Author Topic: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)  (Read 5923 times)

PT8Sceptile

  • All hail Giant Catfish!
PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« on: August 29, 2009, 08:33:31 AM »
After some time of reading this forum and trying out Danmakufu, I decided to finally post a script here:

UNL's giant catfish extra boss, version 1.1
Old: UNL's giant catfish extra boss, version 1.0

(The script needs the CtC shot replace script)

The boss has the standard extra boss format with 8 nonspells, 8 normal spellcards, a survival spell and a buildup spell. There are 4 difficulties included (Easy, Normal hard and Lunatic obviously). The boss is a plural file, so look for it in the plural menu instead of the stage menu after you've downloaded and unzipped the script (unzip it in the scripts -folder).

Also, any comments and constructive criticism are welcome. I spent only about a week making this so it probably has lots to improve on. I especially need help with proper difficulty scaling, since I'm not that good at playing yet, so I'm not good at estimating difficulty on higher difficulty levels.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2009, 06:24:59 AM by PT8Sceptile »

Primula

  • EARL TYPE 222
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2009, 01:36:58 PM »
Imma try this one

Result:It made me cry,I WANNA DEATH BOMB I WANNA DEATH BOMB! And unfortunately no bonuses or item pickups
« Last Edit: August 29, 2009, 02:24:29 PM by Vappie »

Zengar Zombolt

  • Space-Time Tuning Circle - Wd/Fr
  • Green-Red Divine Clock
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2009, 02:48:28 PM »
Holy SHIT GIANT CATFISH
DOWNLOADING DOWNLOADING DOWNLOADING

PT8Sceptile

  • All hail Giant Catfish!
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2009, 03:11:57 PM »
Result:It made me cry,I WANNA DEATH BOMB I WANNA DEATH BOMB! And unfortunately no bonuses or item pickups

Good point, extra lives through point items could possibly make things a bit more manageable. That would probably mean making the boss a stage, though, but that should be of no problem.

BTW, which difficulty were you playing on? Since the biggest worry I have is that Hard/Lunatic were overkilled beyond belief, and any input from a more experienced player could be helpful. I fail at gauging difficulty since I suck at playing (just made my first normal 1cc today, and I can clear my script's easy mode with relative ease in several tries and normal is somewhat too hard for me, so I assume those 2 to be at around correct difficulties).

As for the bomb damage issue, I used whatever goes for other extra bosses... May consider changing but probably not (for example spells 4 and 6 become completely trivial with a damaging bomb. In 6 it takes several seconds for the spell to get going and the damage + the delay would mean 1 bomb clear with literally no danger, and in 4 bombs erase those web-bullets, which would literally let you skip an entire wave AND deal lots of damage).

Primula

  • EARL TYPE 222
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2009, 04:20:47 PM »
I played normal lol because I play the normal type stuffs

Zengar Zombolt

  • Space-Time Tuning Circle - Wd/Fr
  • Green-Red Divine Clock
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2009, 05:43:52 PM »
This is...
I cried tears of FUCKING AWESOME
Seriously, the boss is so goddamn fun to play, the difficulty (Played normal and Easy) is actually well-scaled and well, HOLY SHIT GIANT CATFISH.
Seriously, for a week's work, this is GREAT.

PT8Sceptile

  • All hail Giant Catfish!
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2009, 06:16:28 PM »
Okay, I've finished adding point items and spell capture bonuses (I forgot the capture bonuses on the first time, a minor oversight). In the next version, the boss will drop point items porpotional to the remaining life on a spellcard, so the faster you clear a spell the more points you get. The amount of point items dropped also decreases on more difficult difficulty levels, but the capture bonus increases. You can also get 2 extends through points, altough getting the second one is quite hard on difficulties higher than easy.

I'll post the updated version tomorrow after sleep, but before that, I'd really like some input on the harder 2 levels by someone who actually has the necessary skills to play Touhou hard/lunatic. If the difficulty levels are too easy or too difficult, I'll still be able to fix them for the update tomorrow morning, but after that I can't do any fixing for about a week, since the computer I'll be using the next week has no Danmakufu for script testing (curse you Windows XP installation CD for having gone missing so I can't install the japanese locale).

Primula

  • EARL TYPE 222
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2009, 09:34:36 PM »
If I ever get myself a replay, I'm trying to deathbomb as I can with the China I found :p

Iryan

  • Ph?nglui mglw?nafh
  • Cat R?lyeh wgah?nagl fhtagn.
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2009, 09:50:55 PM »
Tried normal and lunatic mode.

First of all, an ex-boss battle for the catfish is by definition awesome. The last card's name puts it very well.  :V
Though, as always, I will focus more on the negative parts because that criticism is always the most important for self-improvement, I believe.

The main problem with the script, in my opinion, is that the graphical effects, namely the glowing and transparency of the bullets but also the lasers in "concerto of the earth fish", sometimes become very distracting or start to obscure the bullets. Large amounts of round, glowy, translucent bullets merge together optically and become a mess where you can't tell one bullet from another. This makes some forms on lunatic mode basically unplayable. This goes especially when adding more glowing lasers to the mix, especially when these move at very high speed, which is another problem on lunatic: some of the aimed lasers are just too fast to react, at least when they are obscured by a sea of glowing bullets.

So yeah, normal mode is fine, but lunatic definitly needs a graphical revision. Didn't test the hard mode, though.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2009, 09:53:26 PM by Iryan »
Old Danmakufu stuff can be found here!

"As the size of an explosion increases, the numbers of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero."

PT8Sceptile

  • All hail Giant Catfish!
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #9 on: August 30, 2009, 06:37:26 AM »
The main problem with the script, in my opinion, is that the graphical effects, namely the glowing and transparency of the bullets but also the lasers in "concerto of the earth fish", sometimes become very distracting or start to obscure the bullets. Large amounts of round, glowy, translucent bullets merge together optically and become a mess where you can't tell one bullet from another. This makes some forms on lunatic mode basically unplayable. This goes especially when adding more glowing lasers to the mix, especially when these move at very high speed, which is another problem on lunatic: some of the aimed lasers are just too fast to react, at least when they are obscured by a sea of glowing bullets.

So yeah, normal mode is fine, but lunatic definitly needs a graphical revision. Didn't test the hard mode, though.

Excellent point. I tried to fix the hardest to view correctly parts in the new version.

Anyways, version 1.1 posted. Download link has been added into the original post. Changelog:
- The boss is now a stage file and not a plural file.
- Added spell capture bonuses (a minor oversight)
- The boss drops point items upon spell card end depending on the time left. Less items are dropped on harder difficulties. Gives an extend at 100 and 200 points (do note however that 200 is hard to reach above easy).
- Made the earlier nonspells (2 to 5) to have solid bullets instead of glowing ones, which should make them easier to see. The sight problem is smaller on the latter nonspells since the bullets are aimed there, but especially nonspells 2 and 5 had the tendency of becoming a huge mess of hard-to-see bullets.
- Reduced the amount of spinning restriction lasers in spell 3 to 2 (instead of 4 on easy/normal and 8 on hard/lunatic), since they distract the player and 2 of them is enough to do their required job (keeping the player inside the swinging lasers).
- Slowed down red bullet streams of spell 1 on hard/lunatic
- The blue raining bullets on spell 5 are now solid to improve vision (the yellow ones still glow, though).

Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2009, 12:36:36 AM »
Shit, I completely forgot to post on this.

Well suck my necrobump.

Most of these spellcards are extremely difficult (even for lunatic) just because of the random values you use. The waves are spawned so thick at random that they can easily wall you half the time. This is a general issue with the whole script, pretty much everything you spawn randomly has this problem (save for really small bullets).

As for spellcards, I personally love them. Very creative and very different. Really, the only problem I have with them is of course the random values, especially with such large bullets. Earthquake "Hypocentre - Epicentre" is impossible no matter how you look at it... Electrically charged fishsticks also walls you well enough to be considered impossible. Concerto of the Earth Fish would be perfect if you didn't spawn those random red lasers, which wall you. Flower of Flashing Lights would be awesome if you used another bullet sprite for the blue bullets, right now it has a massive hitbox compared to what you can actually see of the bullet, otherwise it's a really good card. Giant Flying Catfish could probably be toned down, though compared to the rest of the cards it's no priority. Biggest Rock in the World is pretty good as well, save for when I need to get close to the wall to dodge around the giant rock, then it's all luck (hope bullets don't get spawned close to me!). High-Voltage Fishing Net is perfect. Apprentace Spark could use a a speed decrease on the laser, it's practically impossible without Marisa's speed. The walling lasers towards the end don't really help this, though.

[/wall of text]

And that's about it. Try to be a bit more careful when using large bullets and lasers, since implimenting random values with them can lead to undesirable results (walling). I do enjoy playing this script, even though it is beyond my tier of lunatic difficulty. Let's see some more from you in the near future!

PT8Sceptile

  • All hail Giant Catfish!
Re: PT8's script thread (latest: UNL's catfish extra)
« Reply #11 on: September 10, 2009, 05:17:09 PM »
--even though it is beyond my tier of lunatic difficulty.--

...so I did overkill it. I suspected as much, but estimating the difficulty of a lunatic script is quite hard when you can barely 1cc ordinary touhou on normal.

Thanks for the advice on randomly spawned large bullets. I'll try to avoid that in the future, altough it seems to be a nasty habit of mine. I don't think I'll get around fixing the script anytime soon, though, since I'm already working on a new script, and while bullet size isn't a problem in that one, balancing it is a pain due to the mechanics I'm using in it. Expect some downright crazy gimmicks once I get it done and added to this thread (altough it might take a while, seeing as it needs a lot more coding and balance tweaking than the fish).