Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Help Me, Eirin! => Topic started by: Mino ☆ on March 13, 2014, 10:44:04 PM

Title: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Mino ☆ on March 13, 2014, 10:44:04 PM
Or any other future Touhou installment.

You've seen the "Touhou 15" predictions threads. But for just some fun discussion, here's a thread where you can discuss what kind of gameplay mechanics you'd like for the next Touhou.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Elysia on March 13, 2014, 11:39:02 PM
Okay, let's see...

1. Total removal of the power system.
Seriously, the power system does absolutely nothing good for the games. Any of them; at best, it's simply "not as bad". There is no good reason why one death should make it substantially harder to bring down an attack's HP. Just start the characters at what would be max power and keep them there. Make do with point items, or some other items that do something with their game's system (sort of like PCB's Cherry items).

2. A reasonable system for gaining resources.
Some of the games have had this, but when the earlier games have done it better, and the best that can be said of the later games is "they weren't as bad as UFO about it", there is a big issue here. ZUN has been falling back on gimmicks for this and it's hurting the gameplay; the best games have almost invariably been the simplest about it.

3. No bullshit design.
This shouldn't need to be said, but considering the last game had Seija in it, well.

These are probably the biggest ones for me, unless I'm forgetting something.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Star King on March 14, 2014, 12:54:22 AM
Punishing score for bombs. Sparser resources.

UFO has one of the best resource gaining systems IMO, so I guess it's hard to get a consensus on that.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: ElDestructoe on March 14, 2014, 12:58:05 AM
Bombing.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Jirachi on March 14, 2014, 12:59:27 AM
Phantasmagoria.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Oh on March 14, 2014, 01:14:10 AM
Bombing.

Dropping PiV
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Mero on March 14, 2014, 02:08:29 AM
I kinda share Malky's opinion on the power system, for most games I'd say it's -just- okay, PCB and IN turn power items into something relevant to score when at full. MoF and SA on the other hand make bombs form your power (those are really the only two games where I find the power system relevant).
but in TD, DDC, EoSD and specially UFO, power items are almost useless when at full power if you don't care that much for score (with rare exceptions) and in some cases, bosses just laugh at you when you're anywhere below max power.

As for resource system, DDC's would have been perfect if lives had 5 pieces instead of 3 IMO, but overall it better not be as stingy as TD's (a maximum of six misses in a run without trance is just ridiculous)

If DDC told us anything is that balance is important, I don't know if it's just the "unfair" patterns this game can throw at you, but there has to be something wrong when just one out of the six shottypes is actually good (SakuyaA without max power is just as hopeless as MarisaB without bombs, and both have "weight issues" when fighting Sukuna)


tl;dr: Use MoF/SA's power system or don't use one at all, DDC's resource system but with 5-piece lives, >balance

I would at least like the Results screen back, it was nice to see how your run went at the end, and I actually liked IN's way of handling deathbombs
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: TresserT on March 14, 2014, 02:37:34 AM
The recent scoring systems put a lot more focus on gaining resources than the older games. In PCB and IN lives were completely unrelated to the scoring system. EoSD and MoF technically merged score systems and life systems, but it didn't feel that way. While I like the UFO thing, I liked the older systems better.

I'd like to see less "literal" spellcards, if that makes sense. Most of the spell cards since MoF have just seemed...flat. PCB was entirely the opposite, and Koishi and Yatsuhashi are examples of un-flatness. I'd just like some spells like that which aren't insanely difficult.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Drake on March 14, 2014, 03:28:08 AM
UFO is a case where I will defend the system's design to the core, but cannot say the same for how it was implemented and worked out in-game.
Really though, I couldn't really answer what mechanics I would like to see. I will say that I would like to keep the intention of a simpler, less tricky system. Not gimmickless, nor necessarily simple under the hood, but simple to play. I think DDC was a step in the right direction, but the execution of DDC's design was uh unfortunate.

I would be fine with or without the Power system. I don't think it's really necessary anymore, but I don't mind its existence.

I would definitely like to avoid a graze-heavy system, though. After IN, SA and UFO, I've thought way too much about how to design a graze system that isn't inherently dependent on supergrazing and/or heavy milking, and the solutions there are are pretty complex. I have trouble believing that ZUN making a scoring system with graze as a core factor would ever not devolve into supergrazing or tons of milking.


(a maximum of six misses in a run without trance is just ridiculous)
Play some other STGs and then come back and see how silly this sounds lol

I actually liked IN's way of handling deathbombs
What about them, that they lasted for far too long and wasted two bombs if you didn't bomb on the first frame?

I'd like to see less "literal" spellcards, if that makes sense.
I agree with this general sentiment. I think it's gotten really obvious since TD, but it seems as though ZUN is trying a bit too hard to make many patterns fit a special intention rather than just being thematic, and I think it really interferes with his pattern design.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Mero on March 14, 2014, 04:19:37 AM
Play some other STGs and then come back and see how silly this sounds lol
haha yeah, I really didn't put much thought into that.

What about them, that they lasted for far too long and wasted two bombs if you didn't bomb on the first frame?
I like the general idea, a stronger bomb at a bigger cost, basically. (I could live without Border Team's minute-long deathbomb timer though)
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: KaiserKnuckle on March 14, 2014, 05:18:10 AM
If the PC98s or EoSD didn't* have it's rate mechanics double as multipliers (i.e. Mushihimesama), then that would seem fun.

Other than that, maybe a different gameplay mechanic to a character would be cool (to me, atleast).

(*as in, i'm not entireley sure IF they do)
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Drake on March 14, 2014, 05:53:05 AM
Rank doesn't affect score in those games besides in secondary ways, no.
And do you mean if rank did work as a multiplier?
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: KaiserKnuckle on March 14, 2014, 07:00:34 AM
Rank doesn't affect score in those games besides in secondary ways, no.
And do you mean if rank did work as a multiplier?

Like, how in Mushihimesama the more points you collected the higher the point multiplier AND the rank increased, so you were supposed to go into focus to get points during the high rank to cash in on the multipliers.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Emerald Mint on March 14, 2014, 08:37:12 AM
The life fragment system in DDC was so unbalanced that it hurt the challenge. I prefer to play using the patch I wrote over the original.

In honesty, all of the life gain systems were much better between th06-th11. Maybe ZUN should look back atthat.

I was thinking I'd like to play as Aya in a new Touhou. One that plays like a traditional character, rather than in her spinoffs.

Also another concern is the balance of grazing. It should feel useful throughout the whole game, rather than losing its' potential in the final stages. Spellcard grazing in PCB/IN was a good example of this.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Zil on March 14, 2014, 10:39:59 AM
Phantasmagoria.

I've thought way too much about how to design a graze system that isn't inherently dependent on supergrazing and/or heavy milking
I can see why you'd be against milking, but why supergrazing? Personally I'd say supergrazes are just about the only good thing that could ever come from a graze mechanic in these games, and if you're going to try to avoid them you may as well not bother with a graze mechanic in the first place. The basic idea (if we agree on what a supergraze actually is) is that you're rewarded for performing difficult tricks, which seems like a sound concept to me.

I will say, though, that the only times ZUN has ever done grazing well were PCB and IN. As far as I'm concerned it was a mess in SA and the ruin of UFO. So I'd agree that ZUN should avoid it just because I don't think he really knows what he's doing.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: ?q on March 14, 2014, 11:20:34 AM
Phantasmagoria sounds good.  by which I mean have Len design the stages

I think that DDC had a great mechanic in a terrible game, and with some refinement I wouldn't mind seeing it again.  Same with SA - I really liked supergraze-to-autocollect but when you can break it as badly as ReimuA did (or when supergrazing as an end to itself becomes a thing, i.e. scoring) it just becomes pointless.  I look forward to what new gameplay mechanic ZUN pulls out in every game, but since IN they haven't seemed that thought through.

Novel mechanics that really should have been fixed by game 14 include balanced shot types and interesting stages.  MoF has three shot types that are totally inferior (barring MariB glitch).  SA, five of six (barring pre-boss bomb glitch).  UFO, four of six (arguably five).  While stuttering stage design (some enemies appear, then we wait.  some enemies appear that we kill before they do anything, and then we wait.) is good for resource collection like in UFO or 10D, it's not very exciting, and it's almost every stage in every game.

I kind of agree with Malky about the power system for all reasons stated; it only matters to make Stage 1 drag out.  On the other hand, I kind of liked the concept of the power-bomb tradeoff in MoF; it was too much in SA.

I think DDC was an experiment in how while you can make anything a final boss, that doesn't mean it will end well.  The intricate and visually appealing attacks that made the Touhou fandom in PCB and IN were completely absent from DDC and I think it hurt the game's appeal.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Tengukami on March 14, 2014, 01:28:41 PM
1. Photography
2. Route-splitting
3. Special abilities based on the PC, a la SA.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: commandercool on March 14, 2014, 01:40:58 PM
1. Phantasmagoria of playable Keine

2. The duo character system from IN. And familiars. There are some really interesting design things that can be done with familiars, and it's a way to cram more playable characters into games, which is cool.

Basically, I want Phantasmagoria Of Imperishable Night, but without wasting the character slots on the lame IN characters (get out, Tewi. Or at least become Reisen's partner and stop taking up an entire slot in the roster).

Or whatever. I don't really care. I don't play enough to get the "worst Touhou everrr" thing with every new game, so I'd probably be happy with nearly anything.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: nicholashin on March 14, 2014, 02:21:06 PM
I kind of agree with DDC being a game with a clever mechanics buried in terrible designs. Honestly, even with the best gameplay mechanics, the game would not be enjoyable with popcorn enemies taking half of the stages. I would rather have ZUN think of better game designs than weird game mechanics just to fit in the theme or make the game "unique".
In other words, I actually wish to see a simple game mechanics.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Ghaleon on March 14, 2014, 02:50:54 PM
I want pretty danmaku... Thats about it.
I mean i felt that the danmaku hasnt been as pretty as it used to be in general. Tanuki for example is the perfect example of a boss with boring looking danmaku. She's pretty much all bullet shape gimmicks, with little visual appeal imo, notthat it was just her with little to look at in TD.

Curvy lasers are another example. I mean they are just an element to a spellcard or attack but they are oftenchallenging enough on their own that sun cant really go overboard on the bullets too without making the attack too hard compared to the others, so they probably doom an attack to mediocre visual appeal.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Inadequate on March 14, 2014, 05:45:06 PM
I'll chime in to say one thing.
Seriously, the power system does absolutely nothing good for the games. Any of them; at best, it's simply "not as bad"
No. The power system is extremely essential, and adds depth to various games of the series. In EoSD, you use the max-power cancel at times to either clear the screen for survival, or gain a major amount of points. In PCB, you use the power items into cherry items mechanic as a way to control your route, and gain extra borders via suicides. It's very prevalent in the game. MoF and SA sacrifice power for bombs, and along that, point-item value. The power management routes are probably more complicated in MoF than in PCB, or at least the former has more delayed PoC's. In UFO, you don't really sacrifice just power (although you can transform power items into point-items and vice versa with the rainbow UFO's), but resources altogether when it comes to gathering more score. In some well optimized stage practice routes, maintaining SanaeB 3-power was required.


Regarding the original question, I'd probably like to see a Phantasmagoria game with lagless netplay, even though I probably wouldn't play very much myself. For the more traditional games, I'd love to have spell value increasement via grazing back.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: ?q on March 14, 2014, 10:02:23 PM
Actually, talking of Phantasmagoria and mechanics from underwhelming games, I totally want to see what would happen if the HP mechanic from Kioh Gyoku came back.  I think it may be better than the system of getting hit in the existing Phantasmagoria games, would allow for more difficult (but still doable) patterns, and could even be incorporated into a single-player game where bombs are either firepower increases or low-level screen clears.

Quote
Curvy lasers are another example. I mean they are just an element to a spellcard or attack but they are oftenchallenging enough on their own that sun cant really go overboard on the bullets too without making the attack too hard compared to the others, so they probably doom an attack to mediocre visual appeal.
(Shou didn't have many problems with cool-looking attacks though...)
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Maiden Synnae ミ☆ on March 14, 2014, 11:35:19 PM
I'd like this:

The game featuring 9 playable characters. This may sound like too much, but hey, IN itself had 8 characters total, each one with their own shoot type.

The system would be something like IN's, so you could either choose multiple girls as a team, or just one of them individually. The teams would be:

Team 1: Reimu/Marisa/Sanae
Team 2: Byakuren/Shou/Ichirin
Team 3: Miko/Futo/Tojiko

After selecting your team, the next step would be selecting the order of the characters. There would be 3 possible alternatives for each team. Let's focus on Team 1 as example:

Order A: Reimu = Shot / Marisa = Focused Shot / Sanae = Bomb
Order B: Marisa = Shot / Sanae = Focused Shot / Reimu = Bomb
Order C: Sanae = Shot / Reimu = Focused Shot / Marisa = Bomb

So, I could imagine a Youtube video like "Touhou 15 - Team 3B Normal 1cc" (refering to the Taoist team in this order: Futo = Shot / Tojiko = Focused Shot / Miko = Bomb)

Still on that, the order of the Stage 4, 5 and 6 bosses would depend solely on the team you picked. They'd be 3 powerful gods with pretty much the same amount of power.

If you pick Team 1, you'd face the three last bosses in order XYZ, Team 2 would be YZX, and Team 3 = ZXY. (The same applies if you choose only a single character individually. A character from Team 1 would face order XYZ, one from Team 2 would get YZX and so on).

That would be interesting because all of the three bosses would get enough development in the spell cards department. Either as a Stage 4 boss, a Stage 5 or a Final one. (Needless to say, they'd have different spells depending on their placement too).
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Tengukami on March 14, 2014, 11:43:06 PM
I'd like this:
Wow. I would play the hell out of this.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Maiden Synnae ミ☆ on March 14, 2014, 11:46:38 PM
Wow. I would play the hell out of this.

Yeah. Too bad I can't mail this to ZUN (and even if I could, he'd probably reject it anyway since he dislikes being influenced by fans).
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: KaiserKnuckle on March 15, 2014, 12:27:47 AM
I'd like this:

Same with Ammy here, this sounds awesome.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: ZXNova on March 15, 2014, 01:03:05 AM
Yeah. Too bad I can't mail this to ZUN (and even if I could, he'd probably reject it anyway since he dislikes being influenced by fans).

I wouldn't exactly say that. After all, it was fans who named Koakuma and Daiyousei. (Among other things).

I'd want the next Touhou game to be a phantasmagoria honestly, it's time for a new one.

Getting rid of the power system is honestly pretty drastic. Power points is kind of a staple in the touhou series. I don't think many fans would like that at all. Rather than get rid of it, why not just change it up.  Power points disappear when you reach max level, kind of like in other touhou games, like IN iirc. Or maybe, after you reach max level, power points fill up another resource. Maybe like a super bomb meter, or something like that. Maybe when you select a character and choose their shot type, you can choose one more extra thing. That extra thing has it's own seperate meter and gets filled up along with power meter, and how well it fills up depends on what stage you're on, difficulty and how far you are through that stage. These extra things do something special to your gameplay, I can't think of what these extra things would be. This is what I'm thinking.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: chirpy13 on March 15, 2014, 01:13:52 AM
With mention of powerups, I think a throwback to old STG powerups could work.  I'm thinking something along the lines having 3 powerup item types and collecting them switches your shot type.  Maybe speedup items too :>
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Andrew on March 15, 2014, 05:35:01 AM
I think this is more like an extra feature than a game mechanic, but I'd like to see ZUN bring back Last Words. I had a ton of fun unlocking and capturing them in Imperishable Night, and while the Ten Desires Overdrives were a bit disappointing, they did include Path Sign "TAO Fetal Movement ~Dao~" (Seiga's Overdrive), which is one of my favourite spellcards in the series. So I hope to see Last Words in a future Touhou game at some point.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: chirpy13 on March 15, 2014, 12:07:48 PM
Speaking of overdrive spells, I want to see overdrive as an actual difficulty.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on March 15, 2014, 04:03:58 PM
Speaking of overdrive spells, I want to see overdrive as an actual difficulty.
We already have fan-made ultra mode patch though.

Yes, I agree ZUN needs to introduce more LW spells in future games. Unlocking and capturing them is tons of fun and is probably my favorite part of Touhou shmup.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Sakurei on March 15, 2014, 04:15:18 PM
The ultra patches are terribly made with no effort behind them. They give you impossible patterns. Not what a higher difficulty is supposed to do.

I don't really care what the system is, to be honest. I just want Youmu to be playable again. Maybe I will even play it for points then, who knows. I probably won't otherwise. And by probably I mean definitely.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on March 15, 2014, 05:47:41 PM
Anyway, I wonder how LNN achievers will feel about it if there will be Overdrive mode.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: wyldstrykr on March 16, 2014, 02:50:43 PM
not a mechanic but i want to see them anyway

1: A portrait of character when you bomb. (why it is called a spell card in the character selection screen if there is no portrait)
2: Spell card practice comments. (It is night to see the author point of view when making these cards(if you completed it).  also additional card if you unlock few/some/many of those spell cards (last word) also if you capture it in a normal run, you automatically capture it in spell card practice)
3: A difficulty between easy and normal & normal and hard (yeah, im noob at these game so i notice the huge difficulty jump)
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: chum on March 16, 2014, 04:28:28 PM
For a "traditional" game:

Multiple types of shots, options and spell cards per character, as item collectables. These would float around the screen and change type based on time. Ideally, these different types would give scoring routes some depth. I think the ideal number is 3 of each shot, option and bomb type for each character.

More bomb items. I want a game that encourages creative usage of bombs, and having multiple bomb types complementing a strong system, while you mind when you pick up what type of bomb in order to plan your bomb types for various situations, would be favorable. In order for this bomb system to work, you could have 3 bomb "slots", which can be filled up with a bomb item. Bomb slots cannot be used unless filled up, they start out empty and dying does not fill them up; you have to collect items.

Grazing to up the spellcard value and player controlled opportunity-based grazing in general could definitely be brought back by now under a new guise. The former is more important to me than the latter.

Ground enemies wouldn't be too shabby, i.e, enemies you can't collide with and with deadzones.

Longer and more involved stages would be necessary for some of these ideas to be any good.

-

For a Phantasmagoria:

Grazing to affect number of bullets sent over to the opponent, more types of bullets/patterns that are suitable for grazing, no pellet bullets but have different types of ex bullets, no bullet reflection, enemy chaining summons bosses as usual, boss behaviour is not random but pattern types are used in succession and depends on how big the chain is, you always have 3 lives and lose 1 when hit, you have 2 bombs which is not part of your spell gauge but does affect the opponents screen, consistent ai timers
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Mesarthim on March 17, 2014, 07:37:35 AM
Balanced shot types.

Other than that I'm not TOO picky. However it is extremely concerning when Reimu A in DDC can do twice as much damage as Reimu B. The irony being Reimu B having a description of its power being top class. UFO did that right in my opinion where the non-homing shot type was stronger.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: ZXNova on March 17, 2014, 05:06:28 PM
Multiple spellcards sounds like a good idea. Maybe when you choose a shot type, you get your main bomb (spellcard), and once you do that, you can choose one more spellcard that's not specifically for that shot type. Would be pretty cool. If there were more routes in the game, maybe that make way for more characters (?) or possibly more different spellcards and dialogue for that stage boss depending on which path you took. Plus the obvious different patterns and enemies etc.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Drake on March 31, 2014, 07:31:10 AM
oops forgot about this
I can see why you'd be against milking, but why supergrazing? Personally I'd say supergrazes are just about the only good thing that could ever come from a graze mechanic in these games, and if you're going to try to avoid them you may as well not bother with a graze mechanic in the first place. The basic idea (if we agree on what a supergraze actually is) is that you're rewarded for performing difficult tricks, which seems like a sound concept to me.
I probably didn't explain that too well. Supergrazing itself isn't really a problem; conceptually it seems like a nice risk-skill-reward tactic and is one logical extreme of the risk-reward that grazing systems were meant to be. The issue comes mostly when the grazing does devolve into milking, as is the case in every game ZUN has made whose system involves grazing as an actual scoring factor (rather than say FW, where you graze for recharge). Moreover this seems to be the case for all games with graze-heavy scoring systems that I can think of. Unless you can build a system that limits the graze bonuses you can do in some way (few bullets, time constraints, upper limits on things, etc), a system that allows and encourages supergrazing is generally going to be linked to milking for that graze. Of course there are various tradeoffs usually, just from the difficulty of supergraze tricks or from burning resources, but I feel this doesn't "excuse" it turning into milking things for graze. So when I said "devolves into supergrazing", this is what I meant. This train of thought pretty much assumes my position that milking is awful though, so how other people see this can vary.

Essentially, I found that when trying to design a system that works around this, one option comes down to introducing limitations as said above. This is really not a preferable solution because it doesn't really "fix" anything, it just shoves it under a rug, unless you be really clever about how you limit it. Another is designing a system where supergrazing doesn't affect score to the point where it becomes preferable to milk everything, but it's hard to determine where exactly this magic threshold is, and it's even more difficult to really know in advance that some techniques won't be found that will crush scoring regardless (see: UFO). I also find it a minor flaw of sorts that you can simply graze a single spot for an instant and get a ton of graze just because it's a spawn point, for example.

A better solution comes with the observation that this situation becomes troublesome when the focus of supergrazing is getting a large quantity of graze. If you can design a grazing system that doesn't put much (if any) stress strictly on how many bullets you get close to, but rather another metric -- such as how long you can stay near fresh bullets without stopping, then the intended risks of grazing can be preserved but the possibility for milking can be greatly reduced. Using the time-based system for example, just by having say a meter that fills up (to a max) during that grazing period, you get rid of milking entirely because you have no reason to chase big pools of bullets forever, but you're still actively rushing into danger to keep the meter up. One minor issue is that you can then graze sparse bullets for longer than grazing through a dense, more dangerous area, but that can be alleviated. A much more major flaw, and one that I personally found, is that it's suddenly extremely difficult to structure your patterns to work well with this system. Balancing timing and the spacing of patterns well would be a massive hassle and require a ton of very deliberate work. Despite this, I still really like this idea and think it has some real potential.
For a concrete example, back when we were really talking about this, Naut used this style of grazing system for a contest script. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eI6akRT_ro#t=11m03s)
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Quukii on April 01, 2014, 02:40:53 AM
For a traditional game I'd like to see the return of different spell cards in different difficulties (For example, Remilia's last attack in EoSD on normal is Red Magic, while she uses Scarlet Gensokyo on hard and lunatic. It's not just the amount of bullets that differs between the difficulties; the actual spell is different too). In the more recent games, the only difference in the spells between difficulties seems to be density, for the most part. With different spell cards for the different difficulties, progressing through the difficulties is more fun and interesting.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Zil on April 01, 2014, 06:07:36 AM
@Drake: Okay. If the problem is ultimately milking, then I agree with you. And when it comes to methods for discouraging it, personally I tend to think of reducing the amounts of time during which grazing is meaningful, as PCB kind of did with the cherry borders. If you brought the spellcard timers down to reasonable levels, and just removed entirely the points earned directly from grazing, PCB would be almost completely free of milking while nonetheless being full of cool grazing strats.
For a concrete example, back when we were really talking about this, Naut used this style of grazing system for a contest script. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eI6akRT_ro#t=11m03s)
This seems like a cool idea. I'd like to see how it would work in a boss battle.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Shimatora on April 02, 2014, 02:34:25 AM
Bombing and suiciding for points.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Simon150999 on April 05, 2014, 02:56:12 PM
Reverse power system, power starts off at 100% after you die and slowly goes down to 50% at a rate of 1% per 30 seconds.
Playable Sakuya, Playable Youmu.
More attack types, maybe some unlockable characters PoFV style?
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Snakebite969 on April 05, 2014, 03:46:01 PM
PVP, and not like PoFV
I mean literal bullet hell. Like, same screen danmaku battling, like the bosses, but not like the fighter games.
You could use your own spellcards or something... That's pretty difficult to visualise playing though...

Alternatively, normal power levels.
Vegeta! What does your scouter say about her power level? IT'S... 4.00...
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: LunarWingCloud on April 05, 2014, 10:59:49 PM
Bring back PCB's mechanic where your bomb changed depending on whether you were focused or unfocused
 I liked that.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Koog on April 06, 2014, 06:51:29 AM
Phantasmagoria with the following characters:
Kogasa
Yatsuhashi
Raiko
Benben
Medicine
And maybe some of these:
Mima (Because MIMA)
Shou (Time to win in 0:05 seconds with curvy lasers!)
Sekibanki (Flying Head!)
Prismriver Sisters (Imagine Lyrica vs. Yatsuhashi)
Hina (I love her!)
Meiling (It would be interesting to see her in a game like this)
Kasen (Time to appear already)
Momiji (Why not?)
Seija (The new Reisen)
Yuyuko (Yuyuko only shoots in fighting games)
Kaguya and Mokou (Time to finish this)
Eirin and Keine (Maybe like Merlin and Lunasa)
Satori (Copying spellcards of enemies would be interesting)
Wriggle (No Soku, must be here)
Remilia (It's been a while)
Tojiko (I want more from her)
Parsee (It will be strange, but interesting)
Kokoro (She's back! For more popularity!)
Suika and Tenshi (Must have a danmaku rather than DS)
Iku (Yeah! My brother loves her)
That's all folks!
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Emerald Mint on April 07, 2014, 06:42:48 AM
Reverse power system, power starts off at 100% after you die and slowly goes down to 50% at a rate of 1% per 30 seconds.
Nice thought there. I'd like to see a system where power becomes more important to the roles of survival/scoring.
My idea is not quite reverse power, but something like allowing power to temporarily go above 4.00 and spawn additional options. It could also multiply point item value or other scoring functions in a way. And if no power items are collected within a set time frame, it would start decreasing.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Darkness1 on April 07, 2014, 07:20:28 AM
Phantasmagoria Trues 2

In general, I would like Zun to just continue what he's doing. I really found his latest games like UFO, TD and DDC fun. I just love those gimmicks that makes me want to cry.

Other than that, a new photo game? Or not exactly a photo game, but maybe something similair, since I really enjoyed that.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Oldmansour on April 08, 2014, 05:45:42 AM
Whatever about anything else, I want to see the health bars back in the right spot.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Star King on April 08, 2014, 05:54:59 AM
The circular health bars are the best thing about the new games.

Having to glance at the top-left corner in the middle of the action (scoreruns...) = worst.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Drake on April 08, 2014, 05:58:14 AM
Reverse power system, power starts off at 100% after you die and slowly goes down to 50% at a rate of 1% per 30 seconds.
Nice thought there.
Why, exactly? This doesn't seem to serve any purpose besides being a backwards-seeming gimmick. Is it supposed to what, encourage dying? Punish not getting more power items (if this system would have them)?


Below: Yeah that one seems pretty interesting.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Emerald Mint on April 08, 2014, 07:00:48 AM
Why, exactly? This doesn't seem to serve any purpose besides being a backwards-seeming gimmick. Is it supposed to what, encourage dying? Punish not getting more power items (if this system would have them)?

Well...okay. Sort of underanalyzed there.

I still stand by my idea of having it decrease when going above a soft cap though and tying power as a score multiplier.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Star King on April 08, 2014, 02:40:30 PM
Why, exactly? This doesn't seem to serve any purpose besides being a backwards-seeming gimmick. Is it supposed to what, encourage dying? Punish not getting more power items (if this system would have them)?

Probably like a rank system of sorts pretty much is the idea. Coming from a huge fan of EoSD, though, I always thought rank was a stupid system.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Despatche on April 08, 2014, 06:51:44 PM
i just wanna see a new phantasmagoria already. next game needs to be a normal game though, or what little pattern we have is wasted (trilogies).

i outright like the "gimmicky" spellcards because that's simply what happens when you try to have "normal" attacks and "special" attacks like that. many of those older spellcards are really just named normal attacks themselves, so having "gimmicks" gives the entire spellcard concept some meaning. that's definitely something i see as inherently better out of the newer games.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Drake on April 08, 2014, 09:09:22 PM
Probably like a rank system of sorts pretty much is the idea. Coming from a huge fan of EoSD, though, I always thought rank was a stupid system.
I don't see how that's anything like a rank system. It doesn't even necessarily make the game "harder" until you reach a point where your power actually downgrades, and even then it really isn't comparable to the bullet patterns becoming more intense (which itself can be seen as a reward).
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Jq1790 on April 08, 2014, 10:25:39 PM
Health bars in BOTH places, so that whoever likes one way gets it while not messing with others would be nice.  Circular for scorerunners, top-of-screen for those of us who prefer it there.

As for something truly new, maybe something where you can pick one of two bosses to KO during a certain stage(probably 4) and that'd determine what stage 5 and 6 were.  Not that I want to make him design 2 whole additional stages, but something like that sounds fun, with Extra unlocking after getting both paths' good ends (on Normal+, of course, since it's not like an Easy player can beat Extra most likely anyway), sort of like IN but without having it be a neutral-end/good-end thing, instead both being 'good' ends, and you can only get to the true heart of the matter by seing both sides or something, whatever the incident turned out to be.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: chirpy13 on April 08, 2014, 10:46:44 PM
Circular for scorerunners
This statement is objectively incorrect.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Jq1790 on April 08, 2014, 10:59:32 PM
This statement is objectively incorrect.

My thought was in response to:

The circular health bars are the best thing about the new games.

Having to glance at the top-left corner in the middle of the action (scoreruns...) = worst.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Imosa on April 22, 2014, 04:36:12 PM
Still on that, the order of the Stage 4, 5 and 6 bosses would depend solely on the team you picked. They'd be 3 powerful gods with pretty much the same amount of power.

If you pick Team 1, you'd face the three last bosses in order XYZ, Team 2 would be YZX, and Team 3 = ZXY. (The same applies if you choose only a single character individually. A character from Team 1 would face order XYZ, one from Team 2 would get YZX and so on).

That would be interesting because all of the three bosses would get enough development in the spell cards department. Either as a Stage 4 boss, a Stage 5 or a Final one. (Needless to say, they'd have different spells depending on their placement too).
I had an idea like this too except I would suggest making the 3 rotating bosses in stage 3, 4, and 5, and then having the 6th be a kinda of trio master (a la pokemon). The reason I want this is because this rotating system lets us say that all 3 teams are fighting the game at the same time. Until they all reach the stage 6 boss at the same time and team up against him in a glorious 9 on 1 defense of fantasy (or however many PCs there are).
Unfortunately I've realized that this isn't exactly the place for this idea. Its unrealistic for us to expect ZUN to make this kind of innovation... but a fan circle could pull it off.

1. Total removal of the power system.
Wow, this is so true. Good call.

The thing that I really think 15 needs is IN's unlockable features. It just... gives a reason to play.

Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Formless God on April 22, 2014, 05:08:41 PM
Remove any form of milking.

Remove scoring via bombs. It didn't work the last two times.

Keep the pattern design from EoSD and the last four games (that's 12.8 to 14). Sparse, fast, odd angles. None of that flamboyant screen-filling squiggly "mom i learned trigonometry" shit like in PCB and IN.

TLB.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Espadas on April 22, 2014, 06:21:20 PM
What i would like to see?

1) Multiple Boss battles like the Prismriver trio and spell cards that screw with the interface like Marisa's "Supernova" both in "Unreasonable Mechanics"..... CRAZY AWESOME

2) Multiple Boss battles where the bosses use their respective Spell Cards AT THE SAME TIME, creating patterns different from the single ones

3) Boss battles where the BGM music is coordinated with the actual battle (Raiko docet). That would be a dream come true for me.....
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: chirpy13 on April 22, 2014, 11:35:27 PM
I guess something I'd really like to see would be to have graze disabled during bombs again, as it was in IN and earlier.  I think a lot of the bomb grazing in SA onward was pretty retarded.  It pays off way too well to be invincible to things that you wouldn't be able to graze if you weren't incincible - see Parsee, Unzan, midboss Ichirin if you're not a fukken badass superplayer, pretty much everything in DDC (a lot of this is due to cancelling bullets with your bomb mind you...), Yuugi's final, etc.  It's so awful and yet it's so profitable.  Bombing for score is one thing but I think the new games take it too far sometimes.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Leon゠Helsing on April 23, 2014, 02:15:09 AM
You know, I know that most of us play the games alone (barring the Phantasmagoria and the fighting games) as they have primarily been single-player games, but I'd like to see a game with a 2P co-op mode. Besides, ultra-badasses can do double-plays with some smart keymapping.
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Phasm on September 13, 2014, 11:17:25 PM
My expectation for Touhou 15 gameplay would be basically:

1- The old Touhou 7 to 8 system of gaining lives
2- The return of the partner system from IN
3- Easier to get to full power ( think SA, but retain the seperate bomb bar )
 
Title: Re: What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?
Post by: Shimatora on September 17, 2014, 07:59:12 AM
  • Reviving old/dead threads is disruptive and often serves little purpose.  It's far better off to start a new thread than to revive an older thread that has seen little or no activity in the past week or so.  If it's something dealing directly with the old thread, start a new one and link to the old one.