How long did it take before you got good at shmups ?

[Wolfexer]

Just curious, i can't say myself because im not godd yet .
Im sure im getting better.
Btw I love this forum, the community is great.

[copy-paster]

Depends on the game to me. If it really looks hard enough maybe it would take some time to finish.

[spmbx]

Never have, never will. As long as i enjoy a few games now and then i don't particularly care either.

[chempop]

Many years. The turning point was realizing that sitting over 5 feet back on the couch wasn't helping, once I arrange my setup so I could sit much closer to the screen I immediately noticed an improvement. Also, learning to use an arcade stick rather than a controller with a crappy d-pad helped heaps as well.

[Shepardus]

Good is simply better than what you are now. You're always getting good but you never are good.

[pmp]

Someone once told me to have a benchmark game you can come back to and gauging your improvement. I come back to dodonpachi every few months and notice that I get further on a credit than I used to, even though I don’t regularly practice the game.

[BulletMagnet]

You'll know once my username changes.

[Wolfexer]

Good is simply better than what you are now. You're always getting good but you never are good.

Couldn't say this better, really true.

[mycophobia]

i feel like it's probably more useful to say you're good at a particular game than shmups in general.

[MintyTheCat]

I am not absolutely brillaint at playing Shmups but I'd say that I'm well above the usual level.
I found that I simply had faster reactions than children of similar age and I thought more strategically than most of them. You kind of need both of those qualities to survive a Shmup

[Sumez]

Running on 35 years so far, and still no luck

[Stevens]

Good is simply better than what you are now. You're always getting good but you never are good.

Not these exact words, but this is the line of thinking I apply to my training (progressive calisthenics if anyone cares).

To remind me of this I have Sagat's original win quote hanging in my office over my desk.

No matter how much progress I make it keeps me grounded.

[LordHypnos]

Yeah, I guess I'd pretty much echo what everyone else is saying. I still don't really feel like I'm "good" even though it's obvious that I've improved immensely since I started. "Good" is like a platonic ideal of a player or some shit.

[Square_Air]

Being "good at shmups" is a pretty relative concept. I find Playing shmups to be more about constant improvement than hitting a skill level plateau.

i feel like it's probably more useful to say you're good at a particular game than shmups in general.

This is generally a more useful method for determining skill on a smaller scale. While you can potentially become an extraordinary player of shmups in general, it's difficult to define.

[MintyTheCat]

It is interesting to see the split in opinion here between those who feel that it's something that you learn and those who believe in innate skill that you are simply wired for.

Personally I see the basic ingredient as being coordination between eye and hands as being a critical skill, then experience of a given level or game and its system informs and directs through experience. Shmups are interesting in that it tends closer to a sort of play or ritual as a player learns to ace a given level but it starting kind of as 'just surviving' and is not organised and directed at first.

I remember being at a gaming event in England a few years ago when DDP saidaioujou was released and I played it a few times and managed to get to the boss of stage 4. I was not in practice and I didn't know the way of the game, nor had I played daifukkatsu and yet I could get to that point in the game on 1 credit. That's reactions, hand eye coordination and Shmup experience I would say.

At the same event the year before I managed to win the RECCA competition too.

In both cases I wasn't playing any games around that time and I hadn't played any RECCA in years before the event. The guy smiled, passed me the prize and said that I had a 40+% lead over the runner-up.
I don't play any games now and go through phases whereby I don't play anything and yet, I get off a plane, tired, go to an event and do ok. That to me supports the reaction and coordination traits argument but we're all different

I only play Shmups to enjoy them though but I find it very hard to keep playing a game over months and months - I barely manage a week of sustained playing of a Shmup - I am terrible for sticking to a game and it's not like I will go and play other games instead - I simply stop playing any games

[Plasmo]

I find it very hard to keep playing a game over months and months

In fact, this is the one and only skill that makes you get better at shmups: persistence. If you cannot stick to a game, I cannot see you getting anywhere with anything skillwise in shmups, other than some adlib reaction skills, which are admittedly not very important in this genre (but nonetheless might turn out to be helpful sometimes).

I wouldn't call myself particularly good at shmups, but I'm a bit above average. However, I am working on it really hard and made it my lifetime goal to become good at shmups. I am bad at giving up.

I am not absolutely brillaint at playing Shmups but I'd say that I'm well above the usual level.

Post your scores man!

[Stevens]

It is interesting to see the split in opinion here between those who feel that it's something that you learn and those who believe in innate skill that you are simply wired for.

Imo for the overwhelming majority of us it is something you can learn. There are players on here though - Jaimers, Icarus, and Perikles spring to mind, who seemingly lay waste to almost everything they play. Like everything else I believe on some level there are people who are hardwired to be better at this sort of thing.

In fact, this is the one and only skill that makes you get better at shmups: persistence.

This is the only reason I am as competent at the one game I am competent at. With that said I still have room for lots of improvement.

[MintyTheCat]

I think that I did post my RECCA score, Plasmo. I'll have a look but I did take a photo of the score and the prizes

Well, if musicians, judoka and kids who were good at maths are wired differently it would make sense that the top players are wired differently. As an aside: financial traders are wired differently and understand risk and reward differently for the most part.

But yes, I agree: you can learn to improve and get better over time. Like with art, you practice and improve over time as you apply yourself to it.

I'm not in the same league who makes it their life's calling such as Plasmo I'm just someone who enjoys Shmups for the fun of them but I do agree, there is a sense of accomplishment as you manage to progress in a Shmup and I seem to enjoy the harder Shmups but that's a masochistic tendency perhaps

[FRO]

I only play Shmups to enjoy them though but I find it very hard to keep playing a game over months and months - I barely manage a week of sustained playing of a Shmup - I am terrible for sticking to a game and it's not like I will go and play other games instead - I simply stop playing any games

This is me in a number of ways, though when I get tired of one game, I usually just move on to the next. I'm not a completionist in games, so for me, it's the goal of "beating" the game, even if that means continuing over and over until the end, just to see the main campaign. Unless the extra stuff is even more fun than the main game, I usually skip it, or just dip my toe in the water, get a feel for it, and move on. My game collection is way too large to play any one game too long, with VERY few exceptions (erm, Breath of the Wild). With shmups, I go for a little while, have some fun with it, and then put it away, often not progressing enough to truly 1CC a game. My issue is, when I revisit a game, I do that - pull the game out, play it for a few days, hit my usual wall, and then get frustrated and not persist with it, put it away, and move on to the next game, shmup or not. That's one of the reasons I started the new shmup club deal. It will force me to concentrate on a game for an entire month (in between other games I'm playing), and hopefully get further than I ever have, and possibly hit that 1CC. I've already done that with R-Type: I beat the Game Boy version with only 2 credits, and I've progressed further into Dimensions than I have in any previous version of the game. I've hit another wall with it, but I know that if I can get the patterns and timing down more completely, I should be able to take out the boss w/o too much effort, because I learned the strategy for that within a couple tries.

All this to say, my biggest problem is that I don't stick with it, but since I've identified that, I hope to remedy that going forward

[LordHypnos]

i feel like it's probably more useful to say you're good at a particular game than shmups in general.

This is an interesting idea. I would probably say that I am good at Mars Matrix, but I wouldn't say that, even if all else was equal if there were a lot more people on the forum who were better than me (I'm gauging this based on multipliers since the arcade game has changed scoring and a CS), and I think there are probably a lot of people who would be able to surpass me much faster than I got to the level that I'm currently at with the game with a little effort. So it's still quite relative. As such, my own persistence at the game has taken me further than most people. I'm curious if other people think about the games that they've put the most effort into this way.

[MintyTheCat]

I only play Shmups to enjoy them though but I find it very hard to keep playing a game over months and months - I barely manage a week of sustained playing of a Shmup - I am terrible for sticking to a game and it's not like I will go and play other games instead - I simply stop playing any games

This is me in a number of ways, though when I get tired of one game, I usually just move on to the next. I'm not a completionist in games, so for me, it's the goal of "beating" the game, even if that means continuing over and over until the end, just to see the main campaign. Unless the extra stuff is even more fun than the main game, I usually skip it, or just dip my toe in the water, get a feel for it, and move on. My game collection is way too large to play any one game too long, with VERY few exceptions (erm, Breath of the Wild). With shmups, I go for a little while, have some fun with it, and then put it away, often not progressing enough to truly 1CC a game. My issue is, when I revisit a game, I do that - pull the game out, play it for a few days, hit my usual wall, and then get frustrated and not persist with it, put it away, and move on to the next game, shmup or not. That's one of the reasons I started the new shmup club deal. It will force me to concentrate on a game for an entire month (in between other games I'm playing), and hopefully get further than I ever have, and possibly hit that 1CC. I've already done that with R-Type: I beat the Game Boy version with only 2 credits, and I've progressed further into Dimensions than I have in any previous version of the game. I've hit another wall with it, but I know that if I can get the patterns and timing down more completely, I should be able to take out the boss w/o too much effort, because I learned the strategy for that within a couple tries.

All this to say, my biggest problem is that I don't stick with it, but since I've identified that, I hope to remedy that going forward

Ah, I think me and you are part of the middle-aged Shmuppers movements - come on, let's have a hash tag for that: #middleagedshmup

If I could only have the collection that I have now but take it back in time to when I was 12 or 13 that would have been perfect but we haven't got a time machine

Yes, I have R-Type on the GB and it's quite good. Surprisingliy there are many good titles that are ports on the GB.
I wish that we had enough folks around these parts to set up a shmup club.

[Stevens]

I'm curious if other people think about the games that they've put the most effort into this way.

Yes.

[gray117]

There's nothing special to it. Just like most other disciplines - you might naturally gifted, but you'll only be good and get better with continued practice.

There's no doubt the genre skews towards being relatively difficult... For most other genres survival means relatively little and you will probably find the relative being 'good' applies to your success or otherwise as a competitive player... and I'd say the exact same thing applies here: Except instead of a K:D ratio above 1:1, you're generally aiming for a score or even just survival ... Let alone 1cc, I think a decent run in most shmups can make you 'good' at shmups.

I'm crap at shmups, still love 'em, don't play them very often atm though, got decent at doj at ketsui once upon a time ago ... got pretty good at cs 1.6 and quake 3 once upon a time ago too... crap at both now - 15 (?) years later...

[FRO]

Ah, I think me and you are part of the middle-aged Shmuppers movements - come on, let's have a hash tag for that: #middleagedshmup

I can get on board with that

If I could only have the collection that I have now but take it back in time to when I was 12 or 13 that would have been perfect but we haven't got a time machine

Where's Doc Brown when you need him?

Yes, I have R-Type on the GB and it's quite good. Surprisingliy there are many good titles that are ports on the GB.

My biggest complaint is that some of the collision detection is wonky. It's inconsistent. Also, it sucks that they only translated 2 of the main stage music tracks, and they just switch back and forth.

I wish that we had enough folks around these parts to set up a shmup club.

My club is online - see my thread about it here in the Shmups Chat. I only know a couple people locally who might be willing to participate, but certainly no one with enough games in the genre already in their collection to do much but emulate or watch YouTube videos and talk about the games.

[agyx-groovy]

I am working on it really hard and made it my lifetime goal to become good at shmups.

Heh reminds me of when I was a teenager with silly ambitions to.

[Bananamatic]

I am working on it really hard and made it my lifetime goal to become good at shmups.

Heh reminds me of when I was a teenager with silly ambitions to.

based

[Square_Air]

I am working on it really hard and made it my lifetime goal to become good at shmups.

Heh reminds me of when I was a teenager with silly ambitions to.

I'll take being silly over being bad at shmups. This is also the official website of mostly grown-ass adults with "silly ambitions".

If I could go back to being a teenager with all my experience though it would give me so many more years to sink into shmups.

[Bananamatic]

when you're a teenager you probably don't have the mental capacity to get anywhere
the best you'll manage is flailing around and complaining about everything being unfair or memoshit

[Shepardus]

when you're a teenager you probably don't have the mental capacity to get anywhere
the best you'll manage is flailing around and complaining about everything being unfair or memoshit

As if that's any different when you get older

[charlie chong]

making it your lifelong ambition to become good at shmups is silly at any age .