Are you a feeder?

Coin-operated games and arcades.
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zak
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Are you a feeder?

Post by zak »

Whenever I get a new PCB, I can never bring myself to continue after the first credit. I restart almost immediately. Credit feeding has always left me feeling underwhelmed and disappointed in a game. For me it eliminates the motivation to come back and complete it on 1 credit.

I generally want a game to last as long as possible, so each time I get a little further I feel like I've gotten better and there's always a little surprise waiting (unless I've already achieved the 1cc).

This may sound frustrating having to go through the whole game to practice a later stage, but you do eventually get good enough that you are able to get through the early sections fairly quickly.

What are your habits for learning a game and completing it? Do you credit feed to the end or suffer from "restart syndrome"?
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by yosai »

Depends on the game but I generally only play one credit per sitting.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by SuperPang »

Continues off on all my Cave PCBs.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by DaveyD »

I tend to play 2 credits max on my games. Had a gaming night a while ago with friends over. One of them just credit pumped every game to completion... I was just like :palm: :problem:
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by pubjoe »

zak wrote:I generally want a game to last as long as possible
I need to shake this attitude to be honest. I can’t savour everything. If a 1cc wasn’t hard enough already, I’m having to learn a game in pigeon steps and repeat the beginning every time. Fine maybe for the game of my life, but I don’t play anything nearly enough.

The best credit limitation was actually being in an arcade with limited money. Then you could continue as much as you could afford but each life was still precious. There’s no good way of emulating this. Maybe hide the coin box key and only play with whatever 20p coins you’ve gathered in your pocket change. I tried this for a day but my will power failed to suffer the unnecessary inconvenience.

So
Credit feeding removes all challenge.
Continues-off is too time consuming.
Self imposed middle grounds feel a bit stupid.

After ten years of having a cabinet I still dunno what to do for the best with single player games. Arcade games are designed to battle with your wallet. I’ll only play with no-continues because otherwise I find games hard to enjoy on free play - trying to pretend I care when I lose a life.

:think:

The best thing is probably to ask Mum for pocket money and only use that.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by pubjoe »

Some games are immune from the problem. I can usually enjoy fighters, puzzle games and older games like Donkey Kong because they don’t so much rely on a hard to reach end goal.

Maybe the reason I can’t get on with brawlers is because when credit is no object they suffer from this the most.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by LEGENOARYNINLIA »

I've had an MVS mobo in my cab for pretty much the entire time I've had a cab, and I always turn continues, credit and level display off in all games.
Emulation's nice when done well
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by bloodhokuto »

I don't have a problem stopping myself from credit feeding.

Occasionally I credit feed to see the later levels. For the longest time I held off doing this with Slug 3, but eventually I credit fed to see the ending. I had expected doing this to diminish my desire to play it, but it hasn't (although it is one of the best games ever).

With that said, some non shooter games that I managed to complete left me not really enjoying replaying them, and so there are a couple of games that I deliberately stopped from completing.

So for arcade games I can easily control myself, or it doesn't matter if i want to see further on. Also some shooters have conditions at the end of the game, so even if you credit fed you won't see the real boss or whatever. Don't think ill ever see a CAVE 2nd loop or TLB, but Im not that bothered, as I still enjoy the games.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by cools »

If a game has checkpoints I tend to credit feed.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by FrancoB »

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you zak. I always play one credit at a time as I really enjoy getting a little further than I have previously and the 'reward' is seeing part of the game I've not seen before. There's a certain thrill comes with that which is heightened by trying to stay alive as long as you can to see as much new ground as possible.

The downside of that is that I've hardly seen any of most of my games as I'm pretty bad at a lot of them :awe:

The only time I tend to credit feed is if I'm selling a game that I know I'm not likely to buy/play through again and I want to check it out to the end.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by crunchywasp »

pubjoe wrote:The best credit limitation was actually being in an arcade with limited money. Then you could continue as much as you could afford but each life was still precious. There’s no good way of emulating this.
That’s spot on I reckon. I tend to just play one credit at a time now but if I was enjoying a game and making progress back in the day then I’d keep continuing til my money ran out.

The only exception nowadays might be Fantasia which I keep feeding til I see some boobs.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by thegreathopper »

SuperPang wrote:Continues off on all my Cave PCBs.
Same as but also for, NeoGeo and Capcom
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by SuperPang »

For shmups I usually have continues turned off because I play one credit at a time and it saves having to mash the countdown. It's a rewarding way to play, there are still a couple of cave shmups where I've never seen stage 5! I agree with kern though, it's not a great way to practice the later stages.

Other genres I generally leave continues on to keep my options open. Brawlers I play very casually, for example I have Undercover Cops in the E29 at the moment and it's nails so I'm feeding the **** out of that.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by bloodhokuto »

kernow wrote:I played Metal slug mvs for years trying to 1cc it, getting to mission six without losing a life and then **** it up. Once I just started finishing the game and lowering the amount of credits used, learning the last level, I 1cc it twice in a row within two weeks.

Don't be afraid to sensibly credit feed. You'll never beat level 5 if you only see it once a year
Also using the memory card helps!
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by zak »

Interesting to see that many of you have similar habits!

bloodhokuto makes a good point about the memory card. I recently got a NeoSaveMasta card for my 4-slot, so I'll be loading Metal Slug mission 6 quite a few times for practice.

It would have been quite useful to have more home use only PCBs with stage select. :think: CAVE could have milked us suckers - they would only have had to change a font and disable credits.

Can you imagine a boss rush practice Ketsui PCB for example (similar to the NDS release)? I can't even begin to imagine how the world class players practiced Doom!
pubjoe wrote:
The best thing is probably to ask Mum for pocket money and only use that.
:lol:
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by thomj »

I could have written Franco's answer myself, exactly how I feel although the more I think about it the more Kern makes sense. I reckon I'll going to try a bit of a hybrid next time I power a cab on. When I die feed to the end of level for practice then suicide so I have the next level to look forward to as motivation.
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by 68k »

yup
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zak
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by zak »

FrancoB wrote:
The only time I tend to credit feed is if I'm selling a game that I know I'm not likely to buy/play through again and I want to check it out to the end.
I guess at this point, it doesn't really matter if you are getting rid of the game ;)
cools wrote:If a game has checkpoints I tend to credit feed.
I'm the opposite with check point games, especially ones which take away EVERY SINGLE POWER UP when you die (Tatsujin Ou, becomes Tatsujin Oh No for this very reason). :roll: I class these games as 1 life clears rather than 1CCs.

The only forgiving check point shooter is Fire Barrel (in my experience).
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Re: Are you a feeder?

Post by OlDirty »

I play all my cave shmups with 2 credits. This allows me to get further as i would come with once credit :wtf: . Target is to 1CC the game but with 2 credits i don't repeat the early stategs that often. Somtimes (if i don't see any progress) i also play with MAME or XBOX 360 just to learn the later stages. It's really more efficient than to play always from the beginning. It's the same when you learn a song with an instrument, you learn it part by part till you have it all together.
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