DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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hazeredmist wrote: August 30th, 2019, 4:08 pm I tell you what - I'll try Normal and see how I get on first... If it seems impossible I'll switch to Novice. I haven't even tried Normal yet to be fair.
Mate, you can absolutely do Normal. Way more fun and it's really hard to score in Novice. Get hyper cancelling those bullets and you're on your way.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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I think the world might be ending because clippa just made a good point.
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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clippa wrote: August 30th, 2019, 10:38 pm Those two will still be comparing notes on their stage 2 routes while you'll be sipping margaritas at the finish line, they'll never catch you!
How long til I evolve to just dance and chill? :|
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Werturnament

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Yeah, I am playing more casually, playing the credit rather than restarting, just wanted to quickly show how I got my combo up in stage one and what the result was.

I usually get to the spinning lasers whatever stage that is and then totally screw it up. No idea what I should be doing there. It's much more forgiving in terms of survival than any other DDP game because of the autobombs and bullet cancelling hypers. It's quite like Extra Mode on the 360 DOJ port. Having fun.
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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That said, my stage one score in Power Style is better than my stages 1-4 score in Strong Style. Feels like a different game almost.

Edit: Hmm, getting into the Ura route is a total bastard but your score goes apeshit.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Man, there is so much to keep track of in this game. I just realized the Ura route isn't exclusive to the second loop like I originally assumed! Keeping all those qualifiers in mind plus all the combo intricacies plus the meter management plus the sheer survival stress? There is absolutely no way I'll be able to learn how to play this game properly within a month. Might as well just give up now. :|
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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From starting to try to play for score, I've realised how much depth there is to this one, it's incredible how diverse the options are. It's made me think that clippa is spot on about just blow up some aliens, dodge the bullets and have a laugh.

I have also been thinking that the next one we do should be more straightforward, where survival = score, more or less. Something like a Gradius, something very accessible and easy to understand.

Anyway, let's not be too daunted and just see what happens this time around. I'm enjoying mixing up some Strong runs to stage 5 with some Power runs smashing my head against the Ura route conditions and watching the numbers go up like they're from a different game, and then dying really fast.
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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clippa wrote: August 31st, 2019, 3:19 pm Learning the game?
I still don't know what the hell I'm doing, I don't know how, or I'm at least not good enough, to score properly, I don't know where the bees are, I don't know how to get onto the special different routes, I've never gotten to the second loop.
[...]
There is not "so much to keep track of", all you need to keep track of is shooting the baddies and staying alive.
If that's how it works for you, then great. But you seem to have trouble understanding that different people may approach games from a drastically different angle. You think storytelling has zero value whatsoever, some people play primarily because of it. You love procedural generation, some people think it's a heresy that completely destroys design integrity. You clearly like playing shmups in a very organic and improvisational fashion, but other people like myself may prefer a more methodical approach.

As a general rule, I like to know what I'm doing instead of just winging it and hoping for the best. A game like DDPR does have a lot going on under the hood and I'm having a bit of trouble getting into it at the moment. Keep in mind I've had next to no proper experience with the game up until this point, unlike most of you. I first bought it three and a half months ago and I had spent less than 3 hours playing it before this tournament.

Your point about the importance of learning how to walk before learning how to run has been taken on board, but you don't have to be so condescending about it. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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You're missing my point. I'm not trying to paint you as anything or to get into an argument about those specific subjects. There is nothing wrong with you preferring certain things over others, I was only using those as examples to show that what might be true for you may not be true for somebody else. You can't just extrapolate based on your own approach and apply it to others. "Just play and don't think about it too much" isn't going to do much for me, I'm afraid.

I'll persevere.


Edit: I'll co-sign Stan's explanation below me.
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Without willingly 'picking a side', my perspective on this...

The reason I find it hard to 'just play the game and see what happens' is because a little knowledge ruins that approach for me - perhaps unfortunately. It's not fun for me to get to stage 5 and see that my score is less than my stage one score when I try to chain. It feels like I got nothing out of it. I don't really enjoy learning holistically over days and weeks. I like hammering the same section until I've cracked it and then doing it that way every time in future and hammering the next bit. To play any other way feels like I'm wilfully putting the blinkers on.

I'd equate it to baking. You can get the ingredients and keep trying to bake the bugger through experimentation and eventually you'd probably get it more often than not but I think it's hard enough and nuanced enough even with a recipe book so why not spend your time refining than gambling for ages on how much yeast goes in?

Probably the best example for me is Ikaruga. I first played it on the GC and the DC when it came out. Fun for a few days or weeks. Then again on the 360 with diminishing returns and then again on the XB1 and it just never ever clicked. Once it came to the Switch, I decided to learn how it's really played, I felt the veil fall and I finally got into it and loved it. Had I not looked up the recipe, as it were, I'd never have got anything from it for the rest of my life.
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Edit: Just seen your post, great analogy, so get ready for about five long, worse ones. I am Francis Rossi!!!
clippa wrote: August 31st, 2019, 3:19 pm You're trying to run before you can walk, you don't learn a game inside out like that in such a short space of time.


I definitely agree with this. The Ura route stuff is obviously not for this beginner high score competition, and the likelihood is that it will never ever be something I need concern myself with. Trying to get into that stuff is like grinding out the hardest SF4 skills I can ever hope to pull off on the mad off chance that I might one day do it, rather than working on good fundamentals and just learning through play. (Yes, this is a hilarious callback to my contribution to the C&R issue on SF4). Joking apart, it's the kind of noob error that has been made a billion times, the gaming equivalent of 'all the gear, no idea'. In fly-fishing terms, it's that cunt trying to showboat with a roll cast when he can't even Spey cast. *peals of laughter*

I've probably always been a bit like that. When I was a kid playing football, I couldn't care less about heading or tackling or even shooting, I just wanted to get amazing control and do daft dribbling skills so I did loads and loads of keepy ups with my best mate, back and forth, practising our stupid flicks and dinks. Catching the ball between my knees, on my calf, back of the neck, this kind of thing. I liked scoring but I'd always try some prick move like chipping the keeper or nutmegging or backheel or whatever. A total cunt. Even in school and uni, I used to play up front and I couldn't really shoot very hard but I had a good touch and I could pass pretty well. I only ever scored a handful but I was hard to get the ball off, could control the cultured hoofs in my general direction and I got thirty-odd assists the season we won the league. (Springsteen enters thread playing Glory Days.)

Point is, I agree with you, although it's the habit of a lifetime.
clippa wrote: August 31st, 2019, 3:19 pm There's some shit you just have to learn through feel, I could have stayed in the house reading books written by cycling experts, or watching youtube videos explaining the best way not to fall off but I reckon I'd still be at square one when I went back out there and mounted the saddle.

I feel like I'm being a reet patronising little shit, but you've forced this on me! I shouldn't have to explain the concept of discovery and teaching yourself through play to gamers.
Shmups are no different from any other games and some people take a very weird approach to learning them.
I've got a couple of points here, and not much I fundamentally disagree with. The first is that I agree that feel is absolutely essential and there's no shortcut. It's like Daniel-san trying to learn karate from a book and then Miyagi-san teaches him ever so much more through the eternal wisdom of slave labour. You learn without realising you're actively learning. On the other hand, there's the oft-quoted idea that anyone can master a skill with ten thousand hours of practice. The original proposal was 'with ten thousand hours of applied practice'. If you go and pick up a golf club and swing it for ten thousand hours, you'll be hundreds if not thousands of hours behind the guy who took half a dozen lessons, and you'll have all manner of fragile habits and mutations. I should know, I was that guy.

The other point, which makes me sound even more of a cunt than this golf and fishing analogy shit, is that I don't have the time or inclination to learn as I did when I was a kid.
I tend to get little chunks of a couple of days to hammer a game when there's a lull with work or whatever, and I like to go hard and make as much progress as possible. Otherwise, I'm constantly just flitting from one thing to another and taking two steps back. In order to feel any progress or enjoyment beyond the lights and sounds and blowing the cobwebs away (which is absolutely fine, just not very appealing to me), I have to play with some specific purpose.

I have another seven chapters of this shit but I'm in the bath and scared my tablet is going to slip in from the condensation and kill me so I'll leave it there for now.
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Are posts like these the reason only six people want to play? :I
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Chopper
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Stanshall wrote: August 31st, 2019, 5:57 pm Are posts like these the reason only six people want to play? :I
I’m surprised it’s that high, really.
Spoiler: show
:lol:

I am joking, I enjoy your posts immensely. Very impressed that you got a fly fishing analogy in there, I’ve seen it all now :P

It’s funny having a bit of drama around this sedate forum, and you guys certainly provide that. I’ve gone through several metaphorical buckets of popcorn today already.

And in all seriousness, it’s illuminating drama, in regards to shmup methodology and approach etc
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Alex79
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

Post by Alex79 »

We're just a few people playing a game. Doesn't really matter to anyone how anyone else wants to play it. Tips and advice are great and appreciated, but let's not get worked up about how anyone else approaches the game.
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

Post by hazeredmist »

Absolutely.

I’m fucking atrocious at this game and don’t deserve to be here. EXCEPT I DO because I’m having fun and that’s literally all that matters to me :D

Image

Image

There’s your score on the board.
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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I’m never gonna get any better either because my time windows are so limited right now, so practice is out of the question. I will fall asleep before I can obsess over a game. Such is life right now. But it’s cool. I enjoy the time I have! And I love seeing you lads smashing away in your different ways.

I’ll post a fresh score when I get chance
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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In my defense, all I was trying to say is that I'm struggling with the game's overall complexity and that clippa's signature strategy isn't really working for me. I never meant to start any drama or pick a fight with anybody. :(


I played for three hours this evening and have virtually nothing to show for it.

I activated the Ura route a few times, but the exact trigger seems way too opaque / inconsistent for me to be to be able to activate it reliably.

My combo keeps breaking. All. The. Time. Sometimes I kill an enemy only for the combo chain to break immediately afterwards even though the gauge shoots up into the green. I can't explain it other than it being insanely unlucky timing. I've never managed to raise it above 1000.

The latter part of Stage 3 is the current showstopper for me. The boss just laughs and eats through all my bombs / lives if I manage to make it that far. I haven't even seen Stage 4 all evening.

More tomorrow, probably.
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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clippa wrote: August 31st, 2019, 10:09 pm
KSubzero1000 wrote: August 31st, 2019, 8:54 pmI never meant to start any drama or pick a fight with anybody. :(
I think that was aimed at me, owly.
It was aimed at nobody in particular. Just saying all we are doing is playing a game. Some people like to just have casual fun, some people like to delve right deep in to the mechanics and try to learn it inside out. Nobodys way of playing is right or better than anyone else's, just so long as it's right for them.
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Stanshall
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

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Absolutely, Alex. Totally agree, but I also quite enjoy this chat about approach and all that bollocks, for what it's worth! :D
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Re: DoDonPachi Resurrection September Tournament

Post by Stanshall »

In my experience as someone shit at this game, it's not true that you'll score better by just keeping on with the 1CC survival approach. Whenever I try a Strong survival run I regularly get to the spinning lasers on stage 5 with 1bn points and die. I can get that much on stage one by playing Power and trying to simply work on keeping up the chain.

The issue with the survival approach is that if you're very good at these games, you'll inevitably stay alive longer and hang onto your chain for longer and get a good score. If you're not very good, like myself, you'll be autobombing every ten seconds and seeing your score creep up in single figures. It feels like a waste of time.

I'm going to focus on chains and see how I do. I'm definitely not going to 1CC it but I'll at least learn something concrete about the game beyond 'I'm still basically not very good at shmups'.
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