~Hakurei Shrine~ > Rika and Nitori's Garage Experiments
My first script : The Terror of the Underworld
Chronojet ⚙ Dragon:
Hi, played this.
General notes before I get into the danmaku.
* The reason why the boss moving elsewhere to spice things up works is because there are plenty of chances for the player to spot and follow them. Here, I'm not only trying to just stay alive, but I'm not guaranteed to guess correctly where the boss is since the things that show their location don't quite allow you to pinpoint it exactly among constant fire. So the bulk of the damage from player shots isn't actually being done.
* Most of the attacks have super high life. For reference in Touhou, I'm not playing any one nonspell for more than 10 seconds-ish, maybe 20 if we're talking exceptions like Kanako's and Remilia's disappearance ones. Here, I'm taking up to 30 just on the first nonspell (38 actually). Most of this was me trying to just catch up to the boss (See previous note.)
EDIT after getting to the end via illegitimate methods: I concluded that it's not just the constant movement, but the damage rate is just made so that you can't deal much damage to the boss anyway. on the final™ spell (™ because I'll call the true last spell the bonus spell from here on out), I'm not sure how long you gave the player, but I was sitting on infinite invincibility (I might as well give myself that while I edited the script to be able to even pass the first survival) and noticed a really long period of the timer staying at 99 secs and ended 46 secs. Please take note of this.
* This one isn't on you assuming you didn't make the player, but there's a slight bug with deathbombing where I would lose a life anyway even though it seems like I was able to use a spell. I can't really replicate this reliably, but I'm hoping you could test it out somehow?
* The first spell's kind of the most dependent on the boss's movement. If you're not using ReimuC it's kind of disheartening to be the opener. With the density of the mesh as it already is, it's the one thing that you probably don't want making even more difficult by adding random movement.
* Both the triangle shape spells are super oppressive (still? I only tried the most recent version, so I'm not sure how hard it was before). I'm getting the feeling especially on the second one that the shots actually catch you if you try to veer, especially the green/blue ones. Usually I'm a-okay with chasing spells but I wonder what's up this time... It might be because of the speed. If so, having them accelerate from zero velocity may be a nice fix. It could also be because of the delay clouds covering the player up. If so, summon hitbox-less familiars on the player instead, so the player still knows to get out of the way, but you're still free to fire bullets without so much delay. You'd get the best of both worlds.
The beginning of the survival spell is where I can get up to, no matter what I do. If you could make a version for players used to Lunatic and below, that would be great. It's Extra/Phantasm-length, but Phantasm boss fights are on a level of difficulty between Hard and Lunatic. This begins on Hard, jumps up to Lunatic by the first survival and pushes the borders between Lunatic and whatever's beyond by a fair amount all the while afterward.
Anyway, the rest of the commentary is done based on playthroughs starting from the first survival.
* The first survival seems to clump up between waves in the transition between the first and second waves. You might want to address that. Otherwise it's good™, I think. Maybe instead of speeding it up so much towards the end, something like a second pattern could be layered on instead? I'll leave that up to you to decide.
* Junkolasers™ are a biiiig no from me. I really can't trust the lasers not always snipe no matter where I happen to stand (really, it happens every wave...) nor can I trust them to not block off paths "conveniently". Curvy lasers can probably be made fun, but if they're moving fast enough to effectively be straight lasers without delay, that's not the way to go.
* Having three four five spells of pretty much randomness is... well, it does leave something to be desired, methinks. If you really want to keep all of them, you might want to try putting some sort of pattern to them or move them around at the very least.
The last of which gives the worst time since it's way too dense to even be following the boss anymore (see first point). With the one with just the fountain, it's more or less manageable, though the final™ spell simply encourages sitting in one place and timing out the entire spell.
* This is me being super nitpicky but I think you might want to guide the player in the intro of the bonus spell so that they don't die to the first wave.
I was on full invincibility as mentioned before, but if I noticed something, I definitely noticed that I would have died right then and there. Super oof to me, but I'd like to suggest something like a line of butterflies aimed away from the player, expanding out until the player's shepherded into the safe area.
All in all, atmosphere is nice, but the balancing requires urgent attention. Hope to see an update and more content from you.
Kinghidrorah:
OK, I've finished the script (by illegitimate methods as well, since I couldn't get to the spell after the first suvrival with only 5 lives). Before I say anything else, I wanted to mention that I really appreciated the choice of music and the backgrounds were also fitting and did not impede player view of the bullets. Also, I tried the script with ReimuA (a player which I dislike since her deathbombing is bugged as mentioned above and she becomes damageable after bombing before being able to bomb again, which is nonsense) and ReimuB (I quickly abandoned since whoever designed her shot thought that it was a good idea to block out enemy projectiles with the focused mode) and ReimuC (who has homing attacks, making some of this script's parts easier). I think I should mention that I only started playing bullet-hell 6 months ago and so can only barely survive in Lunatic in some of the easier Touhou games (eg 7 and 8), and so my lack of skill may be the problem for some parts of the script. However, overall it left a very sour taste in my mouth.
For starters, everything that uses butterfly bullets in some relatively dense way should probably be nerfed. Those hitboxes are nonsense and I believe the person who made the shotsheet just went a little crazy on them. It is possible to make them smaller yourself, so I strongly recommend that you do it. Most attacks with butterfly bullets killed me and in general, I felt as though it wasn't my fault: this is NOT a good feeling since it happens all the time. I'll go briefly over the first half of the script since I talked about it before, but I have now played the new version.
The first non is OK, but cheapshots because of the aforementioned problem. Moving on.
The first spell: yes, you've made the bullets slower, but seriously, I dislike it now, since it doesn't make it fairer. The magic circle is impossible to keep track of (unless you lower the bullets's alpha, which I suggest doing) and so the RANDOM movement of the boss feels extremely unfair. The rice bullets are notorious for having huge hitboxes as well, so you really need to do something about this.
The second spell: my views on that one haven't changed, I really like this pattern and it feels fair at all times.
Second spell: has this been nerfed? It feels doable now. It's still a bunch of random dodging with butterfly bullets though ..
Promising death : I like this one! It always feels as though we have time to react, since the delay feels spot on.
Holy trinities : Nope, still strongly dislike this one. Maybe it should be placed at a later space, be given more health, start slow and crank things up progressively. As is right now, it's just frustrating in my opinion.
Survival: Ugh, so many butterfly bullets. Because of cheapshots, I feel as though the last phase is ironically the easiest: you just have to react fast, but you have plenty of room to pass through the lines.
Next nonspell: is this exactly the same as the first non, or is it faster? I can't tell.
Next spell: This is a superb spell visually, but is it possible to predict those lasers's movement? They are super-fast and feel undodgeable. So I just bombed my way through. Also, this may have been fixed but I was actually killed by some (0,0) spawing in the previous version.
Next spell: I personally cannot do it, but I think it's fair. I don't have much to say about it, it's OK.
Melting point of death: NOW you're talking. This is a really nice spell to look at and dodge: probably my favourite of the whole lot.
Fountain spell: I was suspicious right until the end, since it seemed so much easier than everything else. But there were no nasty surprises, that's just the way it was. There isn't too much going on here.
Death en masse: this is really good as well. I feel as though the lasers could spawn slightly higher up to allow the player more freedom of movement, but otherwise I think that it is a fun spell that gets more complex over time: my favourite type. This is my second favourite spell.
Spiral spell: You know where I'm going with this one. Crossing the butterfly spirals is suicide. I actually recorded a replay of this spell and was flabbergasted by the ease with which you could die because of that eternal hitbox issue.
Last spell: agan, some kind of indication on the boss's position would be useful. The magic circle is again rendered invisible by the end of the attack and the boss doesn't like to stay in the middle of the screen either, which means that playing with a non-homing shot is not fun. But the arrowheads hit detection seem reasonable and just for that reason, this feels like one of the easiest spells in the script.
So those were my thoughts. I'm very sorry that I couldn't be more praiseful since I know how proud you must feel about completing this (and well you should be) but here my problem is that fundamentally, I just didn't have a lot of fun especially with the first half of the script. I felt quite frustrated all in all. I hope you understand.
I will give this one another shot if you apply some of the changes that I suggested (and practically required for the butterfly bullets) but until then, I don't quite feel like it.
Kinghidrorah:
Why did the 8 come out as an emoji in my previous answer?
Mr.Ownage:
Hey there,
First off, it took me quite some time to reply since my day today was (and still is) pretty busy. Apologies for that.
Other than that, I sincerely thank both of you for taking the time to play and provide feedback. Both of these things really mean a lot!
I myself have also had my share of deaths due to weird butterfly hitbox shenangians even post-update. It's a really, really weird issue... I'll definitely try to address it as soon as I can.
It would seem like there's still misconceptions regarding the first and last (non-bonus, but Elysium) spells. Those are (or at least, supposed to be) designed in a way that the first part of the spells are about doing as much damage as possible (Elysium even more so), and then spending the rest of the time on survival and avoidance (attacking using homing/spreadshots, hence why Reimu A is recommended for the script : her unfocused shots are homing. Though even Reimu-B has spreadshots, and Reimu-C's focused shots are also homing). For Constriction Cannon, try to simply focus on being between the lines, and firing unfocused whenever possible. For Elysium, pointblank the boss as much as possible early on, then focus on either dodging between the bullets to damage the boss more or use homing/spreadshots.
Please try both spells with the mentioned tricks, and see if that helps anything.
For King :
-I can understand if the script turned out to be not as fun or enjoyable as you've hoped to be. There's no need to feel bad about honest feedback, I've read it (along with Chronojet's) and acknowledged it. Before I go about making any grand changes, though, I'll share my thoughts, views/intentions (how some spells were supposed to be) below :
-Generally, going for speedkills/ending spells as fast as possible is pretty risky in most attacks, espicially the first nonspell or the second spell. Lean more towards safety on a "damage-safety" scale.
-The lasers in Bloom always land in the same places. Sometimes, the rate at which they fire can differ, but otherwise they always follow the same route. I do understand your concerns about their speed, though, I'll be looking into that.
-The third nonspell is indeed the first nonspell, but faster, same with the second and fourth nonspells.
-The second spell wasn't actually made slower, but I was considering either doing that, or making the delay between the bullet spawns slightly higher to make it more fair.
-I'm glad you enjoyed and found Melting Point and En Masse fun to do! To me, ironically, they are two of the hardest spells to clear.
-Trinity spells are all about causing the player to panic and make bad moves. Desperate Trinities even more so : if you calmly go around the stage and keep up a constant minimum pace, you should be able to clear it no problem.
For Chronojet :
-I have noticed that the problem of Descent rows piling up seems to be a common one. While I only had deaths where I messed up fitting through the gaps so far (the trick is to backtrack if needed, while staying near the top and right as much as possible), I'll definitely take that point into consideration. Thanks for mentioning it.
-Like previously mentioned, the final spell is designed to encourage homing shot/spreadshot usage. The first part where there are barely any bullets is a damage race : you need to pointblank the boss as much as possible (this should get its HP down to around half with A-type, and somewhat below that with B-type). Afterward, only focus on avoiding things and use your spreadshots/homing shots to do the rest. Alternatively, try to aggressively dodge around the raindrops, sometimes taking a glance up the screen to determine the boss' location. The bullets are slow enough to allow enough time for that.
-If you stay at the bottom for the first triangle spell, it should be an easy clear. Refer to the advice I mentioned above for the Desperate variant.
-The deathbomb thing is an issue I'm aware of. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how player scripts work as of now, so the player script itself isn't mine. My best advice would be to either bomb prematurely, or allow yourself to be hit, then deathbomb. This mainly happens when you try to bomb normally but a bullet hits you exactly in the next couple of frames after that.
-The lasers in Bloom always hit the same spots, no actual aiming at the player is going on. I'm considering decreasing their speed to make them more fair, however.
-I actually intended the prior two ring shots in the bonus spell to act as the warning for the rest of the attack. As in, as a "that thing shot a ring of bullets everywhere but behind it... oh wait, it did it again... surely, that means I should stay behind it from now on" kind of warning. It seems to have failed at that, though. I'll try to make a somewhat better warning for it.
About the path it takes.... it's not really designed to be won in one go, you have much better chances after you play it a few times.
The name is also supposed to be a hint of what is going to happen : the spell "purges (as in, defeats) disobedient (the player not following the "soul") strays (straying away from the path)."
-The extremely long timer on the last (non-bonus) spell is intentional to :
a. So that the player has enough time to deal enough damage to break it even with weaker shots (Reimu-C) before it times out, and
b. So that it discourages timeout tactics somewhat.
-Unless you meant editing in infinite invincibility (since I never encountered it), I didn't change anything regarding the defaults.
I recommend giving the script another go with these hints in mind. I'm not saying that I absolutely disregarded everything that has been mentioned so far (the butterfly hitbox issue even more so. It's definitely big) but I feel like they should be doable with enough practice and with being aware of their respective gimmicks.
Many thanks once again for taking your time playing, providing feedback, and reading this!
About the emote stuff, I'm not sure. I had it happen once as well for seemingly no reason. It's not a problem though, it's quite humorous, actually.
Mr.Ownage:
As an update, I actually managed to clear the script, even with the updates. Granted, it's not a no-miss-no-bomb run as I'm not that good at dodging (but I certainly do feel it's possible), but it's a clear nonetheless.
Overall, I made it with 0 lives left by the end, with one bomb. At certain times, I lost lives due to stupid mistakes, at other times, espicially near the end, the entirety of it felt too scary with bombs in stock, so I went ahead and used them all.
Here's the replay file of it, a legitimate (5 life 3 bombs) run. Should it desync, I'll record and upload it as necessary. I'm not really proud of how it worked out (losing almost all lives and doing pretty stupid mistakes), but I still felt joy in having been able to make it through. (includes first spell, Desperate Trinities, Descent, and bonus spell "spell card bonus"-ed! [although the bonus spell was buggy and errouneously score wasn't awarded])
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1v_9asYBUcwe3shDFfiXVUhFAMRU4sAdZ