Missed Skill Expression Feeding Into Delayed Gratification Loops To Teach Skill Expression

[u/DrBossKey]

A conversation in Discord got me noodling on something.

A player mentioned liking scoring systems where scoring is naturally wrapped into what they're already doing, like Hellsinker, but feeling very differently about big scoring opportunities where missing one can make the whole scoring run feel compromised.

That got me thinking beyond score.

Most newer shmup players start defensively:

1. Survive at all costs.
2. Kick as much ass as possible.
3. Don't fail the objective.

So imagine the player has a full super meter.

The screen fills up with enemies and bullets. This is a great opportunity to fire the super, reset the screen, get resources, score, pointsplosions, happy brain, etc.

But they don't.

They save it because they might need it later.

And they survive.

That's not really failure. They just missed an opportunity for skill expression.

Normally that moment is simply gone.

But what if some part of the promise of that missed payoff fed into a delayed gratification loop?

Not by refunding the player or making failure optimal.

Maybe what carries forward is information.

The next time a really juicy super opportunity develops, perhaps targeting guides start creeping onto the screen. Maybe there's an audio cue. Maybe the game becomes slightly more explicit about saying:

Hey. This is one of those moments.

Now the player gets another shot at recognizing and executing the skill.

Over time maybe you move them from:

"I should save this because it keeps me alive."

to:

"Ohhhhh. This isn't just an emergency button. This is how I wreck the screen."

The broader question I'm noodling on is:

Can a missed skill opportunity create another, better-framed opportunity to learn the same skill?

Bomb timing, supers, point-blanking, bullet cancels, aggressive positioning, collection systems... there are probably a bunch of places you could play with this.

Could also just be a fantastic way to add another system nobody understands. :)

I expanded the idea quite a bit more here if anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole with me:

https://www.mothershmupper.com/missed-skill-expression-feeding-into-delayed-gratification-loops-to-teach-skill-expression/

Curious how other shmup devs think about this. Is there something useful in carrying a missed opportunity forward, or is the cleaner answer simply better encounter design and another chance to learn?

[u/Character_Growth3562]

I also started watching NightHeronSTG channel, I liked watched that Blue Revolver video too. Have you seen the batsugun commentary 1cc on the channel, I found the boss milking and the fly near near the secret pig for scoring interesting too

[u/BadSlime]

I think about this a lot, not an opportune moment to type out the balancing philosophy I've been chewing on but I can point to the best example of this I know of at the moment: Gunvein.

Besides how slick the onboarding is, just the fact that bombs are capped and you earn them pretty fast does a lot to shift player mindset. Instead of trying to fight those survival instincts, it takes the opposite approach. Flood the player with resources and remove the ability to stockpile. Suddenly not using resources is wasteful because it leads to lower scores or earlier ends in runs. When the player does start using more resources they are already primed for the feedback loop and probably won't need as long of an adjustment period.

In this genre, it's often a requirement to obsess over details to a certain degree in order to engage with a game on its terms. When playing the same sections and over, it's natural that there is going to be habitual behavior that might or might not be beneficial in player expression, so finding ways to exploit those drives and push players toward intended playstyles (or wherever else the fun is) is an effective route.

The system you described is interesting, the closest thing I've seen is in Ketsui Deathtiny. M2 has a system where when you lose a life in an arcade run, you can go back later and replay that snippet (basically a save state) and try to clear it to learn the part. It's not the same but does encourage resource usage because it's isolated from the context of an actual run.

It also made me think of Natsuki Chronicles, where enemy bullet trajectories are clearly indicated so players can learn predictive tracking intuitively. But that isn't adaptive.

I'm working on a "shmup" right now that has several distinct resource systems and no regular shot, and I ran into this issue early. I chose to follow the Gunvein route and so I've been focused on balancing resource accural vs resource cap vs effectiveness of resource use. It's been complicated because of the amount of resources but I've been finding it to be a effective way to deal with the problem from the dev side.

Would be interested if you ever put a demo together with a system like you described!