Public Review Complaints/Suggestions

[BLueSS]

Anonymous posts again.

Err.. Krazy, there are NO 12th steps in Showtime except for the triplets at the beginning, during the middle stream, and at the very end. This song is in NO way swung, and barring the rest of your criticism, this in particular struck me as something to call to your attention. I took VERY special precautions to ensure that the rhythms followed the music as exactly as possible. Listen with the assist tick on and you'll see what I mean.

I've seen a real sticking point about Starstruck come up, and I figure I really need to defend it. The B-A-B (<> - ^v - <>) jumps at the scroll freeze were not meant to be a hand, and in my opinion they're not:

* The second B doesn't come in during the holds. It lines up at the same beat the holds end.
* There's enough give in freeze-arrow timing that you can come off the hold, hit the B and still manage to score an OK. It isn't like that one mine in DDRex's Fly Magpie!, after all.
* If I had shortened the scroll-freeze by one beat (the only way to avoid both the near-hand and blue arrow syndrome) it would have felt too short - HVAMish, without such a short break in the music to justify it.

I thought that part of the file was a non-issue. Maybe I should have defended this in the readme, and I apologize for not doing so.

[DGJ]

Err.. Krazy, there are NO 12th steps in Showtime except for the triplets at the beginning, during the middle stream, and at the very end.

lmfao

[Krazy]

Err.. Krazy, there are NO 12th steps in Showtime except for the triplets at the beginning, during the middle stream, and at the very end. This song is in NO way swung, and barring the rest of your criticism, this in particular struck me as something to call to your attention. I took VERY special precautions to ensure that the rhythms followed the music as exactly as possible. Listen with the assist tick on and you'll see what I mean.

It really is swung, honest. Play it on DJMAX. I'm not the first person who brought this up. If anything, the reason it sounds right with the ticks is because the gap is actually slightly off, so that each red note is a little late and each blue note is a little early, and you can't really tell just by listening to the ticks. But if the gap was dead on, you'd be able to notice. Replacing all the blue notes with the 12th notes they should be makes the gap being slightly off even more apparent.

If you still don't believe me, just play the song at 0.5x in SM and listen to it, especially the bass, and even more so the piano solo.

Actually this problem was in a lot of simfiles here... this, Edo no Temari Uta II, Mutiny (standard only for some weird reason), Someday Somewhere (mostly the challenge chart), maybe some others.

I've seen a real sticking point about Starstruck come up, and I figure I really need to defend it. The B-A-B (<> - ^v - <>) jumps at the scroll freeze were not meant to be a hand, and in my opinion they're not:

* The second B doesn't come in during the holds. It lines up at the same beat the holds end.
* There's enough give in freeze-arrow timing that you can come off the hold, hit the B and still manage to score an OK. It isn't like that one mine in DDRex's Fly Magpie!, after all.
* If I had shortened the scroll-freeze by one beat (the only way to avoid both the near-hand and blue arrow syndrome) it would have felt too short - HVAMish, without such a short break in the music to justify it.

I thought that part of the file was a non-issue. Maybe I should have defended this in the readme, and I apologize for not doing so.

Yeah it wasn't that bad, and I still liked your chart so I gave it a decent score. I still thought I should mention it in my review because technically, if you hold the freeze to 100% completion, it would be a hand, even though any normal person would just let off the freeze early and do the jump.

[Wellian]

As a brief deviation, this was an issue with Charlene from ITG1 - there was a "hand" in the chart that was caused by the freeze extending too far, lining up with the tap, and causing StepMania to read three "required" inputs and thus claim the chart had a hand. The fix for ITG2 was to reduce this by a small amount (can't remember if it was 1/32nd or 1/64th) to make it appear almost identical, but not register a triple-input for chart analysis purposes.

Okay, history lesson over.

[BLueSS]

Time for the latest back of Anonymous Posts.
If I somehow missed one, I'm sorry; PM me again and I'll make sure I don't miss it this time.

Can U Feel It
L(3); 5/5; I enjoyed everything you did on this chart.
S(6); 5/5; Excellent chart. It had great rhythm in your steps and movement.
H(8); 9/10; Like an very easy 8. Pretty good.
Presentation; 3.5/5; Lyrics! Banner is nice, bg too.
Tilt; 0.75/3; Beginner, Challenge.
Score; 19.75

Your math is off - you forgot to add the presentation score into the final result. This should be 23.25. Glad to see you liked it!

Can U Feel It - John Robinson [8.7/10]
Solid steps that go with the song. Seems like a 7 to me.

I addressed this in the readme:

Sitting right on the border between a 7 and an 8, so I'm rounding up. It breaks my heart because I really wanted to make this a 7, but I'm not compromising step quality for a lower rating.

Also, your comments are rather short. From reading your reviews, I can't get a feel for what the difference is between an 8.7 and a 10. Is there anything that could be improved here, or is the difference entirely intangibles?

Can U Feel It

Expert
It was okay...it felt a bit repetitive because the steps mostly followed the background beat that didn't changed at all during the song. And when it stopped following that, then you made every purple arrow in the chorus early on purpose, because I didn't felt I was stepping it to anything in the music.

Sorry, but I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here. For starters, there aren't any 12th notes (what I would describe as "purple") in the song. Are you referring to 8th notes (more typically described as "blue"), or maybe the 16th notes (yellow in Note, but purple or magenta in Solo depending on their part of the cycle)? From context, I'm assuming you're referring to the synth part immediately following "Can you feel it in your heart?" In that case, here's the notes I hear in the music and the notes I put in the chart:

Code: Select all

       1---2---3---4---
Music: XX-X--X--XX-X-X-
Chart: X--X--X---X-X-X-

You'll notice all I did was turn the gallops into single notes on the nearest beat. This is because, as I said, I was aiming for a 7* chart here and didn't want to burden the player with gallops.

As for following the beat, I was primarily following the verse (boo karaoke steps), but with deference to the beat where appropriate, such as when the vocals kicked in on an 8th note and there was a strong enough beat to the point where starting a run on an 8th note felt awkward. That said, I'm not really sure what the alternative is here.

Challenge

Much better! It was much more interesting, even though the gallops in the beginning and ending were not well backed-up by the beat so they felt kinda weak.

If you listen to the synth at the beginning (not the vocals or the beat as on lower difficulties), you can hear the Twilight Zone pattern I used there.

You also tried to play it safe in the parts when there are VERY audible 16ths in the music by just using 8ths and very few 16ths, but to me it was more annoying than effective.

Had I put those in there, the difficulty of the song would have been very unbalanced, with a beginning and end significantly harder than the rest of the song.

And the 16ths in the chorus are even worse here, they felt almost as gimmicky as unnecessary BPM tricks.

Assuming you're still talking about what I described above, I followed the pattern I listed above directly on Challenge. I hear it pretty clearly over here.

I don't mean to dissect your review so thoroughly, but I wanted to show that there was a reason for everything you pointed out (and that the things you question are, in fact, in the music). It seems to me that you wanted a harder chart that exploited everything in the music. If that's the case, I concede that I could have, but I don't think it would make for a better chart.

-------------------------------------------------

Satellites – September [8.5/10]
I wasn’t a fan of the speed changes. Seems like it can stay the same. 7 footers aren’t really boss songs
Presentation 5/5

Thanks a lot for the review, but why are boss songs apparently the only types of simfiles that deserve speed changes? I halfed the bpm at one phrase because the main beat was not present at that point and so the pace of the song slowed down a bit. I actually just kept the original speed at first, but I thought that a slowdown would be more musically accurate, not because I wanted it to be more technically creative.

[BLueSS]

For "Public Review Complaints/Suggestions"...

In response to Krazy's comment: "Actually this problem was in a lot of simfiles here... this, Edo no Temari Uta II, Mutiny (standard only for some weird reason), Someday Somewhere (mostly the challenge chart), maybe some others."

Response: As much as you are correct about the song having 12th note patterns, I don't believe in putting those type of steps into Standard charts. Yes, it would've been better to do so to fit the song, but overall I leave anything over eighth notes to Heavy charts and above. I do this with all my simfiles. It may not be 'right' for the song, but for someone who's is learning patterns and beat counting to improve themselves for DDR should have some kind of natural progression from Light > Standard > Heavy. 12th notes upward aren't really suited for players just entering Standard mode from Light, thus the eighths instead of 12ths.

*below not directed at Krazy's comments:*

If I were in this to win the tournament, I might've gone with 12ths in Standard, better (or as some have put it "less blurry") graphics, and made the sample music in the songwheel start on a lyric... but I mainly do these tourneys for fun anymore without caring about 'winning'. I wish more did the same instead of wondering if they should keep X file because it came from Y group/person vs. downloading all the packs and keeping the ones they enjoy. These tournaments might be better if that were the case.

Talking skull appreciates the kind words for his file thus far anyway. He has chosen to let most of you live... for now.

[creativename]

Reply to that which was directed at me

I think it's just a difference in opinion. But at least the scores are based on something and it is written?

Sorry, I don't have anything offhand to improve the simfile. I'm not an expert.

[Super_Ray]

Satellites – September [8.5/10]
I wasn’t a fan of the speed changes. Seems like it can stay the same. 7 footers aren’t really boss songs
Presentation 5/5

Thanks a lot for the review, but why are boss songs apparently the only types of simfiles that deserve speed changes? I halfed the bpm at one phrase because the main beat was not present at that point and so the pace of the song slowed down a bit. I actually just kept the original speed at first, but I thought that a slowdown would be more musically accurate, not because I wanted it to be more technically creative.

No kidding. Also, there are plenty of non-boss songs in DDR that feature speed changes (Lets' Groove in DDR MAX, era in DDR 4th mix, Wild Rush in DDR Solo, etc)

[Hiryuu]

Oh that's easy...it's because their AAA or AA got screwed when they hit that spot in the song so 'they aren't a fan'.

Oh and have I mentioned it's likely on the keyboard? :\

[BLueSS]

It seems like my file is a hit-or-miss, at least according to the public review thread...I know not everyone like 16ths jackhammers, even at a low BPM, but I think that a gallop there would not fit the scratchy-stuttering noise as well as the jacks. I originally planned on putting way more jacks into the chart, but then I thought keeping them to a minimum would make it more acceptable. If anyone is going to argue that jacks at that speed are unacceptable, please check out Twilight Zone's double heavy chart.

Also, heavy is supposed to be an 8. At first I thought I would keep the steps on the easy side but then I wanted to throw in the 16ths. I just forgot to change the difficulty before submission.

Anyway, thanks to everyone that reviewed the file. I am glad that some of you found it fun.

[creativename]

Does the judging of my judging get added to my score?
I bet that's what is holding everything up.

[BLueSS]

Answer to "Can U Feel It" author

To make it perfectly clear to you why I didn't scored you so well, please get the following videos, in which I show you the way I expected the steps to be in *those* parts.

http//rapidshare.com/files/143736751/canyoufeelitexpert.AVI

http//rapidshare.com/files/143734732/canufeelitchallenge.AVI

Please compare to the way you stepped them. I can understand that you wanted to make those parts "unique" (I get what you attempted on Expert, but I still don't know what the hell's going on in the Challenge chart), but in my opinion the attempt to be unique backfired and makes it feel more like an unpolished file. People, if you want to be unique with your steps, pick songs in which those steps will fit (DDR "sorrow" songs are good examples), or else, don't force non-fitting steps. It sucks.

I assure you that people would have been far more inclined to give your entry higher scores if the steps were like my, umm, "fixed" version in the videos.

On the videos, the keyboard sounds obscure what's actually going on, but after looking at it within the chart, you do have a point - on close inspection, two notes in the middle of the rhythm section do appear to be a sixteenth later than I placed them. But these accusations of "trying to be unique" are completely off-base. When working on the song, I had to play it a good 50-60 times, and every time I played one of the harder charts, the pattern you see is the pattern I heard, and I never noticed it being off. It seems no one else in the public review noticed it being off either, so I don't feel so bad about it, and I'm rather happy with the song's reception this time. I can see how it would drive a PAer batty, but I don't think it'll actually be noticeable to the casual player the 7* chart is aimed at. Still, I'll fix this one up after the tournament.

As for what's happening on Challenge, it's the exact same thing as what's happening on heavy - the two notes are a 16th note early

Code: Select all

       1---2---3---4---
Music XX--X--X-XX-X-X-
Chart XX-X--X--XX-X-X-

Note to reviewers this is constructive feedback. Try to do more of it!

[Wellian]

I'm highly satisfied with how my file did, especially as I'm still in the mix. (A nudge and a wink to BlueSS in reference to what I said when submitting it.) If anyone guesses what it was without any clues, I'll give them a cookie.

[Sir.Rendr]

Cookies are sooooo overrated.

[Snap]

Really happy with how mine is doing as well actually. Especially considering I don't feel that it's one of my best.