Karisa's Atypical Touhou Challenges (on hold again)

[Shimatora]

You didn't specify anything about death trances, I presume I'm allowed to abuse these?

[Karisa]

It's already there:

- Trances from dying are allowed. There's no restriction on what you can do during death trances (unlike some interpretations of NBNT that include "no shooting during trances").

[Shimatora]

I'm blind! Thank you.

EDIT:

#4 - Easy
S-TORA - 475,804,680 - Marisa - C - 0.36% - Replay

Stage 1 went fine, was very reserved in shotgunning. I tried ARF's safespot on Yuyuko's first spellcard a few times which always resulted in death-trance, so I'll come back to it at some point. Death-trancing is actually beneficial here, it nets you a few more millions down the line, but I chose not to do it for now as I like having 3.00 power during Stage 2 - some of the fairies become rather annoying to kill. I finish with 9.8k PIV and 7.4m points.

Stage 2 is also pretty simple for shotgunning, very much like Stage 1 is. Midboss Kyouko is rather easy to shotgun, just move down occasionally to give yourself more space to move. The main worry is getting rammed by Kyouko rather than hitting a bullet, so when she finishes a wave move down slightly so you can react to where she moves to. Kyouko's first main boss non is just a case of redirecting and dodging the reflected bullets - just tap one direction once and wait until the bullets are reflected back. I make sure to give myself enough space to move around while still gaining as close to optimum spirit as I can. Because I don't want to die at this point I'm far more careful than I usually am. Kyouko's first card I'm an really, really not used to shotgunning. In a real run I'd usually bomb/trance it depending on what I have in stock. Takes me a while to find the position but, in the end, I don't lose much from it. Second non is pretty much the first non but faster, same idea here. Her final is where it would be a good idea to death-trance, as it's rather hard to shotgun for optimum points here - the bullets spawn quite a way away from her which means this card is just down to luck if you try to get as close as possible. I play it safe and place myself so I can get a few blue and white spirits but not put myself in very much danger. Just have to watch out for the reflection circle. End with 19.1k PIV and 31m points.

Stage 3 is the first time I death-trance in this run, and it's on Kogasa. I want to kill her off as quickly as possible in any run in order to uncover the blue fairies she hides. There is no reason not to death-trance here. Yoshika's boss battle is a bit of a pain for shotgunning, the only plausible attack would be her second spellcard, but I'm not too confident with surviving that yet. Her nons are all pretty much unshotgunable which may mean you might as well spend some of the time grazing. Death-trancing on this boss would only really work for second non into second spellcard, as the other spells she has does not allow you to gain spirit from shotgunning her. End with 34.3k PIV and 65m points.

Stage 4's midboss Seiga can be shotgunned for the entire duration of her only attack, I move down and back up out of safety. During the main boss fight, you pretty much always want to kill of Yoshika for those few extra points, but it's not necessary. Shotgun as much as possible for those extra spirits and be wary of those god damn curvy lasers. The characters shots hitting Seiga loves to cover them up! End with 43.5k PIV and 123m points.

Ideally you want to death-trance on midboss Soga and not where I do later in the stage. This both gains you far more PIV and unlocks a few extra large fairies. Futo's nons are all easily shotgunned, I'm just extremely wary of the arrow's hitboxes. My first accidental death happens on her first spellcard, but accidental deaths in this game are never too bad during bosses. Just go up and shotgun and milk them spirits. Ideally you want to enter Stage 6 with a few lives left, but you might have to change your route on the fly if you want to finish your run. Second card is more easy stuff. On Easy the large blue bullets aren't even aimed at you, just have to worry about Futo ramming you and the smaller blue bullets. Third spellcard leaves you a lovely amount of room for you to shotgun until the glowshit starts making things difficult. If they weren't white in the centre it might actually be easy to shotgun the entire thing. Death-trancing Futo's final is almost a must, as you get a huge chunk of score and PIV from it, due to her boat counting as an extra boss sprite = double the spirit. End with 224m and 88k PIV.

Miko! All her nons could be shotgunned for their entire duration, I'm just not comfortable with it. First card there's usually plenty of room below Miko if the danmaku is nice. Once again, I move down to stay safe. (I'm a coward. ;_;) Second card I may death-trance if I do future runs, just to safely shotgun the card and the following non. Currently have no idea what to do about her Sakuya non. Third card you just have to be aware of the bullet's full hitbox and the speed at which it rotates, if you have that down shotgunning it is easy! With 2 lives in stock, I decide to spend one on her third to last card because why not. I have to spend it somewhere now. This and the following card are both are extremely risky to get close to, and because I can't charge my trance with a bomb I have to pick one or the other. On the transition to her final card I'm a complete idiot and forget that she moves down. How? I'm dumb. I'm not certain if death-trancing the final card will yield more than capturing it, but probably! The first phase can only be death-tranced, the second phase lowers the amount of spirit released if you're in trance mode, encouraging the player to shotgun normally. End with 100k PIV and 443m.

Rambling about it here so I don't forget what to do next time, and to show my thought process if anyone feels like competing!

[Mino ☆]

"- Don't forget that you need to divide your "high score" by 10 for your actual graze!"

Am I missing something? I don't quite understand. What does the high score have to do with the graze? When graze does not effect the score in this game.

[Zil]

So I hacked a graze counter into MoF. It displays in place of the high score counter. (Because I'm too lazy to figure it out, there's an extra 0 at the end of the graze counter.)

This appears to be the reason.

[Mino ☆]

Oh, wow. How did I look past that? Anyway, I think I'm going to try the graze challenges.

[Mino ☆]

Edit: I'm dumb. I did not read the "do not use bombs" clause.

Welp. I think bombs make things more interesting though. The use of bombs allowed me to make pretty interesting routes and supergraze lots of attacks.

I'll probably redo my runs.

[Mero]

#3 - Lunatic - Stage 1
Mero - 6284 - ReimuB - 0.01% - Replay

Kinda meh, but it's something for now.

#3 - Lunatic - Stage 1
Mero - 7191 - ReimuC - 0.04% - Replay

Some better planning but can still improve

[ARF]

#3 - Lunatic - Stage 1
ARF - 10004 - ReimuC - 0.00% - Replay

I was going to do another stage but this seemed to be more popular. This has pretty great potential, I'd say at least 13k should be attainable with a solid route with memorized Shizuha non, sick skills on Minoriko's first spell etc.

[touhoumaniac]

#3 - Normal - Stage 5
s - 5590 - ReimuB - 0.280% - Replay

Non-clear. I don't see a rule about this, but if it is an issue the submission can be omitted.
Grazing those long non-spells is going to be harsh  :V

[ARF]

#3 - Normal - Stage 5
ARF - 20558 - ReimuC - 0.0% - Replay

This stage is really amazing for this challenge. Some incredibly difficult (for me, anyway) supergrazes can be done on Sanae's nonspells, I'd say at least 25k graze could be attained here, but if someone learns all the tricks perhaps even 30k.

I also did clear in this run, but I hope you don't add that as a requirement, even if it might make for more interesting play somehow, I think changing the rules retroactively should be avoided.

-edit-

Wow, stage 4 is going to be really crazy to optimize, looks like you'll have to spawnpoint graze Aya during her first spell (difficult) and probably suicide against her second non (or her third, doesn't matter that much) and probably luck out and completely supergraze her second spell ;_; That's just insane.

[Karisa]

I don't see any reason to require clearing, except if it would trivialize the challenge, which so far only applies to avoidance-type challenges like the low graze runs (easy 0 in a non-clear). If it turns out suiciding your final life is worth more than clearing, go for it. It should make the route more interesting anyway, and isn't developing interesting routes one of the main points of these challenges?

[ARF]

#3 - Normal - Stage 4
ARF - 12890 - ReimuB - 0.0% - Replay

Ehh, probably not that great, I should have tried invulnerability grazing Aya's final card since it has a timeout phase and all. Might be good. And doing extend strats might also be a good idea both here and in stage 5 (getting 2 point extends).

#3 - Easy - Stage 6
ARF - 9166 - ReimuC - 0.0% - Replay

The penultimate spell is really cool, I wonder how to graze it efficiently.

[Mero]

#3 - Normal - Stage 5
Mero - 15361 - ReimuB - 0.05% - Replay

On the stage portions for the most part I prioritize score over graze, except at the very start of the stage where I completely disregard graze (I don't mind microtapping but kunais make it a big no-no for me), but it lets me PoC most of the kunai ring fairies, also I have some trouble with midboss Sanae, but with what I do you can reach Sanae with max lives dying twice on the stage and still get the 40m extend by the end of Moses Miracle (or whatever that card's name is on Normal)

#3 - Easy - Stage 6
Mero - 9926 - ReimuB - 0.01% - Replay

The stage portion is pretty straightforward but the last doomfairy can give random amounts of graze due to how it fires. As for Kanako,it seems you want to pacify the entire fight without dying so you can spend those lives grazing Mountain of Faith, but the spell before it can be really mean to you sometimes.

[ARF]

#3 - Easy - Stage 6
ARF - 10144 - ReimuC - 0.0% - Replay

Grazing the third non and spell effectively is too hard for me so I'll settle for this.

[touhoumaniac]

#3 - Normal - Stage 4
s - 11291 - ReimuB - 0.190% - Replay

[Shimatora]

#3 - Normal - Stage 4
S-TORA - 13004 - MarisaB - Replay Screenshot

Terrible performance. Third non is the best for suicide grazing, it seems.

[ARF]

#3 - Normal - Stage 4
ARF - 14935 - ReimuB - Replay

Thanks for confirming, Shimatora! This run has a few deaths for nothing, but I got quite lucky on the second spell (and actually ended up failing due to execution error!) I only had like 5 lives to drop on the last non, and i didn't time down her opener, Will be interesting to see how far this can be pushed as well.

#3 - Normal - Stage 4
ARF - 20509 - ReimuB - 0.0% - Replay - Screenshot

I'm satisfied with this run. Aya best 2hu.

[touhoumaniac]

#3 - Lunatic - Stage 1
s - 6079 - ReimuB - 0.210% - Replay

[Mero]

#3 - Easy - Stage 6
Mero - 11478 - ReimuB - 0.01% - Replay

Randomly decided to go back to this :V

Kanako's 2nd and 3rd spells are simply not worth the risk of dying , since an extra life can get you roughly 600 graze from the last spell and the spells give only 200 at best. (I could also try to stop dying on Easy mode :V)

[touhoumaniac]

#3 - Easy - Stage 6
s - 7842 - ReimuB - 0.180% - Replay


#4 - Easy
s - 80,821,010 - Reimu - 4 - 0.480% - Replay
This went so bad

[Karisa]

Last day to submit anything for challenges 3 and 4! You have until the DDC release, no point in ending the round earlier.

Any feedback on the challenges this time? I noticed there didn't seem to be as much interest...

Also, I was thinking of waiting a while to post the next challenges, since I feel like everyone will be playing DDC... or perhaps adding one DDC challenge in the meantime. Any thoughts on that?

[Mero]

Any feedback on the challenges this time? I noticed there didn't seem to be as much interest...

I don't know, maybe Mino was right about MoF's challenge? Also, given the pacifist approach grazing usually requires, the restriction for bombs probably threw some people off since it made some stuff too hard (or frustrating to fail) for them on the longer stages (it happened to me on stage 4 at least), and now that I think about it, maybe the challenge wouldn't have been so centered around bombs since the MoF bomb deals a good amount of damage, even without you shooting along.

TD's...  I can't say I was surprised it received so little attention, as for me I didn't participate in that one because TD lags horribly on my laptop, so I can't really say much about this.

[redlakitu]

I wanted to participate in the graze challenge, but couldn't decide on the stage. It was always like "such an imperfect attempt, maybe a Lunatic stage isn't for me, let's try the Easy one...  nooo, I can't handle the penultimate spell card well enough, let's try the Normal ones... but I barely remember their layout, so how am I supposed to maximize graze? let's try the Stage 1 instead" and the circle's complete. Was there only a single stage available, I probably would have stuck with it and submitted a replay.

[Star King]

I was gonna participate in MoF grazing but I got a bit fatigued by all the challenges lately (I put a decent amount of effort of first PCB SakuyaB Extra scoring, then EoSD Normal Survival/Buddhist Diamond Survival, then MoF ReimuC Extra scoring (never finished satisfactory run) and IN normal survival (never finished satisfactory run)). Dunno what to say, not really the challenges' fault.

[Mordon]

Didn't like the challenges this time. I ignore score challenges of any kind (that I can think of at least), so #4 was out of the question, and #3 involved hunting down bullets, which I hate and is one of the reasons I hate scoring.
Also #3 was too specific. Why only those stages and difficulties allowed? And no bombs too. I can't even no-bombs those playing normally (except maybe st1 lunatic and if i'm lucky st 4 normal)

I could have posted a try without forced grazing but that would be dumb and against the purpose of the challenge.

[ARF]

Eh, I really liked the grazing challenge, if you included bombs I think it would make it less interesting since the optimal thing would mostly just be to drop bombs away from enemies/bosses and sit on them while invulnerable, and with max lives+extend lives and at least 3 bombs per life that means you can pretty much do this for the entire stage. Actually having to graze stuff "manually" seems more interesting to me, and I would think that it would make it more appealing to the average player as well (and I'm saying this as someone who usually just bombspams everything forever).

[Sage Ω (Ultima)]

Get some DDC challenges up there. I'd love to do something like getting the most spellcard clears on Hard or Lunatic.

[Karisa]

OK, it's been 2 weeks since the DDC release. Time for some more challenges.

I'd considered making them both DDC challenges this time, but decided on having two different games as usual. (I hope I didn't make the challenges too pacifist-ish...)

Have fun!


Results archive:

#5 - IN time orb avoidance

Just like graze in SA, time orbs in IN are all over the place. So what's it like to avoid collecting them?

- Clear IN with the lowest point item value possible! (Since time orbs add to PIV, and PIV carries over between stages, it's easier to track this way.)
- Only 1ccs allowed. Either FinalA or FinalB is acceptable.
- The shot type you use must be able to reach both ends of the human/youkai gauge. That is, you may only use a team (or solo Youmu).
- All difficulties allowed, including Extra.

Format:
Challenge number - Difficulty
Player - Ending PIV - Shot type - Stage (Ca/Cb) - Slowdown - Replay

Example:
#5 - Normal
Sample - 220,000 - Border Team - Cb - 0.111% - Replay

Rankings:
Easy
Star King - 60,030 - Magic Team - Cb - 0.181% - Replay
Waah - 60,110 - Border Team - Cb - 0.0% - Replay
Mero - 214410 - Youmu - Ca - 0.47% - Replay

#6 - DDC MarisaB survival, no shooting

Well, you have a broken bomb... and only a broken bomb. Use it wisely.

- Survive as far as you can in DDC with MarisaB!
- You may not shoot.
- All difficulties allowed, including Extra.

Format:
Challenge number - Difficulty
Player - Score - Stage (progress*) - Slowdown - Replay
*if not a clear, something that indicates how much progress you've made within the stage, such as "2nd boss spellcard" or "midboss phase 1"

Example:
#6 - Lunatic
Sample - 25,000,000 - 2 (stage portion post-midboss) - 0.0% - Replay

Rankings
Lunatic
ARF - 375,672,950 - 5(final spell) - 0.1% - Replay

Extra
ARF - 721,749,750 - C - 0.0% - Replay
SomeGuy712x - 691,987,050 - C - 0.0% (Replay)
chum - 564,184,520 - C - 0.0% - Replay
Mero - 556,455,450 - C - 0.1% - Replay
s - 207,526,800 - Ex (wall ramming spell) - 0.010% - Replay

Deadline: Sunday, September 8

[chum]

#6 - Extra
chum - 564,184,520 - C - 0.0% - Replay

I tried to time out the spells that I could but bombed some, did not finish with max lives unfortunately. First time I tried doing the survival at the bottom and my gosh it is so much easier now