Touhou Blogging Thread

[CyberAngel]

If you want to increase the difficulty of things and enter the more competitive world of Touhou play, you could consider learning some scoring strategies.

Nah, I'm not fully confident in my survival skills yet. The challenges will remedy that, I hope. Well, I do try to incorporate scoring into my play if it doesn't interfere much with survival. Stuff like staying unfocused in PCB, proper familiar handling in IN or grazing in SA can even help survival too. Oh, and I can promise to try "blue and rainbow UFOs only" challenge someday just to see how it would help with scoring.

[chum]

I don't know where else to put this.

I'm doing more stage practice grinding than actual full runs. I feel like while I have some of the game solved, much of it still needs to be dissected - I'm treating the game as a puzzle and right now I'm looking for some missing pieces... While grinding out consistency for stuff that I 100% have to succeed at doing in a real run.

Nevertheless, stage practice high scores:



Any of the stages with bombs/deaths used followed my full game route, except for stage 3 where I believe I died once extra (due to persisting with the difficult/stupid nonspell graze after dying to it) and stage 5 where I used one extra bomb due to seeing it in ISO's old 2006 run (I came to the conclusion that no, this bomb should be saved for stage 6)

MATSU has achieved 70 million from stage 4, and 108 million from stage 6, in practice. I'm trying to figure out just how this is possible. He's also remarked that 350 million is possible for a full run. I wondered what his best for stage 3 and 5 is. Say he gets 30 million from the first two stages, 70 in stage 4, and 99 in stage 6 (in stage practice, you finish it with 3 extra lives if you follow the route, that's 9 million points extra) that adds up to 199 mil.  His bests would certainly add up to more than his estimation of what's possible. 151 million shared between stage 3 and 5 would only be something like... 65+86... I'm already almost there, so his own bests would definitely be higher.

His graze count ending stage 4 is 3671
His graze count ending stage 6 is 4297
In his WR, he gets 3122 and 3621 respectively. It's Baffling, since I don't actually spot the opportunities for such a big graze increase. This makes me wonder just how much is possible in stage 3 and 5? Probably way more than I think... by means I can't yet understand. I really enjoy not understanding stuff. I like music I don't understand, movies I don't understand, literature and poems, paintings. This game fits me so well because I cannot grasp it. Where are all these points coming from? Could you even explain it that with words, if you tried, or do you need the required experience to truly grasp it?

[kitslol]

Got my first 1cc on Lunatic today with EoSD.

I'll be working on PCB next.

Pretty satisfied with my progress so far!

edit: Guess this belongs in the accomplishment thread. Sorry about that

[Zengeku]

So today I failed to LNB DDC because I started making an ass of myself around stage 4-5. So what, no biggie. Try again right? Yeah, there's something that I've been noticing happening a bit lately. I have zero tolerance for failure and no confidence when it comes to playing full runs. When i'm practicing, I can do just about 10x better performances than when I'm playing full funs. When i'm playing full runs, i'm a jittering mess of nerves where just one mistake is enough to trigger a snowball effect with just more and more deaths happening to things where deaths usually never happen and it just keeps going until the game is over. This is terrible for my confidence, and my sense of self worth.

Sure all the practice have been fun. And sure it's satisfying to do something well, especially in full runs. But when things just go completely terrible then it's hard to not feel that I haven't been wasting all that time practicing because 'evidently' it hasn't had any payoff. I know that bad runs happen and that you may easily perform better another time or maybe you just now know where to focus your practice efforts but the thing is that when you are already a depressed and life-tired worthless excuse of a human being then its hard to gather up the resources for even something as simple as shrugging off a failure at something that's just a videogame.

I know it's fucking retarded and if I had better things to do in life then I would quit shmups right away but the thing is that I do not. When I find something then I'll probably call it quits on this genre or at least dial back on the playing. Well, actually the thing is that I don't need to drop the shmup I just need to somehow find some more things to fill up my existence with. Not that shmupping is the only thing i do, no i do other things like stare at walls, watch grass grow, study my chinese or my japanese or watch anime and play other games. University life is quite a pain. You show up for lessons, then leave again. I much preferred how things worked in high school. University feels like the exact opposite of highschool. Oh and with study groups where I'm supposed to study together with people I can't trust. Lovely. Wait, how the hell did this turn into blogging about real life, that's not the fucking point.

Back to Touhou. I'm not entirely sure where to proceed with my playing. If it would be better to pursue full runs, grab LNB's i haven't managed yet or improve my old ones or perhabs just stick to polishing my skills with silly practice exercises until I hopefully manage to recover myself and get my 2011 self back. Maybe actually just going for training and not a lot of full runs is a better option because that means that I won't have to deal with ruining potentially promising runs with my own lack of confidence and just general stupidity. I wouldn't have to deal with my laptops recurring issue of suddenly making Reimu head in some direction until i press that key again. Something that has also ruined many runs including what could well have been an EoSD LNB. What I end up deciding I don't really know.

In any case, I'll need to get a life if I want to be able to play at least somewhat passably, so I should go try figuring something out. I don't expect anyone to read this mess, i just had to drop some things off my chest i guess.

[Szayelaporro Granz]

I'm not sure if this's the thread for this, but...

I'm capable of beating normal in most games with ease after a bit more than a year, just how fast is my progress? I've been playing Touhou since July 2012 and I've been playing on and off most of the time.

[Space Flower]

I'm not sure if this's the thread for this, but...

I'm capable of beating normal in most games with ease after a bit more than a year, just how fast is my progress? I've been playing Touhou since July 2012 and I've been playing on and off most of the time.

Well, everyone's got their own pace. There are those who were new to shmups when they played Touhou and had little trouble on Lunatic... and those who only play Easy. Personally I started this May and I'm probably a month away from having 5 EX bosses under my belt, but that's just MoF and earlier... SA and UFO crush me, the former especially. I haven't even beaten Orin without a continue yet on normal. Of course, I've also never watched any replays for SA, but it's still on its own level. I didn't watch any for IN Extra either and I beat that recently (then again, spell practice)

[Mino ☆]

Tried to pick up Touhou today but it didn't go well. I tried to do a basic PCB Lunatic no bombs run but I kept dying stupidly in the first three stages. It wasn't actually my fault because the game cheated and all. Just kidding. It was my fault and all that good stuff. Anyway. I struggled to have any fun at all. The more I died, the more discouraged I got. When I finally started getting into the run, a crushing death ruined all of my motivation and caused me to just die over and over again due to not trying. I couldn't play at all earlier today. And I'm really feeling sick of Touhou at the moment. The more I try to get back into it, the more I just get repelled. I'm also starting to think my Touhou skill is deteriorating. I can't seem to do things right anymore. That's probably because I haven't been playing that much anymore. And I haven't really been in the mood to just sit down and play recently. My stamina is extremely low. I get drained after only a few attempts. This is because I've reached another Touhou recession.

It's just the recession in my Touhou curve of playing. After a while I'll get this new inspiration and start playing again. But until then, I'll continue my Touhou depression.

I wonder how long this will last. My last Touhou hiatus lasted four months. :/

I was a bit disappointed in myself. Usually I can just play and not care about the mistakes I make. I can play just to enjoy the game and its patterns. The mindset even helps me play better. I just can't do that anymore. I just hope this will end soon. I kind of want to start playing again. If my motivation and stamina will let me.

[commandercool]

Before an hour ago I hadn't played Touhou in over two months because I've been so busy with class. I was slogging through a pile of lab reports, so I decided to take a break and Imperishable Night was sitting on my desktop, looking distracting. I decided to take a quick run with the assumption that I would blow it on stage three or four and quit. I ended up clearing the game and massively surpassing my previous high score. This just goes to prove once and for all that the reason I suck at this game, at least relative to how well I feel like I should be doing, is that I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'm too willing to drop a run because something goes really badly, which I'm sure has ended dozens if not hundreds of would-be clears and high scores. I don't know if I know how to fix this, either.

There is a balance that needs to be struck between practicing hard parts and conserving resources, and just playing something through, bombing everything that looks even remotely sketchy, and pushing on when I fuck up. There's a certain point where I feel like I need practice on stuff, and I don't think I could've done as well as I did on this run just now without the nights of playing the same spellcard 500 times last summer. Unfortunately my brain doesn't know how to determine where practice would do the most help or when enough it enough at this point. And ultimately that doesn't really matter right now, because I'm pretty satisfied with where I am right now.

[I have no name]

I guess this is the best place to put this.

I just remembered that ARF said a while ago that if you next scene from SP-4 you go into SP-5 and beyond as Aya instead of Hatate.  It doesn't save any time, but at least for me SP-6 becomes much easier.  It's definitely a cool trick, even if it is sub-optimal.  If I can't get the faster strat consistent by AGDQ I'll definitely use Aya here.  Though, SP-7 with Aya is 2hard4me.

[cactu]

EoSD stage 5 scoring is giving me nightmares. Why is it so hard ahhhh

[Mino ☆]

After another UFO ragefest, I'm starting to realize why I'm in such a bad state with Touhou at the moment.

I play to win, not to have fun. I don't play just to play the game. I play because I want something. When I don't get that something, I get mad.

With just a bit more tweaking, I might be able to change my mindset about Touhou and increase my stamina. Victories are a reward for those who keep going forward.

Playing for a goal isn't bad. But you mustn't expect yourself to get said goal in one try. You play despite the fact that you may fail. Because in each playthrough, you get stronger.

For the first time in a while. I've had the strong urge to play.

[Mesarthim]

Because I am lazy normally I do not do Maze of Love the way you're supposed to and instead just stick it out straight on the bottom. I always get hit and use a bomb or two in this method because it requires precise aim for movement and good reaction, traits I sometimes lack on some patterns.

So I do maze of love the normal way for once and clear it without issue. Makes me nervous as hell doing that spellcard.

[Mr Jovial]

Today I randomly said "Tax evasion" while playing PoDD  :derp:

And I questioned why people called me strange irl  :V

EDIT: (This is more of a new post though I didn't want to double post). Apparently, my PoDD skill is declining. Two days ago I got to Yumemi 3 times, twice on my last life and once on a run that I had only died once on. Yesterday I got to Yumemi once, again on my last life. Today I didn't make it to Yumemi and I only got to Chiyuri once (damn quad death), Part of it is because I will restart if I die more than once before Chiyuri and the rest is bad luck. The worst part is I usually get a bit annoyed as I restart and when I do like a lot of people, I want to hit something. The reason I mention this? Because I only ever hit one thing. Myself. I now have a headache and a sore hand.

[Zil]

You can probably allow 2 deaths before Chiyuri. (I'd definitely restart on 3 though.)

Well. I think I've finally reached the point where my scoreboard will be all Chiyuri forevermore. 8 times I've scored over 110 million... Hopefully 120 will happen sometime soon. I still feel like boosting my Ellen score a bit, but otherwise I think Chiyuri will be the focus of all of my attention from now on. I'm definitely getting in this range much more frequently than I used to. This game's such a nightmare, but if I can just pull a good run together... I'll start dreaming of 130 million next.

[Mr Jovial]

I swear that I just had the quickest loss in human history in PoDD. Against Kana in stage 6; 3 hits to a boss attack put me at half a heart so I bomb. Then a gauge attack starts and naturally, I go stand still in the centre (the gauge level wasn't high enough for the centre to be dangerous) and then I get hit by a quick white pellet thing and die. Next round I defeat Kana with ease ending on 5 hearts and 1 bomb left. I think that's what I like about PoDD that's not there in other touhou games. Sure, shitstorms are pretty cool and the fact that there is "humanly impossible" patterns (the " mean it is doable but that's entirely luck based) is also an interesting prospect but I feel like lots of difficult games become too easy because they're too predictable. It's nice to have difficulty that isn't trivialised by prior knowledge. I guess that was also what made Dark Souls too easy for me, but that's not touhou related so I'll stop there.

Also, still haven't got a damn 1cc yet, but at least I'm not having as bad a time with it as I did when I last posted. I'm actually enjoying it unlike then. But Yumemi plz, let me kick your face in at least once and then again later since I'm planning on going for the Chiyuri 1cc once I'm done with Marisa. :V

[chum]

Chiyuri mirror is way too hard. If I had beaten her, this run could've been 100 mil!

I also guess I still haven't downloaded that text file that I used to have.

Uhh.... does anyone have it

[Zil]

Here. I think is even the improved one that doesn't fuck up the W's in Mystic Square.

[chum]

Thanks!

[Mr Jovial]

Omfg. Managed a no death Chiyuri. Was the most insane fight ever. Shitstorms got passed across and I swear, Chiyuri's AI broke at some point; she died too fast. But I now have 4 lives for Yumemi. Time to get my face Marisa's face kicked in

EDIT: NO. NO. NO NO NO NO NO. STOP IT YUMEMI. Seriously. First round, within less than 2 minutes, Yumemi was half hearted no bombs and had already hypered once. No. I'm glad I lost that round, it was FAR too easy and I swear, that AI was ridiculously broken. And I'm using Marisa, who has no difficult boss attacks. PoDD stop please. I played you for a challenge, not so you could give me easy AI.

EDIT2: 3rd round. Dead in about 10 seconds. Lol I took a huge risk not cancelling that boss attack that Yumemi started the round with, especially since I had a full gauge anyway. Wanted to take that weak first hit but nope. I took 4. :V

EDIT3: YES. YES. YES YES YES YES YES. 1CC. IT ONLY TOOK ME 5 DECADES BUT 1CC. FUCK YES.

[Vanhaomena]

Goodnight sweat prince

[Wriggle]

Goodnight sweat prince

Vanhao, will you be my new Zengeku? :*

[Vanhaomena]

Vanhao, will you be my new Zengeku? :*

These are big and heavy boots to fill. I'd rather fill something a little smaller, if you know what I mean 

[Wriggle]

These are big and heavy boots to fill. I'd rather fill something a little smaller, if you know what I mean 

That's so sweet of you. That's two steps. Next step is lewd shmups goal on your sig. :3

Then we can lewd to full extend.

[Sapz]

Actually, let's not do that. This is the 'Touhou' blogging thread; it'd be appreciated if it were kept  that way rather than the 'random creepiness' blogging thread.

[Waahst]

I played with bombs today. It was okay.

And I'm dreading UFO lunatic when I get to that because everyone says that's the hardest....

Proper token route = so many lives. Game isn't too scary when you can get to Shou with 7~8 extra lives. Still not easier than other games because if you invested the same amount of time required to learn a good UFO route into another game, that game would appear way easier as well. All subjective I guess. You can pretty much bomb everything with the resources given though, and that's no exaggeration.

[Drake]

I haven't played STGs for months. School is too strong.

[kitslol]

Err, on the uhh, blogging topic...
SA Lunatic is so hard omg
I mean it's a lot of fun because the entire game is really difficult compared to like, easy mode stages 1-3 and then massive difficult spike like some other games, but I'm not good enough for this yet >.> It's even worse because dying doesn't just lose you a life, you also don't get the life piece from the non-spell/spell card so you can make even fewer mistakes later.

And I'm dreading UFO lunatic when I get to that because everyone says that's the hardest....

I'm with you there, just started playing SA lunatic two days ago and I'm currently slamming my face into the last 3 stages on practice mode(Mostly 4 and 5). Mixing in some UFO practice just to get some exposure to the patterns as well.
Best thing you can do for yourself if you haven't already is memorize a good stage routes. They'll make the first 3 stages at least, much much easier.
Once you start getting the hang of the game though those lives really start piling up.

[Mesarthim]

Well about two days ago I had another run in with Touhou 7 lunatic.

Two runs. Both game over by the same spot. Default lives. Yuyuko's next to last spellcard.

This got me thinking... I got that far in two runs on default lives so if I add two more I should be able to clear lunatic right? Wrong. I failed more often and faster. Flipped tables then stopped playing for the time being. Who says more lives in the earlier games is a good thing.

[chirpy13]

Game isn't too scary when you can get to Shou with 7~8 extra lives.

I dunno Waah, I still managed to game over to Byakuren 3-4 times after getting to Shou with max lives.

[cactu]

Got another 2MNB, died on Megalith and Meek. That puts my perfect remilia count up to 3/4 of my 2MNB runs... And my meek deaths are 3/4 as well, darn.
At least it seems like I'm getting close.