Touhou Draft - Yet Again.

[Wen Yang]

I'm personally fine if people want to submit late replays, but they should probably be tiered amongst themselves, and appended to the bottom of the order to be fair to those who were on time. It's up to Wen in the end, though, I suppose.

Barring RL emergencies, this will be the last extension. There will be no more extensions after this.

And Emerald... I've clearly noted the timezone on the deadlines from the very first one. Don't try telling me you only noticed it NOW.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Wen Yang

[Emeraldfox]

To be fair, Wen, you did remind me on Skype those two times.

[Fera]

And... Time is up. I am greatly disappointed at you people.

1. Balcerzak - 20 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34704

2. Wen Yang - 12 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34773

Everyone else - No replay submitted. 0 points.

Deadline for the 4th Game, MoF, will be at 7th October 2014, 12:00 PM GMT+7.

All Right, had a chat with Scarlet earlier.

Some things of note:

- Deadline for IN round is EXTENDED by 48 hours. New Deadline is October 2nd, 12:00 PM GMT+7

- You are now free to choose whatever difficulty you wish to play the game on.

Do not disappoint me again by pulling another disappearing act.

You should really use the countdown timer Scarlet used last time to try and curb any timezone misunderstandings.

It solves any misunderstandings perfectly by giving each person a timezone-adjusted countdown. There's one for now.

[Sifer]

I am withdrawing from the draft since some things are happening in RL that needs to be taken care of.

Well, since I am dropping out of the draft.

Here is my Malice play through, not one that was drafted, but I like the pair

The later ones I did I didn't drop as many bombs yet I didn't score as high :/

http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34784

Edited September 30, 2014 by Sifer

[--------------------]

IN normal 1cc! At 4 am in the morning!

Why am I trying so hard for this

http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34796

[Balcerzak]

I am withdrawing from the draft since some things are happening in RL that needs to be taken care of.

Well, since I am dropping out of the draft.

Here is my Malice play through, not one that was drafted, but I like the pair

Very sorry to hear about your circumstances, Sifer, but concentrate on your life first. It's more important than any internet contest for fun.

[--------------------]

Very sorry to hear about your circumstances, Sifer, but concentrate on your life first. It's more important than any internet contest for fun.

Agreed.

Which is also why I am just going to do easy mode for everything else. Since easy mode doesn't require nearly as much effort as normal, for me to do well.

[Djeets]

so guys ill sub for sifer

so i got extra plays?

Edited October 1, 2014 by Pukuriripo

[Wen Yang]

Puku: you will be given 15 extra days after the end of the draft to submit EoSD/PCB/IN replays. For now, just follow the schedule. We're running MoF next.

Of course, if you want to give replays for those games ahead of time, feel free.

[Wen Yang]

Anyway, Round 3 are up, Results for now are:

1. Balcerzak - 20 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34704

2. Wen Yang - 17 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34805

3. Akinaoki - 14 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34796

4. Kay - 11 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34616

5. Emeraldfox - 8 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34776

note that the rankings and points will be recalculated when puku enters his entries.

Deadline for the 4th Game, MoF, will be at October 9th, 12:00 PM GMT+7.

Deadline countdown clock link will be found on the OP.

[--------------------]

MoF: http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34875

SA: http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34876

Edited October 7, 2014 by Akinaoki

[Wen Yang]

Approximately 26 hours and 55 minutes left till the end of this round. Still waiting for replays from Puku, Kay, and Emeraldfox.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Wen Yang

[Emeraldfox]

http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34891

Bloop

[Wen Yang]

And round 4 is done.

Results:

1. Wen Yang - 20 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34890

2. Balcerzak - 17 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34883

3. Akinaoki - 14 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34872

4. #most #Qualified - 11 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34891

5. Kay - 3 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34760

6. Puku - 0 points - Did not submit a replay. You disappoint me.

Deadline for Round 5, SA, will be at October 16th, 12:00 PM GMT+7.

[Balcerzak]

So, I'm super late on the IN replay commentaries, but I have excuses, I was super focused/frustrated with Subterranean Animism, and kept being too burnt out to want to do more Touhou, even if it was just watching replays and writing up notes. Here's some stuff for you now, though.

General Scoring Tips/Criticisms (for everyone):

Stage 1 opener, it's ideal to sit in the lower right and fire immediately upon loading in, so that you can reach -80% human side and start earning time orbs by the time you fire upon the first wave of fairies. The more time orbs you get, the more your score, for a variety of reasons. I would hesitantly suggest that time orbs are arguably more vital than point items in this game, although, that might not be 100% factually correct, I haven't done any sort of math on it. It certainly isn't true on an item by item basis, as any individual time orb is going to have a negligible effect, but earning the time orb threshold on each stage is vital to getting a good score for a multitude of reasons: an extra half-hour for Night Bonus and extra spellcard, both for the capture bonus, and for the chance to earn even more time orbs from capturing, grazing in youkai form, or firing in human form. Why collect more time orbs if you've already hit the threshold, you ask? Time orbs' and point items' values are inextricably linked. The point value increases a slight amount for every time orb you collect, with the actual formula being value=base+10*ceiling(total time orbs collected/2), and for each point item you collect, the value of each time orb also increases, value=min(100,10*floor(total point items collected/2)).

Furthermore, while on the subject of point items, perhaps the most important thing to note is that point items collected when in -80% human mode (or youmu's equivalent -30%) are worth double their listed value, so maintaining your human/youkai gauge is vital for highscoring. The best way to quickly reorient your gauge (bar bombing in the form you want it to go to) is to collect a lot of items in that form. This is typically done with time orbs, as they're plentiful, home towards you making collection super easy, and their value is independent of your gauge. The best way to get a large clump of time orbs in a timely fashion is by what I like to refer to as "familiar popping", which is a vital technique for another reason.

A little more explanation about how familiars work is probably in order though. Certain enemies are designated as masters and either come with a set number of familiars, or summon them continually while on the field. Familiars are like normal enemies with a few differences, the most major of which is that when you are the youkai partner of your team/solo, they are invulnerable to your bullets, and you are invulnerable to colliding with them. The other major difference is that when the familiars' master is killed, all of the familiars associated with it will self-destruct. Self-destructing familiars in this way has a number of benefits over killing them in the conventional method. First off, when self-destructed they drop small point items which they wouldn't drop otherwise, these are worth value = 10*floor(point value/100). (Small point items also replace power items when you're at full power, btw.) Additionally, when self-destructed the familiars release a clump of time orbs, with exponentially more produced the more familiars that are simultaneously destroyed. (NB: This is only true up to a point. It shifts to multiplicative at 8 familiars on-screen for teams, 10 for youkai solo, 4 for human solo.) While killing a familiar normal will still give time orbs, just ask yourself is it better to kill 8 familiars separately for 14 orbs a piece, or 8 all at once for 224? Not only is there that incentive, but when self-destructed, the familiars explode like mini-bombs, and cancel bullets nearby their vicinity, with each of the cancelled bullets being converted into time orbs. I wasn't able to figure out the exact math, but it was something like 2-3 orbs per bullet, give or take. This may sound like small potatoes, but it all adds up.

At any rate, the original subject was how "popping" familiars is a quick way to re-orient your gauge. You kill something with 4 or 8 familiars circling them by quickly shifting into youkai form (preferably not chilling around in it for too long as firing excessively would be counterproductive to reaching -80%) so that you don't accidentally kill the familiars, but just kill the master. Then as soon as the master poof, you release shift, and revert to human as the orbs are rushing their way towards you. Now, the timing can be tricky, especially if you're trying to juggle multiple pops in succession, but that's the general idea. On the subject of gauge though, something that I've seen pros able to accomplish that I am not skilled enough to do, is to defeat a skillcard, unfocus, collect enough time orbs to reach -80 and the point items, then focus back up and collect the remaining orbs to get as close back to +80 as possible. That's some truly next level boss mechanics, though, I would for the moment just suggest the simpler technique of understanding which cards/noncards you cannot afford to not be earning orbs from grazing (based on density), and only stay in youkai form for those one, but collecting the point drops in human form when you can. This is much more important in the later stages, after you've already padded up a significant value to your point items by abusing the crap out of collecting time items early.

To this end, I've found that for the majority of the early game, firing unfocused in -80% is far more efficient. You only get time orbs from grazing when +80% if there is a (mid)boss present, IIRC, and early (mid)bosses don't usually have the bullet density to make grazing a profitable trade-off, Last Spells and certain other spells excepting. Spells worth grazing include: Wriggles final spell and her Last Spell, if you go up close and circle her as the spokes are spiraling around; Keine's final and Last Spells are probably good choices as well; Duplex Barrier, Evil Sealing Circle, Duplex Danmaku from Reimu; Stardust Reverie is probably the best for Marisa, the others aren't bad though. Other than that, you should probably be fighting the boss unfocused unless you have survivability issues (~two time orbs per bullet that lands will probably outstrip the ~two time orbs per bullet grazed). ALWAYS BE FOCUSED IF IT HELPS YOU STAY ALIVE/YOUR UNFOCUSED CLEAR IS UNRELIABLE.

For stages 5 and 6 it would probably be more efficient to say which things are better off/survivable unfocused, rather than the other way around. All I can come up with at the moment is possibly Reisen's first noncard (though you'll want to do small focused repositions), and probably Kaguya's 2nd nonspell. Everything else is probably better off grazed, especially Reisen's long long 3rd nonspell, which is just begging to be milked. Reisen's first noncard would probably be better off being grazed if you started at +80%, tbh, but since you likely just collected a wad of point items from the large dual bomb masters and their clumps of familiars, and you probably did so at -80%, that's just not feasible to get to +80% in any sort of reasonable time. I mostly suggest the Kaguya nonspell for unfocused fire is because there are so many hard to kill familiars that I believe you can artificially extend the fight by wasting your bullets on them rather than her health bar, allowing you to get more bang for your buck... as long as you manage to stay below -80%, which can be easier said than done, as actually killing familiars puts a dent the wrong way in your gauge, and sometimes it gets dense enough you need to focus for extended time. This is also something that sees a good deal of use in the Marisa noncards as well, but honestly in those you're mostly killing her familiars to reduce overall density and increase survivability, imo.

I know I mentioned earlier that killing familiars individually is not a good idea, but that was mostly geared at the quickly popped stage familiars. Some boss familiars have enough HP that you'd get way more time from unfocused -80% firing at them than you would if you let them escape/explode when the bosses health depletes. Speaking of familiars "escaping" that's tied in to the number in parentheses during a boss battle. You'll see things like Reisen U Inaba +16(84). 84 would be the total amount of familiars she's summoned that you have not destroyed, while 16 would be the number that is currently on-screen. The number of on-screen familiars accounts for the heftier part of the time orb bonus, being the part that has actual exponential scaling (up to that point I mentioned before), or just plain better coefficients. You only get 2 time orbs for each of the familiars that have "escaped" to off-screen, which is probably less than they'd give for killing them, to be honest. Also, while you obviously want to optimize defeating a pattern with the most familiars on-screen possible, for the highest boost, you must make sure there is at least one familiar on-screen. If not, I don't think you get any bonus whatsoever, though I could be mistaken. A prominent example of this would mid-boss Wriggle. If you kill her too fast before she summons any of her familiars and attempts to spam the screen with bullets, you're missing out on not only the large bullet cancel bonus, but the large time orb production from the 8 familiars she would have brought to the table.

Some stage specific notes I don't really know where else to place:

For the Stage 2 masters that pop out a long chain of familiars one at a time, it's debatable whether it's better to let them get to 7 or 8, or kill them at 3/4 imo. While you get half the spawn rate of masters if you let them pop out more than 4, the raw time orb collection increase because of the higher scaling. However, you might be missing out on a net extra of orbs from additional bullet cancels in the base bullet patterns, which might make the 3/4 familiar pops more worthwhile. I hypothesize a large part of the reason Stage 4 Uncanny has such higher values requirements for time than Stage 4 Powerful is because Reimu shits out so many more familiars than Marisa does, which makes it much easier to collect time in general. I am hesitant to suggest that it is a compensation for the Marisa fight being harder and time loss due to deaths/last spells being more probable. The reason for that is Zun is pretty much a troll, and as seen in the scoring systems for MOF and SA quite clearly feels you shouldn't be dying anywhere.

Emerald Tips/Criticisms:

You reach mid-Wriggle with 80 power, 26 point, 445 time. You could easily have another 250 time by here (see the general notes section for a few pointers on this) though your power and point collection is very good. However, you do an early finish on Wriggle, and it doesn't look like an accident, again see the general tips section for why this is a bad idea. 2nd half of the stage you were a lot tighter on your familiar kills, so very good improvement. You reach the boss with 105 power, 49 point, and 941 time. You're still down considerably from where you could be on time orbs, but I guess some of that might be because you're playing on easy. You end stage wih a measly 2163 time, barely passable for the easy mode requirement of 2000. I'm not sure how high you could get precisely without the last spell card to graze the shit out of, but I would think somewhere in the neighborhood of 3500 would be a good goal to aim for. You end with 61 point items collected though, which is pretty much perfect, so there's that at least. Your under/over percentages were 40/0, so you could use some work managing your gauge, in general. See the previous notes for why and how.

Very hit/miss on your familiar executes in stage 2, you get a lot of +0/+1 when you could be doing better. You get to Mystai with ~2300 time, which is very very low. 4000 is a good benchmark, imo. Your point items during the stage was about 100, which is pretty good still. You're only up to 3100 time at the boss. Now, there's only so much time you can squeeze out of mid-Mystia, but with a little better familiar or gauge management, I think you could have gotten higher. You take the whole of the boss fight in an awkward state of grey, neither human nor youkai; this is terrible, don't do this if you can avoid it. You waste so much potential time orbs. The fact that you don't hit the stage threshold is telling, ending with 6076.

Stage 3 first half you let quite a few point items fall, making it to midboss with only 92 collected, instead of ~135. Your time collected is quite weak too, at 1527. Again, your boss fight you have terrible gauge management. When you get to the end of the stage you've got 3400 time and an additional 106 point items, the time could be vastly improved, but your item collection was good in the 2nd half. The boss fight again has some gauge issues, though you do attempt a few things to squeeze out some extra time, like shooting some of the high health familiars unfocused for some raw time orb collection. In the end, it's not enough, though as you end with 7267, shy of the goal.

You were a little POC shy in the first half of stage 4, collecting about 129 items, missing about 50 or so. I'm not sure of a good time orb value for you to be at for midboss during Uncanny, as it has different requirements than Powerful, but 3666 actually seems relatively reasonable to be at at this point. You slip up during Reimu's 2nd nonspell and end up dying, with a load of bombs, which sucks, but it can happen. Fighting her with Alice looks hard, because she's so thin, but with all the yin-yang familiars she's tossing around, taking her with Marisa has its own risks attached. You do amazing on Fantasy Seal Spread though, which I kind of hate for reminding me of Eternal Meek in all the wrong ways (randomly spread bullets with random speeds, no thank you). The 2nd half of the stage is much the same as the first, only 78 point items grabbed, another ~50 dropped or so. You're close to 8000 time at Evil Sealing Circle though, which bodes well. It takes several passes because Alice has no spread, but such is life. You get tired of Reimu's bullshit and Master Spark her 2nd nonspell twice, which is better than getting caught by stray bullets, at least. Fantasy Seal Concentrate is a lot more manageable without the addition of Normal's fat bullets, and you take care of it with little issue. I don't know if you needed to bomb the Duplex Danmaku Field, but if you did, you should have used Marisa's. Alice's bomb is shit-tier in damage output, IIRC. Ended the stage with 12392, which seems quite respectable, and a 8(228) or so on Reimu, which again beats the something like 7(65) Marisa usually puts out.

Stage 5 item collect is a little subpar, you get 55 points by the time you get to Tewi, and you probably could have snagged another ~30 or so. Your time is 2931, which isn't too bad, I can only see a few hundred more you might have eked out. The 2nd half of the stage is better, you don't drop as many items, but you make the mistake of being youkai-sided on the gauge when collecting items more than you probably wanted to be. I presume your bomb during Reisen's second nonspell was mostly to get your gauge back to youkai so you could graze time points? Or maybe it was to autocollect the point items. Either way, understandable, I've lost many a life trying to get them at the POC in my day. You sort of wall yourself in during Visionary Tuning and force yourself to bomb, twice because the first Alice bomb didn't do enough damage. There was a good 30s you could have milked some graze during the 3rd nonspell that you passed up. That makes me kind of sad. Idle Wave clearly gives you troubles, even in its Easymodo form, as you die and bomb to it. This is still a tough card for me, personally, due to weaving in crossing bullets, but you should really try to practice it and get it down a little better. I'm always surprised that people can manage to horizontal dodge Reisen's spellcards, when vertical dodge is just so much better. Anyway, you end with 9222 time, short of the goal sadly.

You wavered for so long I seriously thought you were considering Eirin's stage, which would have been a huge mistake point-wise. I'm sure Proto can tell you about that from experience. The stage 6 opener claims a life, and you drop way too many point items, and collect a bunch of other while not in full -80%. So much wasted potential. You missed an easy 150 point items, and the ~160 you did get were at half value basically. Ouch. That's earning 1/4 score of what you could have for this segment. Your time value was 3170, not bad, but still a couple hundred below where you could have it. You weren't well prepared for Eirin's nonspell, so you masterspark it, which is fine. Not having any idea of how to approach Galaxy in a Pot, though, and double bombing it on the other hand needs to be fixed. You lose out on a ton of time due to the unoptimal midboss fight. You bomb Kaguya's opener, which you shouldn't need to, and die to Dragon's Necklace. Twice. I know Dragon's Necklace sucks, but just Spark it and move on. You have to Last Spell the next nonspell, and then I'm laughing as Kaguya with no familiars sits there and takes a pounding from you. Buddha's Bowl is Kaguya's easiest spell, so you capture it without any problems. The next nonspell is one you really usually want to have a bomb for, you lack, and so you end up dying to it, then bombing it later. Fire Rat's Robe has so much space on easy :o But you bomb it to be safe. Swallows' Cowrie is a lot less threatening on easy, so you take it out no sweat, but you don't have any idea how to handle Rainbow Danmaku. It's not a survival spell, it just has a fuck-ton of armor until it hits about 45 seconds. You dodge and weave through it pretty well, to be fair, so it makes me sad when I see the Failure message crop up at the end. This might have been your first time seeing the last spells, so it makes sens you don't know how to deal with them. You'd already lost so much time during the stages that I'm not surprised you end up timing out past 5 AM and not seeing all of them. There's a ton of room for improvement here, but congratulations on the 1cc regardless!

Kay Tips/Criticisms:

Not going to re-stress anything from the General section, but there's a fair bit that applies. Getting right into it, though, you reach mid Wriggle with 78 power, 26 points, and only 430 time. That's decent on item collection, but bad on time. You at least got some time from letting Wriggle spawn some familiars before popping her though, so that is something positive. During the second half of the stage your collection is still doing well and your reach the boss with 1038 time, which honestly isn't too bad a net gain, I think the majority of where you needed to improve was the first half, though some work could still be done in the second. I do believe you finished Wriggles final boss card when she didn't have any familiars on the field, and thus missed out on some potential time bonus. Still, 3656 isn't bad for Easy without the opportunities afforded by the Last Spell, at least imo. You were 95% at under -30, which is frankly great, imo.

Your stage 2 is very sub-par, in my opinion, with essentially zero effort on proper handling of familiars. I don't think I saw you flip to Yuyuko even once. You also didn't make much effort at point item collection, only getting a net of ~80 points by the time mid-Mystia was reached, which is probably 40 short of what you could have had. Your time was fair, at ~2700, probably due to staying human-side 100% of the time, even if you missed out on a lot of familiar orbs. I'm not sure how far down it should adjust for Easy mode, but in Normal, I'd benchmark at ~4000 time at this point. The only pointer I'd have for your midboss fight, aside from the ever-present try to control youmu's option as best as possible for efficiency's sake, is to be close to the POC when finishing her card, so you can get those point drops to autocollect to you for full value, rather than just wherever you ended up being on the screen. Same comment on the boss-half, faster clears would give higher spellcard bonuses, and there were a few point items you grabbed just at arms reach near the lower half, but honestly you did great. Your final time was 8455, well over the threshold.

Your switch to Yuyuko at the masters that churn out familiar after familiar made me finally think you were going to go after the execution bonus, but I guess it was just for comfort/safety ? A little disappointing, but not unforgivable. Your time collection really suffered here, compared to what it could be, mostly just the same old issues cropping up again and again. You only netted 100 point items, about 30 dropped or so, and 1455 time by midboss where you'd like to have closer to 3000. You didn't seem to know in advance how you wanted to fight Keine, switching back and forth a couple of times between Youmu and Yuyuko. While it's not a terrible idea to use different forms for different patterns, you want to know this ahead of time and stick to it. The second half of stage 3 was mcuh improved, actually netting 106 points and bringing your time up to 3245. Ideally you'd have closer to 5000, but the deficit we see is mainly from the problems in the first half, it looks like. You seemed much more confident in the boss fight vs Keine, sticking with Youmu throughout and only switching to Yuyuko for precision work and the final spell, so the midboss fight was probably just a fluke. You surpass the threshold, ending with 8581 time, not bad.

Stage 4 sees you finally using Yuyuko effectively to familiar pop on the large 8 orbiter fairies, and you even get the time orb collect as youmu on the first set, allowing you to collect at -50. It looked like you thought more were coming on the second set though, so you might have just misremembered. You have a little trouble managing your gauge here for a bit, which causes some point and loss, but you end up coming out pretty good, only missing about 20 points and maaybe 400 time. The mid-Marisa fight went just fine, about as perfect as you can get for Easy. When you step up to Normal, grazing the bottom of the screen during Stardust Reverie is a lot more profitable than circling around the uncurling spiral arms, though, imo, and I might consider unfocused on the first non-spell, but that could just be personal preference at work. In the second half of the stage we see you use your first bomb when you are feeling boxed in on the lower right. I would have switched ot Yuyuko sooner for the orbiting familar fairies like you did in the first half, I'm not sure why you didn't. You had maxed out on bombs by this point any way, and more were going to drop before the boss, so not a huge issue blowing one to relieve some pressure. In fact, I think you only killed one of the two bomb fairies, and let the other escape. Kind of hilarious, but actually a bad idea. I'm not sure if collecting bombs at full awards you a flat point bonus or not, but the point items and other benefits to killing that fairy still exist. Anyway, you reach the boss with with 5757 total time, which is good, but your second half of the stage really suffered from not handling the orbit fairies correctly. You similarly dropped a lot of points compared to the first half of the stage (~50 as opposed to ~20). You lose your first life at the first nonspell, and that really has to sting with the full complement of bombs you had stocked up. Ouch. Nondirectional Lasers went fine, and while there was a near miss in the next nonspell, everything went more or less okay. I'm very confused by your decisions in Master Spark, however. You seemed to have been doing fine with Yuyuko, but then switched to Youmu, and couldn't get her option pointed the right way most of the time. You bomb for safety, and the spellcard times out, which is less than desireable. You had a lot of trouble with Earth Light Ray too, taking it very passive, not even hitting her for much of it. You bomb again, but manage to defeat the pattern at the end. You barely eke out of the stage at 7719, above the Easy versions 7500 threshold, but you need a lot of work on Marisa for the future.

You start off stage 5 with the right idea for a safe clear, utilizing Yuyuko's spread to carpetbomb those fairies, but you wandered into a stray bullet, losing your second life. Your item collection by Tewi's arrival is pretty good, but being focused and the death do cost you a fair amount of time. You want to be closer to 3300 than 2300. The midboss fight goes off without a hitch though, so that's a huge plus. You suffer another unfortunate death in the second half of the stage, though. Gotta use those bombs if you can! You reach Reisen while maintaining good collection, and not losing too much more ground on time, (but still losing some). You bomb during Red Eyes Hypnosis during a close call. Honestly, I recommend taking that card vertically, rather than horizontally like you tried (this applies to almost all of Reisen's cards, truthfully. It's pretty much her gimmick.) You do an excellent job on Visionary Tuning though! I have to make an obligatory comment saying you should have graze-milked her 3rd noncard to pad on the time and help you reach that threshold. It's not hard to keep dodging the same simple pattern for 30-40 seconds extra while just taking your finger off of the fire button, and it will really help your score. You understand Idle Wave very well, and don't have any issues, very nice. And FANTASTIC, you do end up taking Invisible Full Moon vertically (with Youmu form no less :o). You just barely crossed over the required threshold, hitting 10026, so the extra graze time turned out to not be completely necessary, but having a large buffer to help ward off any accidental death or last spell can really make a world of difference, not to mention increasing the value of future point items.

You don't do the best job with the Stage 6 opener, only getting about half of the point items at below -30, but that can be tricky, and the random spawn positions of the masters don't make it any easier. You can't decide on taking Eirin as Youmu or Yuyuko again, and then once you settle into Yuyuko you don't know how to restream the wave, so you end up bombing. That can be avoided, with a little practice, so work on it. I'm not sure I would have ever recommended trying Galaxy in a Pot unfocused, and you die and last-spell because of it. It's honestly a difficult enough card sometimes that just straight up nuking it with a preemptive bomb is a viable decision. You barely survive Kaguya's opener without restreaming, and Dragon's Necklace ends up claiming your last bomb by way of last-spell. You were doing excellently on Buddha's Bowl, but at the very end you were just a little too close to that laser, should've moved rather than guessing about its hitbox. You get trapped in a corner during Fire Rat's Robe, and last-spell your way out. I'm beginning to see a pattern. Work on re-streaming. Seriously, it's going to be a vital technique, and you should get a start on mastering it as soon as you can. If you need more tips/instructions on proper execution, just ask. Swallows' Cowrie went fine, and while you seemed a little confused about the best way to take Rainbow Danmaku at times, you end up capturing it no problem. You seem to not know the ideal ways to handle the Last Spells, though, and I hear you amusingly try to bomb. Thanks, that made me smile. I could have sworn you survived to the point where it would only have eaten a half hour on the third spell, like you had for the first and second. You were robbed! You do end up capturing Morning Mist, so very nicely done there. Practice those last spells though, they're probably the five single most important spells in the game, due to the way the night bonus works.

Akinaoki Tips/Criticisms:

See the general tips for a bit on stage 1 opener and familiar optimizations. You're about 100 time orbs down from where you could be when you reach mid-Wriggle (though you do a better job than me and let spawn the familiars, I accidentally killed too fast, so you probably even out there). You're back to down about 100 at boss Wriggle though, due to sloppy familiar popping. Just nitpicking now, but you could do some better grazing during the first nonspell with an easy safespot. Watch my run for an example. You should have finished the second nonspell with a familiar on the board, and you should have been transitioning to youkai form so you could graze up the final and last spells for massive time gains. It's somewhat risky though, so you need a lot of practice before you're confident and consistent. It'll greatly aid your score though if you pull it off. I actually find the Last Spell easier with that method, although the final normal spell is tougher, because of the blue orb bullets mostly. Anyway, you fail the last spell unfortunately, and make it out with 3433 time (low) and 61 points total for the stage (just right).

Stage 2 you show some basic grasp of the familiar popping, but you're neither consistent, nor solid on the execution. Still, a good effort was made, and you have 2758 time by mid-Mystia, which is down by about 1200 from where you'd like to be. You did better than I did collecting point items, though, so very well done there. The autocollect after mid-Mystia needs some work, you want to be at or close to the POC when you finish the spell, and you probably should have let the 3rd wave of familiars spawn on the nonspell, for what little extra time they give. You start the voss fight proper by transitioning fully to youkai, a decision I disagree with heartily as far as scoring potential goes. If this is a survival decision, though, that's acceptable for now, but practice until you can Mystia unfocused. I think a large part of the reason you failed to meet the time threshold was how you handled gauge during the boss fight. Stage 2 is one of the harder thresholds to reach even if you don't die or bomb (all the other ones you pretty much need to die or last spell to fail, if you're mostly familiar with how to time orb). Still, it's very manageble with time and effort.

You drop about 20 point items, and you miss out on about 500 time by mid-Keine, all due to issues that have already been raised, so I won't belabor the point. You head straight to full youkai for her, which isn't ideal unless you do the risky "inside the triangle" graze-whore strat, which I tried a couple times and died every time. That said, taking her unfocused has the occasional risk if you flub up, like I think I did in my run, so I can see your choice from a survival standpoint. Pushing your run to the next level does take risks though sometimes, so experiment a little. You do better than I did in collection in the second half of the stage, and do a good job catching up on that time deficit, though, so looking good there. Again, I just don't think there's enough bullet density for grazing as youkai to be better for time collection than unfocused firing, but the risk/reward balance with survival ramps up a little higher, especially on some of her nonspells (one of which you bomb for safety regardless). You do a great job on 3 Treasures, though, which I often get tripped up on if I'm not fully on task. The fact that you captured more spells and didn't die is probably why you managed to get such a higher time than I did, I'd have to check a run where I didn't fuck up for an unbiased comparison of focused vs unfocused.

You do an excellent job getting full time from the orbiting fairies, but you drop an awful lot of their items and don't properly gauge reassign after killing them, both of which you should really work on. You lost nearly 60 point items in the first half, though you were up quite a bit of time on me because of my death. You do a pretty solid job on mid-Reimu, though it takes a bomb to handle her Fantasy Seal, you have plenty of them stocked up though. You use another during the stage, which probably costs you a fair bit of time you could have gotten familiar popping. Even though you're already ahead of schedule, not taking advantage of potential gains isn't the best. That said, it probably allowed you to collect point items you might have dropped like you did in the first half, so there is that too. Your safety bomb after the two bomb fairies seemed like a pretty clear waste though. Still, much improved from your first half, only dropping maybe 20 items. You end up double-bombing Fantasy Seal, both times with Remilia. I'm pretty sure that during spellcards Sakuya's bomb is much more effective, though the opposite is true in nonspells. Danmaku Duplex was no problem, and it looked like you might actually capture Blink, but then you got caught in the home stretch. A shame, but a much better stage 4 performance than mine all around. (No doubt partly because Reimu fight, though I honestly derped and bone-headed hard.) Your boss-fight item collection here was pretty sloppy though, so that's something you could look at for the future.

The start of Stage 5 should not need a bomb, and the bomb used shifted your gauge all the way to youkai, halving the effectiveness of the point items. All around bad plan. You weave through the rabbit carpetbombs pretty expertly, but when it comes to collection from the orbiting familiar masters, you drop almost everything. It's tricky business, but try to grab more of those drops. You only collected 53 items by midboss, you should have got around another 30. Your time collection is just fine though, as far as my benchmark is concerned. You bomb Tewi's first nonspell for safety/because you can, which is honestly not too terrible, and you hit full stock of lives at this point. I'm honestly wondering how things go wrong in this run, but I guess time will tell. Okay, speak of the devil, you are cornered by rabbits as Sakuya and die with an unspent bomb. But hey, since you're Sakuya, you can pick that right back up. Convenient. You drop a lot of point items from the orbiters again, and the ones you do collect you grab with bad gauge. Try to keep an eye on that. You bomb Red Eyes Hypnosis (again with Remilia) not the best, but at least you kept it to just a single. You get hit and have to Last Spell during Visionary Tuning though, so it seems clear that Reisen is a bit of your weak point. You opt out of endless graze on the 3rd nonspell, a wasted opportunity. Double Remiliar bomb on Idle Wave... Sakuya's bomb might have meant you only needed one? Somehow you successfully horizontal dodge Full Moon at the bottom of the screen, but you fail to capture Tele-Mesmerism, which is a shame. Still, pretty great work on total time, but there's plenty to work on in this stage for you.

You safety bomb Stage 6 opener, and with Remilia, meaning you have bad gauge for the initial point items. You do excellently on getting back to -80% and collecting the first two waves, but then have trouble killing all the masters in time and mussing up the next two waves. Eirin's nonspell costs ou a last spell, as does Galaxy in a Pot, which is pretty rough. Practice Stage 6, try to cut down on avoidable expenditures. You essentially bombed Dragons Necklace 3 times, once from the tail end of her opener, another Remilia bomb, and finally a Sakuya Last Spell. Honestly, this should take some modest dodging, one Sakuya normal bomb, and a little more modest dodging. Test it out, see if you can pull it off. You're caught bombless and overwhelmed in the second nonspell. You might have tried taking it unfocused, not only for the extra time, but also to decrease the density and allow better survivability. You accidentally lock yourself between two tightly positioned lasers during Buddhist Bowl and have to bomb your way out, unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. An expected bomb on that swirling mess of a nonspell and a Last Spell during Fire Rat Robe leaves you bombless again. You manage to make your way through the giant pill nonspell but Swallows' Cowrie is a bitch on normal and you die, then promptly (and correctly) Sakuya bomb to minimize any risk. Ordinarily I'd yell at you for bombing the opening wave of Rainbow Danmaku, but I fucked up and did the same. You clearly have troubles handling it though, asyou force yourself to the top too many times in a row. Learn how to restream this, it will help you. Also, work on them Last Spell, that's whaat cost you the competition for 2nd place, guaranteed. You didn't capture any, and failed one in the worst way, putting your ending time at 5AM for 0 points of night bonus.

Wen Tips/Criticisms:

"えーマジ初月""キモーイ" All jests aside, general tips/tricks/etc. apply. First stage was pretty solid throughout, in fact nearly identical comments as to Akinaoki here. You were much lower on time when you arrived at midboss, but made it back up by the end, coming to about the same place.

Stage 2 you show a very solid grasp on ideas behind the familiar mechanics, but your execution could be significantly improved, as despite knowing what to do, you still come out very below goal by the mid-boss. Your point item collection was great though. Aside from being better prepared to rush to POC at the end of the midboss card, I'm not sure there's much to comment on. For boss Mystia's final nonspell, ideally you wouldn't kill all the familiars and tank your gauge to -60%, I know I do this on Normal for survival purposes sometimes, but it's not good for your score. Other than that, nothing to complain about here.

First half of stage 3 you really should optimize the familiars more. You kill a lot of masters before they even spawn them, which is jst bad form. This puts your time quite low at the midboss, unless it's mode difference (you do seem to be higher than some of the other easy mode players at least). That said, your point collection is still excellent. Not much to say about the second half of the stage, I don't think. The Keine fight is done smoothly in full unfocused glory, and you come out with a very nice amount of final time.

Stage 4 first half was handled damn near perfectly, I think you collected all of the drops from the orbiting fairies in the correct gauge even. Your time collection was also damn near perfect here. You due mid-Marisa fully unfocused as well, which is most impressive, though you do bomb Milky Way because of it. If I do have to suggest something it's that you do slight focus to make some precision movements. If it is very limted duration, it won't even affect your gauge. That would have prevented the sloppy last-spell during the second nonspell. You end up needing to bomb to collect some drops from orbiting familiar enemies, but IN is pretty bomb-happy as far as resources given, so feel free if you have to. I guess you bombed Marisa's 2nd nonspell as a boss to clear her familiars quicker? I'm not sure that was necessary, but OK. Dodging into the laser during Earth Light Ray was kind of awkward, but mistakes happen.

You bomb and Last Spell during the first half of stage 5, mostly as a side effect of risky POC shenanigans it looks like, and you've finally depleted your supply of available bombs as you reach Tewi. The bombing has hurt your time collection a fair bit, but your point collection is still pretty magnificent. You end up dying to Tewi's 2nd nonspell, and immediately bombing afterward. Can you feel me frowning at you right now? You get caught during Reisen's opener and have to Last Spell, which is surprising because you were even taking it focused, but I guess mistakes happen. You manage to get back to the bottom after a risky collection during the second nonspell though, so kudos. I've told everybody this, but you really should milk the 3rd nonspell for all the graze you can get. You got greedy for graze, or just slipped up during Idle Wave, and have to Last Spell away the last of your bombs. All of the blunders with Last Spells and deaths cost you the time threshold here, and that 3rd nonspell graze would have easily been able to save you that half hour. Seriously, consider it going forward.

You die right at the start of stage 6. I know it looks and feels overwhelming, but stage practice it and find a gap in the pattern that works best for you. Getting hit in the first wave and Last Spelling it is pretty terrible, it ruins your gauge and wastes your resources. You recover and do decent gauge on the next two waves, but barely biff the final. However, you do great on Eirin's nonspell and very nearly capture Galaxy in a Pot, you overcorrected at the end when you were caught outside and somehow miraculously got back in. A shame. Luckily Eirin gives a bomb, so losing the rest of what you had to your Last Spell isn't as painful as it could have been. You struggle with Kaguya's 2nd nonspell, and I might again recommend attempting it unfocused to thin out the familiars and bullet density a bit, as well as for sweet sweet extra time orbs. You die and revenge bomb during Buddhist Bowl. I am disappointed at the latter. The former is no great sin, even though it's one of her easier spells mistakes happen. Preventable rage after the mistakes, that shouldn't happen. Everything else mostly goes well until Kaguya's Last Spells. There you at least manage to last long enough to only lose 0:30 on the first two, but the third and fourth ding you for the full 1:00 and end your run early. If not for the initial mode difference in point items and failing to get a good night bonus, you could have seriously put up a good fight! Now try to Normal Mode. :3

Don't expect great discussion on Mountain of Faith, as that's the game I probably feel least qualified to talk about. I may have some bare minimum for you in a few days, possibly. Congrats to Wen for eking out a 1st place finish there.

Edit: Oh, and my Imperishable Night run can be seen on Youtube below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOxhBp0wtlg

Edited October 9, 2014 by Balcerzak

[--------------------]

UFO http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34924

TD http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34925

Edited October 12, 2014 by Akinaoki

[Wen Yang]

A reminder that you have 22 hours and 30 minutes left to submit a replay.

Missing ones from Bal, Puku, Kay, and Emerald still.

[Scarlet]

Missing ones from Bal

I have an SA entry from Bal, so if he happens to forget about it, I can send it in his stead.

[Emeraldfox]

http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34956

Bloop

[Wen Yang]

Tonton is hereby subbing in for Puku (who has utterly failed to give ANY results.). He will take over Sifer's team and have three weeks after the draft ends to submit a EoSD, PCB, IN, and MoF replay.

This round is extended by FOUR DAYS. New deadline can be seen in the OP.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

confirming the above (huh, last post in previous page?) o3o inb4 i need to get subbed too

Edited October 16, 2014 by Thordo

[Balcerzak]

And round 4 is done.

Results:

1. Wen Yang - 20 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34890

2. Balcerzak - 17 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34883

3. Akinaoki - 14 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34872

4. #most #Qualified - 11 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34891

5. Kay - 3 points http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=34760

6. Puku - 0 points - Did not submit a replay. You disappoint me.

Deadline for Round 5, SA, will be at October 16th, 12:00 PM GMT+7.

Is anyone else having criminally bad desynch trying to watch Kay's replay? Stages 4, 5, and 6 all suffer glaringly for me and I can't figure out how to fix it. Edited October 19, 2014 by Balcerzak

[Wen Yang]

hm? odd. It doesn't have that issue for me.

[Balcerzak]

Am I using the wrong Vsync Patch then? I'm using rev7 instead of rev4, and I don't see any option related to MarisaB lasers in the ini.

[Scarlet]

Am I using the wrong Vsync Patch then? I'm using rev7 instead of rev4, and I don't see any option related to MarisaB lasers in the ini.

The readme says that you're supposed to use rev7 over rev4 where available, so I don't think that's the problem.