Touhou 14 - 東方輝針城 ～ Double Dealing Character released!

[Necrotek]

Slowing the game to a crawl and possibly even rewinding it to get better results is very definitely "cheating".

Legit slowdown is also totally cheating if it's a really significant amount, same thing.

Yes, TAS isn't hacking the game and can be a totally cool category by itself, but it's definitely a form of cheating. If someone TAS'd in a competition would you allow it to count?

Well, that's not what I tried to say. I meant that "exploiting flaws in the game itself" and "doing TAS" are pretty much the same thing. For some reason, Zil considers one of them to be acceptable form of playing while the other to be cheating.

[Zil]

Exploiting flaws instead of doing it the way it was intended is considered cheating.

No, it isn't. There are a million examples of unintended effects/safespots which are universally accepted and utilized by people who play these games competitively.

Actually, TAS doesn't produce any changes in game mechanics and it doesn't violate game memory (though it can be read), it uses only those game flaws which already exist in the game. Almost everything you see in TAS videos is technically possible to be reproduced by a mere human without any external tools.

I never said otherwise.

Well, that's not what I tried to say. I meant that "exploiting flaws in the game itself" and "doing TAS" is the same thing.

No it isn't.

e: TAS means "tool assisted speedrun/scorerun/etc." If something was not done with tool assistance, it isn't a TAS.

[Necrotek]

Let's consider that it was my misunderstanding of what you told. I don't think it' s a good idea to continue this discussion in this topic.

[Seppo Hovi]

Zil you need to stop cheating

Spoiler:

on PoDD

Spoiler:

with BEVENTLAED

.

[Sakurei]

if science gets to understand how it's possible to stuff this much manure into tiny spaces such as a head, we could solve all energy problems worldwide. some of you guys need to explain how you managed to do that.

Almost everything you see in TAS videos is technically possible to be reproduced by a mere human without any external tools.

dude, seriously? a 3b score in PCB lunatic is considered to be on world level, but that TASMAFU replay with MarisaA is over 7b. it half of the shit the guy's pulling was humanly possible, then I sure as hell would like to see a run with those tricks. you should probably do some research before you post claims like that. TAS-runs are there to show the limit of the game, not to be reproduced. I'm surprised zil didn't mention that.

In my opinion ANYTHING that makes you easier to control during Seija's attacks are cheating, like changing your monitor settings, rotating your monitor, rotating your head, changing your controls, Alt-tabbing to fix the screen, even pausing for no reason is unfair (and ZUN seems to agree, "please do not pause the game for any other reason than to stop playing"). Abusing MarisaB's power 3 in MoF is cheating as well.

some yes, some no. Alt-tabbing would probably be ccheating, tilting your head is not. rotating your monitor also sounds like a dumb idea consdiering a lot of people have flat screens. unless I misunderstand something here. and nobody pauses for no reasion. it doesn#t help ou in touhou anyway is the screen blurs and you can't see shit to help you.
also, every WR with MarisaB uses the 3-power glitch. does that mean every marisaB world record is invalidated? are you serious? then I better go grab my world tracked record. you too should do some research before you start saying dumb things.


there are other things that were addressed, but Zil already answered those in a much friendlier manner than I ever could.

[commandercool]

I didn't really care for this soundtrack at first, but I think it just clicked with me somehow, and now I love it. Weird.

[Mordon]

I never said it invalidates the score, it just means he DID abuse the bug to achieve it, and competes with other people who cheat as well. And I don't see any reason why the Seija exploits or even stuff like visible hitbox in EoSD or "true bullet hitbox" patches wouldn't be allowed if the bug is. Just because it's an in game feature? Big deal. And if the game had an internal cheat it would be fine?
I could care less about score, but it's still a laughable abuse in normal play, you kill everything in a matter of seconds and barely have to dodge anything. There's no merit in finishing the game abusing this bug, at least in my opinion, but no one is going to prevent you from using exploits or invalidate your score because of them, plus most other exploits and patches are undetectable anyway.

[Formless God]

I can't decide if I like the midget boss or not. On one hand she is the second post-MoF final boss without shitty nonspells (the other one is Byakuren), on the other hand she has way too many IN garbage that promotes SP abuse (the 3rd spell requires a path; while hitbox, knives, Shingeki and the final attack can be dealt with normally, if you use the same movements the attacks will look the same every time, meaning SP can trivialize them as well.) Add that to the RNG fest in Stage 3 and 4, I think ZUN should just axe SP for good.

Her music is absolutely divine, though.

[M M]

isn't just pausing the game a form of abuse?

Well, I've never seen those completion stats before, never found em.

Anyway, I've been seeing a lot of hate towards the Stage5 boss for 'relying on a gimmick'. But that used to be the norm for Stage 5 bosses, if I recall. Sakuya's time-stop. Youmu's slow-mo, Reisen's whole thing. Although it kind of stopped in MoF->TD, the 'Religion Arc' is over with anyway, so maybe the Gimmick-Stage 5 Bosses are back?

I think that the old silly things done to illustrate the character's special power are way more innocent. What I really disliked about it is having to practice more on her than on the last boss, not because of the danmaku, but just because the controls are reversed.


Question: Am I completely missing the point, or do Sakuya B, when you shoot exactly where the knives meet, does about the same damage as Sakuya A?

On Sukuna...

Spoiler:

Is she the first barefoot character in the series?

[Sagus]

On Sukuna...

Spoiler:

Is she the first barefoot character in the series?

Nope. Minoriko came before her. Benben and Yatsuhashi are also barefoot.

[Limian]

Cirno is also barefoot in DDC, and so is Tewi allllll the way back in IN.

[Serela]

Question: Am I completely missing the point, or do Sakuya B, when you shoot exactly where the knives meet, does about the same damage as Sakuya A?

She does no extra damage by being close to the boss. Instead, SakuyaB's special shot ability is to steal PIV from enemies; and if you're closer, she steals more.

SakuyaB is pretty much purely a scoring shot. Her bomb's trait is to convert bullets into a much larger amount of PIV then other bombs, and it does no damage.

MarisaA, however, really does do extra damage by shooting up close. (MariB's special power is making enemies drop power with her focus shot, and Reimu's specials are just "this shot is really good, right?", rofl. She has a slightly smaller hitbox though and ReimuA is a super good shot so she's already set)

Oh yeah. Marisa has a slightly lower auto-collect line (which actually matters for once, and makes me mess up trying to just barely PoC with other characters sometimes) and Sakuya makes items fall a little slower (also more relevant then usual)

[Raikaria]

Zombie Fairies on SA? Curvy Lasers on UFO? Those count as gimmick, more or less.

No, those are not really gimmicks. Especially the Curvy Lasers. LETTY uses them.

Speaking of other characters using stuff:

Sakuya A's delayed shots are not knives. They're SWORDS. I just noticed that, having not played the demo. [I got B and A mixed up a second ago :V]

[Monkeypro257]

Speaking of other characters using stuff:

Sakuya A's delayed shots are not knives. They're SWORDS. I just noticed that, having not played the demo. [I got B and A mixed up a second ago :V]

I was wondering about that, but the sword she is carrying still looks like a knife. :p

[PhantomSong]

No, those are not really gimmicks. Especially the Curvy Lasers. LETTY uses them.

Oh on the contrary, they are. Who else uses Zombie Fairies besides Rin? No one. Who fully abuses curvy as an attack rather than conjunction to the bullets besides Shou? No one. (Well maybe Nazrin, but regardless)

Sakuya A's delayed shots are not knives. They're SWORDS. I just noticed that, having not played the demo. [I got B and A mixed up a second ago :V]

Uh, no. They're knives.

[Formless God]

Who else uses Zombie Fairies besides Rin? No one.

Ever played Imperishable Night?
Zombie fairies are nothing but familiars.

[Necrotek]

dude, seriously? a 3b score in PCB lunatic is considered to be on world level, but that TASMAFU replay with MarisaA is over 7b. it half of the shit the guy's pulling was humanly possible, then I sure as hell would like to see a run with those tricks. you should probably do some research before you post claims like that. TAS-runs are there to show the limit of the game, not to be reproduced. I'm surprised zil didn't mention that.

It seems I can't leave this discussion without explaining my point of view properly.
"Almost everything you see in TAS videos is technically possible to be reproduced by a mere human without any external tools." The main word is technically. When I say technically, I mean that there is a theoretical possibility to be reproduced. For example, make a pacifist Lunatic run is technically possible, the game doesn't make it impossible. On the other hand, flying through lasers, one-hit killing shots, infinite numbers of lives of bombs etc - all of them are technically impossible without modifying the game memory or engine (if such flaws don't exist in the game). When Zil told "TAS's uses external tools to cheat at the game", I don't know if he meant it in a way I understood it but I read it as such external tools which modify the game and voilate game mechanics (but game rules), and such things can't be reproduced by a human without those tools. If you think about it,  slowing down, loading, memory reading (not writing) - all of them make the game easier but they don't change the game. The fact that TAS replays can be played at any computer means that such replays are still technically valid because replays are free of hacks; the replay of the run where the player tried to change game mechanics would just desynchronize the game if you try to play it elsewhere.
Anyway, I doubt that that much people are interested in this discussion to talk about it here. If there is anyone who wants to discuss it, feel free to PM me. Yeah, I may be wrong about my point of view but still, let's discuss it somewhere else to not disturb other people.

[Drake]

the definition and context of "valid" being used is what's important here

[SeasideCharizard]

dude, seriously? a 3b score in PCB lunatic is considered to be on world level, but that TASMAFU replay with MarisaA is over 7b. it half of the shit the guy's pulling was humanly possible, then I sure as hell would like to see a run with those tricks. you should probably do some research before you post claims like that. TAS-runs are there to show the limit of the game, not to be reproduced. I'm surprised zil didn't mention that.

Well, theoretically. Like if you're superspeed-reflex-godlike-dexterity Akyuu remembering every last method you've learned to replicate the TAS you've watched because if you don't you'll never-ever-ever beat Kaguya in speedrunning her own boss fight, it'd be "humanly possible". Theoretically.

...I don't even know why I explained it that way. Okay then.

Ever played Imperishable Night?
Zombie fairies are nothing but familiars.

nothing but annoying familiars with a ton of uses that tend to end up everywhere over the screen like big stationary bullets and revive every time you kill them sometimes leaving resurrection bullets for you to deal with that are hardly orthodox whatsoever, yes

and im pretty sure we made it clear never to compare letty to shou
one of them is pure evil and the other one gets hay fever a lot
PURE EVIL

On other note, I was beaten to the chase by a ninja Vectorfish.

[ark]

v1.00b patch released, fixing the Lunatic stage 4 crash bug, among other things. http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th14dl.html

[Formless God]

big stationary bullets
resurrection bullets

speak english

v1.00b patch released, fixing the Lunatic stage 4 crash bug, among other things. http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th14dl.html

JAIMERRRRRRRRRRRRS

EDIT: The knifestream attack gets the bowl in Practice. Alt+Tab no longer works for Seija. Hitbox spell still retarded. I'm surprised he actually gave Sukuner the bowl though. I think he'll fix the hitbox in the next patch if we bug him enough.

YEAH GOOD LUCK WITH THOSE NON-SPELLS

[SeasideCharizard]

speak english

Things with big hitboxes
Pretending to be the Hourai forest phoenix person

I think part of that was shmup and Japanese though

[BT]

The knifestream attack gets the bowl in Practice.

ALL MY HARD WORK WHY

[Quukii]

I guess I'll just sum up what I think about the game.

What I like:
-Going to the POC for resource harvesting is fun. It reminds me of the UFO system a bit in that you have to work actively to accumulate resources.
-Nice characters. 
-Mostly fun stage sections and bosses.
-Overall great music (Not a big fan of the stage 4 songs, but everything else seems quite good).

Meh:
-5th boss's gimmick is interesting but annoying to play.
-So-so final boss. Doesn't hold a candle compared to other bosses such as Byakuren or Kanako, or actually any last boss besides Miko, whose fight I'm not much of a fan of either.
-Also, the 6th's boss's attack where your character's hitbox grows huge is just kind of...silly and annoying, I guess?
-Bullet patterns somewhat not as nice looking compared to that of earlier games.

DDC seems like a pretty solid entry in the series overall. I like it significantly more than Ten Desires, at least.

[Clarste]

Oh on the contrary, they are. Who else uses Zombie Fairies besides Rin? No one. Who fully abuses curvy as an attack rather than conjunction to the bullets besides Shou? No one. (Well maybe Nazrin, but regardless)

Zombie fairies are on the borderline and I'd call them a gimmick (the gimmick being that they come back to life on their own unlike familiars), but Shou's lasers are just a bullet type. Heck, Byakuren uses them in the same game. Are you going to say knives are Sakuya's gimmick in EoSD?

[Tengukami]

If I'm not mistaken, a "gimmick" is a gameplay aspect one dislikes. Otherwise, it's a "feature".

[cuc]

- Fixed Lunatic Stage 4 crash
- Fixed invisible bullets from Stage 3 boss
- Stage 5 boss special effect can no longer be negated by alt-tabbing
- Fixed inconsistency from main game in some Spell Practice cards
- Other fixes

[Zakari]

TH14 Epilogue


^
for the lulz and not canon.

[Tengukami]

TH14 Epilogue

I feel stupid for asking, but is this an actual shot of an ending? If so, you need to remove this image (or at least just link to it).

Again, if this is a fake, my apologies.

Unless ZUN is using stock vector art of spotlights and in-game portraits for endings now, yes, I am an idiot.

[Necrotek]

It's a fake. You can reserve search the image to find the same background.