CONFESS! (Your weakness that gets you killed!)

[sumdumgoy]

x

[SuperDeadite]

The desire to win.

[To Far Away Times]

This was a run I did probably 10+ years ago. I still remember the pain.

[BEAMLORD]

Bomb-hoarding, or not using bombs in general. A sure-fire strat for a bee-line direct to "Today's Best Players". Partly a dogged determination to be an ace pilot, and partly dogged general scrubbiness.

It's something I've had to consciously work hard toward over the years. Love your bombs, they are your friend.

[sunnshiner]

Bomb-hoarding, or not using bombs in general. A sure-fire strat for a bee-line direct to "Today's Best Players". Partly a dogged determination to be an ace pilot, and partly dogged general scrubbiness.

It's something I've had to consciously work hard toward over the years. Love your bombs, they are your friend.

Ah, this.

I keep them 'just in case' and end up dying with 6 in stock on Under Defeat. Just use your damn bombs, dammit.

Also trying to kill everything, again in Under Defeat. Like leaving survivors and/or showing compassion is a weakness or something. Can't we all just get along?

[Sturmvogel Prime]

Lemme say it in one big word.

TURRIDAMAGE

When the game (mostly indie shooters) go all Turrican with the lack of afterhit invincibility draining all your energy in seconds.
Need to say more?

[m.sniffles.esq]

Bomb-hoarding, or not using bombs in general

I believe everyone of a certain age has this weakness.

I keep them 'just in case' and end up dying with 6 in stock on Under Defeat.

And funny that you bring this up (since I've been playing a lot of under defeat lately), it's been awhile that a game gives such a satisfying, ridiculously destructive bomb, that I never use...

[sunnshiner]

Bomb-hoarding, or not using bombs in general

I believe everyone of a certain age has this weakness.

I keep them 'just in case' and end up dying with 6 in stock on Under Defeat.

And funny that you bring this up (since I've been playing a lot of under defeat lately), it's been awhile that a game gives such a satisfying, ridiculously destructive bomb, that I never use...

I know, right?

I've been playing it on Dreamcast (emulated) and on my 360, trying to crack 1,000,000 points (yes, I am a scrub). Best I've got was 800,000-odd the other day after half a beer and a dopey biscuit. Hardly the diet of champions but I was just seeing it, man...

[Lethe]

Crossed wires. Anticipate plan A, the situation develops like it'll need plan B, my brain hemispheres fight over which to do resulting in half of each at the same time and failing both. Happens when I slip off-route and need to compensate for an item/enemy in a weird place.

Keeping my head in the game on a good run. None of my PBs are on a strong overall pace, they've always been average or poor runs (which didn't outright fail). Had a typical situation just yesterday playing PoDD where I fell into some superb luck on stage 5, then right afterwards found my attention wandering on stage 6 and died twice for no purpose, and by the end it had turned into a merely mediocre score. It's not obvious nerves, but maybe it's some kind of coping mechanism.

A lot of games are more fun to dismantle than to keep playing. Unless it's got something special to it to keep me interested, my motivation to coax the stars into alignment again and again wanes if I've already sucked out most of the delicious theory-meta juice. Sometimes not looking at it for a while helps... familiarity breeds contempt, etc.

[Lemnear]

1) the tendency to graze bullets even when it's not necessary...and risk getting hit
2) an obstinacy to NEVER use bombs... EVER, they are all to rush the final boss (or the most difficult one)...but in games where there are no bombs I feel bad..as if I didn't have my secret weapon.
3) dying while trying to get a power-up, especially if they disappear after a while or are rotating (like in Raiden).

[TransatlanticFoe]

The bomb conundrum! Do I:

a) attempt to navigate a tricky spot with confidence
b) just use a bomb and get back on track

The answer is, of course, to dawdle and do neither - losing a life AND unused bomb stock.

See also: chasing a bomb pickup only to eventually need to use a bomb to safely collect the damn thing.

[Starfighter]

The main thing that gets me killed is not being able to dodge the bullets.

A bad habit I have is trying again without altering anything, no plan, no reflection, just go again. One would think it's at least practice, but no, not really.

[Sima Tuna]

Looping back like an idiot into a bullet pattern that I had already cleared.

[Jonpachi]

Moving on to play some other game juuust as I’ve started to really master (but not quite clear) the current. That graveyard is vast.

[mycophobia]

staring at bullets instead of ways through the bullets. turns out if you stare at something while you're moving you're probably just going to run right into it. makes me feel like the world's biggest moron every single time it happens

[PFG 9000]

The desire to play what I want, when I want, and to drop a game once it starts to feel like work. The very few 1CCs I've earned have taught me two things: One, that I am capable of beating shmups. And Two, that it takes at least some work and dedication to do so. I know this. And yet I don't stick with most shmups long enough to get good at them. And so I suck at some of my favorite games of all time. I get killed left and right.

[Creamy Goodness]

Controlling nerves. Either I get too relaxed and get clipped by something stupid or too tense to react properly.

[To Far Away Times]

I find if I try to learn games too fast I end up getting frustrated and dropping them.

Usually, it’s best not to route more than two stages in a day. One stage is preferable.

[Starfighter]

Controlling nerves. Either I get too relaxed and get clipped by something stupid or too tense to react properly.

This also describes me pretty well! It's hard balancing between "let's do my best and really focus" and "don't get too excited, this doesn't matter, treat it as a test run or something". I've found doing my absolute best after thee pints of beer is doing wonders for my overall performance - but it doesn't lead to any 1CCs.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Optimizing the fuck out of the first few stages then winging it instead of properly mastering the game.

I suppose if I stuck out after a 1cc I could just check off every stage until i know what i'm doing, but it almost always ends up as a slowly declining run with a stage 1 superplay.

[Rastan78]

Allowing myself to think "this could be the run!" at any point. Surefire way to make a mistake 30 seconds later.

[RGC]

Getting killed going for the 1up

[SavagePencil]

redheads

[nogden]

Moving my ship around too much and unnecessarily

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Bomb-hoarding, or not using bombs in general. A sure-fire strat for a bee-line direct to "Today's Best Players". Partly a dogged determination to be an ace pilot, and partly dogged general scrubbiness.

It's something I've had to consciously work hard toward over the years. Love your bombs, they are your friend.

I've experienced everything that has been described in this thread, but hoarding bombs is probably my main sin. The motivation behind it is usually that I want to master a game, so the question is When do I move from practicing to trying to do a serious run?

[BEAMLORD]

I've experienced everything that has been described in this thread, but hoarding bombs is probably my main sin. The motivation behind it is usually that I want to master a game, so the question is When do I move from practicing to trying to do a serious run?

It certainly stems from a desire to play a game to the best of one's ability. For me, it's a matter of accepting my limitations as a player. I'm never going to be a superplayer.

Whilst Cave, for example, may punish you one way or another for using bombs or hypers, they are resources the game gives you to use (or not) at your discretion, based on your own personal goals. If you can 1-ALL DOJ with even all of your resources spent, then you've still answered the first ask of any arcade style game: one credit, beat me, you sonofabitch!

Ultimately, beating a game with any or all resources it allows you is legitimate. That's how I've come to think about things. The loops and TLB's will always be there for those willing.

[atro_city]

Other than my lack of skill? The two I can think of are:

- Powerups I don't need but taunt me anyway. Even if I am already at max power, that powerup icon dancing on the screen bugs me like a gnat flying around my face.
- Bombing a split second too late. I'm good at planning bombs in advance based on how risky I perceive the section to be, but reactive bombing is another story. I always find myself pressing the bomb button right as I die.

[SPYvsSPY]

GOLD FEVER!!!

Gotta learn to let the goodies go, *sigh* Never gonna happen

[Hazuki]

RNG.

Rarely you fail when patterns are fixed/predictable, unless when you know what to do but fail on the execution anyway.

[WarpedByTheNHK]

I think i don't look at my ship enough when going through dense patterns. I'm so busy trying to read ahead that I am sometimes surprised to find that I got hit by something I didn't even see near my ship.