Touhou 13.5 東方心綺楼 Hopeless Masquerade - I'm hopelessly in love

[ElGreko]

Yes I see and I understand. But personally, for the moment, I play more often with friends than with the cpu ( ?‿‿? ) .

But I totally agree, as I just said before, the AI system is so boring, and it's really a shame they made the game so stupid, it's even worse than the Hisoutensoku's AI that was already very dumb even in lunatic mode.
Since HS has been released a few years after, I was expecting at least an average AI...

[commandercool]

I've barely had time to actually play the game outside of story mode. I was kind of afraid this would happen when the release date was announced, since it was right at the beginning of the busiest part of the summer semester for me, and unfortunately doesn't look like it will be changing any time soon. Hopefully some time over this next week I can fit in at least a little netplay.

[ElGreko]

Well, if you (or anyone else) want to give me some contact like skype or hamachi via personnal message, I'd be glad to play with you.
I personally play for fun, not in a hardcore way though, just to spend some nice and fun moments.

[Genso]

Wish I could netplay. Well I CAN play against others, but without a sokuroll for HM, it's just so so bad with the lag I can't enjoy it.

[ElGreko]

The lag depends only of your personnal connection.

For example, I play with someone who lives on the opposite side of the earth via hamachi, and we don't have a single lag or a single desync, the game is exactly as fluid as in solo mod.

It really depends on the personnal connection of both players.

[Starxsword]

What is more interesting as Aya is in the background, so a picture for her newspaper is supposed to be inverted.

She's fast enough to take a picture of herself, so she can go to the otherside, take a picture and go back.

but the new popularity system is unbalanced and stupid as hell
you can be beating the shit out of someone but because they landed the first hit, a few counterhits, and spammed spellcards, they can have way more popularity

Are you sure you are doing this? If you are aggressive, you would definitely have more popularity. Are you sure you are not just backing off a lot, waiting from far away, then, attacking when it looks safe?

the worst part of popularity is the fact that it determines timeout winner and the timeout clock is way too short

so instead of encouraging aggressive playstyle, it encourages pseudo runaway style where once you gain a lead you just run away and spam safe moves or perfect block so that you don't lose popularity

Only encourages this if you are playing cowardly. I've looked at some videos and I don't see any video with someone playing aggressively and losing on the popularity edge.
Have you also been using spell cards? Because you should be able to use 2 to 3 spell cards per round.

well time freezes when you declare, yet it's still too short

The damage the spell cards do are insane. It takes about 40% of your life if you land it. I think you are also invincible when you declare.

IMaP is better than SWR UNL and HM. I actually thought HM was going to play like IMaP. I was wrong.

I disagree, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku is far better than Immaterial and Missing Power. The story for Immaterial and Missing Power, I like better, but game play, definitely not.

[Gpop]

The damage the spell cards do are insane. It takes about 40% of your life if you land it. I think you are also invincible when you declare.

I disagree, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku is far better than Immaterial and Missing Power. The story for Immaterial and Missing Power, I like better, but game play, definitely not.

Spell cards only do so much if you hit it raw, which is unlikely unless you counter/bait.

Unfortunately, I, and many people, will disagree. I think IaMP was the best fighter out there. The only problem it had was the big diffficulty/learning curve that separates the pros and casual players of the game. SWR's weather system and luck-based spell cards is still bullshit (typhoon, seriously)

[Genso]

The lag depends only of your personnal connection.

For example, I play with someone who lives on the opposite side of the earth via hamachi, and we don't have a single lag or a single desync, the game is exactly as fluid as in solo mod.

It really depends on the personnal connection of both players.

Yea, It's fine when it's someone within 4 hours away, but beyond that it goes horribly. Can't install hamachi since my antivirus won't let me install it even when it's excluded from checking and put as a trusted program.

[Savory]

I find myself getting screwed over by popularity from time to time.

Mostly  because I don't end up getting the first blow for that big popularity boost (at least not all the time),  and during the fight I'm chock full of red votes even if I'm making a good comeback and end up with more HP than my opponent. This mechanic is going to take a while to get used to. It doesn't help that trying to be defensive increases the red in your popularity meter. I understand that this is to encourage you not to block all the time, but I'd rather block than get caught in an aggressive combo.

And on that note, being aggressive doesn't usually increase the blue unless it's at various circumstances.

It doesn't really annoy me as much; only when I'm clearly winning but end up losing regardless because my popularity had a bit more red than the opponent. Of course, I do win my share of fights either by popularity or KOing.

Hey um...can someone fully explain how this is supposed to work?

[Critz]

Spell cards only do so much if you hit it raw, which is unlikely unless you counter/bait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao--gStbuoU

[Amraphenson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao--gStbuoU

>99 plates

[ElGreko]

Yea, It's fine when it's someone within 4 hours away, but beyond that it goes horribly. Can't install hamachi since my antivirus won't let me install it even when it's excluded from checking and put as a trusted program.

If you can host via direct ip, we can still try to see whether it lags or not, if you want.
I personally don't lag with anyone in the world who has a decent connection, in Europe, in America, in Asia, it's all the same for me (￣ー￣) .

Hey um...can someone fully explain how this is supposed to work?

Well, the system is quite weird and sometimes very unfair (I don't know if its due to some bugs, but I already went from +40% to -60% in 1 second without receiving any single hit or playing defensively), but in general, try to make the match (and rounds too) last the longer you can and try to make it to 3 round, since the popularity will raise a lot at the end of the 3rd round (this is just if you want to get to the 100%)

You'll win some popularity if you hit your opponent just when he's attacking to "cancel" his attack, or when you're casting a spell (even if you fail it. So cast it as soon as you can to be able to cast a second one sooner).

Some combos are giving you some popularity but I still don't get why.

Stunning give you some popularity bonus too, so you can also try some "stun-combos" if you know some. Some spells are stunning your opponent too.

For what you said with the first hit, it's like a "jan ken pon" like I said before, you can try to directly do an attack at the beginning of the game and hope your attack will hit him first, or directly rush back and try to approach in a safe way to get the first hit.
But I personally don't like this feature of the game, 10-15% popularity for a single first hit is way too much.

Finally, you can also use the Miko's scepter item that will slowly grant you some popularity as long as you cast it, it's quite useless in fights since the game is promoting aggressivity, but when you cast some slow danmakus that stay in the screen, you can use it as a shield to raise your popularity.
You can also use it after stunning your adversary, it can grant you some % popularity that can make you win a close fight.

[Serela]

Arcade mode clearly isn't in because the AI is so wimpy there's really no point.
 
I imagine they'll eventually implement an AI that isn't braindead.

While I can understand it's not fun to only have such ineffective AI, if you just view the game as not having a Vs.Cpu option... this is only bad if you really can't netplay with anyone without horrible lag, which shouldn't occur.

Also, if you're remembering to use spellcards, you shouldn't need to worry about timeout. Whether comboed or not you should be able to deal at least half the opponent's HP with one.

[ElGreko]

Yes, I told the same before about the AI, the game is originally made to play with other players and not to only stay in solo.
The netplay game is better coded than Hisoutensoku (fortunately...), so that's a least a good point... I guess...

For the missing arcade mode, I don't see the relation though, since the AI is a problem even in vs.com, story, etc...
But the fact that the game has been released without being totally finished and that they don't release anything or announce a single date for the final version is really upsetting me.

[Starxsword]

Unfortunately, I, and many people, will disagree. I think IaMP was the best fighter out there. The only problem it had was the big diffficulty/learning curve that separates the pros and casual players of the game. SWR's weather system and luck-based spell cards is still bullshit (typhoon, seriously)

I won't dispute that there will be many people who will think Immaterial and Missing Power is better. But I will dispute the illusion of believing more people like IaMP than SWR/Soku. The second part can only be provided by actual numbers and even then, unless there is a significant gap, it is hard to tell, as statistics tend to be off.

Spell cards only do so much if you hit it raw, which is unlikely unless you counter/bait.

It still does quite a bit. For spell card follow up in combos, you don't even need to land that many hits in before you begin your spell card. Of course, this is done after declaring.

This mechanic favors players with lower life, because you get to your spell cards faster at lower life. So, even if you wiff, you can try to charge and get the next spell card and try again.

Well, the system is quite weird and sometimes very unfair (I don't know if its due to some bugs, but I already went from +40% to -60% in 1 second without receiving any single hit or playing defensively), but in general, try to make the match (and rounds too) last the longer you can and try to make it to 3 round, since the popularity will raise a lot at the end of the 3rd round (this is just if you want to get to the 100%)

Are you sure this isn't story mode? I don't believe I have seen popularity drop that drastically in versus mode. Unless of course, you have your Last Word up and not use it.

@AI: Yeah, from what I am seeing, AI is horrible. Lunatic AI is like playing on normal or lower in other fighting games.

But the fact that the game has been released without being totally finished and that they don't release anything or announce a single date for the final version is really upsetting me.

There are more important things to do. The first thing they need to add is cards for the final boss in versus. I hope you don't expect anything else before this.

[Serela]

Koishi Combo Rant
I've been trying really hard but... Koishi's Catch And Release rose combo skill... it's nice but it does nothing I can't do in a combo without it :c You can even combo after it in the corner, but it still results in the same damage as a normal combo, it just looks fancier. If you liked it, you can do tons of combos that will result in 2.4k/2.5k with it, it's just that you can get equal results without, so why put it in your deck?

I tried very hard, but I don't think it's possible to hit with Catch and Release while at what would otherwise be the very end of a combo; in other words, the one point where I think it's damage would be superior. Maybe if I messed with brooms, but I don't like brooms.

I haven't tested growing pains but as far as I can tell Catch&Release is useless and Figdety Snatcher (her up-twirl with blue/red hand trails) is only good for lol AI reflex random hitting, as I don't even see any combos that result in normal tier damage.

In the corner, she can actually do reliable 2.5k combos without any skillcards; I often see her Reflex Laser skillcard used in combos, but as far as I can tell it's only actually good in the mid-screen one. However, you can do shorter and slightly easier corner combos with it. Unlike, say, Catch&Release it's pretty great outside of combos though, so it's still a pretty cool move (and lets you get a good bit more off of mid-screen hits, a few hundred extra damage and limit)

I can't find any ways to combo into her teleport or ring of roses, as they're simply too slow on the actual hit activation. If you're quick, you can combo out of her teleport's hit though for a good 2.3k with your dial-A combo and any ender that'll connect.

As far as I can tell, if you can do 2.4k~2.5k in the corner out of the million ways, do her midscreen combo (AAA2A 6/8ReflexLaserThing AAA6A), and know you can dial-A from her teleport... you're pretty much set on comboing with Koishi. As for spellcards, SuperEgo is almost entirely superior, but it's range is deceptively small so you have to know what combos it'll hit from. Release of the Id can connect from the midscreen combo, however, so it's not useless; and you still do heavy damage from anything you could hit with Superego, just a bit less, so if you wanted to run it... (I don't see a point in putting both spellcards in your deck)

I still need to test Growing Pains, I suppose. I actually never played in 1.01 where it crashes the game, but I don't really like it. The AI doesn't cast it when I want it to for bullet pressure, and I didn't seriously try comboing until just now when it's not in my deck :V Also should try some of the item card attack moves. Edit:The vajra item laser is strong, but doesn't provide anything new to the koishi table. The other two are only good as direct up/down pokes, which aren't useless, but I can't see any Koishi combo utility.

Edit:Starting a combo with 2B is nuts due to AI habits but gets a little more damage... starting with 8B is a lot more realistic and if you counterhit you get like 1k more damage

[ElGreko]

Are you sure this isn't story mode? I don't believe I have seen popularity drop that drastically in versus mode. Unless of course, you have your Last Word up and not use it.

That happened in vs Network, when I was playing with a friend. That made me lose the game and we still don't know how that just happened. (maybe I have the replay, I'm gonna look for it)
I believe this is a bug, this happened 2 times though...


Talking about bugs, for the moment, I'm the only one around my circle of friend to have unlocked Kokoro in EVERY game mode, even VS cpu, VS player and VS network.
As I'm the only one, and other people already cleared the whole story mode without unlocking her, can I ask you if anybody managed to unlock her too?

[Hinacle]

That happened in vs Network, when I was playing with a friend. That made me lose the game and we still don't know how that just happened. (maybe I have the replay, I'm gonna look for it)
I believe this is a bug, this happened 2 times though...


Talking about bugs, for the moment, I'm the only one around my circle of friend to have unlocked Kokoro in EVERY game mode, even VS cpu, VS player and VS network.
As I'm the only one, and other people already cleared the whole story mode without unlocking her, can I ask you if anybody managed to unlock her too?

Your game sounds pretty bugged tbh. No one should have Kokoro unlocked in every mode. Only story mode. Popularity dropping that drastically in a mode besides Story mode is beyond bizarre.

[Clarste]

Your game sounds pretty bugged tbh. No one should have Kokoro unlocked in every mode. Only story mode. Popularity dropping that drastically in a mode besides Story mode is beyond bizarre.

I've heard of people distributing a hacked score.dat that unlocks Kokoro for versus mode, but not of people doing it naturally. And it's plausible that using something like that might introduce new bugs.

[Genso]

Talking about bugs, for the moment, I'm the only one around my circle of friend to have unlocked Kokoro in EVERY game mode, even VS cpu, VS player and VS network.
As I'm the only one, and other people already cleared the whole story mode without unlocking her, can I ask you if anybody managed to unlock her too?

Naw I have her too. I even linked a replay of me playing her in VS mode some time before.

[Sage Ω (Ultima)]

Happens against Kokoro all of the time. Get 50+ popularity and get hit by her and watch it drop to -12% or lower.

[Sage Ω (Ultima)]

Talking about bugs, for the moment, I'm the only one around my circle of friend to have unlocked Kokoro in EVERY game mode, even VS cpu, VS player and VS network.
As I'm the only one, and other people already cleared the whole story mode without unlocking her, can I ask you if anybody managed to unlock her too?

WTF I tried to force the game to select her and it crashed. I was able to use CE to force select Mamizou before I unlocked her, Mamizou is 09 in the index with Miko being 00 and going by that logic Kokoro should be A0 which crashes. (not fully and it can be restored by setting a different value)

[Serela]

3 force shield items dropped the damage I took by... one twelth almost exactly. Mmmn, yeah, they don't seem worth it even if you have nothing else you want in your deck. I'm messing around with items since I have literally 4 open deck slots.

Now that I have Koishi down I should probably learn someone else. Uhm... Miko? (I'd take Futo if it wasn't that I've heard bad things about her, and Mamizou is still locked for me, so...)

Maybe now I should start netplaying against people so I can put my Koishi tactics into practice.

[commandercool]

3 force shield items dropped the damage I took by... one twelth almost exactly. Mmmn, yeah, they don't seem worth it even if you have nothing else you want in your deck. I'm messing around with items since I have literally 4 open deck slots.

Now that I have Koishi down I should probably learn someone else. Uhm... Miko? (I'd take Futo if it wasn't that I've heard bad things about her, and Mamizou is still locked for me, so...)

Maybe now I should start netplaying against people so I can put my Koishi tactics into practice.

Yeah, Force Shield was destined to be unplayable. It would probably have to have unfair numbers to be worth it over a move or a proactive item. Any idea how much reduction you get out of just one Force Shield?

[achicken]

Happens against Kokoro all of the time. Get 50+ popularity and get hit by her and watch it drop to -12% or lower.

No fair using story mode boss as a comparison! :3

But yeah, getting hit on counter by any of her spellcards is annoying.

[Serela]

Any idea how much reduction you get out of just one Force Shield?

Not enough. I went from taking about 1272 from Reimu's dial-A to like... 1235-ish. With three it was about 100 damage reduction. I was hoping for maybe one tenth with several shields on, but...

It wasn't destined to be unplayable, because the stuff I ended up putting in those 4 slots are moves/items I doubt I will get almost -any- use out of, period, apart from inducing bhuddism on myself with two. (I liiiiike bhuddist koishi) Yet, even if I sacrifice half my deckspace to them, the reduction still is almost completely negligible. Eh.

Also, dear god. Playing people other then Koishi is impossible for me now. What do you mean you have moves other then Z and A for normal hit usage?!

[commandercool]

Not enough. I went from taking about 1272 from Reimu's dial-A to like... 1235-ish. With three it was about 100 damage reduction. I was hoping for maybe one tenth with several shields on, but...

It wasn't destined to be unplayable, because the stuff I ended up putting in those 4 slots are moves/items I doubt I will get almost -any- use out of, period, apart from inducing bhuddism on myself with two. (I liiiiike bhuddist koishi) Yet, even if I sacrifice half my deckspace to them, the reduction still is almost completely negligible. Eh.

Also, dear god. Playing people other then Koishi is impossible for me now. What do you mean you have moves other then Z and A for normal hit usage?!

Yeah, I guess in combo-centric Koishi's incredibly specific case you have slots to waste. Might as well put some brooms in there for basically no reason and it'll still probably be better than an item that assumes you're going to get beaten up a lot.

[Starxsword]

I tried very hard, but I don't think it's possible to hit with Catch and Release while at what would otherwise be the very end of a combo; in other words, the one point where I think it's damage would be superior. Maybe if I messed with brooms, but I don't like brooms.

Is that skill useful out of combos? Better hit box?

Not enough. I went from taking about 1272 from Reimu's dial-A to like... 1235-ish. With three it was about 100 damage reduction. I was hoping for maybe one tenth with several shields on, but...

That sounds useless. Try to have 8 and see what it does? Either that or have more spell cards. 4 spell cards sound good.

[Gpop]

Koishi Combo Rant
*snip*

I will agree that catch and rose is generally better than laser for corner, BUT you can do her dial-A loop for even more damage (last I checked catch and rose does 2.52k but dial-A does 2.55k, and is easier imo). Because of this, I decided to drop the spell card as it doesn't do much more other than combo from melee attacks. I generally use Reflex laser for midscreen stun combos though, and sometimes corner either out of (bad) habit, or if I don't know how close I am to the corner yet.

Ring of Roses is good in some cases because it can stun if a lot of the roses hit at once, AND you can combo from it if you're ready. The stun is great for popularity gain. Other than that, I dunno what else you can use it for. It's kinda okay, but not BAD, just situational. Teleport is decent too, as it teleports really quickly and great for cross ups. You can combo into it as well from anywhere with a dial-A combo for stun.

Growing Pains is pretty good, as it delays and can bait the opponent a bit, I've hit opponents quite a bit with it since it's kinda unexpected.  Fidgety Snatcher is really good as it acts VERY similar to a dp (shoryuken). It's COMPLETELY invincible on it's way up, so it's really great for counters and to go under with. I've used it a lot and a lot of the times it does what it needs to do. It's better than her 8B, which is also really REALLY good due to how quick it is and you can combo from it.

Super-ego is generally a lot better for damage, so in combos it's preferred, BUT the small range isn't good for anything else. I will say that it's actually COMPLETELY invincible during the attack, so it's a great counter. That's why Release of the Id is great for other purposes, such as keepaway or comboing from a distance, but mostly the former if you have a lot of popularity or a lot of pressure on you.

I would say broom is not worth it for Koishi. If you hold a direction, she'll dash and ALWAYS get a missed sneeze, but if you don't she CAN dial-A, but with her resources she doesn't really need it.

This is just experience from playing with opponents so far though. I've seen a few japanese replays with Koishi, and I've only seen one Buddhist Koishi and one neutral. I'm a Shinto Koishi mostly because her hearts are spread out more (great for midscreen combo), and her Y laser is A LOT better (it goes in all 6 directions no matter which direction you have it on).

[commandercool]

3 force shield items dropped the damage I took by... one twelth almost exactly. Mmmn, yeah, they don't seem worth it even if you have nothing else you want in your deck. I'm messing around with items since I have literally 4 open deck slots.

Now that I have Koishi down I should probably learn someone else. Uhm... Miko? (I'd take Futo if it wasn't that I've heard bad things about her, and Mamizou is still locked for me, so...)

Maybe now I should start netplaying against people so I can put my Koishi tactics into practice.

Oh yeah, and if you're going to learn another character you should learn Nitori. I suck at figuring out combos, so someone else should do it for me and share them. :derp:

Or Ichirin. When I get around to picking up a second character it will probably be Ichirin. Maybe I'm just partial to slow heavy hitters, but I think she's fantastic fun to play with.