Karisa's Atypical Touhou Challenges (on hold again)

[Emerald Mint]

HS did it with a continue? He ended up with 1.3 billion in his cap.

Either way, boils down to a matter of RNG.

[Star King]

#7 - Easy
Star King - 1553 - MarisaB - C - 0.393% - Replay

I worked on this 3 nights straight, because I kept missing a bunch of point items on Stage 4. I don't think this is very improvable past a few extra point items here and there? I didn't make any major mistakes I believe.

I even bombed midboss Chen's card for an extra single point item, lol. I could've killed Lily White faster, though...

On to Normal mode. I promise I won't be such a perfectionist and actually post my progress this time. Though it goes against my nature...

HS did it with a continue? He ended up with 1.3 billion in his cap.

Either way, boils down to a matter of RNG.

I'm guessing he set starting lives to 0, immediate suicide at the beginning of Stage 1 for the full power you get for a continue, so you get more point items from Stage 1. So it wouldn't really affect score, other than the 2 less starting lives you're missing (# of starting lives carries over on continues). ~17 point items more in Easy mode, dunno about Lunatic.

I don't think RNG matters that much in the long run. In my experience, anyway. I suppose 1 or 2 point items could make the difference, though.

Does anybody know why Alice's final card sometimes gives an extra point item when you end it? It did in some of my runs, though not this one.

EDIT:

#7 - Normal
Emerald - 1453 - MarisaB - C - 0.255% - Replay

Here I wanted to experiment with a different character and try out a few things. Kind of find my ways aggressive. Notable deaths inbound.

1600 feels like a far off dream. Perhaps impossible, unless you have severe luck.

I read the replay description, was like "wut? he bombed Cirno?", and watched the replay. Oh... I've never thought of doing that with MarisaB's nonfocus bomb. I tried it and got 63 point items from stage 1 as opposed to my usual 59 first try. Damn. Could get an extra one from Stage 2 as well.

[Seppo Hovi]

Oh, huh. Shit.

#7 - Easy
Seppo Hovi - 1558 - MarisaB - C - 0.302% - Replay

So, when I came home from drinking earlier this night, I checked the thread and noticed your run. After a short panic attack and fast cup of coffee I decided to sit down and start throwing runs at this. Being rather tired, and not very confident with Marisa's unfocused speed, I dropped basically everything scoring related and only grazed two cards. Barely broke 10,000 graze, even.

In between the restarts I got hungry and warmed up some breakfast. I slowly ate it throughout the progress which kind of ate away on my focus, leading into some dumb mistakes.

Missed one kedama (which might have been one with a cerry item, I'm not going back to look) and one big fairy in stage 4. Also probably dropped a few items during Alice's seconds card due to not killing every small fairy.

-

The extra point-item from Alice's finale is dropped by one of the dolls circling her. I don't know which decides on the drop being either point-item, cherry-item or nothing, but my own assumption is that it's time based. It could be anything, though. Rank and randomness are both valid choices, I haven't been interested enough to investigate it.

E: Ah, yeah, Zil. That would seem to make sense.

-

Have fun with it, you two. I might or might not do more runs for this weekly, depending on my mood.

-

Karisa, you never added Emerald's submission for Normal.

[Zil]

The extra point-item from Alice's finale is dropped by one of the dolls circling her. I don't know which decides on the drop being either point-item, cherry-item or nothing, but my own assumption is that it's time based. It could be anything, though. Rank and randomness are both valid choices, I haven't been interested enough to investigate it.

My guess would be that it depends on how many fairies you have killed previously, and perhaps some randomness. In LLS through PCB (don't know about IN), there are times when the fairies seem to drop items in a specific order, regardless of which ones/how many you kill. Actually, from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure all of Alices destructible dolls work that way.

[Star King]

#7 - Normal
Star King - 1520 - MarisaB - C - 0.420% - Replay

First attempt, could be better.

Nice run, Seppo. Challenge accepted.

[Emerald Mint]

You're right. Doing it with continues does gain more at the beginning, since the big fairies will guarantee point items instead of POW.
It's around 74 off the first stage on Hard/Lunatic from bombing the midboss twice with MarisaB.
Can also get around 70 with ReimuB if you focus bomb 3 times.

[Karisa]

My guess would be that it depends on how many fairies you have killed previously, and perhaps some randomness. In LLS through PCB (don't know about IN), there are times when the fairies seem to drop items in a specific order, regardless of which ones/how many you kill. Actually, from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure all of Alices destructible dolls work that way.

PCB's item drops seem more random than LLS/MS in my experience. The fairies at the start of stage 1 often drop 7power, 7point, 2cherry, but sometimes it's 8/6 or 6/8. However, the enemies that drop/don't drop items in PCB seem more fixed than in LLS/MS (where in many places, random items are dropped by every other enemy defeated), since sometimes I've left several of those starting fairies escape but the rest still dropped the full 16 items.

IN's item drops (along with MoF onward) are static as far as I know, other than some depending on whether or not you're at full power like in EoSD and PCB.

You're right. Doing it with continues does gain more at the beginning, since the big fairies will guarantee point items instead of POW.
It's around 74 off the first stage on Hard/Lunatic from bombing the midboss twice with MarisaB.
Can also get around 70 with ReimuB if you focus bomb 3 times.

I thought ReimuB's bomb was weak enough that you actually take longer (seeing as PCB bombs reduce shot damage)? That's what I concluded a while ago when I tried bombing Cirno on Easy, at least.

[Emerald Mint]

I thought ReimuB's bomb was weak enough that you actually take longer (seeing as PCB bombs reduce shot damage)? That's what I concluded a while ago when I tried bombing Cirno on Easy, at least.

I sat on top of the boss and did it. Also tried without bombing and it only made a slight difference. Hmm.
Though on the harder difficulties and on Chen, bombing is more feasible.

Seems both MarisaB and ReimuB have the highest bomb damage. For some reason, ReimuB's unfocused bomb can deplete an awful lot, which happened to me on one of Alice's spellcards. I don't know if it's something to do with positioning or whatnot.

[Seppo Hovi]

Eyes half-closed. Grazing even less than the Easy run.

#7 - Normal
Seppo Hovi - 1544 - MarisaB - C - 0.279% - Replay

[touhoumaniac]

#7 - easy
s - 1435 - MarisaB - C - 0.150% - Replay

[Star King]

#7 - Easy
Star King - 1567 - MarisaB - C - 0.387% - Replay

Dayum, I was expecting like 1560.

This run has the usual 63 point items from stage 1. I've gotten 64 point items exactly once. I'm not sure how. Might've been just luck. Unfortunately on that run I quit out after missing some stage 4 kedamas, dying to Lily White, and missing some of the shotgun fairies, so I can't examine the replay.

Stage 3, I missed a few fairies. Eh, I always do, anyway. I had another bomb to spare, probably should have just used that (but it came in handy on Alice's second card).

I think I might've figured out why Alice's final card sometimes drops a point item. I think that when you deplete Alice's life and she starts exploding, there's a brief window of time where her indestructible dolls become destructible and you can shoot them for items (there's 3 of them). Not sure though. I tried to implement this and did a little unfocused flailing when Alice started exploding to try to maybe destroy a couple of dolls, but I got a cherry item instead of a point item

I died on Youmu's final like a noob but it didn't cost me any point items. To be honest, stage 5 and 6 are the easiest parts of the challenge, haha.

Anyway, since my personal best after Alice's second card is 309 (the run with 64 in stage 1), and this run has 307 after Alice's second card, and I missed the point item from Alice's final, at least 1570 is definitely possible.

[Seppo Hovi]

#7 - Easy
Seppo Hovi - 1566 - MarisaB - C - 0.261% - Replay

I don't get what makes the early stages decide on the point-item counts. After watching some of my runs, your run and other stuff, I'll just have to assume it's random. It could be due to getting a random extra 8 from the stage 1 opener, even though it evens out by the midboss, but it still could reflect on the latter stage. There could be a certain time when midboss Chen has extra orbs around her that transform into point-items instead of cherry-items. It could be due to rank. But no, I'm not sure, so I'll just have to assume it'd be due to RNG. And I'm too lazy to spam restarts for something like this.

I have no problems killing every fairy or kedama in the stage portions, but I still fall off you. And then there's the bad execution on the second Alice card, but I can't be arsed to learn a proper route for that.

You win (at least for now), good job. Looking forward to your submissions on the other modes, and the eventual full-game scoring runs, you seemed to learn some routes rather fast.

-

Scrap that, I'll insert a random credit and get lucky at all the right places. Eugh, disgusting. I feel almost sorry for posting this, now. Oh, well. There are many days left and I'm sure things will happen.

#7 - Easy
Seppo Hovi - 1567 - MarisaB - C - 0.260% - Replay (1,037,192,200 points.)

-

While the suicides and bombs have been sort of dumb, it's been nice playing on MarisaB after such a long time. (Has it really been over a year already?) Maybe I'll do an actual scorerun on her. Maybe not.

[Star King]

#7 - Easy
Star King - 1568 - MarisaB - C - 0.371% - Replay

All right, so since the few random missed point items are from stage 3, I memorized how many items I should be at after stage 3. "At least 320 is ideal. If I have 319, that's the same as last time, so I need to beat Seppo's score. If I have less I restart." At stage 3, I messed up a bit and missed a few fairies again, even though I did stage practice right before and got them all. Resulting in having a couple less point items than I should. Sigh. I look at my number of point items after stage 3... 319. Same as last time. "Damn. I'm probably not gonna beat Seppo's score, but let's finish the run anyway."

So I go through the game. Everything's going pretty normally. When I get to the stage 6 midboss, I looked at my point items. I remembered that last time I had exactly 1400 items here, since that's an easy number to remember. This time I had 1401.

I somehow picked up an extra point item in stage 4 or 5. Not sure where (I could probably figure it out but don't feel like checking). I didn't think anything from the last 3 stages were affected by RNG, since I've been getting pretty consistent numbers up until now.

Anyway, that one measly extra point item has given me a new personal best. Hurray? I was hoping to improve it through a better stage 3 performance, but I suppose I'll take it.

[Seppo Hovi]

Took me eight hours of nothing but continuous credits and restarts and quite a bit of swearing to get this. Damn.

#7 - Easy
Seppo Hovi - 1569 - MarisaB - C - 0.290% - Replay

-

Alright, during this time, I think I've cracked the mystery of extra items.

The game has a total amount of 1566 static items that are collectible every time. In addition to that, there's an extra item to each of every four stages that either spawns or does not spawn - whether it spawns or does not is usually indicated by the early portion of the stage. (e.g. 8 items from the opener in the first stage. 85 - or 86, assuming you have got the one in the first stage - items before the midboss in the second stage) The extra items are highly random and don't spawn that often, so getting them all together would be very straining. Then, there's the extra item from Alice's finale. I am lead to believe that the item isn't related to the other extra items, but whether it drops or not is based on the phase of attack you are in. (look at the waves of bullets Alice is straying, as she is about to shoot/just has shot her yellow wave after the large blue wave, finish the attack. It should result in the extra item.) That would lead the total amount of items being 1571.

I dropped one item in stage 3 and didn't get the extra one from stage 3 during this run, so this is still improvable, as seen from the result. However, I'll probably stop pushing this any forward myself, even this was a large test of heart for me, given how 90% of my restarts were due to not getting the luck-based extra items. (instead of mistakes I would be able to blame on myself and fix later on) It was like walking to the local store and buying a lottery ticket until I won, which isn't really what I like to do with Touhou. I felt like I had something to post (assuming you didn't know this yet), so I battled against the urge to just give up and kept inserting credits until I got a suitable run.

Obviously, I could be wrong. There could be something triggering the external item drops, but after trying around with rank (extra bombs / suicides, no grazing and gathering items grayed), item collection orders, fairy killing orders, graze, score and whatever else, I'm lead to believe that they're purely random.

-

Ah, why wasn't it stage practice or something, this looks like a disgusting turn of events, given the randomness.

Good luck if you plan to keep at it.

[Emerald Mint]

#8 - Lunatic

Emerald - 17,664,020 - ReimuA - Stg1 (after Yamame's first spell) - 0.0% - Replay

This is harder than it looks, even on Easy. There should be a way to disable the right directional button, somehow.
I must be crazy to even attempt this challenge.

*edit
>I accidentally chose practice mode without knowing
Nothing lost I guess.
It's merely a bug in the replay. I still start with two lives, it seems.

[Karisa]

The replay uploader misidentifies replays that game over on stage 1 as stage practice replays. I'm guessing it finds stage-by-stage data somewhere and considers anything with only one stage (excluding Extra) to be practice.

Stage 1 practice has a major difference: you start with 9 lives instead of 2.

Edit: Looks like you realized that while I was posting.

[Emerald Mint]

Acknowledged.

So I tried to mess around with DS3 tool and the remapping didn't help, until finally I tried plugging it into a different USB port. These drivers are plain weird.

Nevertheless, I busted my way toward Stage 3 on hard, though it wasn't without cheesy moves. Gonna work on this a bit more.

[Mero]

#8 - Hard
Mero - 158,903,580 - 5 (Orin's penultimate spell) - 0.15% - Replay

Well, I didn't know you could do Terrifying Hypnotism with just vertical movement, Satori left me in a pretty bad shape so in stage 5 I tried to stay centered with the boss and bomb when hit for max damage until I gameovered

I think I'm getting used to this, I even managed an Easy clear (though I had that weird  "-1% slowdown" glitch happen, so I didn't save the replay)

#8 - Easy
Mero - 131,690,090 - C - 0.09% - Replay

Here's the Easy clear
A few notes, I failed to get the safespot on Blazing Wheel (twice) so it was kind of tight at the end, until the last spell, turns out Utsuho's last card is one of the easier ones to do, since the pull drags you back to the center. Because there are less bullets, you can mostly stay under the boss and dodge vertically,  it does require both good hitbox judging and trajectory prediction though...

[Karisa]

I wouldn't consider the -1.$% glitch to disqualify your replay. You've already submitted plenty of replays with 0% slowdown, meaning your computer doesn't have a problem running the game at full speed, so as long as the gameplay looks legitimate, I'd say it's acceptable.

[Mero]

Oh ok, being disqualified wasn't that much of a concern, but I tend to have replays of those runs freeze the game when trying to play them, that's why I didn't save it

[Vanhaomena]

#8 - Lunatic

Vanhaomena - 71,976,020 - 3 (Mt Ooe) - 0.020% - Replay

No-miss stage 1, then I fall apart. Someone who knows how to play SA could get much further. A lot of things are perfectly possible to capture.

[Star King]

#7 - Easy
Star King - 1569 - MarisaB - C - 0.463% - Replay (974,716,810 points)

I couldn't do it, Seppo. ggs you win ;P

#7 - Normal
Star King - 1546 - MarisaB - C - 0.411% - Replay

Yuck. Second attempt ever. I would worked more on Normal and Hard, but Easy took up all my time since Seppo kept besting me (I had a different shot-type in mind for Hard mode...)

[Karisa]

It seems there were several people who were planning to submit runs but didn't get around to it. Is anyone interested in an extension?

(I'm asking this partly because I haven't really been thinking about these challenges lately since I've been rather busy, so I only had one challenge planned for the next round. Feel free to make suggestions, particularly for games like EoSD that I haven't included yet.)

[SomeGuy712x]

#7 - Easy
SomeGuy712x - 1494 - ReimuB - C - 0.054% - Replay

Meh. This is what I got when I gave this a shot around a week ago, and I never bothered trying to improve it, but I may as well submit it now.

@Karisa:
If you do grant an extension, I might try this again to see if I can beat the 1500 point item mark at least.

[Seppo Hovi]

I'd like to do one run on Normal, considering the last-minute submission from Star King came when I was sleeping. My fault really for not preparing for it though.

[Vanhaomena]

If you extend the challenge, I'll try my hand at the lower difficulties of #8. Honestly I was planning to, but the deadline caught me by surprise  :V.

[Star King]

I'd be down for an extension. Sorry for posting last minute Seppo  :derp:

[Seppo Hovi]

Eh, it's okay. Again, I should have readied myself for this, given how I spent a few seconds pondering it myself when I got that Easy run; whether to save the submission to the last second to ensure things. Most likely it's been other reasons for you.

Beggars can't be choosers.

-

I'll submit this anyway. Poor execution and a sloppy playstyle, but I didn't die unlike on the last run.

#7 - Normal
Seppo Hovi - 1560 - MarisaB - C - 0.248% - Replay

-

It was really nice playing with you on easy and you got the stuff down faster than I would've ever believed, and all of the routes were made by you and the other guy, really. You should have won, if things played by justice. They never do, though.

Looking forward to seeing you doing serious scoring in PCB, given you seem to like the game and understand its system.

-

I'm a bit curious in seeing what you had in mind for Hard. SakuyaB would be the obvious choice for the two Alice cards, but I think ReimuB could wing it. Maybe.

[Emerald Mint]

It seems there were several people who were planning to submit runs but didn't get around to it. Is anyone interested in an extension?

(I'm asking this partly because I haven't really been thinking about these challenges lately since I've been rather busy, so I only had one challenge planned for the next round. Feel free to make suggestions, particularly for games like EoSD that I haven't included yet.)

I kinda gave up on making runs for SA, because of my rage getting out of hand a bit. If you feel like making an extension, by all means. I might have another go at challenge #5.1.

[Karisa]

OK, I've added an extra week to the deadline. Have fun.