Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Help Me, Eirin! => Topic started by: Mino ☆ on January 15, 2014, 02:22:46 AM

Title: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on January 15, 2014, 02:22:46 AM
Previous Thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,12965.0.html)

Alright! So this is a thread that's been gone for quite some time, and I think it would be a great idea to revive it. The score thread's purpose is to:


My goal with reviving this thread is to generate more interest in scoring and give a place for people to discuss their journeys through scoring. So without further ado...

Discuss~  :3
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Zil on January 15, 2014, 04:54:14 AM
Hmm, let's see. Mystic Square. I managed to beat all of Karisa's Mima scores. I hope she retaliates. ;p

A new strat I've started using is a supergraze on the stage 5 midboss. Its first attack won't hit you if you're right in front of it, though you have to back up a bit or you get 0 graze. It's easy the first time but you have to be quick to get into it again. Naturally this safespot also allows you to inflict awesome shotgun damage with Reimu and Yuuka. Works on every difficulty.
Shinki's cheeto lasers attack is also a good source of graze on Easy, which partly makes up for how difficult it is to do the supergraze of her second attack. I'll have to check how much graze it gives if you milk it completely, but I'm sure it's significant. Her "Devil's Recitation" may also be viable. The less you have to depend on the second attack, the better.

I think it should be possible to put together an Easy run with no deaths, no bombs, at least 600 items, and 999 graze in every stage except stage 1.

also I'm gunna git 120 m in gdwf
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on January 15, 2014, 05:02:06 AM
Scoring, scoring, scoring... Where to begin?

I never actually thought I would even become a scorerunner. My goals used to purely involve much survival play. But after one day thinking "It's been a while since I've done another SA score run", I decided to pick it up. I had a lot of fun with SA scoring. Learning new grazes, bomb routes, etc. etc. And eventually I managed to take it to 3bil. Inspired by my new drive to start scoring, I picked up Mountain of Faith after Denpa made a comment about how not many people post Lunatic entries on the MoF scoreboards anymore.

I found MoF scoring kind of fun. It's a lot different from the other systems with the lack of graze. So far I've just been toying around with stage practice.

I've tried to mock the Nanashi route slightly for stage 1, for the extra points before Shizuha (I usually end up with about 9.2 - 9.4 million)

I've also started using coa's stage 2 route. (Bombing the ring fairies, instead of streaming down on the top left side of the screen). It's less risky and seems to work well for me at the moment. I can always change things up later.

I've gotten most of stage 3 worked out. Though I'm not sure if I could capture Hydro Camo consistently. So I may have to prepare for losing 1 power, as I'm not sure if I'll want to restart upon Hydro Camo failures. I also really need to get better about not losing too much faith at the beginning, and before midboss Nitori.

Stage 4 is quite busy. I've still a lot to work on concerning this stage. I've only half of it even worked out. I hate how the replay desync makes it harder to study replays. I hope to obtain a practice mode replay for stage 4 to make things easier.

Stage 5 I have touched on a bit, though I'm not very good at the route yet. Practice, practice, practice~

And stage 6 should be simple enough.  As the stage is short. The main difficulty here is not giving into nerves and dying on Kanako.

While I've semi-worked out my routes. I'm still inconsistent and heavily not optimizing them. Of course, that's to be expected since it's only my fourth day of MoF scoring anyway.

I'm reluctant to start doing full runs until I'm very consistent at my route. I still don't have a goal. I'd like to play for 2bil. I'm not sure how long it would take me. But I guess I will hopefully find out eventually~
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on January 15, 2014, 06:38:30 AM
You work fast, good luck!
<Minogame> whoHOMUhere please make a top notch MoF Lunatic guide :D
<whoHOMUhere> 1. don't die
<whoHOMUhere> 2. don't gray items
<whoHOMUhere> 3. ???
<whoHOMUhere> 4. 2.2b

Time for a blog~ Avert your eyes.
I think April 2013 is when I started trying to "score" in MoF. Old score was 1.1 billion at the time (lol). I tried to play more credits, and got 1.3 billion, with tons and tons of mistakes. Still playing without a route, got 1.55 billion in a month with 1 death. Then decided to look at some early stage stuff. Made a roughly 1.9 billion route, but my later stages are still bad. Got 1.79b 1 death run in June. Then finally worked on stage 5, although stage 4 is still terrible, for a 2.0 billion route. 1 month later 1.86 billion with 1 death on PWG. And two weeks later, 2.0 billion.
I went to Hard mode, and got 1.83b a few weeks later on a bad run. For some unknown reason I played Easy mode for a week or so, getting 1.5b. Normal mode was fun, I finished two runs in a month of practice, 1.608b and 1.629b, and went back to Easy and Hard getting score of 1.515b and 1.965b.
Lunatic mode had my attention again. I played it so much that I forgot about all my routes for the other difficulties. My goals at the time were LNN and 2.1b. I chose to get LNN first. After about 100 hours of practice and credit spam I got it. Then a week later, got 2.125b (on stream too, which is odd).
Pretty good year I guess, although I only played one game for most of it. Will revisit these categories some day.

I will begin practicing SA Lunatic, later, summer maybe.

I am in no way fast, but I guess the moral of the story is that practice pays off.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mero on January 15, 2014, 06:58:14 AM
Okay, scoring...

As some people may know, I got into SA Lunatic scoring thanks to Mino, at first because of his challenge thread, then because I wanted to beat him to the 3bil, but sadly that didn't happen. I believe that actually helped me on my play, when I made a new score file I could barely do a vanilla 1cc to re-unlock everything and had two game overs on Utsuho for scoreruns, but then Mino gets 3bil and I suddenly can take more restarts and from much farther, so maybe I was just feeling pressured.

as for routes and strategies, I've watched UKT's run quite a lot, but also Bon's (2nd place, with 4.5bil )

For stage 1 I really don't have a set strategy, I just graze the most I can on the more obvious spots, I usually get 68-7100 graze, my best being 7500~

Stage 2 is just there, though I still make mistakes, but here's what separates UKT from Bon, Parsee.
I used to do the UKT method, get just 3.xx power from the stage and suicide twice on the opener, bomb the 1st spell and try to suicide before getting the life piece, bomb and then suicide again, Bon's method is: get full power from the stage, suicide once on the opener (start the 1st spell on 1.20 power), bomb the spell and graze the rest of the spell "manually", finishing off the spell by suicide, bomb and then suicide again.
UKT has you on Parsee's 2nd spell with 2.00 power but zero life resources (not even life pieces), Bon has you a piece short of an extra life but no power.
I feel like going with Bon's method, I find it less risky, but I will get the life piece from Parsee's 1st, simply because I see no point in not doing so, a missing life piece can carry out a long way, and I've lost runs to that as well.

Stage 3 is difficult just because of midboss Yuugi, the lasers are hard, but they're static so they can be learned, the bouncing bullets on the other hand are just... no, as for boss Yuugi, I've tried to learn the 1st spell super graze, it's not as hard as it looks, but it's pretty much impossible on anything below 3 power, so that may or may not be a reason for me not doing it.

Stage 4 might as well be called static, since the parts that aren't so are bombed, so that -should- go all right, Satori is really difficult because, ideally, you want a perfect fight, while milking the first and last spells, although it isn't really a necessity, it just makes stage 5 much easier

On stage 5 I think you need at least 3.40 power by midboss Orin, for the worst case scenario that you bomb all three of her attacks, you still have one for the popcorn section, after that try your best to refill on power without missing point items, boss Orin I find difficult because I have keep bombs and lives for the 2nd non, but that usually means I'm on almost zeroes for the rest of the fight.

Now, stage 6, the cash-in, the stage portion is pretty straightforward but I need at least 3 power for Orin, by whatever means, otherwise I miss out on a lot of items from the Kunai crows after her, from there it's just "don't die" for the rest of the game, but considering the pressure of carrying a run this far, it's all easier said than done.
I wonder though, what is the clear bonus made out of? I did a 1cc that finished with 1 life short of max and the clear bonus was nearly 600mil, I remember reading somewhere about lives counting for about 40mil each, but what about the rest?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: redlakitu on January 15, 2014, 08:03:00 AM
Ah, why not. While my activity around here (and as far as Touhou games are concerned in general) has been very low lately, I've still got quite a few lingering goals to reach, two of which are scoring related. They are:

A >1 billion score in Perfect Cherry Blossom; any character and difficulty

Am I close to getting this one or not? My best Easy score is 910 million; my best Normal score is 882 million, but that run inolved six misses, nine bombs and two border breaks. I guess I should simply try doing a better job on Normal... either that, or actually learning to plan some borders in advance on Easy, since the billion seems difficult to reach otherwise. Improving Stage 4 performance wouldn't hurt either... I'm still unable to handle those aiming fairies a minute into the stage consistently. And my overall knowledge of this game is hilariously low. I should try harder AND smarter.

Improving my current best Imperishable Night Easy score

The score being 2 billion and 6 millions. I got it with solo Reimu, so performing further runs with her should be a natural course of action, but her aimed shot is actually starting to get on my nerves. That's why I'm switching to solo Marisa. I have also started watching replays of my stage practice and noting down what I should and shouldn't do, which might help me not forget things during actual runs. While my current route and performance should be easily enough to improve on the Reimu score, there are still some things I'd like to be able to pull off correctly, but can't; namely, the Stage 4 and 5 tricks involving getting very close to enemies with familiars. I'm already able to position myself so that I don't die while doing that trick, but I still end up destroying most of the familiars before the master goes down. What am I missing?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Zil on January 15, 2014, 10:11:16 AM
Quote from: GMeroK on January 15, 2014, 06:58:14 AM
I wonder though, what is the clear bonus made out of? I did a 1cc that finished with 1 life short of max and the clear bonus was nearly 600mil, I remember reading somewhere about lives counting for about 40mil each, but what about the rest?
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Subterranean_Animism/Gameplay#Scoring

Apparently power and PIV play a role. In case you weren't aware, the wiki pretty much has the mechanics of all of the Windows games explained completely.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Karisa on January 15, 2014, 10:48:39 AM
Hmm, apparently this has become an alternate blogging thread? I actually wasn't expecting that-- I was hoping for more of a scoring help thread. It works though I guess. (Edit: OK, I guess this was just at the start.)

Quote from: Zil on January 15, 2014, 10:11:16 AM
Apparently power and PIV play a role. In case you weren't aware, the wiki pretty much has the mechanics of all of the Windows games explained completely.
LLS/MS should be decently accurate too, if I recall correctly. At least, I went through them a while ago and corrected anything I could find-- the pages included strange copy-paste info like saying there was a limit of 8 lives/bombs at a time (there's not) and saying that bomb range depends on the character (they always cover the entire screen, MS bomb length is all that varies).

---

Might as well post what my own goal is right now-- that is, learning SA Easy scoring. In particular, I'm trying to learn how to score in SA with all 6 shot types. My first target is Heartbeam's 610m MarisaA score.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: chum on January 15, 2014, 11:08:46 AM
Fairy Wars is a good game.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on January 15, 2014, 12:51:51 PM
I have a near zero knowledge about scoring. What's the most basic thing for scoring? Grazing perhaps? From SA and forth are they added to the stage bonus or final bonus?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Star King on January 15, 2014, 12:57:54 PM
How do people line up the Eternal Meek safespot?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Shimatora on January 15, 2014, 01:25:01 PM
Quote from: Yomihime on January 15, 2014, 12:51:51 PM
I have a near zero knowledge about scoring. What's the most basic thing for scoring? Grazing perhaps? From SA and forth are they added to the stage bonus or final bonus?

Basic idea for scoring is increasing point item value (PIV) as high as you possibly can. Grazing comes into this for SA, UFO and DDC, but not so much TD.

SA's system is centred pretty much around grazing - it's used for auto-collection and increases the PIV multiplier.

UFO's system you want to focus more on increasing the PIV through collecting UFO's while a UFO is active on screen. Each collected UFO is worth 1,000 PIV if I remember rightly.

TD you just want to spam XXC and gain PIV through trancing. Blue spirits are worth 10 PIV normally, in trance they are worth 100. Graze doesn't get you very much PIV at all.

DDC's system largely revolves around bombing bullets for PIV - grazing helps increase it still, though.

As you can see, they all play different roles in these games. Unlike some of the earlier games, however, you do not get score at the end of stages for your graze count.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on January 15, 2014, 01:31:43 PM
I've had quite many potential 600M runs recently, most of them failing on Sakuya. Most notable one had 527M entering stage six and gameovered before the midboss. It could have gotten 600M even with a Gensokyo gameover. :<
Quote from: Star King on January 15, 2014, 12:57:54 PM
How do people line up the Eternal Meek safespot?
(http://i.imgur.com/QqZWxsW.png)
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Karisa on January 15, 2014, 02:27:53 PM
Quote from: Yomihime on January 15, 2014, 12:51:51 PM
I have a near zero knowledge about scoring. What's the most basic thing for scoring? Grazing perhaps? From SA and forth are they added to the stage bonus or final bonus?
It really depends on the game, as the gameplay gimmick is always a major part of scoring.

Though as Shimatora said, focusing on increasing the PIV is a good starting point. Collecting point items at maximum value is important too, particularly in the later stages. Spellcard bonuses are important in some games, such as MoF and DDC, but not in others, such as SA and TD.

I originally learned how the scoring systems work via watching world record replays (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/High_scores) to see what they focus on, and reading the wiki's gameplay pages (such as this for SA (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Subterranean_Animism/Gameplay)). The wiki pages also include the spell/clear bonus formulas, since you seem to be wondering about that. (The wiki "strategy" pages are generally pretty bad though, in my experience.)

Feel free to ask if you have questions about any particular scoring system.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on January 15, 2014, 03:09:01 PM
Speaking of the wiki, I found this kind of silly.
(MoF Strategy section): A suicide at the start of the game may well be good strategy for advanced players.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on January 15, 2014, 05:50:30 PM
Thanks Shimatora and Karisa :) I wonder if increasing the PIV is the best part to start scoring, would MoF be a good game to practice score run?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Shimatora on January 15, 2014, 06:10:02 PM
Quote from: Yomihime on January 15, 2014, 05:50:30 PM
Thanks Shimatora and Karisa :) I wonder if increasing the PIV is the best part to start scoring, would MoF be a good game to practice score run?

I'd say watch a few replays and see which looks most fun or play the game you enjoy the most for score.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
As unlikely as I though it would ever be, I start getting interested in scoring myself. Even though I'm just beginning this journey, I'll leave my thoughts here as well, just to have a laugh in the future if anything. I do find scoring interesting now that I feel myself comfortable in a few games, but I don't think I'll be willing to learn extremely advanced tricks like supergrazing, so I don't think I'll be a threat to the top scorers, fancying myself "the worst of the best" instead. Then again, everything can happen. I mean, I have little trouble doing Visionary Wave on Lunatic vertical only, so it's not like I don't enjoy the challenge. Especially if it will be rewarding.

As I said elsewhere, I do start to like IN scoring system. It rewards survival, proper familiar handling, and sometimes taking a risk. Easy scoreboard is pretty heavy on the competition, so for now I'm enjoying filling up Normal ones. Some solo chars in particular ;)

I also looked into MoF and EoSD, and don't really think they're my thing. MoF not only needs a PERFECT survival, but also special route tricks to keep the faith meter from falling. I don't like too much restriction, preferring some room for mistakes. EoSD needs trading survival resources for score, which I'm not a fan of either.

Now, some thoughts on games I am yet too look into deep enough. PCB needs breaking borders on purpose, which I don't feel like doing as well, even at times when there are enough bullets to get another border. SA does seem interesting, I like grazing. So does UFO, given that "blue and rainbow UFOs only" is a nice survival challenge as well. GFW, while hard as hell, might be my thing too. Freezing stuff and then grazing to freeze more stuff faster sounds fun. TD... eh, as I said, I don't like trading survival resources for score. DDC... I am yet to play seriously at all, so nothing here yet.

Quote from: dxk on January 15, 2014, 03:09:01 PM
Speaking of the wiki, I found this kind of silly.
(MoF Strategy section): A suicide at the start of the game may well be good strategy for advanced players.

I imagine it's done to get to max power ASAP so as to start building up faith faster. But since there are no lives you can get over the maximum, you do lose some of endgame bonus you would have gotten for that life. So, that faith boost isn't worth it, then?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on January 15, 2014, 06:41:11 PM
Quote from: dxk on January 15, 2014, 03:09:01 PM
Speaking of the wiki, I found this kind of silly.
(MoF Strategy section): A suicide at the start of the game may well be good strategy for advanced players.

Apparently, this was not meant to be part for the whole game, but instead for the trial version. Meaning it's outdated and therefore people assume it's meant to be for the full game. A misunderstanding, pretty much.

Quote from: C.Angel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
So does UFO, given that "blue and rainbow UFOs only" is a nice survival challenge as well. GFW, while hard as hell, might be my thing too. Freezing stuff and then grazing to freeze more stuff faster sounds fun.

You kill yourself in those 2 for more bombs as well. In UFO you kill specifically kill yourself in stage 5 to have 2 bombs for the midboss so you can bomb the hell out of Nazrin (other places too, but I forgot where). And in GFW, you suicide regularly to get more bomb percentage. similar to PCB where you kill yourself a lot for a few different reasons. Mostly to get more bombs. Even IN routes aren't entirely bomb-free, but I guess only on lunatic, which you aren't playing just yet.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on January 15, 2014, 07:56:48 PM
Quote from: Yomihime on January 15, 2014, 05:50:30 PM
Thanks Shimatora and Karisa :) I wonder if increasing the PIV is the best part to start scoring, would MoF be a good game to practice score run?
Besides increasing PIV, be sure to know where the majority of score will come from. (Some games depend more than item collection)

Quote from: C.Angel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
I also looked into MoF and EoSD, and don't really think they're my thing. MoF not only needs a PERFECT survival, but also special route tricks to keep the faith meter from falling. I don't like too much restriction, preferring some room for mistakes. EoSD needs trading survival resources for score, which I'm not a fan of either.
Most windows games trade resources for score. You don't need "PERFECT survival" for a score run unless you're at that level in which you can do the survival fairly consistently.

Quote from: C.Angel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
I imagine it's done to get to max power ASAP so as to start building up faith faster. But since there are no lives you can get over the maximum, you do lose some of endgame bonus you would have gotten for that life. So, that faith boost isn't worth it, then?
More so for the extra bombs, but it is definitely not worth it as the endgame bonus is worth a lot of your score.

Quote from: Sakurei on January 15, 2014, 06:41:11 PM
Apparently, this was not meant to be part for the whole game, but instead for the trial version. Meaning it's outdated and therefore people assume it's meant to be for the full game. A misunderstanding, pretty much.
Thanks for clarifying~!
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on January 15, 2014, 09:06:31 PM
Quote from: dxk on January 15, 2014, 07:56:48 PM
Most windows games trade resources for score.

Seems that way, from Sakurei's explanation. Oh well, I'm still interested in how far one can go without doing that on purpose. Anyway, thanks for clearing up, both of you.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Karisa on January 16, 2014, 12:59:27 AM
Quote from: Sakurei on January 15, 2014, 06:41:11 PM
Apparently, this was not meant to be part for the whole game, but instead for the trial version. Meaning it's outdated and therefore people assume it's meant to be for the full game. A misunderstanding, pretty much.
Hmm, that's interesting. It actually makes a lot more sense that way. The lack of a clear bonus changes strategy-- suicides for starting power are also useful in PCB/DDC trial routes.

I think I'll re-quote this by the way, since my parenthetical statement seems to have been missed by much of the thread.
Quote from: Karisa on January 15, 2014, 02:27:53 PM
(The wiki "strategy" pages are generally pretty bad though, in my experience.)
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Zil on January 16, 2014, 10:02:36 AM
Quote from: C.Angel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
EoSD needs trading survival resources for score, which I'm not a fan of either.
Is there any particular reason you're against doing that?

In any case, IN is probably the most bomb free game of them all so I guess it's good that that's the one you're into.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on January 16, 2014, 03:02:46 PM
Quote from: C.Angel on January 15, 2014, 06:24:29 PM
PCB needs breaking borders on purpose, which I don't feel like doing as well, even at times when there are enough bullets to get another border.

Well, yes, there are a few times when you might break a border on purpose to get another border. It's not often as far as I know. (Then again I only score on Lunatic. I am unfamiliar with the lower difficulties)
However, most of the time, you time out your borders and graze unfocused so that you can get more PIV from the grazing.

Timing out borders is actually very essential as you get a 10k boost in CherryMAX. And on the times that you do break borders on purpose, it's always to benefit your score anyway.

However, PCB is arguably one of the more complicated systems, and in my opinion is one of the hardest to improve on.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Inadequate on January 16, 2014, 04:21:17 PM
Scoring with conditions is not always extremely unhealthy for the final result in points, as there's a lot that can be done with manual grazing and PoC in most of the games. In PCB, IN, UFO, SA and probably MoF, it'd be quite possible to reach scores that would be accepted as high-end for this forum without expending resources. Including various first places.

In PCB, a play without bombs, focus or broken borders is very doable for high reward, especially on the lower difficulty modes. Flawless PoC will get extremely difficult without bombs or border breaks on the higher difficulties, though. (assuming you wanted to time the borders so that they'd benefit CherryMAX instead of collection in most places) There are a bunch of replays for those conditions on gensokyo.org, as the said challenge used to be rather played on the lower difficulties. For UFO, there should be stage practice replays performing a no-miss/bomb route for Normal.

As you were speaking about competition earlier, I don't think it's a good idea to be shunned by high-looking numbers. A quick glance to the aforementioned scoreboard reveals that some scores indeed are on the higher end, but there also are various results that would seem to be low-tier and easily defeatable if you were to stick with the same goal a bit longer. (At least the Alice, Remilia and to an extent the Scarlet Team score don't seem very thought-out.)


I think that PCB and IN aren't that bad games to being with (especially if they seem to be enjoyable), the complexity is far overstated (PCB is actually a rather simple game if you play without bombs, IN even more so - compared to UFO, SA and to an extent EoSD, where you have to do a lot of unorthodox bombing and collection tricks). Aside from the most obvious and rewarding ones, the actually difficult and confusing spellcard grazing/bombing for cherry aspect of PCB doesn't become relevant unless you were to defeat the high scores for Normal, Phantasm or especially Extra. Also, you won't be punished as much for a death in these games as you would be in some others often suggested "good for beginner scoring players" (SA, MoF).
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on January 16, 2014, 06:45:38 PM
Quote from: Zil on January 16, 2014, 10:02:36 AM
Is there any particular reason you're against doing that?

Personal preference, I guess. A perfect scoring system for me is one that rewards taking a risk while not using the limited survival resources. (Ketsui is a good example, I think.) I guess I'm more of a survival and challenge player, but if I can nab a score to boast about along the way, then all the better. Not to say I can't appreciate systems that require such tradeoff. Garegga scoreruns look no less impressive to me. It's just not something I wish to learn doing. I mean, I could in theory try scoring in EoSD Easy nowadays, since I don't worry as much about my survival there, but I just don't feel like it.

Quote from: Mino ☆ on January 16, 2014, 03:02:46 PM
Well, yes, there are a few times when you might break a border on purpose to get another border. It's not often as far as I know.

Well, that and timing border activation are something I don't want to study, preferring to just strive to get borders ASAP and time them out, but I do like the general strategy of staying unfocused as much as possible, so I do wonder what scores I can get with that. Although so far they're not really notable. That may or may not have something to do with me still having some problems with general survival there, even on Easy.

Quote from: Inadequate on January 16, 2014, 04:21:17 PM
As you were speaking about competition earlier, I don't think it's a good idea to be shunned by high-looking numbers.

Oh, don't worry, it's more of a case of personal standards. I started considering scoring only recently, and my Easy Ghost Team 1MNB would score fifth if I posted it there. It's just that the miss was pretty shameful for me, and the lost resources would have given me even better score. The run was pretty good, but I just feel like I can do better. On the other hand, I'd not post my Normal Remilia solo clear due to stage 6 derps, but her scoreboard feels a bit lonely. Besides, the score isn't all THAT bad, better than my first clear anyway. In general, it's not a question of whether to post my scores there. It's a question of "when".
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: BT on January 16, 2014, 06:58:12 PM
Quote from: C.Angel on January 16, 2014, 06:45:38 PM
Personal preference, I guess. A perfect scoring system for me is one that rewards taking a risk while not using the limited survival resources. (Ketsui is a good example, I think.) I guess I'm more of a survival and challenge player, but if I can nab a score to boast about along the way, then all the better. Not to say I can't appreciate systems that require such tradeoff. Garegga scoreruns look no less impressive to me. It's just not something I wish to learn doing. I mean, I could in theory try scoring in EoSD Easy nowadays, since I don't worry as much about my survival there, but I just don't feel like it.
Games that require you to use resources to score are just another archetype altogether - it's a game of planning resources and learning to use them optimally, which is pretty refreshing alongside the usual dodge-and-control.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on January 19, 2014, 10:01:32 AM
Been practicing EoSD Stage 3, I figured out how to get 800 graze on the opener somehow, still inconsistent though. I have about 3250 graze entering Meiling on my best runs, which is less than 100 graze from the WR. I found out how to do Meiling's openers first wave properly, instead of jumping out on the third wave and staying higher up, I stay as low as possible and jump right at the beginning of the third wave and I get about the same graze and it's a lot easier to survive. I had a run that was 220M that was missing 10M worth of cancels, which would be 5M less than the WR for stage 3.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Zil on January 19, 2014, 08:53:31 PM
More about MS Easy. I had a run earlier that reached stage 6 with 520 items, but then I died like an idiot. I'll put down the item counts for the first 5 stages.

61
81
110
149
119

It never really occurred to me before but stage 4 is by far the most important for grazing. I'll have to stop being lazy and learn the grazing for Yuki and Mai. 999 graze should be possible. I've reached it in stages 3 and 5, and it's clearly reachable on stage 6 with enough bravery. There's also a supergraze for the stage 4 midboss which I've never bothered with because it slows the kill, but she's so easy to shotgun on Easy I don't think that will be a problem.

Another thing. Chirpy's been talking about using bombs to collect items, so I fooled around with it a bit and found what I think is a good spot. http://www.twitch.tv/okina_flying_fantastica/c/3575791

The only other spot I can think of where it might be viable is the section of stage 2 just before the dream item. It would be a disaster if the bomb killed the first 3 comet things, but if you can fit it in after the crystals stop falling but before the comets appear, it could be good. And then there's that nice dream item right there but really you shouldn't need it. Mima shouldn't anyway. Marisa might. I'm not sure how long Reimu's bomb lasts but I think it's too long lasting to really be useful, and Yuuka's certainly is. But whatever. I'm only going to bother taking these measures with Mima anyway.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on January 25, 2014, 08:06:39 PM
Got a combined score of 700M in practice mode stages with ideal resources. Now to pull it all off in a full run...  ::)
S1: 25M
S2: 42M
S3: 229M
S4: 121M
S5: 191M
S6: 102M

/edit 710M
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on January 26, 2014, 04:55:50 AM
Tried scoring Easy with ReimuB. The first 30 seconds of Stage 5 scared me back to ReimuA.
Since I got 1.515b without much practice, 1.54b+ is my goal for now. Have been making notes and experimenting on stage practice.
NANA's stage 4: http://youtu.be/Ge0gbFVSfU4 if anyone's interested
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Zil on January 28, 2014, 05:00:01 AM
http://www.twitch.tv/okina_flying_fantastica/c/3622801

Also I got another 105m run with Kotohime. Aiming for 115-120.

Also also, I improved the overall Easy score (WR?) in PoFV to over 170m with Cirno, and have all of the non-Extra high scores for every character on this site's PoFV scoreboard and, as far as I can tell, the gensokyo.org uploader. Royal Flare has nothing and I don't know where else to look. If only more people cared about PoFV scores. :<

I guess I'll play Extra now...
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mero on January 29, 2014, 05:23:20 AM
After some practice runs on SA I got:
S1 - 39M
S2 - 45M
S3 - 56M
S4 - 274M
S5 - 261M
S6 - 154M

So I watched every replay as a "full run" (basically locking each stage's score and graze so they carry over to the next replay) and this translates to roughly 3.4bil.
Of course this is a little exaggerated given the somewhat idealistic conditions of practice mode, but if I could just string these together, I believe I would get around 3.2bil
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on January 29, 2014, 08:06:57 AM
Quote from: cactu on January 25, 2014, 08:06:39 PM
Got a combined score of 700M in practice mode stages with ideal resources. Now to pull it all off in a full run...  ::)
S1: 25M
S2: 42M
S3: 229M
S4: 121M
S5: 191M
S6: 117M (103M without insane strategies)

/edit 710M
//edit 725M

Okay, Stage 1 is probably improvable by 1-2M, by doing the midboss grazing properly and getting crazy good RNG on Rumia (since that's what the whole stage 1 scoring is pretty much about). Getting a score higher than 25M in a real run is very unrealistic though, since the luck is such a big factor. Stage 2 is improvable by including Daiyousei graze into it, probably into 45-47M, but not much more. So in theory I could have 70M entering into stage 3, but my best in full runs so far has been 66.1M. I have been practicing Stage 3 a lot recently, and can follow the WR's score and graze fairly well. Most of the time I'm about 100-200 graze behind entering the boss, depending whether I get the stage opener right (difference of 1150 graze vs 1250 graze). I've had the same graze amount as the WR holder exactly once, and that was on my PB run of 229M, which had a few mistakes such as starting bombing on the wrong side of Meiling on the 2nd non, which cost me a few million (possibly more), and messing up a bomb on the last nonspell which cost me 2M. Without those mistakes it would have probably been equal to the 235M of the WR. I don't do Meiling's openers scary waves where you have to jump away to the side during the waves in full runs yet, unless the score and graze are hideous. At some point I will have to start doing those too, which will make it even worse of a restart-fest. Staying on top of meiling on her midboss nonspell during the first wave doesn't seem worth it to do at all, since it gives less than 50 graze and is extremely risky and luck based. I don't really understand how the score works in Stage 4, since I don't seem to be able to get 120M consistently, even if I enter Patchouli with the same score and graze (if not more) than the WR. There's something I am doing wrong, and I am not sure what it is. The 121M run died on Water elf, which probably cost me 1M or something, and didn't really have great graze on 2nd nonspell, or a good cancel on Mercury Poison. My stage 5 is improvable by 10M, but it's very hard to do so and also RNG plays a big part in getting as much graze pre boss as possible. My 191M run had 200 less graze entering the midboss than it could have, and I believe the midboss grazing wasnt perfect either. I don't think I timed out the nonspells of Sakuya, and that could give a few million points. I think 205M would be possible with great luck and cancels. I haven't really thought much of stage 6, the score could be a lot higher with some ridiculously luck based things like Remilia's 3rd nonspell knife spinning supergraze, but I am never doing that in full runs, so 102M seems like a good score. 105M is probably the maximum score with good luck and timing out all the nonspells, with great cancels, and probably NMNB Remilia, although I am not sure whether I want to go for that or just bomb Meister every time. Maybe if the run is not great then I would do that, but probably not.

At the moment I am not ready for a WR run, my consistency on things is not good enough, and my understanding of spellcard cancels, timings, muscle memory and strategies is still not perfect. I believe 650M is achievable on any run at the moment, I just need to get lucky enough not to die on the things that are scary such as Water Elf (I am very much about not bombing this spell, which causes me to die often with multiple bombs ending the run), Meek safespot and Gensokyo. A good run that doesn't sound too unrealistic would probably go about with these scores: 60M entering stage 3, 270M entering stage 4, 380M entering stage 5, 555-560M entering stage 6, and 650M if I clear. It could be better, even as high as 640 as a gameover or 660-670M on a clear if I play well and have good luck on the important things like Meiling's opener, Stage 5 midboss nonspell graze and so on. I don't know whether I want to use my risky but high scoring Stage 5 strategies in a full run yet, since it's very difficult to pull off. If the score is too low but my resources are somehow still great (as in bad stage 3), then I would probably have to go for it.

Once I get 650M, it's time to go all out, and attack on Ichizoku's weak point, that is his Stage 5. Even if I can't do as good on Stage 3 as him, I can still beat the WR if I get 20M better than him on Stage 5. Full runs are already feeling difficult to reach later stages and becoming a bit frustrating, but it's only going to get worse from this point on.

what an embarrassing post this was wwwww

//edit Okay so I did some really insane Stage 6 which included getting insane point item RNG on the stage fairies, having 150 items going into the midboss, I was kind of low on graze entering Remilia (1350, could be 1550), I bombed Remilia's opener for 100 graze (could be more?), I had perfect cancels on pretty much everything, spinned around the 2nd and 3rd nonspells (4 waves of 3rd non gave me about 800-900 graze). Of course this isn't something you could do in a full run unless you were insane, or you were just on a bad run I guess...

725M total score combined in practice mode now, with the resources the WR route gives you. 750M is probably possible, but that's as high as it will ever go, most likely. (70M entering S3, 310M entering s4, 435M entering s5, 635M entering s6 and then a 115M s6 with spinning knives nonspell.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: chum on March 17, 2014, 04:02:38 PM
Epic Thread

Touhou is ded
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on March 17, 2014, 06:08:21 PM
There's no use for this thread if the blogging thread exists, so this might as well be ignored completely in my opinion and let people post in the blogging thread instead no matter what they do in the games.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on March 17, 2014, 06:28:42 PM
Nobody scores.jpg
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: chum on March 17, 2014, 06:29:17 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/ngN6ut4.jpg)
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on March 17, 2014, 07:36:09 PM
I promise I'll come here asking for IN scoring pointers when I'll start working on it. Just keep it alive until then.

...The sad part is that it'll be in around half a year :(
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on March 17, 2014, 07:42:52 PM
What you say it'll in half a year and not, let's say, right now? I'm pretty sure you could start easy mode scoring for example, or work on normal mode even. I understand you want to do other things first, but why specifically hlf a year?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on March 17, 2014, 08:01:47 PM
Posting I guess:
My stage 1-3 sucks dongs. Stage 4 is okay, stage 5 is okay but I keep fucking it up in runs, stage 6 is okay but I keep dying to Okuu in runs.
Parsee 2nd spell 2 hard. Yuugi's 1st spell 2 hard. Satori's 1st spell 2 hard.
I guess I can learn a better stage 4 and I can get 4b even if I scrub 1-3.

Edit:
After I get 4b I'm gonna play MoF again. Goal being 2.17b.
And after MoF maybe EoSD ;)
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on March 17, 2014, 08:41:18 PM
Quote from: Sakurei on March 17, 2014, 07:42:52 PM
What you say it'll in half a year and not, let's say, right now? I'm pretty sure you could start easy mode scoring for example, or work on normal mode even. I understand you want to do other things first, but why specifically hlf a year?

Just a rough estimate of when I'll be done with everything else I want to do until I try IN again. A closer estimate would be 3-4 months. I don't want to delve into scoring yet because I'm pretty tired of IN already and want to just finish what I planned to do for now. But I'm sure I'll be pretty glad to be back to it after that long.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on March 19, 2014, 08:06:11 AM
I'm inconsistent as heck on everything, but I think I should be able to get 650M soon, since I have runs that could reach that score even with the mistakes I constantly make (for example dying on s3 and losing 15M score and still being on the path of reaching 650M if I just don't fuck up more). Right now I should probably restart runs that have a score lower than 250M entering stage 4, but I don't since I just keep playing on those runs for practice. My scores reaching stage 4 are usually ranging from 230M (complete shit, mind you this was the score I had on my 605M run), 250M (good enough, 120M s4, 180M s5 and 100M s6 is enough for 650M, although I don't expect to hit 650 on runs that have this score, so I just play for a chance of getting a PB or just for practice.), sometimes I have runs that have 270M or so, which allow 650M even with mistakes, or if I play really well should reach 670M, or maybe even 650m on a Gensokyo gameover... I just hope that doesn't happen, lol.

Seems like Hayamin likes my strategy of bombing and suiciding on Meiling opener, that's cool.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on March 24, 2014, 10:56:20 PM
My score progression in EoSD. All the other runs are with ReimuB, other than the first one.

265M 10-04-2012 (Gameover, MarisaB)
300M 25-04-2013
339M 28-04-2013
372M 29-04-2013
383M 03-05-2013
400M 03-05-2013 (Western Record)
472M 19-09-2013
500M 09-10-2013
558M 19-11-2013
574M 16-12-2013 (Gameover)
605M 16-01-2014 (Gameover)

Also uploaded a related video regarding scoring... kind of. (http://youtu.be/8M06x9CS3Sc)
I still think this thread should be merged with the blogging thread, instead of having two of these.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on March 25, 2014, 01:34:50 AM
I think that the thread's original purpose was too discuss scoring tactics but since nobody plays the same categories it just turned into a blog.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: chum on March 25, 2014, 02:12:44 AM
Blogging is good.

The goal is 600 million points in all Lunatic routes combined, and I currently have 554,2 million.

A1: 91,8 (WR: 103)
A2: 112,4 (WR: 115)
B1: 89,3 (WR: 100)
B2: 89,7 (WR: 100)
C1: 89,7 (WR: 99,5)
C2: 81,3 (WR: 101,8)

WRs combined = 619,3 mil.

All of the non-A2 runs are pretty much shit. It's always surprising how much you fall behind even when you think you aren't doing that badly somewhere, it's because the gains aren't obvious at all and the key to this game is to write down shittons of notes for every little thing. Think I'm going to start doing that for B1 and then I can hopefully start increasing it further.... Why B1? Petty reason, I'd like to at least be #1 for every route on MoTK, but BaitySM has the B1 high score at the moment. I have to wonder, why B1 of all things... but whatever.

I don't have any exact plans for each route since the familiarization process takes some time, and there is always a chance that I'll suddenly decide to try and exceed that goal, or that I drop the goal completely. Still, I think 94 or 95 million on all the routes is going to be required, while certain routes will undoubtedly be pushed further.

C1 is the route I have the second most experience with and I do think I can get pretty close to WR-level in that. At the moment, I have no plans to play A2 for a while. I'm happy with the results from the 100-something hours I put into it, although I didn't WR, one run did have WR-level execution (if not better execution) but worse luck, so I'm satisfied with the results from the grind, I really did put in my all and was patient with the game, and I don't want to go through that again, because the immense luck required, while also not making execution mistakes, is just too significant.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on March 25, 2014, 02:24:30 PM
I got a 244.8M Stage 3 yesterday, and another 236.4M stage 3 right now. So that's Ichizoku's stage three beaten twice so far... Maybe I can actually do this!
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on March 28, 2014, 10:38:31 PM
So I started getting back into PCB Lunatic scoring again. I've been enjoying myself. I've improved my first three stages tremendously.

I had a great run going, but unfortunately I fucked up the last three stages, and only got 1.776bil out of it. :(

But that was only one run. It definitely had 1.9bil material. And if I can get a better stage 4, I can definitely get into the 2 billions.

Speaking of stage 4, that's definitely my biggest weakness. Gotta practice it up~

My ultimate goal is 2.5bil. It might not seem like a lot, but it will definitely take a long time to get to. Scoring is hard.

If I even do reach that milestone, I'll have to see if I want to take it further...

-

Also. I've been taking a peek at Ten Desires scoring. Sue me, but it looks intriguing to me...
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on March 29, 2014, 06:59:05 PM
Well here are some practice PBs. Runs later:
Stage 1: 7500
Stage 2: ??? (Never practiced)
Stage 3: 10500
Stage 4: 22800
Stage 5: 9500 (NM), 14000 (1M) entering Orin. Graze on Orin depends

Anything entering stage 3 with 33k graze should be 4b potential now. Realistically stage 3 should be 9-9.5k (not fully time-out nons). I realize this is pretty scrubby but I can't be bothered to do Parsee's 2nd spell graze or most stage 1 grazes.
Stage 4 is very static, I'm still only grazing two sunflower fairies, maybe I should learn 3? I noticed recently I've actually been ending Satori's 1st spell 1 wave too early (miss about 200 g). I hope to get 22000 g in this stage in a real run.
Stage 5 route depends on how I do on Satori. If I bomb Insect Nest I lose 2k g from 1 less bomb on the opener. If I die to Satori I can't suicide on midboss Orin.
Stage 6 should be simple enough. (80-87k g entering). If all goes well I can 4b even if I clear with no lives.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on March 31, 2014, 12:42:06 AM
Started learning the Chen bombs and borders.

When I first saw scoring runs dying and bombing on Chen, I didn't understand what the gain was. Now that I have more experience with the game, I understand it. The first bomb is to get cherry+. A suicide grants you more bombs and allows you to full power clear the second nonspell in order to get enough cherry for a second border. You then bomb the first non again to make sure you have just enough cherry+ for a border on her first spell.

You get the border on the first spell, time it out, and then get the border on the second nonspell via getting the full power clear (and cherry items that spawn from the other power items on screen).

With this method, you get two borders instead of one on Chen. So now I understand.

Also, with good play, I should be able to reach 450,000 CherryMAX at Chen. (440,000 at minimum).

Now I'm gonna try and learn stage 3 better. I want to do the graze on Alice's second midboss non.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on March 31, 2014, 11:36:46 PM
EoSD scoring in a nutshell right here. That 579M run was a 640M potential run that gameovered on Young Demon Lord. All of those (6)'s, soon even my last place clear will go away. :(
(http://i.imgur.com/pJby1Cn.png)

Also experimented with extended Mooooooooooooooonlight ray supergraze, seems pretty easy to do and it gives about 2M score, so once I go for WR I'll probably use this instead of Daiyousei graze.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: redlakitu on April 01, 2014, 03:04:59 PM
My fingers hurt after practicing IN Easy Stages 1 through 5 for a few hours. My best score so far is just barely over 2 billion using solo Reimu, now I want to improve this score significantly using solo Marisa. So far, in my best practice runs I can get around 6k time points on Stage 1, almost 14k on Stage 2, >16k Stage 3, >19k Stage 4 and again >16k Stage 5, much better than my old run in every instance. Also thanks to input from three separate sources, I'm getting better at Reimu's first midboss nonspell. I might still want to bomb it for now, though. This would mean a total of three planned bombs, the other two being a certain place in Stage 4 and Reisen's first nonspell. And finally, my item collection is getting better, too. All in all, I should be able to achieve my initial goal of 2.2 billion in the foreseeable future.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: chum on April 01, 2014, 07:27:27 PM
Update

A-1    91,894,240
A-2   112,406,610
B-1   96,002,610
B-2  89,763,550
C-1   89,727,350
C-2   92,027,760
Combined: 571,822,120

B-1 is not looking too bad, I think that I could get 98 or 99 million, but 100 million or higher seems really unlikely... way too much RNG magic. I'll try, but you really hit a wall when you're roughly a few million from CLR in just about any given route, it seems, because the game is just a total mystery. I felt like I had a better grip of what was going on in A2 and my strategies were better than CLR's, but luck and execution just never came together. In B1, I really can't tell when It's a matter of luck or if I'm really doing something terribly wrong.

Route-wise I'm not really sold on any of my ideas so far. CLR's suicides in stage 2 make sense, but I do like the idea of placing suicides elsewhere, this unfortunately tends to be impossible due to accidental deaths. Star is a total nightmare. I think the worst parts about the suicides is that they may have to be decided on the spot due to the freezes determining your Perfect Freeze. I may have to note down very exact PF numbers for every part of every stage at this rate, in order to correctly determine suicide placements in runs.



Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: redlakitu on April 04, 2014, 08:30:51 PM
OK, well, looks like IN Marisa is too hot too handle for me, so to speak. More precisely, I am completely unused to her unfocused speed and the consequences are disastrous. Numerous really promising runs were ruined on Stage 6 because I keep dashing like a maniac instead of gently evading bullets. So while I could easily get a 2.2 billion score with my usual performance in earlier stages, all the mistakes I make trying to survive Kaguya mean that I need to postpone my goal a bit. Maybe it's time to switch to another game for a while. UFO, PCB or even EoSD are all nice alternatives.

Meanwhile, why do I even like IN Easy scoring? Imperishable Night was the first game I tried scoring in, the first game where I achieved my scoring goal, and still the most appealing one in terms of scoring. Why? Probably because of the feeling of power. For a relatively bad and inexperienced player (e.g. me), playing Touhou usually means feeling overwhelmed by all the bullets and action for the better part of the game, intimidated into staying on the defensive. IN Easy is different in that I actually feel in control almost all the time.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: cactu on April 04, 2014, 11:06:17 PM
Give EoSD Normal a go ;3
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: redlakitu on April 05, 2014, 07:06:59 PM
Quote from: cactu on April 04, 2014, 11:06:17 PM
Give EoSD Normal a go ;3
I might, though when it comes to EoSD, I prefer survival to scoring. A No Death EoSD Normal run is long overdue.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on June 14, 2014, 08:27:46 PM
I made a promise, so I'm back! The allure of scoring got so strong I decided to cut everything I can, so I'll be able start my IN Easy scoring attempts in a week or so. Anyway, while I have time to prepare, here's what I understand on basic IN scoring pointers. Please, feel free to correct me if I got something wrong or add useful tips to keep in mind that I'm not aware off.


All this applies to teams. Solo youkai would be the same, sans staying unfocused in stages. But what could be improved for solo humans? Not destroying familiars and letting them appear as much as possible is one thing that would improve scores. Is grazing useful for them? They do seem to get more score for it, but does that make a big enough difference worth the risk?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Karisa on June 14, 2014, 11:08:22 PM
Nice to see someone else learning the scoring systems.

IN isn't one of my better games regarding scoring mechanics, but I noticed a few things:
Quote from: C.Angel on June 14, 2014, 08:27:46 PM
  • Familiars. In stages, wait for the fairies to release them, then kill their master while they're still on screen. During bosses, almost time them out so they release as much as possible. Finishing them with as much familiars on screen as possible might be a good thing to keep in mind too.
Finishing with more familiars on screen is more important than the total number released. Also, the location of the familiars matters-- the familiar explosions cancel bullets and turn them into extra time orbs.

Capturing spells gives more time orbs based on how quickly you capture. So in spells where it's not useful to graze for time orbs, it's generally better to try to speedkill them unfocused (waiting at the end if needed to cancel familiars at a good time).

Note that familiars give more time orbs to solo humans (including solo Youmu) for some reason-- they're different categories anyway, but it means you can't directly compare the time counts between them.

Quote from: C.Angel on June 14, 2014, 08:27:46 PM
  • Gauge. Stay human during stages for double point item value, PoC as much as possible. Stay youkai during bosses for grazing. Though, outside of supergrazes, Easy mode doesn't seem to be very profitable with that. Maybe staying human might be a good idea in a few places.
I think in Easy scoring, when playing as a team or solo Youmu, it'd be better to stay unfocused nearly the entire time (though in some places it can be useful to focus as a team to avoid letting your shots destroy familiars).

If you do focus for a spell, anyway, don't forget to unfocus when you capture it, to let the time orbs bring the gauge back to -80% before reaching the PoC.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
Survival: Generally on easy mode, you don't die planned. The Solo Youmu record suicides once for some gain in stage 4, but that's a strat you wouldn't be using unless you went for really really high scores. I don't know if other solo humans could apply that suicide, but I high doubt any team or Solo youkai would. Take a look at the WR for you category and see about possible suicides (I don't think you will find those a lot) and bomb placements. There are a few bombs, depending on who you use. My Youmu route uses two, for example. Current WR uses one bomb (but suicides in stage 4, which isn't something I did. It's also not optimal, but infinitely easier to do than doing it without the suicide). If you're cautious or not too confident, there are 3 places to bomb for Youmu. As I said before: Take a look at the WR, it'll always be the most optimized run you will find and if you're not sure why they do something, feel free to shoot me up a PM and I'll take a look at it too and try to understand it. I'm sure that at almost every shot uses a bomb or two somewhere, but not much more than that.
It might be okay to bomb This section (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=16m32s) for the point items on solo human characters (I don't believe teams or solo youkai should have any issues with killing things, aside from perhaps Magic/Solo Alice, because her shot is questionably useful for stages). It's a very hectic section and one of those places where you'd probably incorporate a bomb with solo Youmu if you're a careful player since dying there is really easy. For the Last spell rush at the end of the game: Yes. It's a break or make. An otherwise perfectly good run can go to hell there, so practice all spells a lot. When I started easy mode scoring I didn't for the supergraze on the 4th last spell until I had 2.8b I think. But I played solo Youmu, I feel like it's much more significant on solo youkai, if you're planning to play one of those. Regardless of whether you want to include it in your runs, you should start practicing it already because eventually you will want to include it in your runs and it's easier to put something into a run when you can already do it. Practice all 5 of them as they're the most important attacks in the game to capture.

Familiars: Yes, generally speaking it's better to let enemies spawn as many familiars as possible. They're almost exclusive to stage 2, but there are enemies that don't spawn all familiars at the same time, but one after another. Those fairies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkCWnMuBhMo) you have to be careful on. The maximum they should spawn is 4 familiars, otherwise you will lose the next fairy, which loses score. The problem with letting them spawn 4 familiars however is that the window is extremely tight in which you can kill them off. A few frames at most. So I don't think you should include it until your scores reach a fairly high level of optimization. Unless I am forgetting something, those fairies that spawn familiar after familiar also exist in stage 3 (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=8m20s) (So those one-by-one are exclusive to those two stages), and there are a few ways to handle those on easy mode. You could kill them asap, which I wouldn't recommend as that loses some score. What I do in that run is wait for them to spawn familiars and then kill them off before Keine appears on the screen, but the current WR (with Youmu) actually waits even longer and cancels out some of Keine's bullets with the fairy (I was told to try it on normal too, but I got rekt mercilessly, so I dunno if they were joking or not w). I haven't tried doing that on easy, but I imagine it's quite difficult still, so I'm not sure you should go for it. Try it and decide for yourself, I guess They also exist later in the stage (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=9m40s), at which point the thing to keep in mind is that if you don't kill them in time, they'll die due to boss appearance, causing you to lose the time they'd have otherwise given you, so be wary of that. Anyway, it's important to know that you're missing enemies if you wait too long for the fairies in stage 2, but not for those in stage 3.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when there's fairies that spawn bullets after spawning familiars (and there are plenty of those in the game) that you gain most time the moment they spawn their bullets. This is especially important in stage 2 and 3, learn to kill the enemies at that moment. Enemies that spawn the familiars at the same time, but delayed also give more time for a few frames at most, it might be only one or two frames, I'm not sure. Those are most common in stage 1. I don't think anyone every pulled of a flawless stage 1, so don't worry about getting it all right too much. Just makes sure to not fuck up too much by killing a bunch of familiars everywhere. Another thing to keep in mind, that you probably already know, is that the more bullets you cancel out with enemy familiars, the more time you gain. I have no idea how much it is per bullet and probably varies depending on a lot of factors, but I want to go with this is that in a lot of places in the game, you want to lure aimed bullets towards familiars for time gain, like I did here (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=13m30s). Depending on the section, it will require some practice, but I think it's significant enough to go for regardless of skill level. It also clears the bullets out so you don't have to dodge them w.  And yes, you are correct when you say that you usually wanna finish them of with as many familiars as possible on the screen, since offscreen familiars give no time.

Gauge: For starters, if you're playing a solo youkai, you can't reach -80, so you'll be stuck at 80 forever. I am sure you noticed that, which is also the reason why solo youkai score like half of what solo human get. The reverse is true for solo humans (Youmu is the exception, but she's the best anyway). So with Solo youkai you're virtually always focused and stay at 80%, and with solo human you're almost always unfocused (You only focus to dodge, really) and stay at -80%. The teams and Youmu have a few spots where they graze (like Reisen's last nonspell or the 4th last spell from Kaguya), but not a lot. So basically unless you play a solo youkai you rarely focus for anything ever. However, if you are facing a difficult attack that you aren't sure to capture if you were to stay unfocused, don't feel bad if you have to focus. Failing a spell would be far worse than losing some time and spellcardvalue. Something a lot of players do is tap focus to dodge. That way you stay at below -80% and still have focused speed for the dodge. It requires some practice to get used to, but once you got the hang of it, it'll come automatically. Just be careful not to tap focus for too long or too often in short succession, otherwise you'll get pushed over -80%. But again, if it's an attack you have troubles with, don't beat yourself up over it. I've fucked that up plenty of times myself. And yes, PoC'ing at below -80% gives you twice the points, so always always do that. The stages are designed so you can basically PoC every item in the game. Not always safely, but it's possible to do.

Solo human grazing is about as useful as it is in PCB (assuming it's not a spellcard and you have no border active). You get 6000 points for every graze you do at below -80%. Additionally, when you finish a spellcard (nonspells too?) you gain points and the number of points you gain are determined by your graze, so it's somewhat important to do some grazing even if you're playing solo human. Don't got for some sick supergraze however as the risk is basically never worth it 8Except Wriggle's last spellcard, due to you having to PoC it anyway, which is why you hug her unfocused even on solo humans, not sure if you've seen that before). But things like Mystia's last nonspell (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=6m28s) are things you're supposed to stall one way or another and you can get some easy graze through it. Those are the kinda things you should go for. It's not some gamebreaking secret technique to graze with solo humans and good grazing won't turn a mediocre run into some superplay, but it's significant enough to keep in mind to go for some free graze.
Not destroying familiars in stage potions is probably the hardest part about solo human scoring and it starts with stage 1 and finishes only when you're done, basically (destroying them on Kaguya isn't really much of an issue, but eh, saying from start to finish makes it sound cooler, lol). This is particularly important on stage potions. Most of the time bosses respawn familiars and if they do not respawn them, they're very durable (Marisa has examples for both: She has attacks with very durable, basically indestructible familiars and some where she respawns them). It's a case-to-case thing whether you want to destroy a boss' familiars, but most of the time it goes something like this: If the boss' familiars are durable, they don't respawn, thus you want to finish the attack with all familiars intact (Kaguya's Buddhist Diamond). If the boss' familiars respawn only after you have destroyed one, you will want to milk the familiars as much as possible (midboss Marisa's first nonspell). If the boss spawns familiars in waves and does so regardless of whether you shoot them or not, then you will want to prefer to not destroy them (Mystia's last nonspell). Those 3 statements aren't universally true, but I think they're a decent guideline for what to do on a certain attack. There are some attacks where the boss spawns more familiars regardless of what you do, but you still shoot them (but try not to destroy them), like Keine's nonspells. That's a bit more high level I guess (?), but still something worth noting.
Also note the following: You deal less damage to the boss when you shoot her familiars instead of her directly. This is used in some spellcard to gain more time without losing spellcard value (Like in Keine's first spellcard on easy. With Youmu it's free extra points, the others will require some knowledge on how much you can damage the familiars). And while you can finish off a spellcard by shooting familiars, you can not kill a nonspell like that. The boss will basically remain at 0 health without you ever finish the attack if you just shoot her familiars. This is useful on a few nonspells where you have durable familiars that don't respawn, but you still want to milk them as much as possible: You shoot the boss until she is low of health and them milk the familiars just until before you destroy them (Marisa's first boss nonspell). Tei is the only exception to that. Only her nonspells can die by shooting her familiars. But be careful during the milking. If even a single one of your bullets touch the boss, you'll move on to the next attack. I imagine that being a massive problems with Reimu's homing and with Marisa's napalm to an extent. Careless handling with Youmu's option will also cause that. Sakuya's spread has to be paid attention to as well. Of course, that sort of milking doesn't exist for solo youkai, but they milk differently.

I hope that helps and I also hope I didn't forget anything super important w. If you wanna chat it up some more, join either of the the IRC channels #kusoplay or #pc-99 on the Rizon network. #kusoplay is somewhat NSFW, so if you have a problem with a bunch of weirdos, I suggest you join #pc-99 instead. I'm in both channels a lot under the nick Sakurei or Spacebuffalo.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Jirachi on June 15, 2014, 12:51:42 AM
Quote from: Syaro on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
wall

Amen.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on June 16, 2014, 07:24:07 PM
Many thanks for pointing out that cancelled bullets give time orbs too - somehow, it slipped my notice for all the time I was playing, haha ^^; And here I was wondering why the same cancels were giving more orbs sometimes. I mean, I'd try to do this for survival anyway, but it does add one more thing to keep in mind for some places.

Quote from: Syaro on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
It might be okay to bomb This section (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=16m32s) for the point items on solo human characters (I don't believe teams or solo youkai should have any issues with killing things, aside from perhaps Magic/Solo Alice, because her shot is questionably useful for stages).

Yep, just the place I had in mind. Another one I want to bomb sometimes is stage 6B if the game decides it hates me and spawns fairies on different sides so I can't PoC before next set appears.

Quote from: Syaro on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
supergraze on the 4th last spell

Ugh, is it as pixel-precise as Apollo 13 one? Because I tried the latter, and my impression is "lolnope".

Quote from: Syaro on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
Those fairies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkCWnMuBhMo) you have to be careful on. The maximum they should spawn is 4 familiars, otherwise you will lose the next fairy, which loses score.

Oh wow, so there is a point to speedkill those? Would be fun to try that, actually.

Quote from: Syaro on June 15, 2014, 12:42:08 AM
those fairies that spawn familiar after familiar also exist in stage 3 (http://youtu.be/BFSefUvkCwA?t=8m20s)

I don't quite get the benefit of stalling after familiars start leaving the screen. Is it the total amount of familiars released by fairy, or the amount of familiars on screen from ALL fairies? Does that give more orbs or something?

By the way, is Spell Practice useful for scoring? I imagine it is good for working on scoring-specific strategies like supergrazes, but is the score you get there a good gauge? If I get it right, the score it saves is spellcard bonus. It would have been useful to see how many orbs you can get with different strategies, and how they influence spellcard bonus, but you start with 0 human/youkai gauge, so I'm afraid its usefulness isn't adequate.

For WR runs, I might refer to them for a few things, but I want to try to figure out stuff on my own at first, then check them out for how things can be optimized. Understanding all the nuances is half the fun for me.

Anyway, thanks again for the responses, I got a lot of interesting and useful information to work with.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on June 17, 2014, 02:43:11 AM
Don't ever bomb the stage 6b fairies with a human character. Each familiar drops I think 4 items and they're worth a lot at this point and if you bomb them with Youmu let's say, you'll lose up to 72 items. If you played Youmu each item is worth around a million points. There goes your PB, I'm sure. If you play a team or solo youkai, it should be fine in the beginning, but I strongly suggest you learn how to deal with bad RNG.

No. The supergraze on Kaguya's 4th last spell is quite lenient. It's about 150% as big as your hitbox I think. You might miss it at first and die immediately, but once you roughly know where it is, you probably won't be failing it ever again due to missing the spot. If it was pixel-precise bullshit, I'm not sure how many people would have gone for it in a full run. However, you will need a few hundred of resets in spellpractice before you'll be comfortable with it, since you have to get out of it too in the middle of her just shooting more crap.

Yeah, you can speedkill those fairies, but letting them spawn a familiar or two first is what I suggest for you right now. Depending on your shot, you can even sit on one side of the screen and kill the ones on the other side no problem so you don't have to rush back and forth.

As for the fairies in stage 3: You gain more time per familiar, the more familiar and enemy (or boss) has spawned. Again, I don't have any exact numbers, but I'll give you an example:

Let's assume that killing those fairies with the minimum amount of familiars spawned (which is 6) give you 500 time orbs. Now, the maximum numbers of familiars they can have on the screen is 8, let's assume that if they have spawned that many familiars, you get 600 time orbs. But if you let them spawn more and more, each familiar's worth will rise. Iirc I killed one of them with 20 familiars spawned, so that one would give me more than 600, like idk, 1000. It doesn't scale that drastically, of course, but you do gain extra time with each extra familiar. This is more important on bosses. Mokou isn't in the main game, but she's a fantastic example of it because she spawns a bazillion familiars over the course of the fight. After you finish off Hourai Doll, which is her last attack, you can see that the 2 familiars from the attack give you humungous amounts of time. Why is that? It's not because you cancels a lot of bullets with them, but rather because Mokou has some attacks where she spawns a _lot_ of familiars and those add up over the fight making each familiar in the fight worth more. I'm sure you've noticed the yellow number below the boss name, right? The +x (x) thing. The +x is obviously the number of familiars on the screen, but the (x) is the numbers spawned in the whole fight. I guess it's the formula? +4*(28) or some shit? Which would mean each familiar gives 112 timeorbs more than if they were the only ones in the fight? Probably not the right formula to calculate with, but you get the idea. Stalling those fairies is importable for a small gain, but that small gain adds up over the rest of the time because each item is worth that much more.

And spell practice is always useful. I don't quite get what you mean when you ask whether it works as a gauge. Don't look at the spellcard value but the timeorbs. You will inevitably lose some spellcard value, because you start at 0 and not the desired -80% or 80%. But the amount of timeorbs you lose is very insignificant. Of course that carries the problem that if the attack has familiars, it's possible you get less time from them after the spell than you'd in a run, but that is fine. It doesn't matter. Spell practice is always useful. It helps you gain consistency on difficult attacks and on the supergrazes. Abuse the hell out of it.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Inadequate on June 17, 2014, 04:45:49 AM
I'd like to point out that due to how Sakuya's bomb works, you can bomb with her to ensure item gathering without breaking familiars in 6B. You can also use some of the youkai bombs, but you'll lose lots of time when bombing a wave and timing the bomb so that you can still collect as human is timid, so I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you were about to die.

I wouldn't do the trick on the fourth last spell until reaching way higher scores than were you currently are standing at, and I wouldn't do it at all on any solo human barring Youmu, since they benefit less from the graze.

For the stage two early portion fairies, I'd just attempt to kill them off as fast as possible on certain shot-types. (Alice, most humans that some of might still have trouble killing them off.) The extra cancel isn't very large and it's more important to just gather the items for now. It should be also mentioned that the first one has more health/invulnerability than the others. I'm not sure whether Sakurei mentioned this or not.

The IN Wiki article (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Imperishable_Night/Gameplay#Time_Orbs) is rather informative on the game mechanics, especially on how time-points and familiars act. Reading it would probably do some good for the both of you.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on June 17, 2014, 06:10:24 PM
Again, thanks for the responses. Lots of good information to consider.

For stage 2 fairies, I just was afraid I'd have to let them spawn as many familiars as possible instead, which looked like a pain, especially for solo humans. I much prefer the idea of killing them with only a few familiars out, I had some success doing that earlier IIRC, so I'll see about pulling that off. Timing for 4 familiars per fairy does look pretty tight, though, so I'll try to go for 3 per fairy for a start.

About my stage 3 fairies confusion. I did look through the wiki and took note of the formulas how the number of familiars on screen and total number of familiars released influence the time orb bonus. However, it said that it was different for stages, and I got the impression that only familiars on screen mattered. If this mechanic actually stays the same on stages instead, then I understand why stalling on those fairies is useful, but in that case the wiki is either needlessly confusing or outright misleading there.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on June 28, 2014, 12:16:53 PM
A thing that should be pointed out about why speedkill is a go-to strategy for spellcards in IN. For capturing them, you get a straight-up time orb bonus that decreases with time. Unless there's a supergraze or a huge milking opportunity (or A LOT of familiars to farm, maybe?), speedkill is better, for points and for time orbs. (Except stalling just a little bit for a better familiar cancel in some cases.)

Anyway, I've finally started. Here's what I can do in stage 2. (http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=33783) (
Yeah, I start with Yuyuko, because I'm lazy. Though her wide shot requires some extra control.
) Far from perfect, but it's almost 10 mil above my non-scoring attempt, so there's progress. I have no problem to get the idea behind things so far (especially THE PLACE), but pulling them off is another thing, of course. Really, stage 2 seems like a hard and unthankful thing to perfect. Even WRs for this category are somewhat sloppy here (but that may be because it's not as popular as some).
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on July 12, 2014, 11:09:13 AM
Well what do you know. (http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=33974) I'm not consistent enough with it yet, so I won't use it in full runs for now. Don't feel like risking 70 mil for additional 30 mil I'm not sure I can get.

EDIT: First actual scorerun. (https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,157.msg1112536.html#msg1112536) That's barely any better than my previous run :colonveeplusalpha: In my defence, Yuyuko's was my best survival run. Oh well. It's more important that I learn the tricks, I'm not going for high scores yet anyway. I generally know the places where I failed or wasn't even trying to score, but anyone who's interested are free to overview the run.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on July 26, 2014, 12:35:21 AM
Is suiciding at the beginning on PCB stage 1 on easy mode a viable strategy to gain more power without losing score? Because proper item collection is really hard and I thought that would make it easier. You should be able to have enough lives at the end of the game for that to not matter anymore?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Inadequate on July 26, 2014, 03:34:01 AM
Unless you plan on doing a condition run (no miss/bomb/border break), there's no real reason not doing the suicides and bombs for external borders on Easy, since you'll be hardly dying at other places, and the lives aren't worth that much anyway.

The bomb at the opening of stage 1 costs you nothing (other than the ability to expend that resource elsewhere), as you have no Cherry to lose from it, and the extends gained (You have 13 lives to play with, assuming you get all extends up to the 1400 one, and start with three lives.) far outweigh the maximum lives (eight).

I wouldn't say it's really worth much only for the item collection, though. You can gain maybe a few hundred thousand out of it, but the main reason it's done is for the 3-border stage 1 route.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on August 02, 2014, 05:29:57 PM
*watches human solo WR runs*
*familiars destroyed on purpose*

...why. Just... why...

I'm afraid I don't have what it takes to play IN for score after all. I wanted to at least do my best for IN Easy and leave it at that, but even this task is too time-consuming for me, and IN scoring requires the level of optimization I'm not willing to spend my time reaching. I'm sorry. Still, looking into a scoring system in-depth was fun. Maybe I can find one I'd enjoy in other STGs someday.


One last thing I wonder about. From what I understood, for scoring with humans destroying familiars is actually preferable, as long as they won't be a part of the cancel and won't push you out of the last 20% of the gauge. Did I get it right?
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Sakurei on August 04, 2014, 03:30:09 PM
Solo human scoring milk familiars on mid/bosses for time in case they respawn or are very durable. In case they respawn, it tends to be the case that you shoot and destroy them until a certain point. Let's take Midboss Marisa for example: The first non has not very durable familiars that respawn after destroying one until up to 5 of them. Because of that you shoot and destroy them until around...uhhh, I think it was until around the 10 second mark and let Marisa spawn the maximum amount of familiars before you finish the attack off. And naturally, you have to be careful with regards to your gauge. You could shoot Eirin's nonspell in stage 6 a lot since there are a tons of familiars, but it's very easy to get pushed above -80% (-30% for Youmu).
The other case where you milk familiars is when the familiars are very durable. Again, Marisa is a good example. Her first boss non has very strong familiars you can milk for a very long time for more time. In this case however you don't want to destroy them (which I believe Reimu and Sakuya can't even do, I'm not sure if Marisa is powerful enough though), but finish off the attack just before the breaking point, if possible.

I don't think there is ever any case of familiar milking like that in stage potions since you want to have as many familiars on the screen for cancelling as possible.

To regards with your what seems to be a ragequit: Please, don't compare your own runs to the WRs. If you watch a world record, don't use it as a means of comparison, but learn from it to improve your own play. Hardly anybody starts a category, watches the WR and then goes "well, that's pretty bad". And in regards to scoring, it should also only be means to see what you could improve, so you can add one thing at a time. Of course IN is a big time investment (alas, not necessarily much more than any other shmup, really), but I don't know if you thought that you could reach top tier play within 30 hours. I know I am the wrong person to lecture you here, but let me tell you an old, old story of when I started playing Imperishable Night for score:

It was when I invested time that I thought was really a lot (like 60 hours, which I now know isn't that much for scoring) that I complained about every run being bad everywhere and that I was not improving at all (When my PB was maybe a week old). That's when a wise old man with a long, white beard came down upon me, slapped me in the face and told me to shut my whoremouth up about my complaining until I've invested 150 hours into the category, which is what the old men seemed a good benchmark for my goal at the time. Now, I don't know what your goal was and don't want to throw out numbers that are different for everyone, but what I mean to tell you is that the time investment and the frustration are something everyone feels. You can ask anyone who plays for score. Of course, the reason for the frustration might be a different one for you then it is for me. Maybe you're mad jealous because of the 420grazeit skill from someone else playing the same game (e.g WR) or maybe because there's just a trick or two that just don't seem to go well not matter how often try.
I'm personally a bit sad to see you quitting like that, because I had hoped you'd stick with the game and it was nice seeing someone learn IN. But of course I can see that the time investment may be too big for someone who doesn't have the time or is not willing to play that much. I'll silently hope that you'll come back once you've improved with some more clears under your belt and became much better.  Though I don't think there is a "I'm not good enough to play for score". That's a general misconception! Maybe not good enough for a really really good run, but one would improve as they go.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: PurpleTheGuy on August 04, 2014, 06:40:48 PM
To C.Angel: Maybe I can help, even though, at the moment, I have next to no idea on how to score in IN, as I haven't gotten to play it extensively yet. Perhaps a good idea, if you want to eventually score in IN in, say, the easier difficulties, for instance, is to focus on the harder difficulties of the game, start from hard mode (I know you mentioned you 1cc'ed that already, but try to clear it consistently, for I believe there's a difference between merely clearing and getting consistent, and it's something I'm beginning to learn about myself, along with a lot of other things, and suffice to say, my STG outlook underwent some changes), then go to lunatic, practice hard and well, 1cc it for the 1st time, then work to start to clear lunatic consistently, so that you will gain the power of IN lunatic, and you can take that with you to whatever you choose to do next, and thus, make, say, playing for score on the easier difficulties a less of a pain, or so I think. With Imperishable Night having one of the best practice systems in all of the Touhou games (spell practice is too good!) it can be done!

But, like I said, I know nothing about scoring in IN, but I think that could be the best course of action, I believe. Best of luck, don't give up! I've known about you for some time, C.Angel! You're working hard, and I'd sure like to see you succeed one day! ^^ Well, I'm working on that myself as well, haha, so I guess, what am I saying? ^^;
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on August 04, 2014, 07:30:16 PM
@Sakurei: Thanks for the answer, but what confuses me are the cases when familiars respawn and disappear constantly. Why in some cases it's okay to destroy a bunch of them and in others it's best not to touch any? I'm fine if such things have some easy and logical explanation, but I'm not a fan of "just remember this strat" cases.

About reasons, I actually have no problem with watching WR runs and deciding what to try and what to ignore for now. What makes me drop this game is how time-consuming it is in general, even without having to work on some advanced scoring strats. There are two reasons I'm saying that, and they might sound really stupid. One is that I sort of got addicted to Spell Practice. Using it is pretty justified, though, since I still have a lot of spells I'm not consistent with. But this pretty much adds an extra week of training before doing actual runs. I don't have such troubles with games that only have stage practice. The other reason is that I want to give a spin to all shottypes. Yes, all 12 of them. They all are interesting in their own ways, and I can't just settle for playing only a few of them.

I know the smart thing would be to stop once in a while and do other things I want. But the thing is, I've played IN so much by now that "other things" means every other STG I want to be playing. At the same time, dropping it halfway makes me feel bad, like it hangs over my head, which saps the enjoyment out of whatever I'm playing. And if I were to return to IN after dropping it, it will be "all chars or GTFO" all over again. Might be hard to understand why it has to be like that, but that's how my crazy mind works.

Again, I'm sorry to disappoint, I really liked playing, actually, but it's just not the game I want to play for a long term, while at the same time it's the only way I can play it. I hope my explanation didn't sound too weird, but that's how I feel about things.

@Purple: Playing all difficulties at the same time was my MO even before I joined this site. Was quite a breakthrough for me back when I was new, but I can thank it for gaining skills as fast as I do. Which isn't too fast, frankly, but it would be way slower without it.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: PurpleTheGuy on August 04, 2014, 08:05:21 PM
Hmm, I see. I just thought it would be a great idea, for I know it worked out pretty well for me so far, and I'm working on improving that formula myself. I was thinking that could help out with some things. Yes, there was some real, incredible stuff I've read recently that helped me learn to practice efficiently, and see that playing for long hours at a time can prove to be an actual detriment (I know it didn't work too well for me, haha), and whatnot (I mentioned the changes on my STG outlook, and me realising that some things were just plain impractical and unrealistic).

Basically, not long ago, I've read from Prometheus' "Full Extent of the Jam" and some of Icarus's tips, and they have helped out a lot in me learning to practice efficiently, to where I picked up some techniques that helped me improve my game some more, and to stick with one game (maybe two) at a time, and try to get as much as you can out of it, so to speak, something around those lines. Maybe you could check those out sometime, see what you can get out of it.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Oh on August 04, 2014, 09:34:46 PM
A great way to increase shmup fundamentals is LNBNV.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Inadequate on August 04, 2014, 10:33:10 PM
I wouldn't recommend Lunatic no bomb no ufo to people who have difficulty just clearing the games on the highest setting. No bomb runs can be great fun, though, once you get to a certain level of expertise with the games.

Quote
what confuses me are the cases when familiars respawn and disappear constantly. Why in some cases it's okay to destroy a bunch of them and in others it's best not to touch any?
Generally, you don't want to break familiars during bossfights unless you get something out of it. The exceptions to this rule are two of Marisa's nonspells (first and fourth) during which new familiars spawn only if you destroy them. On any other nonspell, on human solo it will be more beneficial to shoot the familiars instead of the boss (whether you destroy them or not), since the damage caused will be soothed while the time gained from shooting will be the same as regularly, thus resulting in extra time gain.

As optimization goes, on patterns where you won't be able to deal a majority of the damage via familiars, it's better to just shoot the boss and let the familiars life, maybe shooting at them a bit to gain some extra time. You can see this in some World Records, but it's mostly relevant during the first two stages, and the gain isn't all that large.

On spell cards, it depends on the shot damage. On high damage shots (Youmu, Marisa), it's better to shoot the familiars and not break them if only possible, while for lower damage shot-types (Reimu, Sakuya) it goes something like hitting both familiars and boss > hitting boss > hitting familiars.


Reimu and Marisa can't milk most nonspells since the homing and explosive shot tend to kill off the boss. Marisa and Sakuya don't face Marisa's first boss non, Sakurei, but I think Marisa should be strong enough to kill an familiar or two without bombing.

I don't think it's a good approach to think about the time a game might take, since the Touhou games, while competitive, are the best approached as an entertainment medium. If there is something you like and enjoy, I don't think it's relevant at all to think about how big part of your life you might be committing. Mostly, it is considered a good thing for games to have a lot of content, as time spent doing something that makes you feel good should hardly be thought of as time wasted. This is obviously just my personal take on the matter, but I find the other approach very depressing and dissatisfying.

On top of that, I've found delving deeply into a Touhou game (Imperishable Night, no less) a very enlightening experience.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: CyberAngel on August 05, 2014, 08:42:29 AM
Quote from: PurpleTheGuy on August 04, 2014, 08:05:21 PM
Prometheus' "Full Extent of the Jam"

Ah yes, I did read it. Funny enough, I was already aware of many tips explained there, but it was reassuring to see them being given by someone like that.

Quote from: Inadequate on August 04, 2014, 10:33:10 PM
I don't think it's a good approach to think about the time a game might take, since the Touhou games, while competitive, are the best approached as an entertainment medium. If there is something you like and enjoy, I don't think it's relevant at all to think about how big part of your life you might be committing. Mostly, it is considered a good thing for games to have a lot of content, as time spent doing something that makes you feel good should hardly be thought of as time wasted. This is obviously just my personal take on the matter, but I find the other approach very depressing and dissatisfying.

On top of that, I've found delving deeply into a Touhou game (Imperishable Night, no less) a very enlightening experience.

I think I'm just too tired with IN to keep enjoying it. In the past year, I played it for 300 hours, I think. I don't know if it's considered a lot, but it's way more than for any other game I played. I mean, I'm fine with taking my time working on a game if I'm interested enough, but I find juggling games to be most effective for developing my general skills. For IN, the minimum amount of time I need to play to be satisfied is a few months at least due to spell practice and all the characters. For other games it's a week or two, so I find it easier to stop playing when I'm tired with them and not feel bad about dropping stuff halfway done. I thought about it, and IN just doesn't fit my approach to playing.

Thanks for the explanation on familiars. It looks like the system IS too complicated for my tastes. I guess I'm just not as good with systems that aren't "destroy everything in sight".
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Inadequate on August 10, 2014, 04:25:00 PM
https://twitter.com/naya_exe/status/498464739324747776

Naya gets PCB 3.623B. Everyone is going crazy, losing it. The sale of sedatives in Japan has gone up by 1000%, people are marking this day in their calendars as the pinnacle of Touhou. This is as good as it gets, it's only downhill from here on.


Obviously over-exaggerated to the point of silliness, but man. This is insane.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: Mino ☆ on August 10, 2014, 05:14:08 PM
Wow. That's pretty great!

I wonder if Yu-suke could even catch up. I hope Naya releases a replay soon if he hasn't already.
Title: Re: Touhou Score Thread V: The Revival
Post by: I have no name on August 10, 2014, 05:42:07 PM
Quote from: C.Angel on August 05, 2014, 08:42:29 AM
In the past year, I played it for 300 hours, I think.
As someone who's done a lot of speedruns, I'd say that that's not a lot,  There were periods of time where I would clock 300 hours on one game in a month just trying for improvements, looking for strategies, etc.  In the past 6 months since I got back into Chip's Challenge I have probably 1,000 hours of stuff relating to the game-level design, testing, just playing, and optimizing.  Maybe I'm just obsessive, but obsessive gets results  :V