Periodic Touhou tournament discussion thread (TEST RUN OVER)

[moozooh]

Hey guys. I was recently thinking about the reason so many Japanese players are criminally good at Touhou games, yet there are only few known Koreans, even less Chinese, and even less Westerners. It might not necessarily be the case, but I'm fairly certain that periodic tournaments the Japanese are holding bi-weekly contribute greatly to the cause. So why can't we do the same?

Pretty much everyone here has the games and the ability to play them. You only need to… yes, play them! By doing so in active competition one could have a much greater motivation to improve, seek new ways to do so, explore new characters, and practice. The goal is filling the empty spaces on the scoreboards and, hopefully, motivating more inexperienced players to improve and overcome their self-imposed limitations. This will also be a great step towards removing the "Touhou fans don't actually play Touhou games" stigma that seems prevalent in arcade shmup-centered communities.

Keep in mind that this kind of tournament has no prizes, and is supposed to be for fun and friendly competition in games we all know and like.

[EDIT]
Test run of the tourney will commence in October, 2009 (that is, in a week, as of writing this).

Format and rules:

First week (October, 1st — October, 7th): Scoring contest. Organizers choose two games and a single character type to play in each unless stated otherwise. All difficulty modes (including Extra) are allowed. Participants are ranked by score. Results go to the respective scoreboards automatically unless requested otherwise.

Second week (October, 8th — October, 14th): resting.

Third week (October, 15th — October, 21st): Special challenge contest. Organizers choose two games, a single character type to play in each, and a handicap. All difficulty modes (including Extra) are allowed unless stated otherwise. Participants are ranked by survival time (score is taken into account as a tie-breaker).

Fourth week (October, 22nd — October, 31st): resting and preparing the next month's tourney.

Registration is not required: anyone is free to join at any given moment within the playing weeks. Old scores/replays are not allowed.

[EDIT 2]

Submission thread: http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=2587

[ghost333]

sound nice to me who tryies to improve and beat one day heartbeam
also a good side-option should be certain limitations like no focus,no, bomb, 1Lc
and so on.

[Matsuri]

It's cool with me. Perhaps if we make small teams like Shmups forum does for STGT-- and then take the average score of each team to find a winner-- that way it would be a little more balanced than you and Heartbeam dominating the entire thing. 

Just a thought, feel free to throw rocks/tomatoes/shoes  :V

[Sapz]

I'd definitely be willing to take part, it sounds like fun. I also like the sound of ghost333's and Matusri's ideas - ghost's helps to keep things interesting and Matsuri's gives everyone a chance at winning. On top of that, I've been looking for some motivation to learn to play for score rather than survival. Count me in.

[Drake]

I participate in /jp/'s danmaku threads any time I find one; I'd be glad to participate in others.

[Matsuri]

Besides, it'll sort of fill the void not being able to play in STGT this year left in me. I just don't have the time to learn any new shmups right now, but I know Touhou shmups very well, so it's easier on me! 

[8lue Wizard]

bi-monthly (every two weeks)

Err... sorry for nitpicking, but "bi-monthly" means "every two months". The term you're looking for is "semi-monthly".

But yeah. Interest, anticipation, and all that jazz.

[moozooh]

I guess I'll rather use the term "bi-weekly" then. :D But yeah, thanks.

[Heartbeam]

I participate in /jp/'s danmaku threads any time I find one; I'd be glad to participate in others.

When was the last time you've seen such a thread?  Thinking of sending a PM to the original thread starter and bothering him/her to create more, but not if I've been checking the board at the wrong times.

[Drake]

I participate in /jp/'s danmaku threads any time I find one; I'd be glad to participate in others.

When was the last time you've seen such a thread?  Thinking of sending a PM to the original thread starter and bothering him/her to create more, but not if I've been checking the board at the wrong times.

Unfortunately I haven't seen many recently. I'm not sure whether or not he's just stopped, but I liked participating. I even hosted for a while a few times after others went to bed.

[DarkslimeZ]

I like this idea, and have actually been wanting it for a while now. I say, go for it.

My thoughts:

Bi-weekly sounds great to me. Though how would it work? Every two weeks the results are tallied and announced, and then the next tournament/competition is announced right away?

A good possibility for "contest modes" is to limit it to a single game and character, but any difficulty. (Like, MoF Reimu B) We could possibly create classes to put participants in - like "normal" class, "hard" class, "lunatic" class... but unfortunately, we'd need a large enough group of people so that it would be feasible. We could give out prizes for things like "most spell cards captured" or whatnot.

Another idea is to have a bonus goal for each tournament, like a no-bomb run or no-death run or something that the participants can take a shot at while working on what the tournament is actually for. Or something. Just to get those elites to do something interesting.

[Bananamatic]

I'm in :V

[nintendonut888]

Sorry, but I don't/can't play for score.

[Sapz]

Sorry, but I don't/can't play for score.

Pfft! It's time to learn! :V

[LHCling]

Sorry, but I don't/can't play for score.

Give it a go.

I'm interested enough.

[nintendonut888]

I can't play for score because I don't want to. :V I think that ending with as many lives as possible is much more impressive than any score run.

[Sapz]

I can't play for score because I don't want to. :V I think that ending with as many lives as possible is much more impressive than any score run.

Scoring is impressive in a different way, though. It changes the game a bit into something more challenging, and to be honest you could use that considering you murder most of the Lunatic modes as it is. Plus you can objectively say how impressive it is, which is nice.

[moozooh]

There's a world of difference in playing Touhou for survival and playing Touhou for score. You should definitely give it a try, it's a blast.

[Sodium]

Well, aside from the obvious score related tournaments, there could be some other challenges. Such as "least lives lost", "least bombs used", "most cards captured", etc(with score being the tie breaker in case of a tie). Perhaps have score tournaments bi-weekly, while have a "other challenge" tournaments monthly/bi-monthly?

Oh, and I'd join. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would join this on a regular basis really.

[Shizumarashi Mayuzumi]

I'll play on like Normal or something, sure.

[Azinth]

Yeah, I don't have much to say that hasn't been said, so I'll just repeat that it's an awesome idea.  This might actually give me some incentive to learn how to score in PCB, which I've always told myself I should do but never got around to.

[theshirn]

I've never score-run in my life.  Not sure I want to.  But I'm good for something like this, why not.

[Matsuri]

Ooh, PCB's got the most fun scoring system of them all though!

[Tsym]

Lol score running for me would translate into Easy mode T_T.  It'll still be fun though ^_^

[ebarrett]

Ooh, PCB's got the most fun scoring system of them all though!

:|

edit: oh, yeah, tournaments = good

[Affinity]

Will be happy to join, I guess.

[Hawk]

I'll give it a shot, at least.

[Desert]

I'd be up for this, but I just want to ask, can there be two different contest per two weeks? Like say the first one focusing on more traditional scoring, and the other being more of a challenge type, like lowest/highest graze or stuff that focuses on one stage. You know, for people who are horrible at normal score runs... Like me.

[bjw]

I can't say that I'm a big fan of playing for score, but

/jp/'s danmaku threads

are definitely enjoyable due to their interesting twists in how you have to play.

[moozooh]

Ok, seems like people are interested enough. I've come up with a new competition plan taking the popular requests into account.

First week: Score contest. Organizers choose two* games and one character type per game chosen unless stated otherwise. Playing commences from 1st to 7th day of the month. All difficulty modes are allowed. Results go to the respective scoreboards automatically unless requested otherwise.

Second week: resting.

Third week: Special challenge contest. Organizers choose two* games, one character type per game chosen, and a single handicap for both of them. Playing commences from 15th to 21st day of the month. All difficulty modes are allowed unless stated otherwise.

Fourth Week: resting.

* — I decided to go with two games per week because having only one game would make the category rotation painfully slow, plus it should allow some choice in case one of the categories will be too frustrating to commit to.

Possible handicaps: no-missing, no-bombing, no vertical movement, no horizontal movement, no movement at all, no focused movement, low-score attack, pacifist. Winners will be determined by survival time. In case several replays are tied (eg., they all clear the stage/game), score is taken into account as a secondary factor.

Test tourney will commence in October. I will host it, but if anyone wishes to help or discuss things, pm me on the forum. Depending on how things go, some things may be changed, updated. I'll edit the first post with new information.