STGT'12: The Aftermath

[CptRansom]

There's enough Gradius III right now.

I'd like to see Raiden II next year, but that would require CERTAIN PEOPLE to stop being lazy asshats, though, so I don't think it's going to happen. =D

[Drake]

While I would have rathered DOJ over EspGaluda and MS over SSS, I definitely enjoyed all of the game choices this year to some extent. Much better than last year.

Strikers 99! I had the good fortune of being able to take advantage of both Azinth and Sapz, which definitely helped ease this week along. I have to say, the enjoyment level of this game was basically "really fun" figuring things out, "what the fuck" actually finishing savestate practice such as clearing Shadow Blinder well and the like, "I'm not having fun" doing full runs, then finally finishing the loop at the very end of the week and realizing that the loop is where all the fun parts of the game are. Narrowly avoided leaving a bad impression. Medal chaining was new enough to me to keep me interested in scoring. I'm still not a fan of the amount of precision memo needed (unlike SSS) so I'll probably only play this when Sapz tells me to or something.

V-V why are you so long. Most of this week was savestate practice because I literally cannot imagine myself playing credit after credit of this game. It's exhausting. Not a large score punishment for mistakes as much of the score is basically survival and a few tricks, fortunately, but recovery is unbearably difficult and often leads directly into run failure, and I cannot forgive games that pull that sort of crap, especially when they're this long. Every game over makes it feel like an utter waste of time, and even if you get a high score, defeat is often miserable and disappointing. However, the game is still quite fun to play. It has a certain "sturdy" aesthetic that I appreciate, and not much of the game's content feels pointless, even though it's so long. The scoring and weapon systems are nice and simple. Loop makes everything much more threatening, which keeps your attention up and makes everything feel much less boring, which reduces the chances that you die from slacking or inattention (very common in first loop). Might as well just start the game at the loop. Probably won't play again unless pushed to.

I don't really have much to say about Salamander 2. It was alright. Hori, mildly frustrating, solid enough, straight-up shmup. I don't think I'll ever play it again, but it was at least sort of fun while I was actually playing it. I'M GOING TO SCARE YOU LIKE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN SCARED BEFORE

EspGaluda, as I expressed in the score thread, is definitely not a game that I would ever enjoy scoring in. I'm against score systems based on milking or based on canceling; having the two together is exponentially bad. I have some other gripes with how the mechanics are designed and applied and such, but that's another matter. Point is, I don't like the scoring system and it's boring. Fortunately, Kakusei Over proves to make the game really fast, difficult and fun, plus it removes the overarching scoring system. I thoroughly enjoy playing Overheat runs, and I decided I would rather actually have fun and get a mediocre score for the week instead of being bored and probably still getting a mediocre score because I wouldn't play for that long. Very likely to play again in the future.

SSS was a really fun game to optimize in, being fast-paced and short. Really seemed to be the week that everyone was fighting to place. Pretty much all of the scores high up were close together, one-upping each other simply by being a bit tighter or by destroying just a few more boxes or by hammering the last boss a second earlier than the other guy. Was really a lot of fun. Unfortunately, being a caravan, I doubt I'll play it much more as I've already "learned" everything. Maybe I'll pick it up when I'm bored, romp it and top the scorelist. Ha.

Overall enjoyment: SSS > Esp Over > S99 (end of week) > V-V > S99 > S2
Likelihood of further playing: Esp Over > SSS > S99 > V-V > Esp > S2

Drama: I had much amusement over Vixy even though that wasn't STGT (although I guess sik drama counts), but the discussions that followed got really out of hand really quickly, and I don't like that one bit. Even though I've only been here two years, the sheer ridiculousness and negativity and hostility that came out of some serious discussions is scary. As far as the gus and Esu thing goes, 11/10, the IRC convos from behind the scenes were the best part and the logs are now enshrined. Gotta make sure that Esu doesn't beat himself up over this though.

I actually hope that next year we get more people-I'm-not-acquainted-with in higher places and that there's more pressure in the competition between teams; I feel that competing against people I already know isn't very fun since I can just do that whenever if I wanted. If TiH and TiMFA made first and second that would suck imo.
So uh yeah, congratulations to everyone that did well, and self-congratulations for getting the exact place I decided to strive for after the second week. Lastly, thank you dex for hosting the tournament once again, and I await next year.

[njiska]

No to voting, as I think we were better when we were forced to play games we didn't know/like.

No to Cave week. It's getting old and I don't think we should be playing the SH3 games yet.

Fuck the drama and no to the score verification crowd. In the end the cheating only hurt the cheaters. I think we had a fine tournament this year and the bulk of us had fun.

My only other comment is a big thumbs up to Doujin week. That was a great idea. Though if we do it next year, it might be nice to have setup instructions in the initial post if people are going to have trouble like this year.

Strikers was the best of the games I played. Super fun. Thanks again Dex and thanks to my team, the bronies and non-bronies alike. It was nice to shmup with fellow fans and mix hobbies for a bit.

Oh and to keep this post running on, thanks to Sly Cherry Chunks for the great logo.

[shadowbringer]

first, thank you dex and davey (and whoever helped them) for running this annual tournament!

second, comments/opinions/thoughts/etc:

(on the tournament)
- I'm surprised with my final individual placement (28th), thought that I would suck even harder than I did in 2010 (45th iirc), seeing how I placed 72th in the first week (S99). Didn't do well either in S2 (46th) and Galuda (58th), but in the end, it seems that I'm yet to become as demotivated/burned out from shmups as I did in 2010 (because Mars Matrix stage 1 full chain practice from scratch, and Xexex fails at stage 3, stage 2 boss milk, missing the safespot of 4th boss and being clueless on the only time I got to stage 5)
- though I liked how my friends did well (in the touhou teams), I didn't feel like *everyone* in the TH teams (especially me) was completely focused on the tournament and on pushing their own limits (I greatly respect those who did push themselves even in games they hated), and at times I felt that former STGT participants (dot_asp, baity, heartbeam) and current ones were losing interest in STGTs, and that made me feel bad, STGT lost hype points for me due to that.
- I was initially discouraged from the start, not only because of me sucking "nostalgically" in the first week (72th), but for my reduced availability (even worse than last year), with an Arcana Heart 3 tournament in the 4th week (which I ended underpracticing for Galuda and didn't do well either because of lack of matchup experience against Saki, Kamui and lost to a better Fiona I need to improve my Heart T___T). Also I spent most of the time on facebook too (lol), and even on facebook games (you may start laughing now), and watching some of the games featured in another brazilian tournament (Treta Armageddon), more specifically KoF XIII, some bits of UMvC 3 (the stream was choppy for me), and some bits of MK9 and SSFIV:AE. Still, I could grind the final 3 hours in SSS and was amazed that I could beat the default highscore and its demo.
- liked the voting, I would've sucked in DOJ, maybe a little less in Ketsui (people say Ketsui is intuitive; I find Galuda stage 1 way less difficult to understand than Ketsui stage 1. "Why is my difficult Ketsui route only giving me under 12m or less? Why is my lock shot chain so low-scoring, and how much I'm even supposed to gain from a chain?". DOJ stage 1 would be way much more difficult to learn and execute to me, than RFJ stage 1 (which is actually meaningful to the rest of the game, as opposed to DOJ stage 1).
- also you guys (voters) suck at making this STGT the BEST STGT OF ALL STGTS, but please let's keep the voting so I can see how many teams are too afraid of the game that instantly could make any STGT (even 2010's) the MOST AWESOME STGT OF ALL TIMES.
- finally, once again, my respect for everyone who pushed their own limits. Hope you've enjoyed the improvement

(on the games)
- ugh S99. On one hand, getting 2000s felt easier than S1945 II (which felt far more frustrating and distracting), but my memo for techs and learning stages is as under-average as always (didn't even touch savestates, as I couldn't learn the first stages. I think that first stages make a difference, every time, as if that was a rule, rather than an exception.)
- V-V... I didn't dislike it as much as many others that called it a "vertical gradius" because of.. MARP's K-9 tournament
There, we had to play Slap Fight. I barely played Slap Fight, didn't bother to try to memo it, and relied on the games after it (which ended being Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, yay noobs complaining about inputs @ ST and FGs in general, and Donkey Kong -- yay sucky physics, sucky milking glitches and sucky AI manipulation -- and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs -- yay @ facing at the opposite side of enemies and spamming down/up as Mustapha all day to milk them for 100 points each move... fun...)
much funnier game than Slap Fight, though I had trouble memorizing weapon change, stage enemy attack patterns, and didn't memo the 4th boss well enough or fast enough (or at all.. I'm still clueless about the safe places against the curved lasers).
- S2. At first I was discouraged by the seemingly intense memorization for option bombing by watching the highscoring video for the first two stages.. but then, as I played around with the game, the memorization felt easier when I thought "I need more firepower in certain places such as the metal balls in stage 2, and for these parts I shouldn't bomb". Got the brain bonuses and consistently made the golden ship appear, but couldn't find a way to get the 100k bonus from it, and didn't learn the stage 3 boss milk. Got to the final boss a couple times, which was a positive surprise compared to how I consistently don't loop games not named Dodonpachi. (probably one of the easiest loops ever, and I"m really sad because of this fact. Since when did I start caring for survival over scoring? :O )
- Galuda. Like I mentioned in the IRC chat, the first week (before STGT, of course) I spent playing Galuda, I only reached 7m and didn't really understand what was going on in the first stage, and mimicking it didn't help there. Then, before 2011's STGT, we made a sort of training/warmup week in a forum, with Galuda overheat, and I got 18m or 17m. And finally, on this year, I could understand why the superplay does what it does in stage 1 and modified my route based on that, and my general gameplan to capitalize on gems to spend on larger or easier chains, instead of trying to follow the superplays. Still, didn't use savestates because there was so many things going wrong during my runs that I had to take mental notes from. The scoring felt intuitive (for an average player like me, not for optimization), but the chokepoints stopped me from getting a better score, like the 4 previous games.
- SSS. Yes, we lost the chance to play MS, and beat the people who were too scared of MS in their own chosen game anyways, but it was a fun game. Spent the first day trying to find more information or replay videos, downloaded the wrong emulator (one without keyboard support or autofire iirc), spent the next days getting the game to run (downloaded the emulator I used in this week, configured it, etc..), watched the 5 min run, half-heartedly played it and of course messed up badly, but with enough repetition I got most of the enemy placements down, and did surprisingly well for my low expectations. I don't understand why people who have a lot better time memorizing stages and taking advantage of savestates, seem to have a harder time learning a shorter game. I want to know how you people can memo the chokepoints in these longer games, faster than I do.


And..... the special thanks section.
- Saucy: for the info on how to tech the green boss (don't even remember its name, that's how bad my memory is) of the train stage in S99 and how to kill the brain consistently in S2
- Thanuris: for the info on how to kill the 3rd boss faster in V-V (forgot who told me to not max weapons until after stage 5's midboss, iirc. May have been Azinth, not sure) and on speedkilling the green missile launchers in SSS.
- Jaimers: for the info on how to safespot the 5th boss' spread pattern in S2
- BareKnuckleRoo: for the tip on getting Kakusei Overmode rank max on stage 1 Seseri's first phase
- RNG: for trying to help me with SSS's final hidden token.. I didn't play another credit after that, tried to watch the SSFIV:AE stream and played a facebook game (Super Ball Shooter, and SimCity Social, lol) instead. Sorry...
- my friends from TiH, w2wuf (thank you guys for coming to STGT, I hope you guys enjoyed and are coming back next year!), TimFA and the friends from IRC (but not limited to) for being awesome company as usual

@Seppo Hovi: haha, I said I would comment on how Sapz sabotaged himself in the middle of the tournament by playing SSFIV:AE (and how I unnecessarily sabotaged myself further by... well, facebook and fighting game forums)

Final words: it would be awesome if there was a way for danmakufu games to be run in non-Windows oses. I didn't knew about this detail; that leaves Phantasmagoria Trues and Phantasm Romance out of STGTs, sadly.


edit: special thanks also to medal, for trying to cover the 3rd score in Galuda (before I posted mine), and for the information thread about how to set SSS up.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Kakusei Overmode rank max on stage 1 Seseri's first phase

Actually I think I said second phase (you want to kakusei cancel the first phase for gold), lol, but yeah, maxing the overmode helps you get more gems and Seseri's second phase seems to be a good place to do it judging by the really high scoring runs. I appreciate the mention although I honestly don't deserve credit for this as I just got in the habit of doing it after watching other people's runs.

[shadowbringer]

yes, second phase, my bad

thank you for the correction, I misremembered the phases (I even do waste the remaining gems on the first phase's bullet cancel).

[Sandlegs]

Thanks to Dex again this year for doing the dynamic scoreboard. (which is awesome) Maybe we can have an end of year tournament of macaw this year. haha.

[Kyper]

It was a surprise to see voting this year. I've always been +voting, but to be honest, I never voted in the previous years as I am "unqualified" to do so. I only want to see the thought process and discussion of deciding the week's game, instead of just having a selected game given to us based on the theme of the week. I just think it's more fun that way...of course, that usually leads to bitching, but that's entertaining too! I actually broke my non-voting streak this year though for Strikers on week 1 'cause I had already played Raiden Fighters a bunch (cue "lol casual" 'cause I don't want to play with a clear advantage and just want to play different games instead of competing with every possible advantage). And although our team vote was Bakraid, Strikers won.

I believe I was asked to join Team INFINITE FLAMINGOES to fill in for original members who were/are busy with life. I hope my performance was somewhat on par with what the original members would have achieved, but that's wishful thinking. Thanks for the tidbit about the first 4 stages in Strikers being in the same order if you reset MAME (and I guess this works for the PCB?). Too bad I had nothing to contribute for any week, and we sorta just dropped communication after that. I'm a pretty awful teammate, I'll admit that.

I'm kinda disappointed that I couldn't get any 1st loop/1CCs. Obviously not the focus of a scoring tourney, but it's a nice bonus when I'm concentrating heavily on 1 game for an entire week, and I've 1CCed very little. I'm content with the scores I got, could always be better of course. And I'm sure I only made 19th place by simply playing in each week, yay for a participation award! My average rank is probably 35-40, maybe Davey's tabulations will verify that. Also thanks to dex and Davey for doing their thing for STGT and anyone else involved.

I have no taste, so that doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment of each week. I guess Espgaluda would have to be my favorite, as I played it the most. I even got a copy to use on my PS2. Too bad I couldn't get that end game bonus...

On the false scores stuff, I obviously have nothing useful to add. With this plus the quick pause replay that spawned some more discussion, all I can say is now might be the time to resolve this and maybe something will be added for next year to appease all parties? More wishful thinking I suppose.

And finally, hats off to the Touhou teams for their strong finishes!

[Mero]

#134 and I only played 2 games, yay!

Was glad to make the top 20 for Salamander 2, didn't do so great at Espgaluda but I quite enjoyed playing it (it had been sat gathering dust on my shelf for the past 3 years).

[NTSC-J]

Expect a replay for V-Five.

Should I stop expecting this? I'd still like to see it.

[Erppo]

Recaps, eh.

Overall I liked this a bit more than last year and unlike then, every game this year was good. I didn't like couple of them that much but that's a problem with me and not the games. The team performance was of course excellent. I really enjoyed working with our (and TiMFA's) people, discovering tricks and strategies to get good results. We ended up winning every week so I guess that teamwork amounted to something. I'm also a bit surprised of my own final placement. After the first week I expected to place lower than last year, but somehow things turned out differently.

S99: I missed most of the week and was only able to play in the weekend to get at least something in so I don't have much to say about it. It's a great game, I just wish I could have matched the team standard that week.

V-V: Seemed more fun initially but the first loop turned into a trivial chore faster than any other game I have played. I guess the shield mechanic is to blame for this, and the length really didn't help. The second loop on the other hand is really fun and manages to save the game. I really didn't expect to get the super perfect bonus at first, but it turned out to be lot more doable than I thought.

S2: I tried to like the game but failed. I can't really tell why, there's nothing really wrong with it. I ended up not playing it much so I can only thank Emuser for helping us still win the week.

Espgaluda: Fun enough. While I had played the game previously, I hadn't really looked into any kind of strategies needed to go past 50 million so there was still lot to learn. I'm slightly disappointed in not managing to do a run without any major screw ups, but I can't be too unhappy with the results.

SSS: I don't like caravans.

[MX7]

Wasn't terribly enthused about the games this year apart from Strikers. Every year I tell myself "Yes, I'm going to play 8 hours a day Monday to Friday, why not?" but then I never do. This year I spent 7 hours on S1999, 2 hours on VV, 4 hours on ESP, an hour and a half on S2 and 15 minutes on SSS. I'd be interested to see how much better I would get with a proper training regimen, but I guess I'm a fucking casual

As far as drama goes, I honestly don't think the current iteration of the forum is any more annoying than it has been. We had loads more shitposters like Icycalm, Ceph and Rob back in the day. But getting worked up about videogames on the Internet is always a pointless exercise. Chasing records may be cool for some people, but in the end we are just playing old videogames that were designed to make you spend more money to see more bright colours.

That caravan game in the last week was a bit of a misfire...

Massive well done to Touhou is Harder: it's great to see some new blood in the forum who really take scoring seriously.

So despite my favourite games not being picked, it was fun. People moaned, Sikraiken faked his scores, and millions of digital combatants were coldly annihilated.

[Kollision]

Strikers 1999 - Fun game, I just wish I'd had more time to play
V-V - Same as above
Salamander 2 - Great choice and timing for this one
Espgaluda - I was bored
SSS - Caravan is like a torture for me, so no

[jonny5]

I have no idea how I ranked so highly my first STGT. Frustrating as it was, I never thought I'd manage to get as far as I did in Salamander 2.

Also, I guess we answered the question of "WWJ5D?" Answer: nothing, lol, our captain didn't submit any scores

Yeah Roo you killed it man, no doubt.

I warned you guys when you asked me to be captain. I actually put in some time with S99 but forgot to note my scores

Then real life took over and I didn't have time to play anything;well I had some time, but no inclination to use that time to play games I don't necessarily like.

Playing games is not a priority for me at all these days; very busy with the band and my solo music. Prefer to be productive than vegging out playing games.

[Yazphier]

Thanks all for this tournament

This is my third time, and I really like this... Doubt there was any more drama than usual really...
and as I mainly compete against myself, the eventual cheaters doesn't bother me that much.

S99: Not my first choice, but it was nice
V-V: I liked it initually, but unfortunate, after a while it got terribly boring
S2: nothing to say, I like salamander...
Espg: for me, all 3 games were as good (slighly less for ket) .. not good at any of them, so I'm proud of my improvement over the week
SSS: /me don't like, can for sure tell that i'd have more fun playing touhou... even if I suck in comparision.
problems with emulation didn't really help .. (linux user) ..

Replay value:
will probably continue aiming to gain 1cc of s2 and espg, even if it's unlikely i'll succeed
both S99 and V-V both left a trail, so I'll probably play them again too.

I vote for continous voting.

[Deca]

I had a good time for the most part, but I still think we should have a break week in the middle. I just get kind of worn out in the last couple weeks. I like voting but I definitely see flaws in it, I'm not sure how they can be fairly addressed though.

21st overall this year and I can't complain too much about my team placing 11th. I definitely felt I had improved noticeably since last year so that's always a nice bit of self-affirmation. I just tried to avoid the drama, I have some opinions but I'm keeping away from the fire for the time being.

Don't have time to read through all the responses thus far as I'm at work, but I'll go through them later tonight.

[Shmoop_Meister]

I got talked into a team from a certain IRC channel that is totally not about animal penises.

ORLY?!

The people in the team were mostly high-level shmup players, so I still have no idea why I got picked as a captain. Thankfully I did not need to do much, our team was awesome like that.

You were picked captain because you are an active member of our "community" and because you are fairly good too.

With a really good team and an awful captain, we gained the fourth place, and I am pretty happy about that. The ranking is not important, but what matters is seeing how great and good people my teammates were and how well they did.

You did fairly well, even if you don't want to accept it, and you are a good captain, but as I said, the captain role is not as important in a tourney like this.

Shmoop, our powerhouse completely surprised me with his ability to play that well. Great work, man. Go make yourself spaghetti.

Thanks, you did great too man.
>Implying I don't make spaghetti everyday.


Anyway on a different note regarding my view of the tourney, it was fun. I give it a 7/10. It would have been 9/10 if Mystic Square had been picked for last week and a 10/10 if we had played anything but V-V, that game is as bad as Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES.

By the way, It's not necessary to tell my teammates how much I love them (and their animals too :3€) here. They already know.
And finally, I support a bit more salt, competition, trash talking, flaming, etc... for encouraging purposes, I felt like this tournament was too passive. I need someone to tell me I'm terrible and I suck and compete directly with me to do better. Hopefully this will be the case next year inteam.

[ExedExes]

21st overall this year and I can't complain too much about my team placing 11th.

I guess you didn't see we got bumped to 10th?

As for me, this was my first STGT. I noticed a lot of people from the forums we all come from forming this great team of power and being a shmup fan (the name is my game) I found there was a free slot and got in.

I did it for the fun, the games (all 5 were totally new to me), and a scoring system called the caravan which I enjoyed greatly.

As for our team of relative obscurity, I'd like to extend congrats to Deca, Culdad, Dunpeal, NoiseRedux, NMH and fvgazi for playing when they could, sharing all sorts of useful tips, and basically putting together a great month which got us a top 10 performance. Not bad for our rookie season!

The Munchmobile rolls on! TEAM COFFER!

Thanks to all who organized and updated this fine event. See you next year!

[Deca]

I guess you didn't see we got bumped to 10th?

I did not! Hah, neat.

[The Coop]

I was a bit disappointed by the participation of my team, as it was mostly just me, The Coop and ED-057 playing, even though our team consisted of six people. Real life got in the way, I suppose.

You and me both. Shocky let me know that he'd only be playing for two weeks (which is pretty much the norm for him each year), so that wasn't a surprise. But tinotormed playing one week and splitting, and raigon50 just up and vanishing, was a let down.


Anyway, I didn't even know about the falseificare stuff that was going on before the tournament. I wouldn't have cared about it if I had, but...

Outside of the two games that gave me some emulation issues, I had fun. It was nice getting to play Salamander 2, and it gave me a better appreciation for the Genesis port of Grindstormer/V-Five.

[Gmintyfresh]

Great competition, thanks to everyone that arranged it and to my fellow team members. Also thank you to the kind posters on the forum offering tips, they genuinely helped me gain higher scores. This was my first year in the comp and I was really happy with my placing and also the experience of playing three games I'd never played before. See you in STGT 13

[KMM]

I believe I was asked to join Team INFINITE FLAMINGOES to fill in for original members who were/are busy with life. I hope my performance was somewhat on par with what the original members would have achieved, but that's wishful thinking.

You did better than most of our standard team members normally do. :D

Unfortunately, it seems like most of INFINITE FLAMINGOES simply didn't have time or wasn't interested in the games we played. While I didn't have any interest in playing Salamander 2, I definitely wanted to be able to put more time in the rest of the games we played, and regret not being able to do so. Aside from that, Kuromatsu had real life preventing him from playing during most weeks, and spl had computer troubles preventing him from participating in the tournament at all, so adding that to Sasupoika's real-life concerns, I'd say we got screwed pretty hard this time.

[shmuppyLove]

Team WWJ5D: Right in the meaty part of the curve (tm)

[DJ Incompetent]

Thanks dex and davey.

Yes on captain voting. No to all INP verification. Organizer may audit people with known reputation issues as stated in my ye olde rules.

Props to the people for not letting this event die.

[trap15]

Maybe we can have an end of year tournament of macaw this year.

I'm actually planning doing one around November or December

[1up]

Maybe we can have an end of year tournament of macaw this year.

I'm actually planning doing one around November or December

I have fond memories of the macaw tournament. Had a good selection of games as far as I recall.

[Illyrian]

What's a "Macaw" tournament?

[trap15]

Search for TOM-STGT

[Illyrian]

Holy shit I want to do that, and be beefing with DrTrouserplank!

[1up]

If we ever get a chance to play Paperboy in a shmup tournament, a macaw one would be it.