Karisa's Atypical Touhou Challenges (on hold again)

[Emerald Mint]

[attach=1]


#13 - Lunatic
Emerald - 861,678,060 - 6 (Final Spellcard) - Reimu - 0.0% - Replay

#13 - Easy
Emerald - 558,08,5010 - C (8/9) - Reimu - 0.0% - Replay

I have considered using other characters for this challenge. Youmu is difficult to justify because her Trance attack is quite short ranged and is hard to control, but at the same time her focus charge attack is handy. Sanae gain recharge Trance quickly, though her shots are awkward. Marisa seems like a good alternative I could try - powerful shots, with only faster speed and her slow moving bomb that might make things interesting.

-Update-
I feel a decent scoring route can be pulled out of this one and Marisa looks like the best candidate, based on findings on Easy.
There is a total of 47 life fragments on Easy/Normal. 83 is required, which means at least 42 must be collected while in Trance. It is also possible to only collect 36, while gathering 11 normally, so it is necessary to keep track of the number of fragments short. I've not made any checks on the bomb fragments yet.
As such, it is possible to ignore fragment trance gain in favour of raising the point value in the early stages. A few bombs can be thrown for scoring or building spirit gauge, provided that enough will be left at the end to reach 9.
It's a little complicated to grasp the whole picture and analyze the best places to bomb. I estimate 700-750 million could be possible on Easy.

[Emerald Mint]

I'm taking a break from Easy mode scoring for this challenge. It's very demanding and I'm derping at random parts of the game, making me fail to reach 8/9.
So I decided to try Lunatic once again. Glad I've accomplished a clear.

#13 - Lunatic
Emerald - 955,885,110 - C (1/1) - Reimu - 0.12% - Replay

I end up missing some deathbomb/deathtrance moments easily and some patterns/cards can get overwhelming for me, as a non-Lunatic player. I was so close on #102 - Divine Light "Honour the Avoidance of Defiance".

[Oh]

#13 - Lunatic
NonNonBiyoriIsTheBestAnimeThisSeason - 711,421,330 - C (2/0) - Reimu - 0.210% - http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=31127

Cue running into bullets and forgetting trance doesn't give invincibility.

[Emerald Mint]

#13 - Extra
Emerald - 349,608,190 - C (5/1) - Reimu - 0.07% - Replay

No deaths and I managed to gain exactly enough tranced fragments for the 3rd extend (You'll notice why I bombed instead of tranced on her transformation spell). I still bomb a fair few times, but I'm handling things better than before.

[Emerald Mint]

Been a little busy busy, hence the less frequent submissions.

#13 - Normal
Emerald - 769,679,890 - C (8/8) - Reimu - 0.120% - Replay

Lost a bomb to the last spell, but otherwise handled credibly all the way through.

#13 - Lunatic
Emerald - 862,906,320 - C (4/0) - Reimu - 0.000% - Replay

4 miss, one caused by crashing into a disappearing bullet before Miko's second, costing me 2 bombs. I could probably reach 5 otherwise. Hefty improvement over the first Lunatic submission.

Overyall, I feel this mode and challenge is more attractive to play than vanilla 10D. Maybe it's a notch or two easier, but mainly because it's encouraged me to dodge better and become more accustomed to the bullets and patterns, rather than the tactical laziness I use in an ordinary run.

[ARF]

#13 - Lunatic
ARF - 863,676,170 - C (2/0) - Reimu - 0.020% - Replay

First Lunatic 1cc of TD ever! TD arrange feels like much more like SA to me, so it's definitely easier than vanilla, but I'm still pretty happy mainly because of all these superplay moments, especially during stage 6 cash-in, I secured my ebin scorelead right there (if only score mattered ;___;).

[Emerald Mint]

Nicely executed clear.
I think I could work on some proper score runs some day, though the trance routes feel a lot different compared to vanilla.

Not sure what to suggest for the next challenges and we seem to be having little competition as of late. I think people are just busy, seeing it's christmas or other things have come up.
Also, there seems to be a mistake on the rankings. I have 4 lives left in my current run, so I should be above.

[Oh]

Not sure what to suggest for the next challenges and we seem to be having little competition as of late. I think people are just busy, seeing it's christmas or other things have come up.

You're too good. I can't beat your runs so I didn't submit anything after that one loonie submission.

[Karisa]

Also, there seems to be a mistake on the rankings. I have 4 lives left in my current run, so I should be above.

Sorry, I'm too used to sorting by score. It's fixed now.

Regarding scoring in this patch: it's planned for a future round if these challenges last long enough, but I'm trying to avoid reusing goals/concepts (and games for that matter) for at least 2-3 rounds after any given challenge.

As for the next round: I'm busy with college again-- the holidays have nothing to do with it. Actually, I think the rounds should be on a better schedule once it gets to be mid-December, since that's when the semester ends for me.

[Emerald Mint]

Regarding scoring in this patch: it's planned for a future round if these challenges last long enough, but I'm trying to avoid reusing goals/concepts (and games for that matter) for at least 2-3 rounds after any given challenge.

As for the next round: I'm busy with college again-- the holidays have nothing to do with it. Actually, I think the rounds should be on a better schedule once it gets to be mid-December, since that's when the semester ends for me.

alrighty. Nice to know.
I wouldn't mind an extension like in the previous round, until you're ready.

[Karisa]

If I haven't yet posted a new round for whatever reason, you can take it as an implied extension (intentional or not).

[Shimatora]

Not sure what to suggest for the next challenges and we seem to be having little competition as of late. I think people are just busy, seeing it's christmas or other things have come up.

Participation has been slim even since Sapz was hosting the tournaments, it's nothing new haha. As Denpa expressed, I think it's the nature of the challenges for people not to post their score if it's not number one, unfortunately.

[Karisa]

One theory with Sapz's tournaments was that calling them a less competitive term like "challenges" instead of "tournaments" (and/or having them run by people who were more active posters in HME) would encourage more participation, but I don't think that actually had much effect.

I wonder if there'd be a better way to structure this to encourage more entries... remove the ranking, perhaps? Except I think the way people can compete for the best submission is interesting, and the problem might still happen anyway if people see better entries posted before them. Is there any way to not let better submissions discourage others? Not sure. It seems to happen in the main scoreboards too...

I think the PCB point item round and both the low graze rounds had fairly high participation, though. Was there something different about those?

[Shimatora]

I think the PCB point item round and both the low graze rounds had fairly high participation, though. Was there something different about those?

Oddball rounds like those that require more gimmicky play (bombing a lot, avoiding bullets) avoid people being really good at the stuff before hand.

Spoiler:

Unless some oddball has already tried these. :V

Rounds tend to get more participation if there's less inclination towards the person who's played the most, or has the most experience, will win. Basically, something new - which is hard to achieve in the Touhou games without a new game coming out. Perhaps make some flash game rounds?

[Karisa]

Oddball rounds like those that require more gimmicky play (bombing a lot, avoiding bullets) avoid people being really good at the stuff before hand.

Spoiler:

Unless some oddball has already tried these. :V

Rounds tend to get more participation if there's less inclination towards the person who's played the most, or has the most experience, will win. Basically, something new - which is hard to achieve in the Touhou games without a new game coming out. Perhaps make some flash game rounds?

I don't see how that makes those particular rounds different, since all of the challenges in this thread are intended to be like that... well, this round's TD arrange is actually fairly typical gameplay, but it didn't seem to be a very well-known patch. I'd be surprised if people had already tried SA without moving right, MoF constant focus, or nearly any of the others, though.

[Mino ☆]

So I'm assuming since the next round isn't posted that this entry is still valid? Regardless, I'm glad I was able to get a run to submit. I'm not happy about the three stupid deaths, but oh well. It was all fun and good.

#13 - Lunatic
Mino - 631,160,680 - C (4/1) - Reimu - 1.010% - Replay

[Oh]

Nice
Epic
I like it

[Karisa]

The next round has been posted.

Also, I've included the note about implied extensions in the first post.


Results archive:

#15 - GFW spell captures, gold medals count triple

- Capture as many spells as you can in GFW!
- Go for a gold medal if you can! Gold medals count triple, meaning 2 gold 1 silver is equivalent to 7 silver.
- All difficulties allowed, including Extra.
- Routes A2 and C2 allowed for non-Extra, and will be ranked separately.

Format:
Challenge number - Difficulty - Route
Player - Gold/Silver medals - Score - Stage - Slowdown - Replay

Example:
#15 - Normal - C2
Sample - 1/7 - 20,000,000 - C - 0.1% - Replay

Rankings:
Easy A2
Zil - 10/1 - 23,946,840 - C - 0.010% - Replay
SomeGuy712x - 9/2 - 24,401,420 - C - 0.000% - Replay
ARF - 9/2 - 20,444,690 - C - 0.0% - Replay
Emerald - 8/1 - 20,971,490 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Normal A2
Zil - 7/2 - 37,246,000 - C - 0.010% - Replay

Hard A2
ARF - 1/4 - 39,146,890 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Lunatic A2
chum - 0/10 - 70,801,310 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Easy C2
SomeGuy712x - 10/1 - 26,574,180 - 0.060% - Replay
ARF - 10/0 - 21,441,550 - C - 0.0% -  Replay

Extra
Zil - 5/3 - 21,368,380 - 1 - 0.140% - Replay

#16 - IN survival above the PoC

- Survive as far as you can in IN! You must always remain above the item auto-collect line when possible. (Note: since the line isn't obvious, going slightly below the line will not disqualify you, but try not to do that deliberately.)
- At the start of a new stage or if you die, keep moving upward until you're above the PoC again. Diagonal movement during this time is allowed, but not horizontal or downward movement.
- Youmu's bomb (which temporarily forces you to move below the PoC) is allowed.
- All shot types allowed.
- All difficulties allowed, including Extra.

Format:
Challenge number - Difficulty
Player - Score - Stage (progress*) - Shot type - Slowdown - Replay
*if not a clear, something that indicates how much progress you've made within the stage

Example:
#16 - Easy
Sample - 200,000,000 - 5 (Tewi's first phase) - Yukari - 0.097% - Replay

Rankings:
Easy
SomeGuy712x - 217,837,290 - 4 (a little bit after the midboss fight) - Reimu & Yukari - 0.084% - Replay
S - 83,541,660 - 3 (nospell before #44 Land Sign "Three Sacred Treasures - Sword") - Reimu & Yukari - 0.098% - Replay
Fuyuumi - 5545330 - 1 (1st Wriggle's spellcard) - Reimu & Yukari - 0.000% - Replay

Deadline: Sunday, December 15

[ARF]

#15 - Easy - A2
ARF - 9/2 - 20,444,690 - C - 0.0% - Replay

My strat was to get high shot power asap for maximum ownage. Using ice on the last spell was a mistake, I expected it to be really hard and stuff, my ice usage sucked anyway. Oh well.

[SomeGuy712x]

#15 - Easy - A1
SomeGuy712x - 11/0 - 21,039,030 - C - 0.030% - Replay

Decided to give this a try, and after one warm-up run (which had several stupid mistakes) to get used to Great Fairy Wars again, I achieved this. I managed to get every gold medal, and although I died once on a non-spell during the final bosses, I managed to get my motivation back up to 1000% by the time I finished!

(Yo, spell checker... "Warm-up" is a real word.)

[Emerald Mint]

#15 - Easy - C2
Emerald - 8/1 - 20,971,490 - C - 0.0% - Replay

2 spells on the final stage were missed. That second miss was probably one of those smaller bullets I ended up not seeing heading towards me.
That final spell was a chore to dodge and was close to messing up.

[SomeGuy712x]

Argh! I just had a halfway-decent run of A2 (not perfect though, as it was inferior to ARF's due to me getting hit on the final spell), but the game labelled my replay as C2 due to a glitch that I forgot existed, and whenever I try to view that replay, the game crashes! Should I post that replay here anyway?

Also, my A1 score hasn't been listed in the rankings yet.

Oh, and I meant to ask earlier: Why are A2 and C2 ranked separately? Is it because they're easier/harder than the other routes? Or higher/lower scoring?

[I have no name]

Because the challenge says that only A-2 and C-2 are allowed. (and extra).  I think I might go for an 11/0 on route C2...

edit: I should be able to get a 10/1 without too much difficulty, a first test run netted 8/0 with a dumb death to Stage 2 Spell 3 and the midboss spell in Stage 3 because I tried speedkilling it.  I'll see what I can do with A2, though I suspect I'll have to ice one of the spells...

[SomeGuy712x]

@I have no name:
ARGH!!! I misunderstood the challenge rules! That means the 11/0 I got on A1 was wasted effort as far as this challenge goes...

What about my glitched A2 replay? Should I still post that here?

[Karisa]

I don't see a point in posting a glitched replay. You can still post the entry without a replay, though, as long as it's not first place.

Also, if anyone else would prefer route A1 to be included, I could add it too. I know it's a popular route.

[SomeGuy712x]

@Karisa:
Meh, forget about the glitched replay. I'll just keep retrying A2 until I do better than I previously did on it. But, if you're wondering, here's how I did on the run that got glitched:

#15 - Easy - A2
SomeGuy712x - 8/2 - 21,367,560 - 0.0% - No replay due to glitch
(The one spell I failed was the final one. And because of that failure, ARF places higher than this.)

And yes, please include A1, so that my previous effort isn't wasted.

[Zil]

#15 - Normal - A2
Zil - 7/2 - 37,246,000 - C - 0.010% - Replay

Failed 3 fairies' first spell and final spell. Silvers were Sunny's first and 3 fairies' third. Milking was sub-optimal. But I got a gold Diamond Ring!

About A1 - I'm generally of the opinion that fewer categories are better for these things, to keep the activity more focused. I guess it's your call whether or not to add it though. Personally I'm probably just going to stick to A2 and maybe Extra.

#15 - Extra
Zil - 5/3 - 21,368,380 - game over - 0.140% - Replay

kusoplay. Ideal for me would be 6/4.

[Zil]

#15 - Easy - A2
Zil - 10/1 - 23,946,840 - C - 0.010% - Replay

You could probably gold the third spell by sneaking around the side but I'm not going to go that far.

@Karisa: I think you put my Normal score with the Easy ones.

[ARF]

#15 - Hard - A2
ARF - 1/4 - 39,146,890 - C - 0.0% - Replay

First hard 1cc in this game :3 I tried a bit too hard for gold and ended up failing one of the easiest cards, and I got close to losing the run several times s:

#15 - Easy - C2
ARF - 10/0 - 21,441,550 - C - 0.0% -  Replay

Wow sunburst is pretty brutal, I'll have to watch a replay to learn how to ice it for a capture even. Almost slipped on the final attack, didn't see a yellow bullet and it came really close to me s: but I'm feeling alright with this result at least.

[Fuyuumi]

#16 - Easy
Fuyuumi - 5545330 - 1 (1st Wriggle's spellcard) - Reimu & Yukari - 0.000% - Replay


Played on a joypad, lame as hell, I feel bad...