Shmup of the Month Club 2014 (Completed)

[dsheinem]

Nobody who's serious about playing those games for score does it without full-auto enabled.

What an arrogant, dickish thing to say. I guess my attempts to improve my score today were "non-serious".

[mjmjr25]

Nobody who's serious about playing those games for score does it without full-auto enabled.

What an arrogant, dickish thing to say. I guess my attempts to improve my score today were "non-serious".

He just said in his previous post as long as we were all on the same page he's fine with whatever we decide.

Context. By serious, Joe is obviously referring to people playing in prize tournaments or going for world records. Any of those players are going to use full-auto.

Bad analogy alert: it'd be akin to going to the world series of poker and saying you only need one card, even though everyone else is getting two.

[dsheinem]

Nobody who's serious about playing those games for score does it without full-auto enabled.

What an arrogant, dickish thing to say. I guess my attempts to improve my score today were "non-serious".

He just said in his previous post as long as we were all on the same page he's fine with whatever we decide.

Context. By serious, Joe is obviously referring to people playing in prize tournaments or going for world records. Any of those players are going to use full-auto.

Bad analogy alert: it'd be akin to going to the world series of poker and saying you only need one card, even though everyone else is getting two.

there are plenty of "serious" scores here without auto-fire: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20685 along with some that use it. i have a lot more respect for those that don't, as it requires far more endurance and skill.

i'm never going to like non-default autofire, as evidenced by a few pages here last year: viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=9&t=41188&hilit=autofire&start=550

[ExedExes]

Once again the autofire debate rears its ugly head.

In a game like this, as brought up, it would mess with my ability to use the charge & break shot (because the shot button also charges the shot). I'm not even using the regular shot as often. There's too many opportunities to get large point chains.

There is also no option to enable it in the game menu. Shmupmame has that option to do it exclusive of the game settings, that I know. Do I consider it cheating? Absolutely not. Also as pointed out, many forums use it with no problem, some require you mark it as such with your score. If a game doesn't offer it in any way through a special button or an operator menu, I just don't use it.

In a game like this, I'd consider it a handicap, if only for the way the game is set up and encourages you to chain together point scoring combinations, which would require a non-autofire configuration to do just that. I honestly think it's not going to make a large score difference in this particular game. It may actually do more harm than good to one's score. We're not going for world records here.

The only problem I may see is that if an autofire configuration would enable or make the special rapid fire shot possible with less effort than actual rapid button taps. This way of using rapid fire is a feature not seen in other shmups. The rapid fire shot is more powerful than the standard shot is, and that could affect scoring and competition.

So should we use it for this game? In this game and the way it is set up, it would be just a detriment to one's individual performance and it may also enable an easier ability to the rapid fire shot. I would suggest against it. If there is evidence that it does not enable an easier way to get the special rapid fire effect, then I think it would be all right. Again, I'm not seeing anyone using Shmupmame, and it's not an operator menu option, so this point is probably moot to begin with in this particular game. For right now, please keep all settings the way they should be.

Any other autofire issues we come across this year will be taken on a game-by-game basis.

Now then, for the first set of score updates -

ChrisH2049 - 1,915,880 - Windina - Stage 4 - MAME
ExedExes - 1,843,060 - Aryustailm - Stage 3 - MAME
hashiriya1 - 1,713,200 - Aryustailm - Stage 3 - MAME
mjmjr25 - 1,510,010 - Dino-246 - Stage 4 - MVS
dsheinem - 1,319,790 - Windina - Stage 4 - MAME
Nyukki - 714,820 - Hellhound - MAME
fvgazi - 624,970 - Windina - Stage 3 - MAME
samsonlonghair - 284,900 - Stage 2 - Hellhound - MVS

[jepjepjep]

What an arrogant, dickish thing to say. I guess my attempts to improve my score today were "non-serious".

This is a "friendly" month-long score competition, so I would say none of us are serious score players. Even on the shmups forum, the best Blazing Star score is 52 million and it's not marked whether or not he used autofire. For comparison, the world record (Japan) is 72 million.

When I mentioned serious players, I'm talking about guys that devote months/years at a time to a game.

i'm never going to like non-default autofire, as evidenced by a few pages here last year: viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=9&t=41188&hilit=autofire&start=550

My question is what's the big deal with autofire. It's not like many of us even 1cc these games every month. They're still hard as hell to clear with or without autofire.

[Chempop]

I've only played this a couple times at the pizza place back in 2003. It's basically the only Neo-Geo game I've considered buying, but I can't justify the investment for only 1 game. Have a good month guys, I will cheer from the sidelines.

[dsheinem]

i'm never going to like non-default autofire, as evidenced by a few pages here last year: viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=9&t=41188&hilit=autofire&start=550

My question is what's the big deal with autofire. It's not like many of us even 1cc these games every month. They're still hard as hell to clear with or without autofire.

I explained the "big deal" in that thread:

It seems to me that the acceptance of auto-fire in competition is meant to offer an even playing field for people who can button mash well vs those who can't. The reason it is unfair/cheating is because the physical action of hitting buttons quickly, perfecting timing, etc. is part of what it means to be good at a game designed not to have auto-fire. So you might be creating an "even playing field" in one sense, but you are disadvantaging those players who can meet the physical and mental demands of the game and who would thus be scoring higher than those who can only do the latter.

I realize that we aren't high level players, but we are in competition (friendly as it may be) with one another and it would be nice to know that, as much as possible, we're all playing with close to the same in-game conditions.

[mjmjr25]

Go do some yoga or pushups.

[dsheinem]

Go do some yoga or pushups.

imnotmadbro

[samsonlonghair]

You guys okay with autofire?

I don't care if you cheat, dude.

Cut your hair Samson.

But then I'll loose all my power, Delilah!
You're alright, jep.

It's a selectable option, yes. However samson was speaking w/o knowledge when calling it cheating.

I'm going to look at the service menu on Monday when I return to Pixel Nation. If it turns out that there is no auto fire on this MVS, I'm going to have a laugh at your expense, mjmjr.

Either way, It's all just a game. Let's concentrate on having fun. Let every man play the way he pleases. It doesn't bother me if someone uses emulator tricks to enable auto fire, unlimited credits, or turning his spaceship neon pink. I'm taking the permissive route. I'll be having fun playing Blazing Star on default settings. Do as you will.