Author Topic: Touhou Speedruns? (Read 11916 times)

iVAwalys · « **on:** February 23, 2016, 01:04:09 PM »

Touhou speedruns. So far, something I've never seen. (excluding 1. these 2. two videos) I think it should become a thing.

While some might argue that a Touhou speedrun is impossible and dumb, because the game's pacing is fully linear (you can't just skip things), but what about defeating enemies and clearing boss patterns as quickly as possible?
I think it would be really interesting to see how fast you can 1cc, for example, EoSD.
What do you think?

Boomer · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2016, 01:16:27 PM »

I think that it would be pretty interesting. If we were to be going by what I assume your idea is, the easiest one would probably be playing as MarisaB in MoF.

Drake · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2016, 03:10:29 PM »

it would basically just be bombspam though

Monarda · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2016, 04:04:34 PM »

I actually would be inclined to do this, since i naturally try to finish bosses ASAP and i don't play for score, maybe i could try doing something like that after, you know, becoming a proper Touhou player.

Sakurei · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2016, 04:13:19 PM »

Just do a TD score run. It's basically the same in that game.

As for the photo games: Yeah, it's possible to speedrun them but no one (aside from LET) has taken that very seriously as a run. I don't think most players here could achieve a great time without massive time investment either.

Nameschonvergeben · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2016, 04:20:02 PM »

Please no!
Speedruns of shmups are super dumb, because 90 percent are autoscroller and the rest is trying to get lucky on attacks to get a quickkill (ask someone that scores MoF how fun of an idea it is to try to speedkill attacks)

For the photogames it is technically possible but it's still kinda lame in my opinion, because rather than being an extra challenge most of the time killing everything as quickly as possible doesn't even require mastery or basic undestanding of the game. If you want to master a game and add an extra layer of challenge you should really just score

iVAwalys · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2016, 04:53:50 PM »

Quote from: Drake on February 23, 2016, 03:10:29 PM

it would basically just be bombspam though

Well, in the newer generations, perhaps...
Second generation bombs are pretty weak though.

Drake · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2016, 06:43:46 PM »

Bombs in general have a higher DPS than just shooting in every game, and when they are weaker it would have to be a character-specific gimmick that disables shooting (or has literally no damage benefit but costs Power). You'd have to cherry-pick to find bombs that end up with lower DPS. You say second-generation, but MoF bombs are crazy good, SA's are all strictly better besides MarisaC, UFO just has MarisaB that sucks, and TD is trance and bombs galore.

Raikaria · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2016, 07:32:13 PM »

Seems pointless.

Stages have fixed time; so it's only boss battles. Boss battles have 2 types:

Boss dosen't move; there's a fixes time per shottype [Assuming the enemy's shots are not random]
Boss does move; it comes down to RNG

No-one wants a speedrun that is mostly autoscroller and then is decided by boss movement RNG.

iVAwalys · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2016, 07:48:08 PM »

Quote from: Drake on February 23, 2016, 06:43:46 PM

Bombs in general have a higher DPS than just shooting in every game, and when they are weaker it would have to be a character-specific gimmick that disables shooting (or has literally no damage benefit but costs Power). You'd have to cherry-pick to find bombs that end up with lower DPS. You say second-generation, but MoF bombs are crazy good, SA's are all strictly better besides MarisaC, UFO just has MarisaB that sucks, and TD is trance and bombs galore.

What I meant by "second generation" is the second generation of Touhou as a whole, not the second generation of the Windows era. (PC-98 era is the first generation.)
EoSD, PCB and IN all have very weak bombs, aside from some exceptions, but you're mostly right.

Come to think of it now, Touhou speedruns are not that good of an idea as it seemed.

dosboot · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2016, 03:05:55 AM »

I think for standard Touhou games the next best thing you can get to speedruns is a type of challenge that incorporates failure (deaths, basically) as an unavoidable element. Something that you can't just grind out tons of runs to minimize or eliminate. I say this because otherwise your personal best feels too much like your normal-play best (or if you are crazy consistent at getting 1ccs, your normal play with more risky things added).

One idea is that you could race Touhou and have it be very interesting even though a speedrun with the same parameters wouldn't. Say each player starts stage practice and tries to get a perfect Lunatic clear for the chosen stage. The first player to succeed wins the race. You would scale the challenge goal downward from "perfect Lunatic" to fit the capabilities of the players. You want something that is very unlikely to happen on the first try, but easy enough so that half of the players will complete it in 30-90 minutes of attempts.

Another idea would be something like the opposite of a speedrun: a marathon run / survival run. Give yourself 1 credit (or maybe "X lives" would work better) and try to play through the series for as long as possible. You start with the first Touhou game you own. If you clear it, you move on to the next one and keep going. Once you run out of lives you record your time. Longer times are better runs.

It is up to you whether you want to allow deliberate timeouts. (There's probably a good deal of strategy with picking the best timeouts, but just like regular speedruns individual players often decide not to do certain skips or glitches to have more fun with their personal routes.)

Nolegs the Cat · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2016, 05:13:09 AM »

Quote from: dosboot on February 24, 2016, 03:05:55 AM

One idea is that you could race Touhou and have it be very interesting even though a speedrun with the same parameters wouldn't. Say each player starts stage practice and tries to get a perfect Lunatic clear for the chosen stage. The first player to succeed wins the race. You would scale the challenge goal downward from "perfect Lunatic" to fit the capabilities of the players. You want something that is very unlikely to happen on the first try, but easy enough so that half of the players will complete it in 30-90 minutes of attempts.

Touhou races are definitely a thing. Quite fun to watch IMO.

ARF · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2016, 05:27:58 AM »

Speedruns of the main games can be fun, but it is more about optimizing shooting and having nice bomb strategies/timings. It's particularly neat when you need to shotgun a lot, or when your shot requires some technique (think Malicecannon in IN, or SakuyaA/ReimuA in DDC). I have done runs of various games myself, but here are some really nice runs by real superplayers!

LET's Double Spoiler RTA in 31:32 Aya 100% and Hatate 100% along with similar runs of StB on his youtube channel. These are pretty much as good as it gets for 2hu speedrunning, I think.
SA lunatic in 17:59.12
MoF lunatic in 14:34 with 1.82b score
EoSD NMNB extra speedrun in ~7:29
ISC 100% in 37:53 Something not done in this run: you can do a glitch which allows for early hammer (after the 1-1 tutorial scene) but idk if that's allowed or even faster if some other items would require leveling anyways...

Mеа · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2016, 10:09:11 AM »

TD Youmu is probably about the closest you can probably get in the main windows games without it being boring. Maybe even limit yourself to 1 power, no bomb, no trance.

CrystalCreation · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2016, 12:32:03 PM »

An Uwabami Breakers speedrun might be interesting since killing enemies faster in that game does actually shorten the duration of the stage. Additionally you have the chopsticks as a means to attack, giving you more strategy options.

As for bosses you cold experiment if it's faster to bomb, keep your shot power or attempt some fancy chopstick shenanigans.

Sen · « **Reply #15 on:** February 26, 2016, 04:22:25 PM »

I remember when UFO first came out, if your score got to 2billion, the game immediately crashed. Someone here suggested world records should be determined by whoever gets to 2b the fastest :V

Cream Soda · « **Reply #16 on:** February 28, 2016, 04:48:34 PM »

There has been talk of bringing STG to the GDQ marathons, which isn't a huge leap considering that they've expanded from pure speedrunning into puzzle and rhythm games as well. Could the STG scene be revived after 20 years?

Monarda · « **Reply #17 on:** February 28, 2016, 04:53:15 PM »

Quote from: Cream Soda on February 28, 2016, 04:48:34 PM

There has been talk of bringing STG to the GDQ marathons

Really ? I saw the TAS for Ikaruga and i was really impressed, seeing a real person beat one live would be pretty awesome IMO.
And would that mean one person here might go run a game in a GDQ ? If so it would be even better.

Cream Soda · « **Reply #18 on:** February 28, 2016, 04:59:00 PM »

It actually boggles my mind that they would try to introduce STG to a wide audience with Ikaruga, and a TAS of it no less. You can't get much more exact and binary than an Ikaruga TAS; there is no depth in routing or execution, just 100% perfect timings and having all the best puzzle solutions. TAS scoreplays have no business at group demonstrations in my opinion because they are pure theory, and STG is built around execution. What they should be showing off are some of the more impressive Cave or Touhou replays, or even a masterful first loop of one of the classics. I think the issue is that there are simply not enough STG people involved and not enough knowledge or expertise between those people. The person at GDQ who was most interested in featuring STG has since retired from the organization, I believe.

Drake · « **Reply #19 on:** February 29, 2016, 05:05:39 AM »

Personally I find that talk of putting in games that aren't actually speedrun-focused has been going a bit overboard ever since TGM was hugely successful. When people start suggesting to include STGs and RTGs as exhibitions it starts to potentially take spots from people that have worked hard on their runs in a marathon that's already so incredibly cutthroat in selection as it is. It's one thing to want to introduce people to the games/genre and use a large marathon as a platform, but when you start taking spots from people relevant to speedrunning who really deserve it, out of a desire to fill a showcase variety quota or something, I don't think that's acceptable. It's more hijacking the marathon's popularity for your own gain than anything.

Karisa · « **Reply #20 on:** March 01, 2016, 11:57:25 PM »

I was actually asked by some speedrunners once, after the success of the TGM demonstration, whether a Touhou scoring demonstration could be arranged. I don't see it being feasible-- aside from having to find players willing to go to the event, I'm not sure it's possible to have anything close to "marathon-safe strats" for Touhou.

It is possible that StB/DS/ISC might get into a GDQ marathon at some point, though, since the single-scene games are more speedrunnable than the standard games. I think I have no name was considering submitting Double Spoiler in the past? Not sure if it was rejected or if he just wasn't able to go.

(Oh, and TGM is Tetris: The Grand Master, for anyone who doesn't know. It's a set of extremely difficult Tetris arcade games, where as far as I can tell, every 100 levels (level increases simply by placing pieces, not just by clearing lines) can be a significant accomplishment, and speed is already the secondary goal beyond surviving.)

Drake · « **Reply #21 on:** March 02, 2016, 02:20:49 AM »

IHNN was scheduled for AGDQ14 and couldn't make it last minute, apparently.

Picochilla · « **Reply #22 on:** March 09, 2016, 04:24:29 PM »

Quote from: ARF on February 24, 2016, 05:27:58 AM

Speedruns of the main games can be fun, but it is more about optimizing shooting and having nice bomb strategies/timings. It's particularly neat when you need to shotgun a lot, or when your shot requires some technique (think Malicecannon in IN, or SakuyaA/ReimuA in DDC). I have done runs of various games myself, but here are some really nice runs by real superplayers!

LET's Double Spoiler RTA in 31:32 Aya 100% and Hatate 100% along with similar runs of StB on his youtube channel. These are pretty much as good as it gets for 2hu speedrunning, I think.
SA lunatic in 17:59.12
MoF lunatic in 14:34 with 1.82b score
EoSD NMNB extra speedrun in ~7:29
ISC 100% in 37:53 Something not done in this run: you can do a glitch which allows for early hammer (after the 1-1 tutorial scene) but idk if that's allowed or even faster if some other items would require leveling anyways...

Still funny how many people forgetting my PoFV Speedruns on Lunatic ( 9:39 with Medicine (no miss) / 9:59 with Aya (no miss) )

Probaly because nobody is intrested to challangeing a hardcore rng-game

friend · « **Reply #23 on:** March 09, 2016, 08:23:52 PM »

Those are not speedruns. You are just playing the game for a 1cc and calling it a speedrun for some reason.

https://www.twitch.tv/chumlumstg/v/53405364

Here, 55 seconds faster than yours, going by the AI timer

Picochilla · « **Reply #24 on:** March 09, 2016, 09:27:01 PM »

Quote from: friend on March 09, 2016, 08:23:52 PM

Those are not speedruns. You are just playing the game for a 1cc and calling it a speedrun for some reason.

what are u for a weird guy? just creating an acc for that and make a stupid post for that?

Just because it is not the "fastest" time doesnt mean u need to shitpost about that.

Sakurei · « **Reply #25 on:** March 09, 2016, 10:29:49 PM »

His account was registered in 2015 still. So he didn't make a new account just to post that.

Furthermore I have to agree. Your times are just about average and what I would expect for both Medicine and Aya barring the Eiki fights where you get lucky. So yes, those are not speedruns. Those are 1ccs with a timer. Completely different thing.

ElaineSpencer · « **Reply #26 on:** March 13, 2016, 08:20:17 AM »

Main game runs are silly (I occasionally do IN runs, which optimally is pretty much bombspam/malice cannon). It's basically just throwing a timer in front of an RTA and calling it a run, since it's mostly autoscroll.

StB/DS/ISC are a little more speedrun friendly, with the lack of autoscroll, though I've yet to attempt either.

ojisama · « **Reply #27 on:** April 04, 2016, 01:46:29 AM »

The good Touhou games to run :
- Touhou 1 : no autoscroller, pure skill
- Touhou 3 : I don't know if there is a way to manipulate the deaths, but anyway, no autoscroller.
- The fighting Touhou Story Modes
- Touhou 9 : same reason as Touhou 3
- Touhou 9.5, 12.5, 14.3 : no autoscroller, only skill.
- Touhou 10 : Basically, a run with MarisaB, you can do both the story run or the extra run, I play in normal difficulty. The goal is to defeat the mid-bosses and bosses as fast as you can abusing the "3 power" of marisa. you have to have between 4.00 and 4.95 power before a boss, just bomb at the beginning and just stay at 3 power after that.
(my pb on this one is 14:35 in normal difficulty and the WR is 14:14)
- Touhou 13 :
play with youmu as she is the fastest one to kill bosses, and you can use the trance mode on this one, which is basically a free bomb.
and I haven't included yet all the touhou fangames, like megamari.

the touhou autoscrollers speedruns seem pointless, but seriously, I know plenty of games that have plenty of things like that, and everyone is still happy to see a run.
good examples are the final fantasy speedruns, especially the PS1 ones where 1/3 of the runs are just cutscenes, so absolutely 0 gameplay.
and even when there is no cutscenes, final fantasy speedruns generally consists of skipping protagonists dialogs as fast as you can.
while in touhou, there is still gameplay in autoscrollers, and you can still die, and that's more interesting to dodge bullets than just reading text blocs.
mario 3 has some autoscroller stages, sonic 1 game gear has autoscroller stages, star wing and lilat wars are autoscrolls, pok?mon snap is an autoscroller, but all those games are still runned by speedrunners.
if you say "well, a run of touhou 10 consists if 90% of autoscroller and 10% bosses.", that's not entirely true, because the original game generally have around 12-13 minuts of stages and like 15 minuts of bosses.
so, if the 15 minuts became 2 minuts because of speedrun strats, that's because of speedrun strats.
even with MarisaB, if you don't use speedrun strategies, you will never go under 15 minuts in MoF.
and people seem to forget that you can gain time at the mid-bosses in MoF.
I was able recently to have a time of 14:35 and I needed to train for hours before doing such a time.
the hardest part of MoF speedrun is Momiji, If you are not at the right position, at the right time with 4+ power, you are losing precious time. but there are enemies and bullets everywhere when she appears, which is a huge problem.
+ you have to stay unfocus while fighting the bosses, so dodging patterns is way more difficulty, especially against some aya's patterns.

Drake · « **Reply #28 on:** April 04, 2016, 04:20:35 AM »

Those aren't really comparable though. Pokemon Snap is probably the closest, but even that speedrun isn't structured as an autoscroller by nature. The main point of Snap is completion given the limited time available, and making sure not to miss anything and have to go back (in which case the run is basically over). Even then, the Booster and being able to immediately exit a level are important methods of time saving, that further puts pressure on not missing anything. Optimization on that game is by frames at this point.

Similarly, you mention skipping dialogue in games, but that has nothing to do with the core of the runs. None of the other examples of autoscrollers you mention are an integral part to the games, and they're rightfully looked down upon by speedrunners for existing at all.

Meanwhile, "you can still die in the autoscroller" is bad for two reasons. Firstly, dying in Touhou doesn't slow down the run in any way besides losing Power in some games, which makes it even less punishable than other autoscrollers. Secondly, the reason autoscrollers are disliked in the first place is that there's no way to make it faster. Any runners not failing an autoscroller will necessarily have the same times. Meanwhile, making an autoscroller slower (by dying) is one of the single worst ways you could possibly model a speedrun. If Double Spoiler had no speedkill strats and every scene was a set length, that would be a terrible speedrun. You want top-level optimization to be "do it the best you can", not "don't fail".

Lastly, being able to gain time by speedkilling midbosses is still not too big of a deal for the same reason Touhou bosses altogether aren't a big deal for speedrunning: you can just bomb them. And even then, in literally all of these midboss cases, the stage will not go below a particular duration, i.e. there is a cap on how much you could go faster. These periods are just filled by bonus enemies until a specific time has passed and the stage continues.

nyttyn · « **Reply #29 on:** April 04, 2016, 12:20:11 PM »

On the flipside, what can be speedrun, 'official' touhou games wise? Pretty much just, as prior mentioned, StB, DS, and ISC - arguably ISC probably has the highest potential out of all 3, due to the item system giving you a potential for both risky and "safe" strats (unlike the other two where it's pretty binary, but they could still be interesting!) for single segment.

Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler both have SDA precedence for being accepted as speed games, at least.

Arguably all of the fighters could be speedrun as well - but Urban Legend in Limbo, in my opinion, probably has the highest potential due to a structured storyline that provides a tangible "end point" (Reimu's true scenario). Also arguably the only one of the fighters with enough modern interest to attract more than one or two niche runners - which is the current problem with the primary 3 candidates for a touhou speedrun.

Of course the interest issue is also there for the first three and is arguably the biggest obstacle to any serious speedrun community attempt. Someone would have to start up a grassroots community for speedrunning any one (or two or all three) of those games. It could be done! But someone would have to go out of their way to set it up, and probably be okay with the very real possibility there's not enough interest.