Questions regarding feedback you got for your file...

[Trick Master Mint]

I'm still a little miffed about the "This felt like it came straight out of DDR, 6/10" review because my actual goal in making simfiles is to make stuff that feels like it came straight out of DDR.

Isn't that EXACTLY what these contests are supposed to be about?

[Hainaut]

Why can't you take the entertainment value of your simfile even further and exceed DDR standards? I'd much rather play a typical simifile from one of my favorite authors here instead of an official Konami one.

[Lisek]

1)Yup, I read it. Thought there wasn't much to read.

2) IMHO there were files that were judged good (ex. Vodka or Cafe Cafe) but there were those files, which were thrashed by judge 2 (ex. SUKI, Danzai no Hana, Dance In My Blood).

3) Yeah, I used feedback from DDR osc 5 for my entry 'Hikari'. People didn't like doublestepping so from then I am making steps without them.

4) I don't know. Time will tell.

[Aki]

1. Of course yes.
2. Semi-kinda yes. I select the people I trust and laugh at the ones that doesn't give a good head... I mean post
3. Everybody learns from mistakes.
4. All of them, except I always use Photoshop and not other stuff in making graphics.

[Lilina]

Okay, just replying (again) on Dark_Luke.

For DL, yeah, I loved Dancin in my Dreams because for me, the heavy synth parts worked very well with the patterns you used. Given what I felt was chaos in the song, I thought the chaotic patterns you used there worked well. In other words, it seemed like the patterns fit the song very well. The case wasn't true for Danzai, for given all those cross-overs and turns (which I actually love to play), they just didn't feel like they were very much suited to the song; the song wasn't too intense, going for long patterns didn't suit it because of that. As for the turns and crosses, the song was fairly straightforward, and didn't seem to have this "element" in it that warrants the crosses and turns.

Extra Comment: I liked Saltarello. For some reason. Sometimes you have to balance out experimentation with a little bit of supposedly-established standards.

[TakeWalker]

I'm still a little miffed about the "This felt like it came straight out of DDR, 6/10" review because my actual goal in making simfiles is to make stuff that feels like it came straight out of DDR.

Isn't that EXACTLY what these contests are supposed to be about?

I must've missed this one. <.< I know if I was doing the grading, "This felt like it came straight out of DDR" would be worthy of a 9 or 10. Assuming it came out of a decent mix, that is.

[jammitch!]

1) Yes.

2) The judges (all two of them) were fine. I obviously can't complain about Potatoe liking my file :p and Lilina's complaints are pretty valid - I know my graphics weren't up to the usual snuff and it seems I have a lower-quality OST rip than I thought I did. The public, on the other hand, is either useless (Great file 10/10 - not that I mind ), worse than useless (Great file, ugly 6/10) or worse than that (Off by a foot 3/10)

3) Not since One Fine Day. Most of that was just cleanup that I needed to become technically adept to do, but I did back off the gimmicks after some of the feedback.

4) Nope, sans maybe paying more attention to the audio quality and (hopefully) having a better BG (if I have the inspiration/time ever again). I've never really done this to satisfy other people; I'm glad that I can do so incidentally (certainly it seems judges like me more than the public, but even there I always have some definite fans and some definite freaks). You can't please everybody, except when you're allowed to enter 6 stepfiles like StepMix, where everyone liked a different one of my songs (but at least they liked one of them!).

Speaking of which, I haven't heard anyone comment on my judging, but everyone else has had at least a few complaints directed at them. Does that mean I did a good job at it, finally after all this time? Any opinions on my parsing of presentation points? (I'm #7, NOT #8, FYI.)

[Trick Master Mint]

The public, on the other hand, is either useless (Great file 10/10 - not that I mind ), worse than useless (Great file, ugly 6/10) or worse than that (Off by a foot 3/10)

I agree with this whole-heartedly. In fact, this is one of the reasons I don't like entering these tournaments.

[Ninevolt]

Not everyone feels like writing a whole lot about a simfile, especially for 50 of them. I also don't like using the whole 'omg this one step in the heavy chart doesn't fit, I give it a 9.5676999999991'.

[Oni-91]

-My own composition (Stepmix #1): hardly any comments. BOO! How well did I compose the song? How well did I make steps to the song I composed?

Uh... what entry was that?

[Dark Luke]

-My own composition (Stepmix #1): hardly any comments. BOO! How well did I compose the song? How well did I make steps to the song I composed?

Uh... what entry was that?

Mana.

[RVN-G]

1) Of course, YES!

2) Well, some are ok, some aren't. I believe some judges aren't good at playing DDR at all.

3) Depends.

4) Well, it also depends. But I'll still follow my own preferences when creating sims.

[Skorpion9x]

I wonder why my file (Nano Risk) and others such as Goodbye, which was very good IMO, are screwed over by judges because they have difficult challenge steps. They say stuff like "keep this crap on ITG" or something, but if they play SN and SN2, they will find songs on there that are MUCH more difficult than Nano Risk and Goodbye. The times are changing and Konami are putting more difficult songs into their games. Accept the fact and allow us to put difficult steps in our simfiles for these tournaments. The two files I mentioned are very paddable on challenge. If the steps were obviously made for keyboard play, then I would understand, but as they are, they should have been judged fairly.

Now I'm not complaining that I didn't win. I had no expectations of winning or even doing well, to be honest. I know my file sucked because the song choice was bad. I realized that at the last minute and tried to find another song to do, but couldn't, so I had to just stick with what I already had. I just want fair judging for difficult simfiles.

[Dark Luke]

I wonder why my file (Nano Risk) and others such as Goodbye, which was very good IMO, are screwed over by judges because they have difficult challenge steps. They say stuff like "keep this crap on ITG" or something, but if they play SN and SN2, they will find songs on there that are MUCH more difficult than Nano Risk and Goodbye. The times are changing and Konami are putting more difficult songs into their games. Accept the fact and allow us to put difficult steps in our simfiles for these tournaments. The two files I mentioned are very paddable on challenge. If the steps were obviously made for keyboard play, then I would understand, but as they are, they should have been judged fairly.

Now I'm not complaining that I didn't win. I had no expectations of winning or even doing well, to be honest. I know my file sucked because the song choice was bad. I realized that at the last minute and tried to find another song to do, but couldn't, so I had to just stick with what I already had. I just want fair judging for difficult simfiles.

The same happened to my OSC4 DDR division entry, Wish. (98 bpm, around 430-ish steps over 1:50, lots of 16ths)

Also the same happened to my challenge charts of several ddrextreme.co.uk contests. (e.g. Love Drive, Lichtgestalt, Forever)... Fortunately these are considered bonus charts so the impact is not bad.

I liked Nano Risk challenge.

[will-i-am]

I liked Saltarello. For some reason.

Aaaagh, that song made my head hurt.

Back on topic...

1) Si

2) Yes, feedback was pretty acurate with judges reviews, but PR's are a different story. I agree with jammitch! for the reason that simfiles were being unfairly judged because they had bad graphics. Probably about 90% of the public who made PR's didn't even understand the concept of presentation. No judges for next BEST-mix would kill.

3) I've used feedback from my Hardcore Holic file to improve greatly with HYPNOTHEQUE, but that was only because I had no other entry to submit to TKOIFT and my entry stunk. Period. People need to be a lot more specific on feedback. Just saying, "Bad graphics, -3.87/10" isn't enought. It's not even near enough. I really, really want to improve on my graphic making skills, but just booing them doesn't help at all. Please, what ever happened to "constructive criticism"? We definitely have the latter, but where is the feedback that actually helps? And for the record, the "/" in my banner wasn't meant to represent "of". It was added to separate the different pictures in my graphics. I know I might have taken the title of my song a little too literally in my graphics, but I really had no choice. Those hours spent after the deadline was set were reserved for creating graphics, which I had all but 1 day to complete. The reason why my simfile was the last to be submitted and the reason why I held up the competition from going any further was because I had to finish up my graphics. If I killed some anxiousness before the files were announced, I'm sorry.

4) I'll keep in mind to put in less "generic" DDR videos (if I ever do again, which I'm certain I will from time to time) with my simfiles, I'll remember to spell "muskled" as "muscled" when I make lyrics, and I might try and make my cd-titles a little bigger for that fact that nobody even noticed them (which might be for the better since the text was hardly readable), but yah, I can't really use any feedback that I got. Everyone seemed to like my steps and there wasn't much wrong with my file besides the graphics I made. I just really don't know how I always seem to impress the judges, but not the public. Second place by reviews to seventh after voting rounds seems like a pretty big downward jump to me. I'm not saying I'm disappointed with the results, as 4th place was up for grabs by literally anyone from 5th-8th place, but I just want to know how to impress the public with my stuff.