What gameplay mechanics do you wish to see in Touhou 15?

[Mino ☆]

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.

[Elysia]

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.

[Star King]

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.

[ElDestructoe]

Bombing.

[Jirachi]

Phantasmagoria.

[Oh]

Bombing.

Dropping PiV

[Mero]

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

[TresserT]

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.

[Drake]

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.

[Mero]

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)

[KaiserKnuckle]

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)

[Drake]

Rank doesn't affect score in those games besides in secondary ways, no.
And do you mean if rank did work as a multiplier?

[KaiserKnuckle]

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.

[Emerald Mint]

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.

[Zil]

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.

[?q]

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.

[Tengukami]

1. Photography
2. Route-splitting
3. Special abilities based on the PC, a la SA.

[commandercool]

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.

[nicholashin]

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.

[Ghaleon]

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.

[Inadequate]

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.

[?q]

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.

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...)

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

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).

[Tengukami]

I'd like this:

Wow. I would play the hell out of this.

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

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).

[KaiserKnuckle]

I'd like this:

Same with Ammy here, this sounds awesome.

[ZXNova]

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.

[chirpy13]

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 :>

[Andrew]

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.

[chirpy13]

Speaking of overdrive spells, I want to see overdrive as an actual difficulty.