Okay, Let's do this!
Hello! Versus shmups are such a rare and yet - important sub-genre that letting them to die out without a fight is unforgivable and would be irreversible.
I couldn't stand it anymore and therefore we have this video.
I'm really insane and this is easy to follow guide on how to win your first phantasmagoria match.
To start, you will need to find someone to play with.
You can either ask few of your acquaintances via direct messeges, join the conference with a dedicated pofv sub-chat, or participate in the tournments,that happen from time to time.
And do not ever attempt to ask in general touhou or shmup chats unless you can withstand heavy trolling on everyday basis and unless you can expertly insult the mother the JESUS HIMSELF.
Now, say you got lucky and found yourself a delicious opponent before dusk.
The next questions is "what" do you play.
I mean, PoFV, sure, but as this game is nothing like this game so is the pofv a lot more contradictory than it looks.
First of all you have to choose the girl or ~pool~ of girls that you are going to use.
There are two key factors: the absolute strength and a the comfortable speed.
Though the relative strength in the individual matchs can be changed by the differences in experience, knowledge and skill of participants, the absolute strength does exist and always crucial for PoFV.
There are six girls that you can pick: Reimu, Marisa, Youmu, Lyrica, Komachi, Eiki.
And three girls that you should never pick if you want to win: Merlin, Aya, Yuuka.
Those six are the great pool to start learning the game.
But you still could loose a lot.
Chances are it's because the speed of some of them doesn't feel right for you.
That's where the second factor comes into the play.
Check them to choose exactly with which you would feel comfortable, after that dodging itself will come naturally to you.
The next topic is whether or not you are going to use one girl or change them every set.
There is no sound argument to choose any of this options, so you should pick one that looks more fun for you.
If your opponent argues that your way is wrong, politely but firmly refuse to change it.
He knows nothing of what he is talking about.
However you should know that western tournaments often use system of 1 character per set and therefore you would have to pick 3 different girls for a full bo3 match.
It's done as an attempt to "fix" balancing issues of the game.
The last topic that will define the gameplay is the difficulty.
The rule of thumb is simple - unless it's impossible choose lunatic!
Decrees of difficulty increases the boring beginning part of every (EVERY!) pofv round.
It also changes the balance, rendering some of fine characters as useless and some of barely acceptable as great.
And more importantly it changes the strategic and tactic approach in handful amount of match-ups.
There is no reason to waste your time on playing and learning categories that aren't taken seriously by most of the players.
Now, that you are on the battlefield all pumped up and ready to win,
How do you do this?
great question!
The hard part of the narrative is coming
Victory in pofv is a matter of probability.
The last is affected by the efficiency of three main actions that you can execute in the game:
the reflection of bullets, dealing with bosses and dodging.
Greatly excel in two of those areas and you can ignore the third - the probability already will be over the top.
Concerning the Reflection and destruction of bullets there is a lot to discuss.
All bullets in pofv fall under one of three categories:
reflexible - which are the grains, erasable (what is almost everything) and indestructible - whats is basically lasers and some other really weird stuff.
to send any category of bullets on the opponents field you need to kill something.
That's being said you can and will do much more than just to send a few new bullets.
You can reflect grains right on the top of enemy's field while preserving their speed
And to achieve that it's not enough to kill. You have to explode either a fairy or a spirit on the damn grain.
To explode (basically - to shot down) a fairy or an activated by your focus field spirit you can use either your normal shot, the projectiles that comes out of your charged attacks or an explosion field that is being generated at the edge of yours levels 2 3 and 4 of charged attacks.
What are the charge attacks?
Well, Simply put, by holding the shoot button down, you can invest your meter into the next release-button-attack.
While the meter itself is gained from kills, from bullet reflection, or by taking the damage yourself.
Charging the every consecutive quarter of the full meter will increase the level of the released attack.
Notice, that if you release a charged attack of the level 2 or higher right after getting hit, you will not get a meter compensation.
No, it's not a bug. Stop saying that. Don't be delusional.
Here, look, i will even demonstrate it for you.
It begins with you getting hit.
3 things happen at once: you are becoming non-existent, loosing control other the character's movement and starting to blink.
After what another four things happen: you given control back, getting your meter, starting to blink in red - signifying invulnerability frames and you are releasing an erasing-explosion wave.
If you release level 2 or higher before the red blinking happens you just cancel this specific following-hit-recovery state and obviously will not get rewarded for it
Therefore it's not a bug but is a simple and visually represented game logic.
And it mostly affects high-skilled people who try to release in the VERY last moment, and not you, who just can not get hold of his mashing.
In the case of charged attacks and considering the general attack and defense, you should only think about releasing levels 1 and 2.
Level#1 just spawns a super strong projectiles or, sometimes, the damaging areas that can explode even inactivated spirits.
Level#2 on top of that generates an erasing field around you, followed by the explosion field and also it spawns a distinct pattern on your opponent's screen.
Also, though it's possible to skip charging by pressing X and releasing your entire meter at once, if the specific situation wasn't present then it will remove your first gauge bar as well decreasing your ability to defend yourself and to deal the real soviet damage.
I would recommend to think twice before using this option.
And that summarizes up the weapon system that you have.
In addition there are two tricks to reflecting as many grains as possible and to sending over as many bullets as possible.
First of all - the chaining. An explosion of one fairy or a spirit will start a chain of explosions, immediately increasing the amount of reflected bullets and gained meter.
And it's really easy to tell how the chain will look beforehand, since fairies always fly in the same 16 distinct patterns.
Secondly, it's important to understand that pofv has a lot of limiters.
In particular - the actor (キャラオーバー) and the bullet (弾数限界) limits.
Namely there are only so many fairies that can be present on the field at once, as well as there is a finite number of grains and there is a deferent finite number of the non-reflexible bullets that can by present on the field at once.
The obvious conclusions from aforementioned information are the following:
That chaining is good because it does both - it sends more projectiles to the enemy and it does it consecutively, what kind of bypasses the bullet limiters.
And that the level#2 attack is a great defensive tool that shifts the bullet density from your screen to your opponent's, by reflecting and erasing bullets and by creating a lot of new projectiles right on your opponent.
Let's draw the line.
Chaining explosions - getting the meter advantage - erasing bullets around you with level#2 - creating a simultaneous explosions with level#2 - gaining your meter back - repeat...
You can now easily see and execute the first pillar of the pofv gameplay
Yet Consistently filling the screen with bullets isn't enough.
You can change the landscape of the battlefield itself by summoning your avatar - a boss - on your opponent's field.
And it's time to discuss how to bully bosses.
Every boss appears on the half of screen for a segment of time and periodically launches 1 of 3 patterns at you.
Which primary function isn't to force you to dodge anything difficult by itself, no.
Most of them are there just to restrict your movement and to provoke you to go macro around.
As i said, it's usually about changing the landscape, not filling it.
Therefore your goal in this case is to minimize time that boss spends on your half and to increase the time that it spends playing with your opponent.
Of course you would summon the boss anyway, especially in the later game.
But yet again by understanding the principles of pofv inner-workings and by abusing them you can revers just an RNG into a controllable probability.
And there are three ways to deal with boss:
Firstly, You can time it out - a-k-a the worst way to deal with it.
Boss will stay on the screen somewhat around 20 seconds while fully launching all the attacks that it should launch (6 or 5 on average).
Secondly, You could kill it. although, not all characters are that good at dealing the damage on the distance, and it's often better to just take care of other business instead.
However, if you managed to kill the boss or the incarnation of the devil himself, one of four important items will be dropped.
Grabbing them is relatively easy - just use your level#2 to clear the area around.
And if it happens to be a gold item, you can press X after the level#2 as well, since you can and considering how nasty those level#3 patterns tend to be.
And the third way to deal with boss is to counter summon - a-k-a the best way.
It works because only one boss can be present across both player fields. And it's an exceptionally good method, because it works at both directions at once.
The thing that is responsible for the boss summon is this
- the spellpoint counter. When it reaches 100, 300 or 500 thousand game declarers the boss warning.
Thus to control the boss is to control the spellponts.
Spellpoints come from kills and reflection of the grains.
What's there to mange then, you ask?
Well, "just" two things, really.
That the "actual hit combo" multiplies spellpoint gaining.
And that the spellpoint counter drains if you don't kill anything new soon spellpoints reset to NONE.
The Actual Hit Combo is almost the same thing as an explosion chains.
The significant difference is that if you started a new explosion chain anywhere else you will drop combo.
Do not confuse hit combo indicator with an actual hit combo.
The last is goes up only when a fairy, spirit or boss is being killed in the chain, while indicator includes the reflected grains as well.
As the result of an actual hit combo multiplier, in the cooperation with high rank bunch of staked together spirits, grains and a few of fairy strings will be enough to get 100 thousand spellpoints just after one shot.
And that's why it some times more beneficial to let go, stop shooting and wait for the spellpoint to reset to zero, so that 100k is enough to summon a new boss or that you have an ability to summon a new boss at all and aren't stuck with 1 million.
The system looks and feels very similar to dodonpachi, and i think, that's why you will hear a lot of people refer to this important strategy as "dropped combo" when they actually meant dropping spellpoints.
It's kinda of a standard term by this point and there is no reason to change it. So, just go clear 2-All and accept it.
Now, to summarize dealing with bosses:
try to stack more things together and shot less (again) and try to always have a new target to kill in mind, unless you consciously want to stall.
Unless you are currently a Marisa or literally have nothing better to do, don't risk getting hit unreasonably going for the boss kill.
But more importantly, watch the damn counter - yours and your opponent's.
That is if you can.
If you can't you probably should choose other 2 areas of pofv gameplay to excel in.
What brings us to dodging.
The uniqueness of pofv dodging comes from two directions: from it's applications and from the invulnerability frames.
As a tool dodging in pofv is ultimately a waiting mini-game.
You are waiting for your meter, waiting for your charge attack to fill, waiting for the boss to die or for the spellpoints to accumulate, waiting for your opponent to get hit so that you would take less damage, waiting for that boss attack to launch so that you can misdirect it, waiting for the spellpoints to drop.
Dodging instead of level#2 cast and instead of reflecting grains, dodging for the dodging sake, without the clear goal is a symbol of having an actual fun from pofv and it can and will stand on your way to certain victory.
There are though some things that you would have to dodge if you want to get an advantage, namely boss attacks and extra attacks.
Boss attacks were covered before.
The ex-attacks, on the other hand, are character specific attacks that launched the same way as the new spirits and new grains.
But they have their own limiter, and instead of counting spirit points or white-bullets points from kills, game accumulates ex-points for each kill and launches new ex-attack when character specific ex-point requirement is fulfilled.
Those attacks are of a great variety and a book could be written on how they work and should be avoided.
But this guide isn't about extensive and tedious practice-driven learning.
Fundamentally you need to know that except sakuya all extra attacks give a spawn indication in advance.
Therefore as long as you are looking around yourself and can memo past 5 seconds of indicators, you will never get surprised.
One huge thing that can help you to pass through places that hard to navigate or to pass even through bullet-walls are 8 i-frames that given to you on any release of charge attack, including level#1.
Time it right, don't press focus before release and move fast, and you can escape inescapable. And as result dodging can work out great.
Which means,
Have a clear goal in mind, macro around unique attacks, use i-frames to increase your chances of B-S and the only two things that will stand between you and a flawless survival and that i can not direct you on are your overall consistency at random dodging and the latency of gameplay.
GODDAMMIT I WILL NEVER DOING THAT MUCH TECH-TALK EVER AGAIN
That is all there is to know about technical part of pofv to effectively play the game.
You can roughly associate each part of technical knowledge with corresponding field of vision:
you have to look widely around yourself when you are willing to dodge
Look at the entire top half of the screen when going for the efficiency of attacks
and look at the top of both player's screens when dealing with boss stuff.
But isn't it too much? Wouldn't you got confused as the game goes on while for example looking at boss when you should dodge?
Well, yes of course.
But, firstly, as i said you don't have to excel at everything. After all your opponent is a human too.
And secondly, fear not, i have an answer for everything.
Yes, yes, i know.
Flow is something what only desperate people turn to, right?
And I'm certainly mean to say that there is no hope in pofv.
At least in the form that you usually have it in other types of arcade shooting games there is none.
The word "hope" in regards to pofv sounds more like an insult than anything else.
Because you can be utterly defeated here, and that's why this type of games is so important.
There is always another run in eosd, in pcb, ketsui, ibara or whatever.
And you never get "actually defeated" there, just delayed by another couple dozen of hours.
And so what?
The more i play pofv the more i'm losing the sense of value of individual runs in those generic games.
It has something to do with how personal each match feels compared to statistical grind for the one good run.
There were matches that i remember in details for months what i could not say about most of LNN attempts that didn't reach the goals.
Pofv is just genius like that.
It puts you in the unique situation and gives you tools to overcome it once IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, tools that you are consciously and emotionally invested in, like the: "sick lv1 i-frames dodge, mate" or specific spell points reset.
Moreover, you know how phantasmagoria as a genre was heavily build on the contrast between very comfortable state of body and mind and a horrifying pictures.
Pofv is a lot like that to. A neverending nightmare compare to fixed by player exact and extremely sanitized strategy routes and comfort of generic shmups.
The people who complain about how this game is an awful RNG bullshit just approach it wrong.
The necessity to win this one particular match doesn't dwell on them, so they continue to think about all shmups as a grind genre.
That's where flow comes into the play. It's one (not only) way to play each match to win.
And that's where the actual horridness of pofv lies as well.
This never ending nightmare which clearly is a point of game will be very short initially.
Game suggests that you could take fighting-like approach, putting in a decent amount of lab work before even starting your first serious matches.
But it gives you zero tools for that. You can't practice hitting chains, can't practice neither the boss attacks or the launched charged patterns, can't even start a game from the 3rd or 4th minute.
SpoilerAL let's you skip only rank changes and the AI doesn't launch anything remotely close in the terms of bullets density to what the human opponent would do anyway.
Well, i guess there is only so much that you could expect from doujin.
And those two corner stones - the perception of it as a failed kind of grind zone and initial huge time-investing requirement into not-so-perfect fights - will always stand on the way of its popularity.
What brings on the question: what exactly changes in the game over the time and if you just embarked on pofv versus why you will rather kill your opponent than to survive yourself.
The most important thing is the overall rank. On lunatic it starts at 8 and increases by 1 every 15 seconds, maxing out at 22 - right on 3:30 timer.
It affects bullet density, bullet speed, the spellpoint gain and amount of created bullets and, usually, amount of ex attacks.
There are two more ranks - visible on the left and right side of meter
Both start at 8 or 9 and max out at 16.
Left rank - rank of charged attacks, goes up by one every time owner releases level#2 or level#3 charge, and goes up by one every minute.
Increases the amount of bullets or improve the form itself of launched attacks of level#2 or level#3
Right rank - rank of bosses - goes up by one every time anyone summons a new boss and it goes up by one every minute. Not surprisingly it improves boss attacks
As the result of those variables you can split all pofv matches roughly into 5 zones:
Ending of input check zone: bosses starts to appear, weapon levels up, round two or three probably gets 16th overall rank and therefore skips zone 2.
Ending of zone 2. bosses and then charged attacks are maxing out becoming significantly more difficult to dodge, Lilly timer accumulation speed is maxed out as well.
Ending of zone 3. rank gets up to 16th, bullet generation starts to hit limiters and the spellpoint gaining usually hit limits of value per unit as well.
Ending of zone 4. rank hits 19, ex attack start to hit their limiter as well.
Ending of zone 5. rank is 22, speed of bullets significantly increased. From this point on it's anyone's game.
In reference to this layout you can clearly decide what you should be working on just by noticing after what zone you usually die.
It should be marked again, however, that the overall rank is most important thing. And strictly speaking up to 3:30 you will have to do a save throw roll every 15 seconds just to see if you can handle it.
Therefore the "role" that you can assume to yourself and your opponent is whether you and him are going to follow pacing of the game or go against it.
For example you can look at this piece:
Game went beyond 3:30 already and natural thing to do is to keep pacing and efficiently use level#2
But Lunasa decided to stop attacking and to reset spellpoints, feeling that there will be coming less bullets right now and it's possible to just dodge. She changed the flow of game.
Reisen, however, failed to notice that and continued to assume that she will get her level#2 back right away.
Certainly, Reisen got unlucky with side on which fairy spawned, but the entire situation could be avoided.
Here is another example.
Youmu - on the right side - counters the boss and goes along with phase 3, instantaneously launching level#3 attack on top of it. Relying on current difficulty to dodge those things manually.
Generally a very strong move, that should at least force marisa to waste her entire meter on defense and not on killing the boss.
However Marisa in focus dodged half way into 1st level#3, used her level#2's blast wave in the corner - just enough to create additional space for herself and to send very small amount of bullets and a huge amount of ex attacks.
And then she dodged half way through the level#3 second time, what changed the pacing of the game from exchanging level#2-s and reflection of bullets to an actual dodging.
In what youmu had a disadvantage while forced to dodge random patterns of grains and Ex attacks before Marisa was forced to do the same.
Unlike in the previous example, here both players tried to actively enforce their vision of game development, but one of them turned out to be wrong in the end.
Believing in a possible specific pacing of the game for the next 10~15 seconds and enforcing and investing into that type of pacing - that is what i would call feeling the flow of pofv!
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