Author Topic: Difficulty Levels in Games  (Read 25386 times)

lmagus

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #30 on: July 08, 2009, 01:39:47 PM »
Ok I just tried playing PCB here at work (Pentium 4 1.2Ghz, 1Gb RAM)

and it has absolutely no input lag like it does in my home pc.

weird...
« Last Edit: July 08, 2009, 01:42:00 PM by lmagus »
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Gpop

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #31 on: July 08, 2009, 07:02:14 PM »
I lol at this thread real hard.

lmagus: Glad to help you out.

Kanako Yasaka

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #32 on: July 09, 2009, 07:58:11 AM »
To get this thread back on topic...I honestly think that EoSD normal is harder than SA normal. SA FEEDS you lives so even if you do screw up on Orin (who isn't that hard) or Utsuho, you'll still be fine. :\

Ghaleon

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #33 on: July 09, 2009, 06:27:47 PM »
I think LLS easy may be the easiest of them all, considering NORMAL is as easy as most easy modes. Again though, it lacks a stage 6. :P

I was gonna help, but then I realized that I'm in no way qualified to rank easy modes. >_>

He is asking for a list for normal and hard modes doof >=P.

Quote
Intended or not, it's a hack that makes the game easier to play.... Which is cheating. It's cool if you want to use it and find it more entertaining, but don't for a minute think it isn't cheating. If ZUN cared enough to fix the input lag he could've released a patch.

Bad argument, with that logic, it's considered not cheating to use bugged marissa lasers in MoF because Zun never bothered to fix it in a patch. In addition, as people already mentioned, the input lag is only there for some people (albeit most), I have a feeling that it has a habit of not being there should you have an older computer or something like most people did when PCB was new (possibly new versions of directX or direct input screw it up? who knows).
« Last Edit: July 09, 2009, 06:40:25 PM by Ghaleon »

lmagus

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #34 on: July 09, 2009, 06:32:54 PM »
They have been answered already ;P

And i'm sure it's going to be a long long time, if i ever get to reach Lunatic mode =P

I usualy get bored of games pretty quickly
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Nuclear Fusion

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #35 on: July 09, 2009, 07:33:04 PM »
I've never noticed any input lag on any computer I've played PCB or EoSD on :unsure:
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saiyoucho

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #36 on: July 09, 2009, 10:51:51 PM »
MoF, easiest Touhou game ever.
I've pretty much made it to Kanako every single time I play it even if I'm not trying.

Other game I actually have to concentrate a lot to make it to the end boss.
Take me to your library, give me your spellbooks.

Gpop

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #37 on: July 10, 2009, 03:39:20 AM »
I think LLS easy may be the easiest of them all, considering NORMAL is as easy as most easy modes. Again though, it lacks a stage 6. :P

I was gonna help, but then I realized that I'm in no way qualified to rank easy modes. >_>

He is asking for a list for normal and hard modes doof >=P.

He was asking for Easy modes back when he made this post...doof =/

Alice Fact

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #38 on: July 10, 2009, 05:05:42 AM »
Actually, he was asking for a "proper" order of every single difficulty in every single game, from easiest to hardest.
Regarding score threads: For the time being, I'm not going to be online much; I would suggest that you simply do as you normally do, because I will come back and I will want those threads when I do.

LiteYear

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #39 on: July 10, 2009, 05:36:09 AM »
Well, for Normal-rank difficulties, I would go MoF as the easiest.  I'd probably interchange IN and PCB depending on what characters you use as second and third easiest.  ESoD is a slight notch above the previous entries, and SA is definitely the toughest for my style of play.

Ghaleon

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #40 on: July 10, 2009, 06:16:37 PM »
To get this thread back on topic...I honestly think that EoSD normal is harder than SA normal. SA FEEDS you lives so even if you do screw up on Orin (who isn't that hard) or Utsuho, you'll still be fine. :\

whaaaaaaaat.

You only get many extra lives in sa if you cap spellcards.. if you bomb them, you get squat.

Quote
He was asking for Easy modes back when he made this post...doof =/

Pretty sure he didn't. Notice how my response was before, and I replied for normal, either I read wrong and miraculously I answered his edited question before he did so (right), or he asked for it the whole time.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2009, 06:21:16 PM by Ghaleon »

lmagus

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #41 on: July 10, 2009, 06:30:36 PM »
hehehe what a mess :p

I had asked for normal / hard modes the whole time, since I had already finished all the games on easy mode ^^

sorry if i was confusing. and the only thing i edited, was to add the order for normal / hard modes =)
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Gpop

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #42 on: July 10, 2009, 06:34:43 PM »
hehehe what a mess :p

I had asked for normal / hard modes the whole time, since I had already finished all the games on easy mode ^^

sorry if i was confusing. and the only thing i edited, was to add the order for normal / hard modes =)

You asked for our opinion on Easy Mode as well in the beginning while you were beating PCB easy.

?q

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #43 on: July 10, 2009, 09:42:43 PM »
Well, this is what I remember.

Ijji Modo:
SA ? PCB > EoSD > Mountain of Faith (the spell card) > MoF > IN

Considering EoSD only has five stages, that's kind of depressing.  You probably will look like a ⑨ the first time you fight Sakuya.

Nolmo Modo:
SA > EoSD > PCB > MoF ? IN

PCB Normal is virtually the same thing as PCB Easy.  Of course, that also means PCB Easy is virtually the same thing as PCB Normal.

Hald Modo:
SA > EoSD > MoF ? IN > PCB

PCB Hard is actually not that difficult, except for the attacks that are difficult on every level.  EoSD Hard isn't that bad, but Revenge of the RNG will take your lives out faster than you'll realize.  Yugi makes me ragequit; I hate that Aya 2.0.  MoF Hard is worth mentioning mostly for Nitori.

Someone else can do Runateek Modo.

I can't really rate Extra Modo.  EoSD Extra is basically You vs. The Hitbox; Flandre is a pathetic boss in a stage filled with cheapmaku.  Ran and the stage before her are impossible if you don't know the tricks to her attacks, and fairly trivial otherwise.  Mokou would be much more difficult if you couldn't abuse Spell Practice, but is the first one so far to be more difficult than her midboss.  Suwako is basically Ran with more boring danmaku and obscenely long lifebars.  I like SA Extra, but it virtually forces you to play perfectly through Sanae.

To appease donut as much as I can, the easiest and hardest PC-98 "standard" game is LLS.  Any mentions of other, similar games are strictly rumors.

nintendonut888

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #44 on: July 10, 2009, 10:13:13 PM »
Then I guess for fun/boredom I'll rate the lunatics and extras. Even if you don't care about PC-98. :P Keep in mind that this is Donut's opinion and is therefore really weird and conflicts with everyone's own lists.

Lunatic modo: SA>EoSD>MS>IN>PCB>LLS>MoF>SoEW

I blame the fact that my computer slows down too much for me to practice SA lunatic, but I can't do anything about it. I've beaten it once, and have never touched it since. EoSD's stages are easy, but the boss attacks are really random and tough. MS has an easy first three stages, but the last 3 are pretty tough and star one of the toughest bosses in the series, plus if you're bad at scoring you only have 7 lives to go through the whole thing. If IN didn't take away two bombs for death bombing it would be near the bottom, but as it is can be pretty nasty. PCB is hard until you practice it to death, then you have a ton of resources. LLS has some cheap parts and gives you only two bombs per life, but you get a ton of lives to compensate. MoF's bombspam makes what is pretty hard easy. SoEW is a fucking joke once you learn how everything works, and you get enough bombs to get past the shit design.

Ekusutora modo: SoEW>phantasm PCB>EoSD>SA>MS>IN>extra PCB>MoF>LLS

SoEW's stage and boss are freaking cheap beyond belief. Phantasm's stage has tough parts plus Yukari who can eat up lives with some attacks. EoSD has cheap parts and annoyingly random boss attacks. SA is really annoying to play through, and has some truly terrible spell cards, MS isn't so bad, but you get almost no lives to go through the whole thing. IN's stage is easy, but Mokou has some nasty spell cards and non-cards here and there. Ran is pretty simple all around, and her stage is easier than phantasm's. MoF's stage is easy, and so is Suwako, but she has some bad clip death-happy attacks from her sixth spell on. LLS is simple once you learn how the stage works, the bosses are moe and adorable fairly simple as long as you don't time anything out, and you get 8 lives to go through with.

That good enough?
nintendonut888: Hey Baity. I beat the high score for Sanae B hard on the score.dat you sent me. X3
Baity: For a moment, I thought you broke 1.1billion. Upon looking at my score.dat, I can assume that you destroyed the score that is my failed (first!) 1cc attempt on my first day of playing. Congratulations.

[19:42] <Sapz> I think that's the only time I've ever seen a suicide bullet shoot its own suicide bullet

Ghaleon

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #45 on: July 10, 2009, 11:46:47 PM »
Flandre is a pathetic boss in a stage filled with cheapmaku.  Ran and the stage before her are impossible if you don't know the tricks to her attacks, and fairly trivial otherwise.  Mokou would be much more difficult if you couldn't abuse Spell Practice, but is the first one so far to be more difficult than her midboss.  Suwako is basically Ran with more boring danmaku and obscenely long lifebars.  I like SA Extra, but it virtually forces you to play perfectly through Sanae.

*boggle*, it's strange, my opinion is like the exact opposite.. EoSD extra is the LEAST cheap stage of any of the extras imo. There is virtually no memorization required to beating that stage, it's clusterfuck random dodging. The aimed portions are short enough so that you can forget about them until they come and then stream them on the fly even if you're positioned incorrectly. and Flandre is imo one of the coolest bosses ever...Her non cards are pretty lame admittably, but I find her spellcards to be rather innovative and fun compared to most....Ok so 4 of a kind isn't very innovative but it's fun and challenging all the same >=P.

PCB is what I would call "cheapmaku". The whole stage is all memorization as you said admittably, the boss is fun, but to be honest I have a very hard time taking it seriously since you get so many extra lives in the pcb extra stages.

IN is imo the easiest extra boss in the whole series by far.. I beat her ON MY FIRST TRY with lives to spare. (the stage itself took numerous tries though).

MoF's stage is easy, including the midboss, I find the boss to be probably the most boring in the series. SA's extra stage is the hardest by a longshot for me, as is the boss. Stupid genetics of the subconscious is probably the deadliest spellcard in the series for me (some like scarlet meister might be harder to cap, but are vulnerable to bombs, stupid genetics pawns me no matter how many times I bomb). It's kind of embarrasing to watch too.. the gaps between the bullets in genetics are so effing huge, I watch and wonder HTF did I not dodge that.. But somehow it kills me like 2 times every attempt.. blah.

c l e a r

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #46 on: July 11, 2009, 08:21:42 PM »
I don't get the whole "it's not how the creators" intend it to be thing, whenever a game is designed, there has to be some sort of flaw that people will always exploit to their advantage.  It's the group of people who play the game a lot, and make judgment to decide what's fair and what's retarded.

Besides, why in the ass would you want to play with broken controls?

May be off-topic a bit, but after hanging out in Normal mode forever in SA, I want to go to hard in... somewhere.  Where's a good place to start that is not a total insult to my skills so far but still offer a challenge?

MoF... I tried.  I just screwed around and tried not to die and died at Hydro Camouflage.

Vile Lasagna

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #47 on: July 12, 2009, 01:17:04 AM »
I don't get the whole "it's not how the creators" intend it to be thing, whenever a game is designed, there has to be some sort of flaw that people will always exploit to their advantage.  It's the group of people who play the game a lot, and make judgment to decide what's fair and what's retarded.

Besides, why in the ass would you want to play with broken controls?

May be off-topic a bit, but after hanging out in Normal mode forever in SA, I want to go to hard in... somewhere.  Where's a good place to start that is not a total insult to my skills so far but still offer a challenge?

MoF... I tried.  I just screwed around and tried not to die and died at Hydro Camouflage.

I find PCB hard to be quite okay in terms of challenge. But coming from me I feel that might end up being easy for you, I dunno. There's always EoSD. You'll love it until you get to books and from there on everything goes downhill as you cry and cry falling evermore into desperation. (as opposed to SA that slaps you in the face right away, or MoF which is easy-ish throughout the game and then throws some random hard stuff at you evey once in a while (Virtue, S4...))
rofl bye

lmagus

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #48 on: July 12, 2009, 01:34:18 AM »
just try EOSD or PCB, I'm doing the same =P
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Yukkuri

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #49 on: July 14, 2009, 03:08:51 AM »
Wait so I can 1CC the 2nd hardest game on normal, but not the 2nd easiest?   :'(

Ghaleon

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #50 on: July 14, 2009, 08:16:19 AM »
There's always EoSD. You'll love it until you get to books and from there on everything goes downhill as you cry and cry falling evermore into desperation.

I actually find Sakuya to be a fun boss in EoSD.. I don't know why but she's always a morale boost for me. When clearing lunatic I always expect to spend many bombs and a couple lives on her, and I often only use 2 bombs, and maybe a life or something. Then I'll be all gung-ho about how badly remila is gonna get pwnt.. and..well.. she wtfpwns me right with her opener.. *sobs*. Her final spellcard is by far the absolute hardest final spellcard ever for me too.. It's like.. unlike other spellcards, after you die and have 3 bombs again, you can just bombspam your way to victory. But not remila, bombing doesn't really do much except make HER invincible instead of you for so long that you'll find yourself wanting to bomb again before you can even damage her.. blahhh. she's so mean...This is lunatic only though.

mark2000

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #51 on: July 23, 2009, 02:39:33 AM »
MoF is definitely the easiest for me in Normal Mode. Bombing has always been the very first survival crutch for many players so when a game drip feeds you bombs every couple of seconds AND the build of the scoring system is partly based on bombing incoming bullets, the entire thing becomes a regular activity rather than a spontaneous split second decision between survival and stock reservation.

To its credit though, the bullet patterns are actually pretty difficult and complex on their own so keeping yourself from bombing every other moment is already enough to slightly amp up the challenge. Also, there's a really sudden rise in difficulty curve when Kanako appears (not counting that BS Aya). Bullets are insanely fast and the pattern-based ones are actually pretty hard to figure out on the first try. Most of her attacks are pattern-based though so simple memorization is mostly enough to beat this boss(not counting the final spell card).

I think almost everyone already said this but SA is definitely the hardest on Normal Difficulty (possibly on others as well). When a ton of crap are already flying at you on the very first stage, you know you're in for a world of hurt. :D This game is heaven for graze-happy individuals and hell for everyone else.

EoSD is second hardest for me and there's a slight tie between PCB and IN. I found IN to be a bit easier than PCB though. I'm not sure about everyone else but I found IN's controls to be a bit smoother than PCB and that helped me quite a bit during the game.

Quote
You only get many extra lives in sa if you cap spellcards.. if you bomb them, you get squat.

correction:

Even bombing a spellcard will still give you that star fragment. It's a sort of an incentive to encourage players to use bombs often....or rather, enoucarage players to not die needlessly.

IMO though, it's still easier to gain lives in any other game than SA. Scoring in a game almost completely coexists with simply playing the game so you can always gain lives at any given time. Even PCB and IN is easier because all you need to do is to take advantage of the POC which is a rather easy thing to do in those games. In SA however, you are required to do a specific task at very specific points in the game so every screw up is a life fragment lost. To add insult to injury, screwing up means you just died so when you add that one up, every failure takes from you 1 1/5th of your overall lives. That's definitely a worse punishment than any other game. Considering the difficulty of this game, this lives system just adds to the frustration.

triangles

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #52 on: July 24, 2009, 03:04:50 AM »
Ok so, I am probably the worst Touhou player in the world and still can't beat anything on easy  :'(   I've been bouncing between games and I probably should focus on one so I don't feel so failboat (that and uh, the TouhouMother game has the inner EarthBound fangirl in me squealing and taking all my gametime as of late, I die significantly less there at least!)

From reading this, I am assuming IN is where I should focus my efforts at first?  Or am I reading the difficulty chart backwards?

nintendonut888

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #53 on: July 24, 2009, 03:06:41 AM »
You know, IN easy may be the easiest Touhou out there, but IIRC (been a very long time since I've played it obviously) didn't it still have a large amount of bullets for easy? That may be off-putting even if the patterns are pathetic.
nintendonut888: Hey Baity. I beat the high score for Sanae B hard on the score.dat you sent me. X3
Baity: For a moment, I thought you broke 1.1billion. Upon looking at my score.dat, I can assume that you destroyed the score that is my failed (first!) 1cc attempt on my first day of playing. Congratulations.

[19:42] <Sapz> I think that's the only time I've ever seen a suicide bullet shoot its own suicide bullet

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #54 on: July 24, 2009, 03:32:06 AM »
You know, IN easy may be the easiest Touhou out there, but IIRC (been a very long time since I've played it obviously) didn't it still have a large amount of bullets for easy? That may be off-putting even if the patterns are pathetic.

There was almost no bullets on IN Easy.

nintendonut888

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #55 on: July 24, 2009, 03:44:17 AM »
Guess that was normal then. I know that at lunatic IN has more bullets than any other Touhou though.
nintendonut888: Hey Baity. I beat the high score for Sanae B hard on the score.dat you sent me. X3
Baity: For a moment, I thought you broke 1.1billion. Upon looking at my score.dat, I can assume that you destroyed the score that is my failed (first!) 1cc attempt on my first day of playing. Congratulations.

[19:42] <Sapz> I think that's the only time I've ever seen a suicide bullet shoot its own suicide bullet

Garlyle

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #56 on: July 24, 2009, 05:26:37 AM »
Quote
I know that at lunatic IN has more bullets than any other Touhou though.

Seriously?  I find it one of the easier, but I guess bullet count =/= difficulty in all cases.

I do know the game's still half a joke on Hard, but jumps up for Lunatic...

?q

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #57 on: July 24, 2009, 10:57:56 AM »
You know, IN easy may be the easiest Touhou out there, but IIRC (been a very long time since I've played it obviously) didn't it still have a large amount of bullets for easy? That may be off-putting even if the patterns are pathetic.
There was almost no bullets on IN Easy.
When it was my first shmup I thought there were a lot of bullets... as I concentrated on each one at a time.

lmagus

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Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #58 on: July 24, 2009, 11:50:23 AM »
Ok so, I am probably the worst Touhou player in the world and still can't beat anything on easy  :'(   I've been bouncing between games and I probably should focus on one so I don't feel so failboat (that and uh, the TouhouMother game has the inner EarthBound fangirl in me squealing and taking all my gametime as of late, I die significantly less there at least!)

From reading this, I am assuming IN is where I should focus my efforts at first?  Or am I reading the difficulty chart backwards?

IN easy and MoF easy are both pretty easy.
except MoF easy has a very had last boss where IN's last boss is much easier.
So yeah, you might want to start off by playing IN :)
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Yukkuri

Re: Difficulty Levels in Games
« Reply #59 on: July 24, 2009, 12:27:13 PM »
EOSD has only five stages, so yeah.
PCB is defiantly one of the most hardest on easy.
IN Easy there are almost no bullets and it is easy to death bomb.  There is kind of a small jump from easy to normal.
MOF easy Kanako might be a little hard.

Oh yeah if a game is too hard you could just give yourself max lives (as a last resort).