play, and will upload them to Youtube. If you really want I can annotate it too. Even if everything else in this game takes craploads of raw talent, this certainly doesn't.

[Obscura]

Doubly so when you vomit out classic quotes attributing people's hard work and effort to some kind of magic ability bestowed on people from birth, an ability that whatever deity out there forgot to give you when you were in the queue. Please, keep going.

Nothing "magic" about it; some people innately have better eye-hand coordination and ability to track motion with their eyes than others.

(I didn't spend every Monday afternoon of my childhood at an occupational therapist practicing eye-hand coordination tasks and tracking movement with my eyes because I was good at those tasks, nor because my parents had some desire for me to become a kind of superman at it.)

[nasty_wolverine]

Nothing "magic" about it; some people innately have better eye-hand coordination and ability to track motion with their eyes than others.

(I didn't spend every Monday afternoon of my childhood at an occupational therapist practicing eye-hand coordination tasks and tracking movement with my eyes because I was good at those tasks, nor because my parents had some desire for me to become a kind of superman at it.)

by your logic, Usain Bolt one fine day walked into the olympic stadium and beat the 10 second time, coz he was born with it. all those years of practice wasnt required.

[Obscura]

I'd be willing to bet that Usain Bolt was able to run pretty damn fast before he started his olympic training.

I'd also be willing to bet that anyone posting on this forum could go through the same training he did and not be able to run nearly as fast.

Heck, I'd go so far as to say you could give a "normal" guy Usain Bolt's training regimen and Usain Bolt a "casual runner" training regimen, and Bolt will still beat the normal guy 10 times out of 10.

[Icarus]

Nothing "magic" about it; some people innately have better eye-hand coordination and ability to track motion with their eyes than others.
(I didn't spend every Monday afternoon of my childhood at an occupational therapist practicing eye-hand coordination tasks and tracking movement with my eyes because I was good at those tasks, nor because my parents had some desire for me to become a kind of superman at it.)

If you understand that much, then you'll realise that talent has very little to do with it. As far as I'm concerned, there are three things a player needs to improve:

1. Knowledge
It's clear that you don't have the required knowledge to access Ura loop - admittedly, the requirements aren't 100% clear, but at least we know what the main ones are. You went to the right place to find out (the Strategy forum), but rather than try to understand the best way to meet the requirements, you flapped at your attempts and then blamed it on incorrect information, when many players on the forum have managed to incorporate the information into their runs with success. Erppo, MrMonkeyMan and myself have all got runs up for the Power-style ships you could have looked at, and all of them follow largely similar routes, but instead of analysing them with the help of others, you just complained.

2. Memory
Being able to recall what you know and learn what you don't is a key skill. Watching your 35min+ video, it's evident that you probably couldn't recall a decent route, crafted by yourself, to get through. A lot of players here, once succeeding at something, would commit that information to memory and work on recalling it, but watching your replay, where you took vastly differing routes each and every time, it is evident that you are unable to recall the working routes, and even lack the observational skills to see when something works, and to learn it.
And before you make a comment about it, just watch any stream from a high level player such as chum or SDD-Kaede, or any other STG player who streams for that matter, and you'll see that every attempt looks virtually identical to the last, that's how sharp recall and execution is. Which leads me to the last point:

3. Execution
Your execution is sorely lacking, just watching your replay can tell me that much. As Erppo put it in the Strategy thread, your movement is highly erratic and unfocused, which is indicative of a player who both doesn't know what to do, or how to do it. That is what I meant by "flapping around" - as I said above, a decent player will execute the same route over and over again, with minor variances to account for the changing playfield. In your case, every attempt is different, because your route is unrefined, and your knowledge is limited. While this is understandable given the context of the player's level of knowledge, blaming the game for being too unfair with the unlocking requirements when your abilities are so limited that you can't perform the same actions over and over again is a bit stupid. "A bad workman blames his tools", as they say.

tl:dr
lrn2play, and lrn2takeadvice, seriously. It's understandable if you're naturally obstinate, but it's becoming extremely irritating to those who are trying to be helpful.

[nasty_wolverine]

I'd be willing to bet that Usain Bolt was able to run pretty damn fast before he started his olympic training.

I'd also be willing to bet that anyone posting on this forum could go through the same training he did and not be able to run nearly as fast.

Heck, I'd go so far as to say you could give a "normal" guy Usain Bolt's training regimen and Usain Bolt a "casual runner" training regimen, and Bolt will still beat the normal guy 10 times out of 10.

um, no. sportsman are paid that much coz, they dedicate there entire time to practice. even though your second situation might be true, your third situation will always be false, unless the guy is disadvantaged (like missing a leg or a lung). you cannot maintain that kinda of top speed with out special practice perfectly tailored for him.

also, dude, its just getting to ura route on DFK. a scrub like me can do it, 3/5 times. are you sure you aint just trouserplanking?

[Shepardus]

Look, nobody's saying (or at least I'm not saying) that there is no element of talent to anything. It's just you're severely underestimating how far practice can take you and is still necessary even for the most talented. This isn't even that much like the 100-meter sprint; games, shmups included, are specifically designed to be beatable and fair (for the most part), including for people like you. You don't even need superhuman physical or mental traits; as long as you can press the buttons you can play any shmup at a decent level. Having unusually gifted levels of hand-eye coordination and reactions may help you on some of the most difficult stuff (like DOJ's washing machine), but there's certainly nothing unusual required to get into the Ura route. It's weird and obscure and I personally don't like it, but don't act like you're physically incapable of doing it.

Edit: Here we go, have some extra videos. Terrible quality because who knows how Youtube works, but it should be good enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vHXIlz5h30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-63wa9sfCg - this one's no-miss no-bomb, and also has a couple annotations of what I keep in mind to trigger the Ura midboss the majority of attempts.

[Obscura]

um, no.

So, you think Usain Bolt was a slow pudgy fat kid in his elementary school PE classes?

@Icarus -- you do realize that your third point boils almost entirely down to "have good eye-hand coordination", right? And of course my runs aren't always going to look 100% identical, unless you think it's a good idea to try to be 100% identical to something that didn't work.

[Icarus]

@Icarus -- you do realize that your third point boils almost entirely down to "have good eye-hand coordination", right? And of course my runs aren't always going to look 100% identical, unless you think it's a good idea to try to be 100% identical to something that didn't work.

So, by your own admission, you spent "every Monday afternoon of my childhood at an occupational therapist practicing eye-hand coordination tasks and tracking movement with my eyes", so shouldn't you have decent control over your ship, then? Why does it look like you're having an epileptic fit every credit you put in? Clearly your co-ordination is all-kinds-of-awful judging by the painful half-an-hour of video you uploaded to Youtube as an example.
Yes, you are right, your strategies don't work, but we can only tell you what you are doing wrong. You are the only one who can take what we advise, and roll it into something that actually works. We can't play the game for you, no matter how much that might seem appealing. Until you actually learn to take advice instead of being argumentative, acting the victim, and blaming your ineptitude on factors that are entirely controllable, you'll have absolutely no hope of improving.

[Shepardus]

@Icarus -- you do realize that your third point boils almost entirely down to "have good eye-hand coordination", right? And of course my runs aren't always going to look 100% identical, unless you think it's a good idea to try to be 100% identical to something that didn't work.

It's partially that, but not entirely so. A big part of it is also simply managing to remember your plan in the heat of the moment, and other reactions that don't need great reaction time or coordination to achieve, such as "remember to misdirect the pattern in the second phase of the boss" or "check which way those bullets are aimed, go to the same side and tap-dodge across the screen gradually." It's not like every mistake you make during a run is because the bullets were too fast or too dense for you to react to, I'm sure you know better than that if you've ever run into a lone stray bullet that anybody could have easily dodged.

Also, if you haven't noticed I've posted some videos in my post above that trigger the stage 1 Ura midboss without bothering with scoring or chaining or anything like that, so you can get an idea for what the bare minimum is.

[nasty_wolverine]

um, no.

So, you think Usain Bolt was a slow pudgy fat kid in his elementary school PE classes?

@Icarus -- you do realize that your third point boils almost entirely down to "have good eye-hand coordination", right? And of course my runs aren't always going to look 100% identical, unless you think it's a good idea to try to be 100% identical to something that didn't work.

[Smraedis]

Has this thread been pointed out yet? http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=30458

You are never going to be amazing at things without putting a lot of time into it, however skills are transferable.

Oh yeah, take on board what people are saying, don't just read it.

[Squire Grooktook]

I actually dislike Futari (the only reason I cleared BL was just to prove something to myself). Not a fan of how "metagamey" the score-systems feel.

What about original mode? Scoring is pretty simple and intuitive, and about as deep as you could want. Plus it's not exactly easy mode, the patterns and level design are pretty great and boosting rank in high score runs is very satisfying.

I was never really a fan of maniac mode scoring myself either though.

and I've never liked Galuda's pacing (also, not a fan of how Kakusei turns what should be the most exciting moment -- a really dense pattern coming at you -- and neuters it with slowmode + autobomb).

Are you talking about Galuda 1 or 2? Galuda 1 isn't lacking tension because of Kakusei, it's just that the game is a lot easier and forgiving compared to most Cave shmups up until the very end. Galuda II is a lot more intense a lot earlier.

IMO Kakusei doesn't even begin to hamper the dense pattern excitement. It's a very limited resource, so by the end of the game (more like past stage 2 in Galuda 2) you have to choose very carefully when to use it, and you probably won't have enough to get through an entire pattern (more like just use it for short bursts). Not to mention that if you're scoring, you have to hold it off till the very end of the pattern.

Personally I really like both games mechanically. One of the few Cave shooters where the offensive and defensive mechanics actually feel like something unique and not just shot + laser with a different scoring system layered on top.

[Stevens]

@talent: IDK man, there may be some element of talent to playing STGs, but I pretty much suck at STGs, and usually do considerably worse than most shmupsfarmers when it comes to casually playing a game without any practice. However, with hours and hours of dedication I did eventually clear Mars Matrix, which is considered very hard.

Took me 66 hours to clear Under Defeat. Anyone, regardless of skill level, can earn a clear in almost anything provided they're willing to put the work in.

EDIT: On topic, my current Mars Matrix grievance is stage 5. I just keep on dying on either the part of the stage where all of the bullet cancelling enemies cluster at the bottom of the stage, or at the end of the stage before the boss, or on the 3rd car of the boss, or on the final car of the boss. I really need to work on that stage if I'm gonna get anywhere near 2.5 mil experience again (while also clearing)...

If I die on stage 5 it is tends happen between 12:15 and 12:25 of your 1 CC.

When I die on the train 99% of the time it is on the last car.

I have solid survival routes for the 1st five cars and can usually get to the last car with no issue. I always eat a pink bullet on that last car though. Always. But I think I will be able to no miss it eventually.

I'm looking forward to a time when I can regularly reach stage 6 with 2 ships in reserve. It will happen.

And stop trying to tempt me with points!

[Obscura]

So, by your own admission, you spent "every Monday afternoon of my childhood at an occupational therapist practicing eye-hand coordination tasks and tracking movement with my eyes", so shouldn't you have decent control over your ship, then?

Uh, no? You don't go to an OT to become good at something; you go to an OT to become tolerable enough at it that you can function in society.

Clearly your co-ordination is all-kinds-of-awful judging by the painful half-an-hour of video you uploaded to Youtube as an example.

You say that as if this isn't exactly what I've been saying for three pages.

What about original mode? Scoring is pretty simple and intuitive, and about as deep as you could want. Plus it's not exactly easy mode, the patterns and level design are pretty great and boosting rank in high score runs is very satisfying.

I was never really a fan of maniac mode scoring myself either though.

I've written posts about this before, but I really dislike how whether you're supposed to use shot or laser is decided by what color a counter is, instead of the action that's actually happening on-screen.

Are you talking about Galuda 1 or 2? Galuda 1 isn't lacking tension because of Kakusei, it's just that the game is a lot easier and forgiving compared to most Cave shmups up until the very end. Galuda II is a lot more intense a lot earlier.

IMO Kakusei doesn't even begin to hamper the dense pattern excitement. It's a very limited resource, so by the end of the game (more like past stage 2 in Galuda 2) you have to choose very carefully when to use it, and you probably won't have enough to get through an entire pattern (more like just use it for short bursts). Not to mention that if you're scoring, you have to hold it off till the very end of the pattern.

Both, really. It doesn't make the games necessarily easy (god, Galuda 2 is a monster), but it ruins the excitement when you just slow the game down in the middle of every hairy situation.

[Squire Grooktook]

Both, really. It doesn't make the games necessarily easy (god, Galuda 2 is a monster), but it ruins the excitement when you just slow the game down in the middle of every hairy situation.

Doesn't change the fact that its a resource that needs to be heavily conserved. Even if you've built up a full stock of gems, that probably won't last long enough to get you through one full pattern, and each boss has like 7+ bullet patterns or so?

[Icarus]

Uh, no? You don't go to an OT to become good at something; you go to an OT to become tolerable enough at it that you can function in society.

Clearly your co-ordination is all-kinds-of-awful judging by the painful half-an-hour of video you uploaded to Youtube as an example.

You say that as if this isn't exactly what I've been saying for three page.

It was *clearly* a worthwhile investment of time, then.
Perhaps play something that doesn't require such a high level of execution, then? On current evidence, any form of modern bullet-hell with challenging scoring tricks and a high requirement of co-ordination will be far beyond anything you're capable of, in context of scoring decently at least. I haven't seen your survival skills yet, so I can't pass judgement on that.

[Obscura]

In Galuda 1, until you die the first time, it drains really slowly as long as you get full overmode in the start of stage 1.

Even the quick "tap into Kakusei when the pattern reaches you, move around a bit, tap out when the bullets aren't near you anymore" totally cheapens the whole thing for me. I'd rather play a Pachi or a Ketsui where I just dodge scary patterns or make the real judgement call to bomb them, not this sort of lame "I'll slow time down for a bit every time there's any overlap!" stuff.

EDIT: Typical Icarus. "Hey, I have nothing to say, so I'll just throw out insults and talk about how anyone who isn't a superplayer shouldn't bother playing at all, and then wonder why people call me, in the words of DTP, an 'elitist tosser'".

[Squire Grooktook]

In Galuda 1, until you die the first time, it drains really slowly as long as you get full overmode in the start of stage 1.

Even the quick "tap into Kakusei when the pattern reaches you, move around a bit, tap out when the bullets aren't near you anymore" totally cheapens the whole thing for me. I'd rather play a Pachi or a Ketsui where I just dodge scary patterns or make the real judgement call to bomb them, not this sort of lame "I'll slow time down for a bit every time there's any overlap!" stuff.

Well, it's been a while since I played 1 over 2, but that sounds like much more of an issue with the overall difficulty than the mechanic itself. The harder patterns in 2 will have you using it much more frequently and thus drying up your reserve much faster. End game bosses in Galuda 2 have me weighting my use of the mechanic about as carefully as any bomb, if not more so.

Also I don't remember if it was like this in Galuda 1, but in Galuda 2 getting hit in Kakusei drains half your bomb bar or the entire thing (depending on which version of Kakusei you were in) which is pretty devastating to survival if you're trying to conserve bombs (actually making the choice to bomb gives you much greater damage power along with much more bombs).

Contrary to shmup farm dogma, talent is not only a thing that exists, but it's the only thing that matters until you reach the absolute top at something. There's been so much research done debunking the "omg, anyone can become an expert if they put in the effort!" crap that I can't believe anyone still believes it;

Even a 2-all of ddp isn't exactly what I'd call "expert" then, at least by your definition. I agree that not everyone can WR but almost any survival challenge should be within the realm of basic human potential.

the actual best at any endeavor reached very close to their peak with relatively little practice, and the thousands and thousands of hours are just to put on the tiniest of finishing touches.

People here claim "talent only matters when you reach the WR level, but below that it's all practice!" In reality, the opposite is true; practice only matters when you're already great, below that, it's all talent.

If this was true, there would be numerous "blind" clear videos from legendary players, when in reality such feats are existent but incredibly rare even by the standards of the absolute top players (which is what makes them neat). Most top players probably didn't even get the 1-all for Ketsui on their first attempt, let alone a 2-all or world record which is aeons above that.

They clear it faster, yeah, but evidence seems to say its a much more subtle difference then your making it out to be. IIRC Prometheus didn't just 2-all DDP after a few hours.

Most people here are talking out of experience. Harder 1cc's came to people but usually have 90+ hours or more of playtime, with the initial runs often being very embarrassing and annoying. Different people do improve at different rates, but of all the people who have sucessfully pulled these runs, almost none of them got it "shortly". Hell, I see people who have 2-alled DDP pick up new games sometimes and flail around and die miserably midway through. It is a very, very, very slim minority of people who can do well immediately, but they aren't the only ones who can do well at all.

[Icarus]

EDIT: Typical Icarus. "Hey, I have nothing to say, so I'll just throw out insults and talk about how anyone who isn't a superplayer shouldn't bother playing at all, and then wonder why people call me, in the words of DTP, an 'elitist tosser'".

At least I acknowledge what I am. You apparently are unable to. Perhaps you should look at yourself a little more closely, hm?
Numerous others have argued against your apparently unshakable worldview, but when someone is as stubborn as you are, perhaps nothing more can be said and done. As far as I am concerned, you're a lost cause.

[Shepardus]

Well it's not like you can take any old shmup and toss the Kakusei mechanic into it; Espgaluda's designed around having it, just like other games are designed to have bombing as a get out of jail free card. People probably viewed the now-standard bomb mechanic with similar disdain when games started to introduce it, and it wouldn't make much sense in a game like Gradius or R-Type, but it works with games that are designed for it.

That said, Espgaluda's on the more forgiving and easy side of CAVE games, arguably even without the Kakusei mechanic, and it's perfectly fine not to like its style of gameplay.

Contrary to shmup farm dogma, talent is not only a thing that exists, but it's the only thing that matters until you reach the absolute top at something. There's been so much research done debunking the "omg, anyone can become an expert if they put in the effort!" crap that I can't believe anyone still believes it;

Even a 2-all of ddp isn't exactly what I'd call "expert" then, at least by your definition. I agree that not everyone can WR but almost any survival challenge should be within the realm of basic human potential.

^^^
Everybody has their limits, and for all I know your limits may be significantly below average, but I highly doubt you've really exercised those limits fully, especially not in DFK.

[Obscura]

As far as I am concerned, you're a lost cause.

Then why are you still posting? And even putting forth the effort to edit every post like 3 or 4 times?

Well it's not like you can take any old shmup and toss the Kakusei mechanic into it; Espgaluda's designed around having it, just like other games are designed to have bombing as a get out of jail free card. People probably viewed the now-standard bomb mechanic with similar disdain when games started to introduce it, and it wouldn't make much sense in a game like Gradius or R-Type, but it works with games that are designed for it.

It's not a "balance" thing; it's just that at a visceral level, dropping a bomb to get out of trouble feels exciting and fun and hitting my slowdown mode... doesn't.

If this was true, there would be numerous "blind" clear videos from legendary players, when in reality such feats are existent but incredibly rare even by the standards of the absolute top players (which is what makes them neat). Most top players probably didn't even get the 1-all for Ketsui on their first attempt, let alone a 2-all or world record which is aeons above that.

To be fair, how many people are recording video of their first credit ever with a game? I mean, I cleared Crimzon Clover's novice modes on my first try easily, as did probably everyone else on this forum; how many bothered recording and Youtubing it?

[trap15]

As far as I am concerned, you're a lost cause.

Then why are you still posting? And even putting forth the effort to edit every post like 3 or 4 times?

Because we're all trying to get you to stop posting and start playing.

Seriously.

Whining is stupid and nobody wants to hear it. Either listen to input or fuck off. Sorry.

[Obscura]

So, people are replying to get me to stop replying? Because that makes a lot of sense, right?

Oh, and you don't want to hear it, yet you came in this thread anyways, knowing exactly what you were about to read?

Seems that it's not just me that can't "acknowledge what I am".