東方Project 第14弾の情報です - Double Dealing Character

[Clarste]

Eh, I'm someone who tries to 1cc on Normal. If I accomplish that, I try again on another character, to get all the endings. That's why I play. I've dabbled in trying to clear Extra or Hard but have never succeeded and don't have much motivation to try. Anyway, I can say I've cleared every Windows game on Normal, with maybe half the shot types. I think I can honestly say I'm not very good.

Maybe it's because I'm not too good though that I find most of my pleasure from the act of trying. Dodging things, capturing spellcards, conserving bombs, whatever, all this stuff is enjoyable, but mostly because I need to get better at them to clear the game. It's a means to an end. And quite frankly I think of it as a resource game, first and foremost. "Never dying" is cool and all, but I have not once made that my goal. My goal is to beat the game, not to dodge everything. And, from experience, learning patterns and memorizing fairy spawn locations is almost completely irrelevant compared to conserving resources. I usually don't bomb as an emergency lifesaver, because honestly I don't trust my reflexes enough for that. I bomb when I think I might be in danger in the future. When I encounter a pattern that I think I won't be able to dodge. I give up before I try and just bomb it. Because that's the safest way to play, for me.

So, all that said, I think the number of lives available is a very important aspect of the gameplay. It tells me what I can expect and what I have to do to win. It's part of the gameplay balance just as much as the patterns themselves. And I loathed TD. Seriously, I hated that game when I played it. The lack of lives and the stupid Trance system that punished you for dying by making it harder to collect lives... I hated it all of it. The life system was so bad that it also made me hate the music and the spellcards, something I usually love and the main reason I play the games. Maybe you can try to convince me that I'm "playing it wrong" but having very few lives and having to do stupid things to collect them made the entire game less fun. Maybe if you're actually an expert or someone playing for score you can just think "how can I dodge everything?" and decide that the number of lives is irrelevant, but aren't you the one who's actually ignoring a huge part of the gameplay? You're supposed to die. You're supposed to bomb. Dodging everything, while maybe the ideal you strive for, is actually playing the game wrong. In a certain sense.

On the other hand, I absolutely loved SA, which everyone else seems to be lumping with TD in "cruel gameplay systems". It's by far my favorite game in the series, and I love the life mechanic. The best part is that it never encourages you to risk your life to get more lives, something that was a huge flaw in both UFO and TD. Safe, cautious, conservative play becomes a self-reinforcing cycle.

[XephyrEnigma]

Are you sure?

I'd like to add that you probably wont be seeing this on normal or lower as it's known that Hard and Lunatic give you more spirits to collect in general.

[Captain Vulcan]

With Touhou 13.5 and 14 on the horizon, I can't help but to notice how TD is taking a beating. I had no idea that TD was disliked so much until recently (I understand, though). Honestly, I thought it was a pretty decent game.

On the other hand, TD introduced Seiga. She's one of the most interesting characters in the entire Touhou mythos to me.

[Karisa]

I'd like to add that you probably wont be seeing this on normal or lower as it's known that Hard and Lunatic give you more spirits to collect in general.

I know. It took a lot of effort to develop a route for this, which involves spending nearly all of the bombs available (and in contrast to lives, TD gives you a lot of bombs, possibly the most outside of MoF/SA) to refill trance. Reaching the 20 extend is probably possible on lower difficulties by making use of deathtrances, but I don't think there are enough spirits to do it without dying. (Perhaps with TAS to stay in front of bosses all the time? I don't know.) Still, although impractical, reaching 8 lives outside of stage practice is not impossible.

My preferred life system would probably be MS/PCB by the way. Collecting point items is simple enough compared to some of the recent life systems, but you can still gain an extra life or two beyond average with additional effort (or a few planned bombs in PCB's case), in contrast to EoSD/MoF/IN/LLS where there's a limited number of extends and you're practically guaranteed to reach all of them in a 1cc. PCB could afford to not give quite as many lives though, with its border system.

As for Touhou 14's system? My prediction is that it'll be like SA's system, but with one life part after every spell like in TD (not nonspells), and 3 parts per life like in the screenshot. It would qualify as simpler mechanics, and give a pretty average number of lives overall since each Touhou game has around 23-28 spells (excluding IN last spells and EoSD Easy).

[Mayson]

Actually, I never found TD that bad in terms of lives, but UFO is the worst offender in my book. All those damn UFOs flying off with your lives when you aren't quick enough and sometimes you don't even get the right UFO because you are also dodging all those bullets. It was stressing me out way more than TD where you just have to bomb / be quick / use trance at the right moments and it's usually indicated when life fairies spawn (often right after bomb fairies when you kill them quickly).


As for "beating a game", I always try to get it 1cc in normal, then I put away for some time, then I try hard. Until this day there is only title I managed in hard though and that was IN in a rather shameful "bombing-through-everything" run. I don't do most of the self-imposed challenges because I know I wouldn't get them right. Even if I know a pattern well, there is a chance I will mess up eventually.

[Tengukami]

"Die less" isn't really meant to be advice, of course. It's unhelpful and kind of condescending in its obviousness. I mean, it's not like it never occurred to anyone to try not to die in order to get better at the games. "Die less" is rather meant to underscore that however poor the resources, there are still ways to clear the game. Spellcard Practice makes this a bit easier, too.

Zil makes an excellent point that it's the re-playability of the games that can make resources desirable. To be able to come back to a game because there are multiple paths you can take; that you don't need to plan the one perfect path through the game on account of a dearth of resources. Sure, there's score-running, but not everyone's playing like that, and it's not like there's only one "correct" approach to these games. That's something a lot of people forget in discussions about game resources.

If TH14's system is simplified, this isn't just better for mid-tier players. This also gives any player more freedom to take more paths through the game. Usually.

[CyberAngel]

I didn't mean to be rude towards C.Angel, I just wanted to poke him into learning how to make do with less amounts of resources as that'll make him a better player overall. I'm sorry if it came out insentitive. It happens and I apologize.

It's alright, no offence taken. I know how to become better, but it's still a long road to go, and such things matter a lot until the moment I get there.

You're supposed to die. You're supposed to bomb. Dodging everything, while maybe the ideal you strive for, is actually playing the game wrong. In a certain sense.

Now that's just another extreme. One that will block you from becoming better. It is indeed possible to dodge everything thrown at you with enough experience. If you don't see how something can be done, it only means you don't know or understand something. There are barriers in the way you see the game that must be overcome to move past a certain point. Ones that must be shattered by taking more risk than you ever did. And you'll be amazed when you can freely do something you'd deem impossible before. I know it, I've been there.

I was aware such clashes were inevitable ever since I started to take a serious interest in shmups. I just want both kinds of people to understand the other. Even masters started out from zero, and out of those who are still inexperienced now, new masters may appear, but they need to build up that experience. At the same time, even if you don't think you're a good player, you can become much better than you are, even to the level you'd consider crazy. Getting better with each run is a thing, but sometimes you have to throw common sense out of the window to discover something new and exciting in the way the game can be played.

So let's wait for the demo warmly until it is ready.

[TheTeff007]

I'm guessing, based on all the screenshots shown so far, that the stage depicted on it is Stage 1 on all 3 screenshots.  I believe that is water what is outside the main road o the Reimu and Sakuya images. Also, both the score and lives counter are not too high.

[cuc]

The demo has gone gold. That's it.

[AnonymousPondScum]

MAD HYPE MODE ENGAGED.

[Clarste]

Now that's just another extreme. One that will block you from becoming better. It is indeed possible to dodge everything thrown at you with enough experience. If you don't see how something can be done, it only means you don't know or understand something. There are barriers in the way you see the game that must be overcome to move past a certain point. Ones that must be shattered by taking more risk than you ever did. And you'll be amazed when you can freely do something you'd deem impossible before. I know it, I've been there.

I never said it was impossible, I'm saying it's playing the game wrong. The "game mechanics" of each game tend to revolve around getting bombs and lives. If you never used any of them, then ZUN wasted his time programming them in. Why would he even put any color of UFO than blue in the game? Why did he make purple and green spirits drop some certain fairies? If you never expect to die, then you're already ignoring half of the game. Maybe it's fun anyway and I won't tell you to stop, but you're wasting all of ZUN's hard work like that.

[Despatche]

You are not "supposed" to die or bomb; those things are put in these games so you don't have to be a complete expert to properly beat them (as are difficulties). If you want to talk about playing the game wrong, I can always point out the obvious.

(When you are "supposed" to do such things, it's called bad design.)

(Waiting for the inevitable (and irrelevant) "Do you expect people to dodge everything in Lunatic on their first try?"...)

(Edit: As always, games like Battle Garegga are exceptions. Those games do not conform to the standard known as "dying and bombing is bad". Fun fact: some people will call Garegga and co. bad design anyway.)

[Ikari]

I didn't dislike TD, though. I do hate with all my heart the divine spirit thing, but damn; It introduced way too many new stuff for me to hate it! Kyouko's echo-bullets, Yoshika's self-healing, Seiga's team-tag gimmick (By far my favorite), Tojiko and Futo's thunder-bullets (THEY WIGGLE) and Miko's glorious spells. All of it felt like a fresh new batch of stuff, and that's what I'd love to see in the new game; New gimmicks, new kind of attacks, strategies, anything to make the gameplay more varied than "x colored bullet shot from the boss requires you to move out of the way" for 6 stages.

[Mayson]

You are not "supposed" to die or bomb; those things are put in these games so you don't have to be a complete expert to properly beat them (as are difficulties). If you want to talk about playing the game wrong, I can always point out the obvious.

(When you are "supposed" to do such things, it's called bad design.)

(Waiting for the inevitable (and irrelevant) "Do you expect people to dodge everything in Lunatic on their first try?"...)

That is true. As a German saying goes "No master has fallen from the sky yet!". Everyone starts out small and with more training gets more on a professional level. That's not different with games.

When I started with Touhou I had serious troubles with easy, then I cleared easy and started training in normal, now I have all games cleared in normal and the next logical step would be hard. From hard to lunatic. From lunatic to extra (sometimes extra is easier than lunatic).

[Tengukami]

Even more simply, maybe there is no "supposed to" at all, beyond that games are supposed to be fun, and if you have fun, mission accomplished.

[CyberAngel]

If you never expect to die, then you're already ignoring half of the game.

I see my point didn't get through. A lot of good things were said here, but here's what I can add.

Saying that playing without using bombs and losing lives is wrong assumes that it is a style of playing you can switch into or out of. But it's not, it's a matter of skill. You're expected to grow your skill as you play, and there is no point to force yourself to play below your skill. Suppose you get good enough to 1cc Lunatic using all bombs and lives you're given. Odds are that if you try Easy at that point, you'll NMNB it without trouble. You haven't suddenly started playing the game wrong, you simply got better. Lives and bombs are there to help you if you can't dodge all the stuff thrown at you, but they aren't obligatory to use, and neither are they completely irrelevant. There are just different skill-based "styles" of playing, and that the game allows for a wide array of differently-skilled people to enjoy it - that is an important thing that Touhou is valued for.

[iK]

Die less, problem solved. If getting max lives offers you some sort of psychological effect, then make 5 lives the cap. Problem fixed.

High punishment with relatively low difficulty is just a smidgen (ie. a lot) more frustrating game design than having higher actual difficulty that punishes you less.



The low resources in TD in particular remind me of Kid Icarus (NES): Not all that difficult, but single mistakes result in disproportionate punishment and you have to start all over. Difficulty should come with learning, not inherit frustration. It's easy to say to someone coming into the series at the twelfth installment "just learn the patterns and stream the easy ones, TD is easy modo for babbies," the learning process isn't the same.

I honestly find the games like PCB easier than TD since there is more of a chance to actually learn latter stages more readily, even if it means going through resources early: The first stages are incredibly easy to learn, so being able to experience the harder ones even without the resources gives more of a chance to learn their intricacies.

Compare to say, getting to Tojiko with a single life and bomb and having that one chance to get a glimpse at the lightning bolts before getting mindscrewed by them.

There's also   huge differences between the classic 1up system and the fragment system. You don't lose a chance to get a vital life by missing a single point item, and full 1up drops are a thing. Compare to "Oh no noo, dense bullets blocking one of the few portions of a life I'll ever see."

[Zengeku]

High punishment with relatively low difficulty is just a smidgen (ie. a lot) more frustrating game design than having higher actual difficulty that punishes you less.

Doesn't have to be that way. You could easily have UFO tier pattern difficulty (or higher) while still just giving you only 5 lives. Upon some more reflection, I guess I don't care if it's gonna be another 12 lives game. It's up to the player to decide what kind of clear is satisfying to them. Veterans can go for low-miss clears and pretend it's an arcade game while a newer player can just be satisfied with simply winning. Everyone's happy i guess. Just have the bullet patterns be up to scratch please :3 - Seriously, if they aren't I'm gonna be sad 

[Karisa]

There's also   huge differences between the classic 1up system and the fragment system. You don't lose a chance to get a vital life by missing a single point item, and full 1up drops are a thing. Compare to "Oh no noo, dense bullets blocking one of the few portions of a life I'll ever see."

Shouldn't that not be an issue after you've played each stage a few times in stage practice? I recall most of the pink spirits being trivial to collect (a notable exception being the four before Miko), in contrast with, say, point items in PCB stages (some PCB 1ccs don't even reach 1000 point items, much less 1200, while in TD, the 18 extend is the only one that really matters since the 15 is near-guaranteed and the 20 is near-impossible). I think TD lives are just valued more since there are fewer of them (which makes sense).

[Zil]

I honestly find the games like PCB easier than TD since there is more of a chance to actually learn latter stages more readily, even if it means going through resources early: The first stages are incredibly easy to learn, so being able to experience the harder ones even without the resources gives more of a chance to learn their intricacies.

Compare to say, getting to Tojiko with a single life and bomb and having that one chance to get a glimpse at the lightning bolts before getting mindscrewed by them.

You can use continues / stage practice.

Also, what Karisa said. Those fragments will be in the same places every time, and you're usually invincible while collecting them anyway.

Maybe if you're actually an expert or someone playing for score you can just think "how can I dodge everything?" and decide that the number of lives is irrelevant, but aren't you the one who's actually ignoring a huge part of the gameplay? You're supposed to die. You're supposed to bomb. Dodging everything, while maybe the ideal you strive for, is actually playing the game wrong. In a certain sense.

Since I feel like you're responding to what I said, I want you to know that that wasn't my point. I'm not saying the number of lives doesn't matter because you don't need them. If you're going to bomb or die to a certain pattern, then you're probably going to do so regardless of how many lives you have. I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. It seems like you're saying you dislike TD because you can't fail as many spells, which is: 1) silly, and 2) false.

So again, my point is that this is essentially complaining about the game being harder than you want it to be, and not only that, but it's one of the most nonsensical ways you can make that complaint. You're not saying Pattern X is unbalanced, or that Spell Y is humanly impossible, or Shot Z doesn't do enough damage, all of which would be valid. You're saying that the game doesn't allow enough mistakes on your part. That it "should" be easier than it is, in the most trivial of ways. You have every right to find the game difficult. That's all subjective and whatever. But you can't say the game is poorly designed because it doesn't allow enough mistakes, especially when you can simply continue on with the game immediately after dying. ZUN has an obligation to make the game playable, and he does that very well, but he's not obligated to make the game easy (which he does anyway by creating a spectrum of difficulties).

[iK]

Isn't the game allowing just one mistake "too much"? Because if that is not the case, then the statements "You have every right to find the game difficult. That's all subjective and whatever," and "But you can't say the game is poorly designed because it doesn't allow enough mistakes, especially when you can simply continue on with the game immediately after dying," are in contrast with one another. Whether something is poor game design is also subjective.

Besides which, who are you to say what is and isn't a valid complaint with a game's direction? It is not like the point isn't being articulated upon or is as vague as complaints like "This game just doesn't have good immersion" are.

[Drake]

I am very disappoint at all of the disparaging comments about the UFO system. I will fight you people.

[Zil]

Whether something is poor game design is also subjective.

Well, yes, but practically everything is subjective to some degree. Some things more than others. The extent to which a person finds a game difficult depends on so many things specific to that person. Some people can beat the game with ease, others couldn't even if their lives depended on it. So I write that off as something that's not worth arguing about. I think something like game design can have a much more constructive conversation around it though (which is why I'm trying to talk about it now). Maybe I should have said "too subjective," so as not to seemingly imply that everything else I'm talking about is completely set in stone, but that's hair splitting.

I don't think adding in extra lives is a good way to balance a game, (especially not when the scoring system revolves around suiciding). It allows the player to bypass segments of the game without actually playing them, and removes the player from the game. It's ironic that people often complain about TD giving too few resources, since it is in fact their over-abundance (along with the fact that you are directly rewarded for spending them) that breaks the game's scoring system, and the gameplay is often summarized as "XXCXXC."

It is not like the point isn't being articulated upon

All I see so far is this,

High punishment with relatively low difficulty is just a smidgen (ie. a lot) more frustrating game design than having higher actual difficulty that punishes you less.

The low resources in TD in particular remind me of Kid Icarus (NES): Not all that difficult, but single mistakes result in disproportionate punishment and you have to start all over.

and I have to disagree. I don't think it's nearly as fun to cruise through a game by spending resources. Everything you bombed is something you didn't get to play against. Sure, the secret to beating Touhou games is to bomb the crap out of them, but that's not the fun way to play them, and the game shouldn't require it. To the contrary, I think the game should encourage the player to learn the patterns, and depend on their own skills to get through. Additional resources make a game easier by nullifying chunks of it, not truly making them easier but removing them completely.

Everything Clarste said was a complaint about the mechanics rather than the number of lives or a strange misinterpretation of what I said earlier.

[Mayson]

Well, yes, but practically everything is subjective to some degree. Some things more than others. The extent to which a person finds a game difficult depends on so many things specific to that person. Some people can beat the game with ease, others couldn't even if their lives depended on it. So I write that off as something that's not worth arguing about. I think something like game design can have a much more constructive conversation around it though (which is why I'm trying to talk about it now). Maybe I should have said "too subjective," so as not to seemingly imply that everything else I'm talking about is completely set in stone, but that's hair splitting.

I don't think adding in extra lives is a good way to balance a game, (especially not when the scoring system revolves around suiciding). It allows the player to bypass segments of the game without actually playing them, and removes the player from the game. It's ironic that people often complain about TD giving too few resources, since it is in fact their over-abundance (along with the fact that you are directly rewarded for spending them) that breaks the game's scoring system, and the gameplay is often summarized as "XXCXXC."

Well, technically it doesn't matter as you could clear the game without dying once. It also gets balanced in score, after all you get for each bomb and life a high extra reward at the end of each level and at the end of the full run. So you usually maximize your score by dying as few times as possible, which is definitely supporting what you describe as fun playstyle (Using as few resources as possible).

I also don't get why people say that you have to die in TD, I can't believe that. There has to be a way to maximize score without suiciding.

I am very disappoint at all of the disparaging comments about the UFO system. I will fight you people.

Fite me! I will decorate your fragile body with a thousand holes of my Danmaku!  :getdown:

[The Greatest Dog]

Personally, I really liked SA's system of lives and bombs. By the time you've died on enough patterns to miss out on more than one life, chances are you're already at Orin or something with less than two lives remaining so who knows how far you'll get. And while bombs were generally in the same number as in Ten Desires, they were significantly weaker here than in any other game in the series (Barring Aya/Reimu). Thus, for the vast majority of characters, you actually had to dodge patterns even if you dropped a bomb (or more!) onto something.

UFO's system is really cool, in my opinion, as well. It gives the player the freedom to invest into his resource pool or PIV as he pleases, which gives survival-based players a substantial pool of resources and score-based runs a challenge of minimal lives and resources to dodge at the appropriate difficulty level.

Contrast with 10D where in terms of scoring or survival, there's practically no reason not to use XXCXXC since doing anything but gimps your resource pool and your scoring potential.

[Zil]

I also don't get why people say that you have to die in TD, I can't believe that. There has to be a way to maximize score without suiciding.

Bombing bosses generates tons of spirits, recharging your trance. Killing yourself gives you more bombs. You basically want use trance as many times as you can. Try watching one of these world records and you'll see how it is.

Problem with UFO is there's nothing to do against bosses aside from grazemilk. It's all in the stages, and stages aren't really Touhou's strong point to begin with.

But look at me, talking about games I haven't even played in over a year. Silly.

[Drake]

I also don't get why people say that you have to die in TD, I can't believe that. There has to be a way to maximize score without suiciding.

If by that you mean "there is a way to maximize score in the context of playing where you don't suicide", then yes? But 10D's scoring system is such that you have to, in order to get a noteworthy score. Endgame bonus is piddly compared to the rest of the game. SA, at least, was structured that you would suicide lives for graze, then spend the rest of the game getting faith, precariously and aggressively grazing more while really attempting not to die lest your faith gets sliced. As a bonus, needing to no-death the rest of the game means the end bonus is actually reasonable.

Fite me! I will decorate your fragile body with a thousand holes of my Danmaku!  :getdown:

You haven't said anything for me to bark at yet. If I say "fight me" you don't just say "ok then fight me".

Isn't the game allowing just one mistake "too much"? Because if that is not the case, then the statements "You have every right to find the game difficult. That's all subjective and whatever," and "But you can't say the game is poorly designed because it doesn't allow enough mistakes, especially when you can simply continue on with the game immediately after dying," are in contrast with one another. Whether something is poor game design is also subjective.

If by contrast you mean contradiction then no, but if you do mean contrast then yes. Experience of the game is what's subjective. How you respond to certain elements and how you think that they work -within the scope of your playing- is subjective. You can think a game is too hard and someone else can think it's too easy. Trivially subjective.
Game design, by contrast, is "subjective" in some senses, but at its core its goal is to be exactly not that. Game design is precisely for establishing a more objective set of heuristics within the context and scenario you're setting up with your game. The genre, your core audience and playerbase, what type of game you want to develop and how you want to accomplish whatever abstract set of goals you have in mind, and so on, are all parameters in consideration that will affect the sort of principles and design that you apply to your game. These are not fundamentally objective, but within the context of what you want to achieve with your game, they're pretty close.

[Mesarthim]

I shall join the anti-UFO regime purely because Drake has made mention of UFO glory.

But seriously I have a really hard time with UFO Hard (lunatic for me is an impossibility) and I have a severe case of UFO-related deaths (literally, ufo items flying around the screen, oh crap no I didn't mean to ram that bullet, wait no, ugh). You get the point. I don't hate UFO but oh man am I ever so clumsy.

I take most if not all games at face value and accept them as is. I look forward to the next game.

[Tengukami]

So, Touhou 14.

[Mesarthim]

Your master plan to return it fully on topic.

But anyways I can't say I necessarily have any complaints that it will be more plain in mechanics much like MoF (as per mention on the wiki). In  a way it does help me focus more on the bullets and less on the unique mechanics but sometimes that mechanic makes it more fun. I liked the graze factor of SA yet loathed but found the UFO mechanic intriguing (sorry Drake).

Demo comes out in what, 9 days? Not that I know when I'd be playing the demo around that period if at all.