Best way to gauge one's skill/progress relative to others?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Wow... is this serious?

You can get 10+ mil in the first stage alone quite easily. I suck at Ketsui and I can manage this, so yeah, it's absolutely serious.

[NTSC-J]

Just to clarify, when I say watch a video or read a guide, I'm not saying he should memorize how to milk the stage 1 boss, I mean just to understand the controls and the general object of the game.

If after several attempts his credits are ending at under 5,000,000, it suggests to me that he may not even know about holding the button down for the laser and that it's useful on bosses, etc. Definitely don't worry about the finer points of scoring at this point, just get used to the enemy patterns and stages.

[Eaglet]

Keep going with Ketsui though.
I think it's one of the best games to play over a long period of time as you'll constantly adapt your strategies after your skill level and exposure to the game.
Start of with
just trying to survive,
graduate to getting 5-box chains,
start empty-locking big enemies,
build up your multiplier high before the midboss,
limit your bombs to reach the Omote loop,
start empty-locking popcorn enemies,
stop bombing entirely and enter URA,
defeat DOOM,
become SPS.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, really knowing how the scoring system works in Ketsui makes a huge difference. Kill stuff at close range with the rapid shot, get a chip to set your chip timer to that value (higher like 5 is better), go into lockshot and kill as much as you can before your chip timer resets to 1.

But really, to get the extends, you don't need to be at pointblank range constantly, so it's really not that bad.

[Eaglet]

But really, to get the extends, you don't need to be at pointblank range constantly, so it's really not that bad.

No.
Good hallmarks for average scoring is first extend by second midboss (20 mil) and second extend by third midboss (45 mil).

[heisenbergman]

My best so far in Ketsui is 5M. Been into shmups for roughly two weeks or so now.

Only games I've beaten so far are Jamestown, Danmaku Unlimited 2 on Easy and BWR+ on HeavenEasy diff.

You sure that you know how scoring works in ketsui?

Actually no... I just try to survive as long as I can and shoot everything in sight

I'll send a Medivac unit out right away.

But seriously, that's not a bad start since you're just warming up to these games (and Ketsui is one of the harder ones), but it does suggest that you're missing some very basic stuff about how to play it. Maybe watch some videos then check out a guide that will explain what they're doing. That might seem like too much of a commitment at this point, but it's not a bad idea to settle into a game so that you can really start to enjoy what makes this genre so good.

Actually, I haven't checked out the strategy section of the forums yet for a guide on Ketsui. I'll look into it, thanks.

You're at the stage where you should be playing for survival rather than score. Just get into the genre by learning the ropes and come back for score later.

Actually, I don't know that I'm playing for the score, exactly. Like I said above, I try to survive for as long as possible and shoot everything in sight, which hopefully leads to a high score. Yet at the same time, as was already mentioned, I might not be aware of the scoring system yet to know what scores high.

I'm starting to think maybe I should start finishing the game first and keep note of how many credits I needed to finish it, then try to get that "number of credits to finish the game" lower and lower in succeeding playthroughs.

If after several attempts his credits are ending at under 5,000,000, it suggests to me that he may not even know about holding the button down for the laser and that it's useful on bosses, etc.

I do know that one can hold down the button for the laser but it slows down your ship and that the third button is for autofire. How I play for the most part is that the autofire is always pressed down and I just hold and release the fire button to active the laser/slow down/speed up as needed.

FWIW, I just did a run right now and got to 7.4M, so that's an improvement.

Keep going with Ketsui though.
I think it's one of the best games to play over a long period of time as you'll constantly adapt your strategies after your skill level and exposure to the game.
Start of with
just trying to survive,
graduate to getting 5-box chains,
start empty-locking big enemies,
build up your multiplier high before the midboss,
limit your bombs to reach the Omote loop,
start empty-locking popcorn enemies,
stop bombing entirely and enter URA,
defeat DOOM,
become SPS.

Sorry... what exactly is meant by "empty-locking" and "popcorn enemies"?

[NTSC-J]

Empty-locking is nothing you should be worrying about right now. Popcorn enemies are the small, easy-to-kill enemies, like the little helicopters.

Generally, shoot and survive is the way to go, but you'll find that with a lot of modern STGs, especially ones made by Cave, it gets a bit more complicated.

With Ketsui, try using your auto-shot on the small enemies then immediately switching to the laser and holding it. You'll see more big 5 cubes pop up.

[Hagane]

In the little time I had with Ketsui, I found that playing for score is a good way to survive. I find it easier to avoid patterns from up close than far from the enemies.

[Meseki]

In the little time I had with Ketsui, I found that playing for score is a good way to survive. I find it easier to avoid patterns from up close than far from the enemies.

Maybe it's just that I've never made it to the stage 3 boss and I'm rusty, but I tried a quick survival run without Lock Shot (using Tiger Schwert) and managed to No miss no bomb the entire first stage, despite having low damage output. (I got just under 50,000 score at the beginning of stage 2, somewhere above 100,000 when I game overed near the end of stage 2) I immediately tried a scoring run and game overed like 10 seconds after the first midboss (then again, I died to the first power-up enemy trying to get Lock Shot 5s from it...).

[trap15]

I'm starting to think maybe I should start finishing the game first and keep note of how many credits I needed to finish it, then try to get that "number of credits to finish the game" lower and lower in succeeding playthroughs.

This is the single quickest way to get better at a game as fast as possible, aside from using save state practice.

If you start just pumping credits without thinking though, stop. I like to limit myself to maybe 5 or 7 credits max when I do these credit-feed play sessions. No limit lets you just stop caring.

[Sinful]

Easy. Gradius III Cube Rush competitions without building a wall, of course. No go, have fun.

Other then that, it's all about the more spontanious aspects of shoooters then the stuff you can memorize to overcome. Gradius IV out of that Arcade series was designed with that in mind, and achieves it the best out of that series, as an example. So yeah, start looking for games that's more about on the spot reaction over memorization. And that's the best way to compare skills.

[hail good sir]

For whatever it's worth, I don't really know what I'm doing with Ketsui outside of knowing some of the boss patterns and knowing HOW the scoring system works and I just game overed on the stage 4 midboss with 37 million. Haven't played in about a year I think. So I would agree with NTSCJ's scale and that you need to learn some more basics first because it's just not fair to yourself to try and compare yourself to others if you don't understand the scoring system or can't get very far in the game. From a pure ratio standpoint your score is going to explode once you get better at those two things and it should give you some sort of realistic path of progression, such as "get a clear and slowly start scoring better along the way."