BRACKET 2 RELEASED: Discussion

[jammitch!]

Keyboarded everything over a 10 foot, and a few more to boot. Generally, the competition in this bracket is quite stiff from what I've tried so far.

Oni, stellar job on DJ, Take Me Away. It really feels like ITG in all the right ways. I have a few nitpicks, but I'm debating whether to give it my first (and probably only) 10 of this competition.

will-i-am, odd that Groundhog doesn't work on your computer. Does End of Distress? I don't think there's anything particularly low quality about it though; it's a VBR OGG at about 160kbps, which should be plenty. I can send you an MP3 if you need it.

I'll try padding the Heavies tomorrow if I get a chance.

[Oni-91]

Oni, stellar job on DJ, Take Me Away. It really feels like ITG in all the right ways. I have a few nitpicks, but I'm debating whether to give it my first (and probably only) 10 of this competition.

Wuuuut!? This is my first ITG file :O

Very glad you liked it though.

[will-i-am]

EoD works fine. Groundhog is the only file that plays choppy on my SM, but like i said my computer is dumb. :P I can play it just fine on my other comp so it's not really a problem.

I've noticed that my SM does this with songs that are less than the file size of what a 128 kbps .mp3 file should be, but that's if I'd have to guess. Also, anything converted from a YouTube video is an automatic no-no in most cases, the exception being a conversion from a high quality video source, then sometimes my SM may decide to let those play.

But if you have an .mp3 that's at least 128, or even 160 like you said, then I'll definitely give it a shot.

[t7r]

Nice artist name:


Will get to play most files on Wednesday night. Sucks I wasn't able to play Bracket 1 due to schoolwork. I might make my reviews in a form of a PowerPoint comic like I did with another contest 4 years ago. I'll be kind enough to provide a .txt file with my actual thoughts though.

[Xythar]

+/- Video seems high quality, which causes some lag.

There's a link in the readme to a lower res version if you'd prefer that.

[Juub005]

Thanks will

Juub, was All I Do Is Win inspired at all by sanchny's Jump file from ages ago?

Haha, didn't think of that. Perhaps subliminally

[Xythar]

Wow, a lot of people replied

So, first of all, double-steps are the main reason I don't like official DDR mixes, so I don't play them anymore.
Next, IMO the best simmaker I know is Chmurek. A lot of his steps won in different stepmaking contests. I wonder why he never uses double-steps in his charts if they're so fun and exciting as you guys are saying?
Go check his charts, will-i-am, and you will see that charts with perfect flow aren't boring at all

And I'll repeat once more: I regard double-steps as a major mistake in a stepchart, I don't find them fun at all and finally, that's my review, so I'm writing about things that I liked or didn't like.

That's fair enough but how do you judge a DDR competition if you don't use DDR's steps as a baseline to compare to? ITG for example rarely/never includes double steps, so I didn't do any double stepping in my ITG entry. But for a DDR division, I'm going to make a file that plays like DDR. If you don't like files that play like DDR, you should ask yourself if you should really be writing official reviews that are going to be included in the scoring.

FWIW, I did like your entry - it was quite good for a first effort. I shied away from using double steps early on as well, but it's now about 5 or 6 years after I first began writing stepfiles and I feel like I've advanced to the point where I can be confident enough to step outside a rigid formula. I hope you will one day as well.

Are you playing these on pad? I haven't played most of the entries in this bracket yet but I know for sure that the double steps in say Far Away shouldn't cause anyone any trouble.

[Greg]

IMO, the only difference between DDR and ITG is style of music and ITG add-ons like mines, hands and so on. I don't agree that my entry should have double-steps just because official DDR stepcharts have them.

BTW, if I wanted the player to use the same leg twice in a row, I would just put a hold on the second leg and everybody's happy The player isn't confused, cause he can clearly see that he's supposed to use the same leg twice. I don't consider it as a double-step then and it has the same effect. Unless the "fun" of double-stepping is to make player guess what should he do now.

[will-i-am]

Not trying to start anything, just wanna finish my point. XD

Yes, I've played many of Chmurek's files. They're very fun.

And we never said double-stepping was required to make a step chart fun. You just shouldn't be given an automatic handicap for using them, especially since they're risky at times.

By the way, charts with double-stepping have also had their fair share of some tournament victories. GIRLFRIEND from BEST-mix #2, Back 2 Back from BEST-mix #3, Misery Business from Another Tournament II (nDDRo tournament), TUTANKHAMUN (I think) from Cheesemix 5 (DDREvolved competition), and many more that I can't recite from the top of my head. So, just as Chmurek's smooth flow files can be fun, so can other people's files that have a much varied stepping formula.

Anyway, glad this topic was brought up. It's always interesting to come back every year and see that the opinions people have on this subject are still widely varied.

[Xythar]

IMO, the only difference between DDR and ITG is style of music and ITG add-ons like mines, hands and so on. I don't agree that my entry should have double-steps just because official DDR stepcharts have them.

BTW, if I wanted the player to use the same leg twice in a row, I would just put a hold on the second leg and everybody's happy The player isn't confused, cause he can clearly see that he's supposed to use the same leg twice. I don't consider it as a double-step then and it has the same effect. Unless the "fun" of double-stepping is to make player guess what should he do now.

How would you use a hold to make the player do a similar pattern to R-D-L, R-D-L? There are many things you can do with double steps that you can't do with holds.

I'm not saying that your entry should have double steps, I have made plenty of charts without them as well. I'm saying that double steps can be used appropriately and you shouldn't automatically dock points for them unless they are used badly, especially when they are used in DDR.

I mean, think about it this way. Say I decide that I don't like jumps, perhaps I just don't find jumping fun or something. I then decide to dock points in my official review every time a file uses jumps, regardless of whether they are used appropriately or not. Sound fair to you?

[Greg]

How would you use a hold to make the player do a similar pattern to R-D-L, R-D-L?

I'm not sure what you want to achieve, but I would try:

[Xythar]

Two groups of three 8ths each, sorry if that wasn't clear.

I guess you could put a freeze on D to really shoehorn the player into playing that part your way, but if you don't use it then you leave more options open and the chart looks neater besides. There doesn't have to be one way to play every single chart. Take (LR) (UD) (LR) (UD) R, some people choose to just jump four times and hit the R and some people choose to spin around if they feel like it. Either way is fine unless you feel you need to railroad the player.

[Greg]

If I don't use a hold then there is one other possibility to play it without double-step: crossover, double-cross and a spin. And you'd like it to be on 8ths? Wow, that's a bit hard, don't you think? xD Unless the BPM is like around 100, but I still think it would be confusing.

[Lisek]

(...) it doesn't matter how my ratings compare to other people, only how they compare within my ratings, and even then it (hopefully) only matters within each bracket - so long as I'm consistent, fair and reasonable on that scale, math should even everything else out.

It depends on people if they like, or not the doublestepping. If everyone can be judge, then everyone can do it like they feel.

By downloading: You agree to write a review for at least 1 of the sub-brackets (if not more!).

Stop arguing. Go and do some reviews by yourselves instead of doing a flame wars.

[Xythar]

If I don't use a hold then there is one other possibility to play it without double-step: crossover, double-cross and a spin. And you'd like it to be on 8ths? Wow, that's a bit hard, don't you think? xD Unless the BPM is like around 100, but I still think it would be confusing.

No, like this:

R
D
L

R
D
L

I believe I use this same pattern in Far Away so you can try it for yourself and judge if it's difficult or not. No more difficult than holding a freeze on D and hitting R then L, though.

And that's the good part! You can either do the crossover from right to left then simply bring your right leg back and do it again, or you can cross right to left then turn around and cross left to right while facing away from the screen. It's up to you how you play and it makes the chart more interesting.

And if you see something like this (also in Far Away):


R
D
L

R
U
L
U
R

then it should be obvious that you're meant to double step it, as doing it by turning around would leave you facing away from the screen at the end.

Another classic pattern (that I didn't use this time because it's more suited to harder songs, but...) is the Afronova run:

L
D
R
L
U
R
L
D
R
L
U
R

and so on.

You can double step this but it's hard, especially at a higher BPM. The easiest way to play it is to face left and hit it as if it were a ULDURDULDURD, but the option is at least there for the player. Would Afronova really be a better chart if every one of those down and up arrows was an 8th-length freeze? I really don't think it would.

These and many other interesting step placements are only possible by thinking outside the box and coming up with something new outside the boundaries of "perfect flow".

Stop arguing. Go and do some reviews by yourselves instead of doing a flame wars.

This is not a 'flame war' by any definition of the term, we are talking about stepfile patterns and techniques in this forum about stepfiles.