Touhou critique/debate/discussion

[Anonymous No.]

(Continuation of >>11548918)

[Anonymous No.]

The OP was a troll who linked a video by a troll.

It wasn't a very good thread. Let it die.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549401
>the weather

That's true. I guess that affects both sides though, so at least you're on equal footing. I was thinking more something like flipping a coin to see which team goes first (which puts them at an advantage/disadvantage). I guess some cue sports have randomness in the same way a die roll is random, especially breaking.

>They are not. Both games are fair and any experienced player in shooters will 1cc them easily on their first run.

They're fair 1 in N times. An experience player can't phase their ship through bullets.

>The CAVE shooters you like to praise so much are filled with things the player won't know in their first run that might cause them to make a mistake. Stop spouting bullshit.

No, they're programmed in such a way that any experienced player can beat them on skill alone. Memorization helps, but it's not essential.

>Plenty of e-sport games have random elements (Dota has some, SC2 has random starting positions, etc) and they are perfectly fine because the good pro players ACCOUNT for all possible scenarios and make the best out of it. It's why good players/teams are constantly on the top.

Which is fine, especially for strategy and role-playing games. I've even taken part in some roguelike competitions that are almost entirely based on chance. That's great for certain types of games, but as I've said shmups are supposed to rely on skill. Not all games of a genre have to be the same, but like the platform game where identical platform #382 is not solid, it's arbitrary bullshit that screws over the player's expectations. Exactly what I think of when I hear "artificial difficulty".

>You won't find a single shooter game that the player won't benefit in some way or another from previously knowing a pattern

I've been saying this for many posts now.

>Touhou doesn't force memorization, good players will "solve" most spells on the spot

Then what about the random ones? How can you solve a solid wall of bullets your ship cannot dodge?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549425
We were actually having a decent discussion about game mechanics, and calling one retard out for throwing out generalizations without giving any actual examples.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549431
>How can you solve a solid wall of bullets your ship cannot dodge?
Does not exist. If you somehow wall yourself in by fucking up a stream, bombs do exist.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549432
You were entertaining some retard pretending not to know that the only parts of Touhou where RNG will actually fuck you up the ass are pretty much Remilia and Peta Flare.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549434
It is entirely possible that the RNG creates an impossible situation, at least in EoSD and PCB. This has happened to me a lot of times. I'm not saying it's often, maybe one in every few thousand playthroughs.

Most professional games don't use algorithms that even make this a possibility. These games were well-designed and properly tested.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549441
So when you said that the games are "fair 1 in N times," what you actually meant is that they're fair 999 out of 1000 times.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549431

>They're fair 1 in N times. An experience player can't phase their ship through bullets.

They deserve the hit then. A better player won't find himself in that position. No one will get there by only RNG alone.

>No, they're programmed in such a way that any experienced player can beat them on skill alone. Memorization helps, but it's not essential.

You just described every Touhou game.

>Then what about the random ones? How can you solve a solid wall of bullets your ship cannot dodge?

>a solid wall of bullets

No such thing. If you want to prove otherwise you will need to provide some concrete examples. The RNG in EoSD and PCB can make patterns harder or easier, but they are all beatable. Skilled players will be faster and will be rewarded too as there will be more bullets to graze. Unskilled players will have to bomb/die and their rank will be lowered to compensate the hard patterns they've been getting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549442
Well it's not so black and white. If two people are playing EoSD at the same time, it's harder for one player than the other. Not because of her skill, but because she's having worse luck with the RNG.

I feel like a broken record by this point, but some degree of randomness is fine, and a shmup shouldn't play pixel-perfect the same every time you load it up. But if it's even a possibility that a game can be played with minimal effort during one session and it's impossible (or close to it) the next, then that game has a serious problem. That's not challenging, that's just rolling a die and saying, "5? Now it's near-impossible for you to win. Oh wait, no, it was a 6. Yep, it's impossible. Dave is on the same level and he rolled a 1, he doesn't even have to move."

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549449

>But if it's even a possibility that a game can be played with minimal effort during one session and it's impossible (or close to it) the next, then that game has a serious problem

I don't know what game you're talking about because it's definitely not EoSD nor PCB.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549448
>A better player won't find himself in that position.

So he's mastered the PEAR Labs art of random number control?

>You just described every Touhou game.

You can beat that Impossible Platformer game, you just have to be psychic or good at guessing. That doesn't mean that game (or at least, the type of games it's parodying) are well-designed or even "challenging", they're just arbitrary.

>No such thing.

I'm not saying it happens often, but it can happen, and it does happen. Are we talking about the same games? This has never happened to you? I'm not talking, "Oh boy, was that tricky!", I mean actually-impossible scenarios. The second the program generates the bullets, there is no possible outcome besides losing. This is a possibility in Touhou. Good shmups are programmed so that bullets are distributed properly, even if they're random. EoSD and PCB has no problem setting you up against a solid wall of bullets your ship cannot avoid, no matter how skilled of a player you are. RNGs don't care.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549441
>This has happened to me a lot of times.
>maybe one in every few thousand playthroughs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549441
Quit fucking mentioning PCB. You are objectively wrong and refuse to provide any examples to back up your claim.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549454
So it's the same every time?

ZUN even realized his mistake. Random bullets (particularly stray ones) were toned down in the later games. I guess someone who knew shmups better than ZUN did pointed out the error of his ways, or maybe he just did the research. Good for him, we all make silly mistakes when we're young and ignorant.

There are patterns in EoSD and PCB where you can do absolutely nothing or only avoid homing bullets one playthrough, but have absolutely no way out in another.

[Anonymous No.]

Even the UFO vs SA wars were better because at least both sides in those arguments actually played the games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549459
>So he's mastered the PEAR Labs art of random number control?
Leave.
>You can beat that Impossible Platformer game, you just have to be psychic or good at guessing.
No, its 100% memorization. Its almost exactly Simon: The Platformer.
> but it can happen, and it does happen.
[CITATION NEEDED]

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549460
I don't get it. Yes I've played these games thousands of times. That's not a big deal, is it?

>>11549462
Are there wildly random bullets in PCB, yes or no?
This isn't the whole crux of my argument, but I'd like us to agree on this before we go on.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549472
Have you ever saved a single replay where the RNG fucked you over?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549459

>This has never happened to you?

Oh it happened. There were times when playing EoSD I was stormed by a barrage of bullets that I thought to myself at the moment that it was impossible and I just bombed.

But I'm not egotistical enough to think that a better player wouldn't be able to beat it.

Unless you provide a replay with a specific section of bullets proving that it can't be beat you have no argument.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549472
Go home

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549478
So stop giving him attention.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549472
These are such obvious lies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549472
One in every few thousand playthroughs is not a lot by any means.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549472
I'm curious as to which spells in PCB you are assigning this randomness to.

>>11549475
>But I'm not egotistical enough to think that a better player wouldn't be able to beat it.

What does your ego have anything to do with the skill levels of others and the overall balance of the game? It seems you're just not very skilled and unwilling to take risks.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549469
>No, its 100% memorization. Its almost exactly Simon: The Platformer.

Like Touhou? The bullets don't change color, there's no, "WARNING: Bullets about to becoming HOMING type!" or, "Bullet acceleration START!"
You have to know these things in advance. By having played the game and dying. The alternative is to be lucky, in a skill-based game genre.

>[CITATION NEEDED]

I guess the ECL references prove that there are functions that allow a bullet to move in any random direction, if that's what you want?

[Anonymous No.]

Scarlet Gensokyo

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549484
>I'm curious as to which spells in PCB you are assigning this randomness to.

Almost every boss has some pattern that include these, and so do some regular enemies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549489
Name one that has sufficient density to create an unstoppable bullet wall.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549484

>What does your ego have anything to do with the skill levels of others and the overall balance of the game?

Because you're arguing that you've experienced impossible patterns when in fact a better player than you would have escaped facing the same situation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549496
I think you've mistaken who was responding to who.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549492
Do you agree that there are bullets that can go in any of 360 degrees, or at least towards the bottom of the screen?
Do you agree that some patterns have enough such bullets that they can cause an undodgeable wall?

Even the second and third stage bosses in EoSD can create this situation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549500
>Even the second and third stage bosses in EoSD can create this situation.
So, what, Hailstorm is walling you in now?

[Anonymous No.]

I don't get it. Is the argument that Touhou sucks because it's too random and the RNG fucks you over, or that Touhou sucks because it's not random enough and can be memorized?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549513
One complaint are that there are randomized spellcards that will unstoppably kill you (force you to bomb), and the other is that certain parts of the game will kill you (force you to bomb) if you haven't seem them before.

There are some really blatant offenders here (here's looking at you, Mountain of Faith) but nobody in this thread has actually bothered to point one out.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549517
All shmups will kill you if you haven't seen them before, don't know the enemy spawn points, etc. Touhou isn't any worse than a lot of others in that regard, IMO.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549517
MoF is one of my favorites and i've played it a hundred times.

But holy fuck I -still- cannot get past Sanae without bombing the fuck out of it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549531
Yeah, well, bombs are free, so enjoy.

[Anonymous No.]

>a solid wall of bullets
I just ordered some dicks.

[Anonymous No.]

Almost any given STG is better than Touhou. It has cute girls for otaku to slobber over, but that's about it. You wouldn't be wasting your time on it otherwise.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549548
I-is this what they called shitstorm-take-two otaku?

[Anonymous No.]

test

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549542
muh wall of bullets
this isn't my fault whatsoever

[Anonymous No.]

I've seen a few claim that touhou is easy compared to other schmup games.

Just curious, what specific ones are generally considered harder that the touhous and why?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
Those people are almost always Cave fans, ans their answer is because it's Cave.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
It's just long-term shmup fans who are butthurt that Touhou is popular. Most dedicated shmup sites I've seen barely even mention Touhou, because it's not considered a "serious" shmup, just some casual/hobbyist thing (like what Skull Girls is to fighting games).

There are definitely more difficult shmups, but there are also far easier shmups, and people don't selectively ignore those. So basically it's just misguided elitism, and you ought to pay it no mind.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549441
>Most professional games don't use algorithms that even make this a possibility.
you have literally no clue what you're talking about

the false equivalence between random elements and RNG-induced absolute walls while simultaneously saying that the bullets have to be distributed properly even with randomness is just hilarious

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
Ikaruga.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549692
There are all sorts of algorithms and methods to "spread out" randomness, what are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
Space Invaders. They keep getting faster.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549695

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549687
>>11549690
>>11549695

thanks, I understand the elitism part, its just general 1 uping; ``oh well I play so-and-so so I'm much more hardcore.

I've lurked quite a few STG generals and have seen many claims that CAVE or gradius or whatever is harder. However, I was just wondering if there were any specific examples as to why someone might claim shmup x is harder than touhou. Gameplay wise, such as number of bullets/enemies, harder patterns, faster speed, less lives/continues.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549695
I'm going to tell my senpai about this, just you wait.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549697
These aren't "algorithms". If you've ever even touched the development process yourself you would understand this. There isn't some sort of secret programming math that takes what was apparently previously random bullshit and makes it spread out and nice; it's entirely pattern design from the beginning and grinding tweaks. Throwing in any pattern element is balanced the same way as any other. On top of that, how you tell bullets to fire is almost invariably not what the pattern is eventually going to pan out as at all. The fact that you say "most professional games" as if there's some secret technique they apply that others don't is downright absurd.

>>11549714
Shmups vary wildly across the genre. It should be clear that all of those areas can greatly influence why a game is considered harder than another.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549488

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
It's not. 99% of shmups rely on memorization which comes from the result of trial and error.

There are very few that actually have their difficulty being their primary selling point/appeal since most shmups are judged on their scoring systems and at that level everyone competing knowns the game so well that difficulty (in terms of survival) is rendered moot.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
Hellsinker

>>11549706
>>11549719
He never said it was good

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549735
>most shmups are judged on their scoring systems and at that level everyone competing knowns the game so well that difficulty (in terms of survival) is rendered moot
For many games sure, but many shmups are incredibly difficult to play while scoring primarily because they're incredibly difficult to begin with. At top-level scoring sure some will be more comfortable than others, but to say it's trivialized or rendered moot would be a mistake, I think.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549662
In StB/DS the only spellcard you can complain about is that Nue one with the glitchy hitboxes. Otherwise it doesn't matter if a spellcard is unfair, you don't have to capture all of them and the only penalty for death is that you have to retry it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549726
>These aren't "algorithms".

How are those not algorithms? Is a Mersenne twister not an algorithm? Are noise functions not algorithms?

There are algorithms that can generate X numbers with a fair and even distribution (e.g. no chance of 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2... on a virtual six-sided die).

[Anonymous No.]

secondary central

call me when you faced jack the ludo bile on max rank a thousand times

[Anonymous No.]

>>11549681
It's easier because when scoring at low-mid level, you don't need to bother restarting. In CAVE games, to be even a low level scoreplayer, you need to restart upon dying, dropping the game long chain, failing to get 5's, bombing, the list goes on.

I don't think I've ever had fun playing for score though, no matter the game I play. I only do it because the Mexicans and the Swedes will laugh at me if I don't learn the chains. ;_; I'm almost at 100 hours in DoDonPachi now, most of my time is just spent restarting and getting angry at the more advanced chains.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11550837
Scoring ultimately boils down to 95% memorization. What about when not playing for score?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11550882
I don't know much about CAVE games outside of DDP and Ketsui, but I feel like the first loops start out somewhere around Hard level, ending at a lower tier Lunatic like EoSD or PCB. The second loops feel more like they're on the same level as the newer Touhou games on Lunatic, but I'm also really bad at judging difficulties, so I'm probably really wrong.

The hardest part of playing them for me, is making it through the first loop perfectly so I can reach the second loop, not bombing or dying is really hard when you're having a good run.

[Anonymous No.]

Is it possible to remove the backrounds in 13, ten desires?
All of the other games run at a smooth 60 fps, and never drop, but the backrounds in ten desires are stupidly excessive, removing them would help by a lot.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11550837
But that's what low level score playing is. It does not vanish simply because there are more good players.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11550688
holy shit uniform probability distribution in a random number generator does not equal uniform distribution in patterns or even get anywhere near it for that matter

if you are a troll i am getting fucking clobbered

[Anonymous No.]

>>11550709
stop being so bitter chum

[Anonymous No.]

>>11552841
Perlin noise.

[Anonymous No.]

Touhou does not have enough prepubescent boys.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11554993
Wriggle is enough, you queer.

[Anonymous No.]

Is there any non auto-updating/offline translation patch for DDC out there? Just one like in the past?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11554993
Oh yeah, it definitely needs space ships too. I can't imagine why Touhou doesn't have space ships.

[Anonymous No.]

CAVE games are marginally harder but that's in part to the way the shots work.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11556218
I find CAVE games easier, but I play them a lot more than Touhou, so maybe that's why. I just get depressed playing Touhou because I hear of people that play arcades and absolutely destroy Touhou on Lunatic, so I usually quit out of disappointment if I die or bomb before Stage 4.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11556267
Arcade games have this weird difficulty curve because they're made to jew out money out of visitors. Of course regular players will be better when the Touhou games are mostly made because ZUN loves what he does.