This entry will get updated daily for the following two weeks, sort of like a badly written diary, starting today. Contents are going to be about the seventh round of the Dodging Rain Competition. Each individual day won't be very long but as there are two weeks worth of content, I hope that in the end the entry size will be acceptable. The contents may also be very dry in nature but I hope you will be able to understand that this is merely a sort of outlet for me. I thank you for your patience.
Day 1:
Dear diary,
I started with some spell practice, because if I don't practice everything first I'll die to each spell at least once before I capture it. Makes no sense but that's how it works, somehow. I was really shit at Keine's third spell today but everything else was bearable. Bearable in the same way as you might be able to bear having your hand in the door when someone else tries to slam it shut with all their might. That kind of bearable, you know. In short: The results weren't encouraging.
But it was all irrelevant anyway. When I started credits, I didn't get to do any spells anyway. Endlessly resetting due to either shit cancels or death was something I knew would happen so I wasn't bothered by it. Very occasionally I'd make it to Keine albeit getting past her was impossible for me on this day. How did this really bad meme go again? C A V E D
Result of today's battle:
Day 2:
Dear diary,
today I had a run which entered keine with 14.4k time and 207m score. I've had that much time before but not very often. The score was an all time best, I believe. One might think that this is a reason to be happy. I got an all time best! How amazing is that? Well, play on Keine on that particular run might have suggested that I was trying to die (which I obviously also did). I think due to not having played much in recent times, my ability to work under pressure are near an all time low. Surely I haven't been this bad all this time I was playing this stage. Then I remember I have had failures worse than anything that happened today and I can only concede that, yes, I have always been inconsistent poop at every pattern this extra stage has to offer. My goal for tomorrow is not to get a good run or anything. My goal for tomorrow is to make it past Keine. Just make it past the mid boss. But I wonder if that's not asking for too much.
Result of today's battle:
Day 3:
Dear diary,
allow me to preface today by saying that, yes indeed, I got past the mid boss. Twice, in fact. So on that front, I was satisfied. I had reached my goal I set for myself. What went beyond my wildest imagination, however, was that I even got to Mokou and furthermore got to Honest Man's Death without failing anything (albeit not with optimal strategies). Funnily enough, the only spells I failed where the ones I practiced before doing runs. Actually that's not quite true. I'll touch on that in just a minute. First I want to say some general things about the run I actually ended up finishing:
It was a very bad run by my standards. Bad grazing, cancels and items meant that I was actually slightly worse than my PB entering Mokou. That is ridiculously bad as I should have at least 1000 more time and 10 million more score. Therefore, to me, the run was shit to put it simply. Of course, being just slightly behind my run entering Mokou meant it was actually still potentially a new personal best but it would not be satisfactory run no matter how it ended. On top of that I did have the competition in mind and as a result decided not to do everything as I would in a serious attempt. This meant no spins on the second non spell and it also meant not going crazy on the grazing and other milks. I won't go into some hypothetical numbers as to what the run could have been because that's pointless, especially given that I wasn't truly serious.
To give a short summary: I failed Honest Man's Death with less than 10 seconds left as well as Imperishable Shooting somewhere in the middle. Now to elaborate on this whole "only failed spells I practiced". I did capture Fujiyama Volcano but in an unfortunate manner that cost me its items. Those were the three really big mistakes I made. Either way: I have a run that is very likely to win me my match and from here on I can set my normal standards and do everything without having to worry about not being in time.
Result of today's battle:
Day 4:
Dear diary,
I did not do any runs today. The urgency of putting credits into the category was given due to the competition, which for me is secondary at this point. Instead, I tried to identify parts of the stage with which I had particular troubles. This self reflection boiled down to three different attacks: Mokou's second non spell, Honest Man's Death and the final non spell. There were other, smaller, issue spots which I'll also practice but those are the main three. The time I want to dedicate solely to practice is the remainder of this week. On Monday, I will start doing runs again and hope that the practice will have helped in some shape or form.
Result of today's battle:
Day 5:
Dear diary,
I did not play today. Good start to my "intense" practice week.
Result of today's battle:
Day 6:
Dear diary,
I played today! It started really well with the final non spell. I got a lot of captures in very little attempts but the longer I played, the worse my rate became. This leads me to assume that I just got lucky, good RNG, both or that I become worse the more I practice. I have yet to decide which it is. I'll see about it. Maybe tomorrow will bring some light on that.
Result of today's battle:
Day 7:
Dear diary,
I just got lucky yesterday. Today I tracked my capture rate through 100 attempts. Ended on 19/100, which is pretty shit. When next week is over and with it DRC, I will extend my practice period, I assume. Having capture rates this low on more than one or two things is not acceptable. I want to raise my chances as much as possible. Fortunately I've been feeling really good about Imperishable Shooting recently. Maybe consistency improvements can still be made for everything. But certainly, I am bad at dodging.
Result of today's battle:
Day 8:
Dear diary,
today's results were slightly better. I did another 100 attempts and finished on 24/100. 30 to 35 out of 100 is the goal. of course, I'll take anything higher than that, too but I do not believe more to be very realistic for me. I think my main issue with the pattern is my sloppy movement, rather than my reading abilities. I'll have to try and work on that.
Furthermore, I also did 100 attempts of Honest Man's Death. That was pretty straining. Ended on 29/100, which surprised me, if I'm being honest. I expect to finish somewhere around 15/100. This is a pleasant surprise but the spell is very form dependent so I do not know if I was just in good form today and therefore got "lucky" or if today was truly average form. There is also the matter that I have to change of how I evaluate the pattern. Recent changes in movement have shown that the spell is actually far harder to do than I ever anticipated - not because of dying but because being pixel precise actually gains more graze. Naturally, height is still a big factor and it varies a little bit every attempt. However, I've noticed a difference of several hundred graze due to not being precise with my taps. It's entirely possible that I might get 6500 or even 6600 graze and gain a lot of score over my PB, or I could get only 6200 graze and gain only a little. To give a picture, 100 graze is 3 million score, so missing 300 graze is 9 million, roughly. Since this is IN, some people might think this isn't so bad but for me that's a lot. I want my future run to be as good as possible and this really doesn't help me. I can only practice and see what happens.
Result of today's battle:
Day 9:
Dear diary,
I really don't want to talk about today. Let's just say today's results were extremely discouraging. I'm actually a bit disgusted at myself.
Result of today's battle:
Day 10:
Dear diary,
due to sleep deprivation and yesterday's disaster, I decided not to play today.
Result of today's battle:
Day 11:
Dear diary,
I did not get past the mid boss today. It wasn't a good day of play. I'll try harder tomorrow.
Result of today's battle:
Day 12:
Dear diary,
I did not do any runs today. I did some more practiced. The daily 100 last non ended on 22/100. That's not very good. I've been having problems sleeping so maybe that affects my play somewhat. Depending on how sleep will be tomorrow, I might not play for the third time in these weeks. Most likely I won't be able to submit a new, better run before the deadline.
Result of today's battle:
Day 13:
Dear diary,
Sleep was not good. I did not play today.
Result of today's battle:
Day 14:
Dear diary,
I did not play today either. This was not due to sleep. I was busy all morning until afternoon and did not have the energy nor the motivation left to actually play. This also confirms that I will not play at all during the remainder of DRC which is half a day until tomorrow afternoon for me.
Result of today's battle:
Day 15 or 14.5:
Dear diary,
as already mentioned in my aforementioned post, I did not play. This is due to my brother celebrating his birthday and I could say no to delicious cake. I was there until very late in the evening. This concludes DRC which my team won anyway. I'll try to play more often than I have in the coming days but I will neither track those nor promise anything. At this point in time I believe it to be fairly unlikely that I'll ever PB again due to low play times. The route is too hard for that but it doesn't really matter. I don't want to pressure myself into playing so much that I end up disliking the category. Only time can tell.
Result of today's battle:
Thank you for reading. Sorry for a boring entry. Then again, the same goes for all the others.
