SDA Arcade Tourney -- ALL CLEAR, check first post

Enhasa

2008-05-05 09:51:50 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Ok, a score actually from this week this time. Tongue

I'll ask stanski about his score later.

5,204,440 - Enhasa - Stage 6 - Carpet (S)

scaryice

2008-05-05 10:07:47 am

Quote:

scaryice - 939,070 - stage 3

scaryice - 1,278,560 - stage 3 - Maria

Breakdown

2008-05-05 10:48:39 am

Haters gonna hate

1,469,890 - Breakdown - Stage 3 - Maria (C)

I can see myself playing this a bunch this a week.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2008-05-05 12:35:02 pm

2008-05-05 12:33:42 pm

Never give up!

1,270,960 - AquaTiger - stage 3 (Airport) - Miyamoto (C), Shorty (C), Strawman (C)

Out of the three stages you can arrange in your preferred order, I do Sewage first because it's the one stage where I actually remember good spots for lots of medals. If I get good enough at keeping my medal chain, I may move them to the second slot, where Airport currently resides, for the same reason.

I'm open to team changes. Miyamoto (who I recognized from... Dimahoo, I think) is a virtual lock in my case - what I'm open to changing is either of the last two spots. I put Strawman on my team because I remember a superplay abusing his bomb to rack up the medal count - Shorty's in there because I couldn't find a good character to finish up the team. Whoever my second character is needs to be good for medal-hunting in Airport and/or Sewage - there's no way I'm doing Sky High as my second stage.

Sorcerer88

Edit history:

Sorcerer88: 2008-05-05 03:25:04 pm

2008-05-05 01:51:58 pm

I have no solution, but i admire the problem.

1,183,490 - Sorcerer88 - Stage 3 - Maria (A)

Wow, what a game! Could even surpass Cameltry in my opinion.

What i don't get, though, is medals. The highest i ever get for one is 500, starting from 100.

Quote:

Miyamoto (who I recognized from... Dimahoo, I think) is a virtual lock in my case

I instantly thought Miyamoto sucks a lot when i tested him..

Quote:

This game is ass. Fuck its retarded scoring system that's complicated for the sake of being complicated.

I've figured out it helps your score the most to try to be better in dodging bullets Wink

gotta test Option C, although speed is all i need.

edit:

Quote:

1,183,490 - Sorcerer88 - Stage 3 - Maria (A)

1,500,490 - Sorcerer88 - Stage 3 - Maria (C)

RaneofSOTN

2008-05-05 03:56:43 pm

I want off the ride....

20 minutes of tries

554410 - maria or well I' guess I donno.. I'll figure it out sometime

mikwuyma

2008-05-05 04:10:04 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Sorcerer88: You have to make sure you don't let medals drop. Well, actually, you can let medals drop, but you have to make sure you collect the last one on the screen. You'll figure it out after you play more.

And I can dodge bullets, when the point of the game is to solely to dodge bullets and doesn't involve figuring out where you want to die :-/

LLCoolDave

Edit history:

LLCoolDave: 2008-05-05 04:49:08 pm

2008-05-05 04:29:20 pm

~~1140120 - LLCoolDave - Stage 2 (Sewege) - Miyamoto (C) Strawman (C) Maria (C)~~
1424990 - LLCoolDave - Stage 3 - Miyamoto (C) Strawman (C) Maria (C)

I still havn't quite figured out the kind of ships I like, but I'm starting to get the hang of this, actually. The 10000 Medal is pretty pretty. My main issue is telling enemy bullets apart from the stream I am shooting.

Cromarty

2008-05-05 05:50:57 pm

astral guard

Quote:

1,005,850 - Cromarty - Stage 3 - Chitta (A)

2,019,720 - Cromarty - Stage 4 - Chitta (A)

Bashinet hates me. Killed him in stage 3 sky high, then he came back for revenge right at the beginning of stage 4. Sad

stanski

2008-05-05 06:40:58 pm

wise fwom yo gwave

score from this week:

9,128,810 - stanski - Stage 7 - strawman (A)

freefang

Edit history:

freefang: 2008-05-05 06:59:57 pm

2008-05-05 06:57:21 pm

8((.)7(.))3

608,430 - freefang - stage 2 - random, I realy don't knoow the caracters. :-[

stanski

Edit history:

stanski: 2008-05-05 07:53:49 pm

2008-05-05 07:40:23 pm

wise fwom yo gwave

some things that you should know for a one week scoring competition:

1. exit service mode with the start button to start the game at lowest rank.

2. Avoid the mahou and garegga characters imho. Triggering special bosses is good for high level scoring, but is really not necessary for a one week competition.

3. Use your aura (don't fire at all) to destroy scenery and some of the ground/bigger flying enemies for extra points. Its also good for milking boss attacks at some points.

4. Miss 3 big bomb icons in a row and you get an extend

5. Rank management isn't all that important in this game IMO. You don't want to collect items indiscriminately, but bomb fragments are fair game and really suiciding is not that important. That is one reason i think i like this more than other raizing games.

More advanced tactics:

6. Something small but easy: some patterns are very easy to dodge and shoot a lot of bullets. Grazing bullets with aura gives you a small point boost.

7. Something big: triggering secret bosses by playing each of the 3 character types is necessary to score really well. It also can make the game damn hard and milking some of the bosses is a real pain in the ass.

glhf

some things that you should know for a one week scoring competition:

1. exit service mode with the start button to start the game at lowest rank.

2. Avoid the mahou and garegga characters imho. Triggering special bosses is good for high level scoring, but is really not necessary for a one week competition.

3. Use your aura (don't fire at all) to destroy scenery and some of the ground/bigger flying enemies for extra points. Its also good for milking boss attacks at some points.

4. Miss 3 big bomb icons in a row and you get an extend

5. Rank management isn't all that important in this game IMO. You don't want to collect items indiscriminately, but bomb fragments are fair game and really suiciding is not that important. That is one reason i think i like this more than other raizing games.

More advanced tactics:

6. Something small but easy: some patterns are very easy to dodge and shoot a lot of bullets. Grazing bullets with aura gives you a small point boost.

7. Something big: triggering secret bosses by playing each of the 3 character types is necessary to score really well. It also can make the game damn hard and milking some of the bosses is a real pain in the ass.

glhf

moozooh

2008-05-05 10:41:25 pm

Hail Discordia!

Impressions so far:

1. Use Strawman solo. He's probably the single best (most balanced) character in the game, and according to Icarus, "the estimated upper limit for a Strawman only Advanced ALL is between 12 to 13mil", which will most definitely be more than enough to beat any score presented in this tournament.

2. Fucked up chain = crippled score. Around a million will be lost if it happens just before some hidden medal-fertile grounds easily.

3. Bomb more to reveal ~~surprise buttsecks~~ hidden medals. Learn their locations.

4. Don't use aura for anything until you're confident enough to get 5+ millions in a single playthrough.

Currently my best is two millions at stage 4 boss (died at the same time with it in that run), but I'm planning to get at least around ~4-5 by the end of the week.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2008-05-05 11:24:35 pm

2008-05-05 11:08:31 pm

Never give up!

Quote:

I instantly thought Miyamoto sucks a lot when i tested him...

My decision to use him is mostly personal preference (since I know for sure I've got no chance of a top 5 score here even if I go with, say, Strawman solo).

I admit he, like any dragon who has to rely on a combat rig and jetpack (although are there any other such characters in ANY game?), sucks against bosses. He's mainly a fast character with weak but wide-reaching shots (his main shot has a lot of width and his options spread shots quite a ways - probably a good 75 degree arc at least), is all he is. Probably not even the best at that. I put him first for the simple fact that a character who's ALL about spread shots isn't going to be useful for long.

I'll give this another shot pretty soon.

Enhasa

Edit history:

Enhasa: 2008-05-06 03:50:54 am

2008-05-06 03:48:35 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I told this to BoltR on IRC (since he was doing this by accident and didn't know why), might as well paste here. Basically in this game you don't want to just hold down fire all the time. You can even attack with the aura that you get, this is colloquially referred to as "tickling." Tickling gives you more points and is useful for other reasons, figure them out!

Quote:

<Enhasa> when you stop firing for a while, you get this aura in front of you
<Enhasa> that can do damage
<Enhasa> and when you hit fire again, your options lock into place for a while
<Enhasa> and they and you shoot
<Enhasa> it's very useful
<Enhasa> well the reason why it would keep shooting is bc you did that
<Enhasa> if you tap constantly (or hold down the button, same thing), you won't get it
<Enhasa> but if you have a lull in your tapping, then you will when you tap again

Quote:

5. Rank management isn't all that important in this game IMO. You don't want to collect items indiscriminately, but bomb fragments are fair game and really suiciding is not that important. That is one reason i think i like this more than other raizing games.

I agree with you that rank control is a bit exaggerated, and I didn't really even want to mention it, but I knew people like Maur would bring it up anyway. If I picked normal course, then you can beat it without rank controlling at all. Picking up bomb fragments is always good in every game.

Not that they have many games, but "other raizing games" in this case = Garegga and Bakraid (and Bakraid is for multiplier, not rank control). I hate Bakraid too so whatever. If you are like Mike and hate prototypical Raizing, you can still stick to Mahou series, Souky, Brave Blade, 1944.

About 7) that stanski says, he is right. Ideally you want to pick a very varied team (character type, ship type). But for a weekly competition, one character is fine. The whole 3 characters thing is a really neat idea though, so do whatever you want, I'd rather see good variety anyway.

moozooh:

1) I don't use either, so I don't really have much to stand behind, but I think Maria is slightly better than Strawman. I'm impressed people in this tourney are using her. They're both excellent though, and why Psychic Team is the best prebuilt one. Laos's world record uses Maria over Strawman btw, something I found out recently.

2) You're absolutely right. I just want to add, in general people should do anything to maintain their chain. Use a bomb, sacrifice a life, whatever.

4) I disagree a little with this one. Tickling is really easy in a lot of places (stage 1 mostly), and while it doesn't contribute much compared to medaling of course, if it's really easy, why not.

AquaTiger: You don't have to apologize one bit for using Miyamoto, let me put it that way. Actually I think LLCoolDave has the right idea.

I told this to BoltR on IRC (since he was doing this by accident and didn't know why), might as well paste here. Basically in this game you [i]don't[/i] want to just hold down fire all the time. You can even attack with the aura that you get, this is colloquially referred to as "tickling." Tickling gives you more points and is useful for other reasons, figure them out!

[quote]<Enhasa> when you stop firing for a while, you get this aura in front of you  
<Enhasa> that can do damage  
<Enhasa> and when you hit fire again, your options lock into place for a while  
<Enhasa> and they and you shoot  
<Enhasa> it's very useful  
<Enhasa> well the reason why it would keep shooting is bc you did that  
<Enhasa> if you tap constantly (or hold down the button, same thing), you won't get it  
<Enhasa> but if you have a lull in your tapping, then you will when you tap again[/quote]

[quote]5. Rank management isn't all that important in this game IMO. You don't want to collect items indiscriminately, but bomb fragments are fair game and really suiciding is not that important. That is one reason i think i like this more than other raizing games.[/quote]
I agree with you that rank control is a bit exaggerated, and I didn't really even want to mention it, but I knew people like Maur would bring it up anyway. If I picked normal course, then you can beat it without rank controlling at all. Picking up bomb fragments is always good in every game.

Not that they have many games, but "other raizing games" in this case = Garegga and Bakraid (and Bakraid is for multiplier, not rank control). I hate Bakraid too so whatever. If you are like Mike and hate prototypical Raizing, you can still stick to Mahou series, Souky, Brave Blade, 1944.

About 7) that stanski says, he is right. Ideally you want to pick a very varied team (character type, ship type). But for a weekly competition, one character is fine. The whole 3 characters thing is a really neat idea though, so do whatever you want, I'd rather see good variety anyway.

moozooh:

1) I don't use either, so I don't really have much to stand behind, but I think Maria is slightly better than Strawman. I'm impressed people in this tourney are using her. They're both excellent though, and why Psychic Team is the best prebuilt one. Laos's world record uses Maria over Strawman btw, something I found out recently.

2) You're absolutely right. I just want to add, in general people should do anything to maintain their chain. Use a bomb, sacrifice a life, whatever.

4) I disagree a little with this one. Tickling is really easy in a lot of places (stage 1 mostly), and while it doesn't contribute much compared to medaling of course, if it's really easy, why not.

AquaTiger: You don't have to apologize one bit for using Miyamoto, let me put it that way. Actually I think LLCoolDave has the right idea.

Cromarty

Edit history:

Cromarty: 2008-05-06 04:40:46 am

2008-05-06 04:39:17 am

astral guard

Quote:

2,019,720 - Cromarty - Stage 4 - Chitta (A)

2,342,520 - Cromarty - Stage 5 - Random Edit

Picked random edit completely by accident and ended up with purple Shorty, purple Miyamoto, and normal Carpet (I think).
I can't stop playing.

VorpalEdge

Edit history:

VorpalEdge: 2008-05-06 06:09:49 am

2008-05-06 06:02:48 am

welcome to the machine

2,295,100 - VorpalEdge - 3 - Maria (A)

i r suck so bad =(

I mean, seriously. All these stupid deaths. I died a third of the way into stage 3... Furthermore, why do I keep picking up extra power up icons when I don't notice a difference? Is there a cap? I know it jacks the rank up, but I'm not very far in the game.

Quote:

I agree with you that rank control is a bit exaggerated, and I didn't really even want to mention it, but I knew people like Maur would bring it up anyway.

Oh, definitely. I'm expecting great things from this thread. Don't disappoint me!

scaryice

2008-05-06 06:37:09 am

Quote:

scaryice - 1,278,560 - stage 3 - Maria

scaryice - 2,012,930 - stage 4 - strawman

scaryice

2008-05-06 06:37:39 am

How do you know what your rank is?

VorpalEdge

Edit history:

VorpalEdge: 2008-05-06 06:46:55 am

2008-05-06 06:45:09 am

welcome to the machine

You don't.

Enhasa

Edit history:

Enhasa: 2008-05-06 10:05:38 am

2008-05-06 09:40:45 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Quote:

Oh, definitely. I'm expecting great things from this thread. Don't disappoint me!

You have been disappointed so far and you will probably remain sorely disappointed. Placebo effect is pretty strong. If nobody said anything about it, I guarantee nobody who didn't already know would bring it up by the end of the week. Why do people talk about rank control here but ignore it completely for other games? It's fashionable. Most of my top25 list (which has 3 Raizing games) has rank control probably. Nobody thinks twice about it in games in other genres like God Hand.

Here's a fun experiment: try Battle Garegga at permanent min rank. Get this file and extract it into your MAME folder. Then go to the tab menu to cheats and turn on "always have easy rank" and go through the game. Compare what the actual difference between this and a normal game, to what you would expect. Credit feed if you want, and go through the entire game to see what it's like. Remember too that Garegga has the most brutal rank system of basically any game, so the actual difference is less in other games.

Another fun experiment: you've probably heard about the "invisible" Garegga bullets. Maybe you've even said something about it, I don't remember. Well, given your hatred of gamestop stickers, I have a hunch that the Garegga rom you use is the default Denmark / China (battleg.zip) instead of the Europe / USA / Japan / Asia (battlega.zip) clone. If that's true, try out the clone and look at the bullets and debris now. That is what people complain about. The nonclone version has nice, normal bullets that you wouldn't think anything special about if you hadn't heard they were "invisible."

It's all about expectations is what I mean.

Quote:

How do you know what your rank is?

Get this file and extract it into your MAME folder. Then go to the tab menu to cheats and turn on "watch game rank." (the top one, I don't know why it shows up 3 times)

Quote:

Furthermore, why do I keep picking up extra power up icons when I don't notice a difference? Is there a cap? I know it jacks the rank up, but I'm not very far in the game.

You max out after 3 big shot icons or option icons. You can tell when you're maxed out because you get points from picking up powerups instead.

While we're talking about rank and cheat.dat, a funny thing that BoltR already did, was to turn on invincibility (I also recommend infinite bombs to shoot the rank up) and go through the game and look at the utter ridiculousness of it all. It's pretty entertaining, and PS, Batrider would make a great FBA TAS.

[quote]Oh, definitely.  I'm expecting great things from this thread.  Don't disappoint me![/quote]
You have been disappointed so far and you will probably remain sorely disappointed. Placebo effect is pretty strong. If nobody said anything about it, I guarantee nobody who didn't already know would bring it up by the end of the week. Why do people talk about rank control here but ignore it completely for other games? It's fashionable. Most of my top25 list (which has 3 Raizing games) has rank control probably. Nobody thinks twice about it in games in other genres like God Hand.

Here's a fun experiment: try Battle Garegga at permanent min rank. Get [url=http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~kjuang/files/cheat.rar]this file[/url] and extract it into your MAME folder. Then go to the tab menu to cheats and turn on "always have easy rank" and go through the game. Compare what the actual difference between this and a normal game, to what you would expect. Credit feed if you want, and go through the entire game to see what it's like. Remember too that Garegga has the most brutal rank system of basically any game, so the actual difference is less in other games.

Another fun experiment: you've probably heard about the "invisible" Garegga bullets. Maybe you've even said something about it, I don't remember. Well, given your hatred of gamestop stickers, I have a hunch that the Garegga rom you use is the default Denmark / China (battleg.zip) instead of the Europe / USA / Japan / Asia (battlega.zip) clone. If that's true, try out the clone and look at the bullets and debris now. That is what people complain about. The nonclone version has nice, normal bullets that you wouldn't think anything special about if you hadn't heard they were "invisible."

It's all about expectations is what I mean.

[quote]How do you know what your rank is?[/quote]
Get [url=http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~kjuang/files/cheat.rar]this file[/url] and extract it into your MAME folder. Then go to the tab menu to cheats and turn on "watch game rank." (the top one, I don't know why it shows up 3 times)

[quote]Furthermore, why do I keep picking up extra power up icons when I don't notice a difference?  Is there a cap?  I know it jacks the rank up, but I'm not very far in the game.[/quote]
You max out after 3 big shot icons or option icons. You can tell when you're maxed out because you get points from picking up powerups instead.

While we're talking about rank and cheat.dat, a funny thing that BoltR already did, was to turn on invincibility (I also recommend infinite bombs to shoot the rank up) and go through the game and look at the utter ridiculousness of it all. It's pretty entertaining, and PS, Batrider would make a great FBA TAS.

Sorcerer88

2008-05-06 10:18:47 am

I have no solution, but i admire the problem.

I also thought Batrider would make a great patriot TAS.

2,000,670 - Sorcerer88 - Stage 3 - Maria (C)

I'm still not convinced keeping your medal chain is better than trying to survive. Of all the times i've tried, i only got to 10k once. And if you lose your medal chain before harvesting some 10ks, it was plain worthless anyways. Getting 10k medal rows is nice, though..

Another issue, how do you change enemy bullet colour? probably only some kind of test cheat, i guess. giving all enemy shots the same obvious color, like neon purple, would be a huge advantage.

Still, i haven't played Journey as long as i've played Batrider in 24 hours Roll Eyes

it's simply addictive.

Enhasa

Edit history:

Enhasa: 2008-05-06 10:35:50 am

2008-05-06 10:34:29 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Quote:

I'm still not convinced keeping your medal chain is better than trying to survive. Of all the times i've tried, i only got to 10k once. And if you lose your medal chain before harvesting some 10ks, it was plain worthless anyways. Getting 10k medal rows is nice, though.

Well, you want to save your 10k chain I mean. Obviously if you are at like 500 or something, don't bother.

Quote:

Another issue, how do you change enemy bullet colour? probably only some kind of test cheat, i guess. giving all enemy shots the same obvious color, like neon purple, would be a huge advantage.

No, it's actually built into the game and you can do this while you're playing. It's more humorous than useful, but you can try it. (Actually, it would be hilariously awesome for a TAS.) Hold onto start and hit left to change the color of round bullets, start + down for straight bullets, and start + right for destructable bullets.

There are some other start + button combinations btw. Button 2 shows score calculations. Button 1 increases your rate of rapid fire and button 3 (or up) decreases it. Before you think, woah this is amazing, it's not really recommended to do this.

[quote]I'm still not convinced keeping your medal chain is better than trying to survive. Of all the times i've tried, i only got to 10k once. And if you lose your medal chain before harvesting some 10ks, it was plain worthless anyways. Getting 10k medal rows is nice, though.[/quote]
Well, you want to save your 10k chain I mean. Obviously if you are at like 500 or something, don't bother.

[quote]Another issue, how do you change enemy bullet colour? probably only some kind of test cheat, i guess. giving all enemy shots the same obvious color, like neon purple, would be a huge advantage.[/quote]
No, it's actually built into the game and you can do this while you're playing. It's more humorous than useful, but you can try it. (Actually, it would be hilariously awesome for a TAS.) Hold onto start and hit left to change the color of round bullets, start + down for straight bullets, and start + right for destructable bullets.

There are some other start + button combinations btw. Button 2 shows score calculations. Button 1 increases your rate of rapid fire and button 3 (or up) decreases it. Before you think, woah this is amazing, it's not really recommended to do this.

moozooh

2008-05-06 10:59:43 am

Hail Discordia!

TAS would be interesting, except that it would have not to be done for score (because of a hour long milking), and not for max kills either (some enemies will slip; will be less bullets to dodge).

CannibalK9

Edit history:

CannibalK9: 2008-05-06 11:40:32 am

2008-05-06 11:40:15 am

give me your eyes!!!

Oh god, it's going so well then suddenly no aspect of whatever the hell is going on is fair! This is actually the first shmup I've ever played and I guess it shows. The level of precision is just unbelievable, it might be okay if I could direct the ship with the point of a needle but even if it was ten times slower I couldn't manoeuvre through it with a keyboard. I know I've started off like this for the past two games and done alright but this is a whole new fish kettle.

And the in-game demonstrations are even worse than I am...