BRACKET 1 - DISCUSSION

[Lilina]

I'm glad I got a PC upgrade, which meant a constant 60 fps on MDHSWYE and Edo, so I doubt I'll be complaining about those with regards to crashes.

Been playing files here and there; some great ones, some not-so-bad ones, the usual. MDHSWYE's steps were actually kinda fun, at least when the comp doesn't crash on you, so there.

So far, I just couldn't bring myself to appreciate Dare to be Stupid; the cut seems to be missing something, as I never felt as if the song had a chorus (although there appeared to be one), and felt flat over-all.

Did anybody notice that Xiaoyu was misspelled in the song wheel?

[BLueSS]

ANONYMOUS POST TIME!

Here's a downsized version of the Romance in the Club video. Just replace the existent romance.avi file with this new one. You can download it here: http://www.megaupload.com/de/?d=JLM20MZD
I apologize for any inconvenience I hope you'll enjoy my entry anyway.

This is an anonymous comment for the Bracket 1 review (even though my song isn't in Bracket 1), because this is a real pet peeve of mine.

It is a total FALLACY to say that Basic charts avoid corner jumps. There are a lot of Basic charts that use them quite often. The main one that jumps into my mind would be Dynamite Rave.

(As seen here)

I just wanted to PUBLICLY nip this in the bud right now, because this was a point of contention in 1.5, and I don't want to see Basic charts unfairly marked down simply for the fact that they HAVE corner jumps in them. It is NOT unheard of, or even uncommon practice.

Edo no Temari Uta II
Heavy: 7/10
Okay first thing: This song should have absolutely no 32nds, it's all 24ths. This applies to the few spots you used them in standard as well. You could argue you were going for DDR style where 24ths don't exist, but then you went and used them in the piano section.

The 32nds felt better to me even though they were "made up". I tried snapping the whole song to 24ths, but it felt awkward during the parts where they were singing. I think it might be because they're singing, and they're not going to sing perfectly on time with 24ths. The piano's going to be perfectly on time, so you can't fudge that.
The first chorus and the long gallop section at the end of it in the 19th measure in particular feel completely wrong as 24ths. Try it yourself, and let me know what you think. (Select the whole song, hit Enter, and quantize to 24ths.)

Edo no Temari Uta II
Also the piano section in the middle was completely out of place and it felt like I was playing IIDX. This probably would have worked out better as a 7 with the piano section taken out.

The piano section taken out of the song cut, or the piano steps taken out of Heavy and replaced with something easier?
If it's the former: The song is excessively short without the piano section. The full song itself is only 2:30, and taking out the piano section and splicing the two choruses together results in a file that's 1:14 long, with only 58 seconds of that actually playable (from the first arrow to the last arrow). And if I were to take out *just* the piano section from the full song and have the song structure as verse-chorus-verse-chorus to pad the time, it'd be dreadfully boring to play the same parts of the song twice.
If it's the latter: The piano is the prominent thing in that section, and not much else that I tried felt right. I thought the challenge was justified. I had trouble with Light and Standard, actually, since even just following the back beat in those felt a little weird because the piano is so prominent and I wanted to follow that instead. But obviously I couldn't make Lgt/Std harder.

Edo no Temari Uta II
Presentation: 4.5/5
My only beef is the banner is in Japanese whereas the song is in English on the songwheel.

Not my fault. Stepmania doesn't have some of the kanji in the title, which is why it falls back to the romanized version. The correct title is there in the .sm file.

[Krazy]

This is an anonymous comment for the Bracket 1 review (even though my song isn't in Bracket 1), because this is a real pet peeve of mine.

It is a total FALLACY to say that Basic charts avoid corner jumps. There are a lot of Basic charts that use them quite often. The main one that jumps into my mind would be Dynamite Rave.

(As seen here)

I just wanted to PUBLICLY nip this in the bud right now, because this was a point of contention in 1.5, and I don't want to see Basic charts unfairly marked down simply for the fact that they HAVE corner jumps in them. It is NOT unheard of, or even uncommon practice.

Hmm interesting. People always used to bitch at me back in the day for using corner jumps in light. I'll probably have to go through a few of the light steps again I guess. This is also good news because I may or may not have used corner jumps in my light chart.

Still, I think corner jumps add more difficulty than regular jumps and may be hard for newer players, even if official charts use them you can't deny that. Dynamite Rave is kind of a weird example because as far as I know it's the only 5 without any eighth notes, so I guess a lot of the difficulty might come from the corner jumps?

Edo no Temari Uta II
Heavy: 7/10
Okay first thing: This song should have absolutely no 32nds, it's all 24ths. This applies to the few spots you used them in standard as well. You could argue you were going for DDR style where 24ths don't exist, but then you went and used them in the piano section.

The 32nds felt better to me even though they were "made up". I tried snapping the whole song to 24ths, but it felt awkward during the parts where they were singing. I think it might be because they're singing, and they're not going to sing perfectly on time with 24ths. The piano's going to be perfectly on time, so you can't fudge that.
The first chorus and the long gallop section at the end of it in the 19th measure in particular feel completely wrong as 24ths. Try it yourself, and let me know what you think. (Select the whole song, hit Enter, and quantize to 24ths.)

Edo no Temari Uta II
Also the piano section in the middle was completely out of place and it felt like I was playing IIDX. This probably would have worked out better as a 7 with the piano section taken out.

The piano section taken out of the song cut, or the piano steps taken out of Heavy and replaced with something easier?
If it's the former: The song is excessively short without the piano section. The full song itself is only 2:30, and taking out the piano section and splicing the two choruses together results in a file that's 1:14 long, with only 58 seconds of that actually playable (from the first arrow to the last arrow). And if I were to take out *just* the piano section from the full song and have the song structure as verse-chorus-verse-chorus to pad the time, it'd be dreadfully boring to play the same parts of the song twice.
If it's the latter: The piano is the prominent thing in that section, and not much else that I tried felt right. I thought the challenge was justified. I had trouble with Light and Standard, actually, since even just following the back beat in those felt a little weird because the piano is so prominent and I wanted to follow that instead. But obviously I couldn't make Lgt/Std harder.

Edo no Temari Uta II
Presentation: 4.5/5
My only beef is the banner is in Japanese whereas the song is in English on the songwheel.

Not my fault. Stepmania doesn't have some of the kanji in the title, which is why it falls back to the romanized version. The correct title is there in the .sm file.

some good points I'll probably look at this file again. No, I don't want the song to be shorter but the piano part didn't need that many notes in it. Good point about the title I guess, I didn't even realize because I only look at dwi files. I did kind of feel like I judged this song unfairly afterwards.

[AmazingKenchan]

I can add kanji to StepMania for those who are interested, I actually have a pack of about 150 added on to the base set right now.

[lrxevan]

Another thing that people bitch about all the time is double stepping, which is actually a very common thing in DDR.

[Zounder]

Another thing that people bitch about all the time is double stepping, which is actually a very common thing in DDR.

This is pretty much the one thing that nobody can really seem to define what's "good" and what's "bad." One could argue the songs in DDR that have a lot of double steps are the "bad" ones, one could counter by asking how that automatically makes a song bad. It basically comes down to preference.

The way I look at it is this: If there's a part of a song that calls for double steps, do it. An example would be in a slow paced, low key song in which only 4th and 8ths are used prominently, and the author wants some more movement. Another example is if the music gets really awkward sounding or some random sound/intsrument pops in for a single note. And yet another example is if the song simply calls for it. I stepped a song called "Pretty Girls" in Cheesemix 4's preview pack, and the song is about being nervous around girls. So naturally, when this is being sung, there are the occasional "nervous" double steps.

That all being said, double steps can certainly be too excessive and/or careless. I don't like to see randomly placed double steps, which indicate the author just randomly placed arrows throughout the chart. Yes, EOTC is an example of a DDR song with a bunch of seemingly randomly placed notes, but while I REALLY dislike the chart, I will admit that the double steps -sort of- fit the song. Still, I despised that chart, because it is not fun to play whatsoever. But other people may disagree with that.

[0rion]

Still, I think corner jumps add more difficulty than regular jumps and may be hard for newer players, even if official charts use them you can't deny that.

They've got to learn them sometime. Remember that there is some overlap in difficulty going from Light to Standard and from Standard to Heavy. I'd say that if the difficulty level accurately reflects the complexity of the song and the steps make sense for a player at that level, it probably shouldn't be docked.

[lrxevan]

Beside that, a "light" 5 or 6 isn't any easier than a "standard" 5 or 6. If a 5 can include corner jumps, any 5 can.

[Kewing]

Beside that, a "light" 5 or 6 isn't any easier than a "standard" 5 or 6. If a 5 can include corner jumps, any 5 can.

I totally second that. I always avoid to make distinctions between the different levels, because otherwise it only helps to bring out more confusion and incoherencies. I prefer an absolute scale.

As for what has been said about double steps, it is true that they cannot be defined as good or bad per se, but one thing is for sure: they usually tend to break the flow, and thus make the chart less fun VERY fast. I've heard people complain about Arrabiatta H, but I personally think it could have been a very good chart a la Exothic Ethnic if it hadn't those stupid double steps and stepjumps for no reason whatsoever.
In my case I try to avoid double steps always for 8th notes and higher, and only use them very occasionally with 4th notes when trying to place a pattern that otherwise wouldn't fit.

[Camacho]

Max period is a 9 on light. I actually don't know why people reference other stepcharts so much. Just because a convention exists somewhere doesn't make it good or bad, so it's better to talk about whether it's good or bad than to talk about whether it is a convention. (Cue "Max. Period was spos to be SUPER DUPER BOSS SONG", or something which similarly misses the point)

I also want to be completely clear, I couldn't possibly have any less respect for people who dock things because of difficulty. This is DOUBLY true of the people who actually can do "harder" things.

Anyways, not trying to darken the entire tone here, sorry. Feeling of Love Heavy has seemingly random double steps, but it's a kickass chart. There are certain types of double step patterns that just work well in general. I also don't want to discount the possibility, that people are simply really bad at double stepping. I mean, really, in terms of technique, there is no such thing as a double step. If you don't understand that, then you shouldn't be talking about double steps. Of course this raises the question, are we evaluating charts based on how they are performed (which doesn't even have any singularity), or something else?

[Kamek]

Personally, I don't like eighth note double steps all that much, but I do believe they have a place in harder charts, or when the music calls for them. Best example I can think of right off the bat would be Healing Vision -Angelic mix- Heavy. Maybe not the beginning as much, but definitely after the stop. There's a double step at the beginning of each measure after the stop, which coincides with the music (listen hard and you'll hear it, it's kind of hard to describe in words).

[Zounder]

I also want to be completely clear, I couldn't possibly have any less respect for people who dock things because of difficulty.

What do you mean by this?

It would be perfectly reasonable for somebody to dock points for a slow, low key song being 10 feet instead of something more appropriate.

It would also be reasonable to dock points off of a light chart that's 7 feet when the heavy chart is 7-9 feet, because it's completely unnecessary.

Unless you meant something else.

[Camacho]

Max period is a 9 on every difficulty except beginner, heavy, and oni, two of which are 10's. How's that for an "unnecessary" distribution. ALL of the charts go to the music. They're also in DDR, which is apparently everyone's favorite defender of 4-panel.

Is Bag appropriate? That's a slow 10. Is bagpipe music High-key? There's no inherent reason for 16th's or 32's or anything of that sort to "add intensity" to a stepchart. So correspondingly, there's no reason they only have to be placed in "intense" songs. The people that think this way are overwhelmingly the same ones who change their technique for "harder" songs and then wonder why they're so bad at them. I get the impression that's where a lot of this prejudice comes from. Of course it doesn't help that certain people that should know better are encouraging this type of thinking.

[Zounder]

Max period is a 9 on every difficulty except beginner, heavy, and oni, two of which are 10's. How's that for an "unnecessary" distribution. ALL of the charts go to the music. They're also in DDR, which is apparently everyone's favorite defender of 4-panel.

I actually don't know why people reference other stepcharts so much. Just because a convention exists somewhere doesn't make it good or bad

I believe you just contradicted yourself.

Regardless of that previous quote, Max Period is a boss song and you just said yourself NOT a 7-9 footer on heavy, which I -clearly- stated I was referring to. For example, take anormal 9 foot chart like, uh, Exotic Ethnic. Exotic Ethnic does not need a 7 foot light chart (I know it doesnt have one, this is hypothetical). This is just an example to make myself clearer if you didn't understand.

Is Bag appropriate? That's a slow 10. Is bagpipe music High-key?

Not every slow song needs 4-6 feet steps, again, you're completely misinterpreting what I'm saying, and also again contradicting yourself.

As for everything else you said, I don't really know what you're getting at, or what it has to do with what I was saying at all so I won't comment. It all sounded pretty reasonable.

[0rion]

It would be perfectly reasonable for somebody to dock points for a slow, low key song being 10 feet instead of something more appropriate.

It would also be reasonable to dock points off of a light chart that's 7 feet when the heavy chart is 7-9 feet, because it's completely unnecessary.

Unless you meant something else.

I think this would be more an issue of inappropriate steps that don't make sense with the music in the first case and mis-rating the difficulty level in the second case.

I think what he's saying is that a song that is appropriately stepped and rated shouldn't be docked solely because it's difficult. I might be wrong, but I believe that's what he meant.