What do you mean when you say

Ryu_Hirakashi, these men like to play 6's and 7's (X-scale). Stop trying to have them shake your hand.

Trolling doesn't have as much charm as you might think.

I agree with Viper, stop trolling. It's not working.

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Come on guys, please calm down, Ryu wants to say ALL about how ITG has revolutionized the dancing game experience for ALL AUDIENCES and he wants to implore on us his vast knowledge of how a good step chart should be so that everyone can experience what HE likes about a step chart and his criticism of how badly DDR has catered to not just the beginner audience, but also the hardcore audience with the introduction of DDR X2 AC that has light step charts that pretty much can be played by my own mother and hard stepcharts that are both fun and extremely satisfying to play for an expert player like most members here on ZIv RYU.

Plus he bathes in tiger blood.

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Please stop, this is the kind of things that arrogant ITG elitists would say, who have 0% interest in DDR...
You seem to be at a bit of a crossroads between ITG elitism, and DanceGame moderate. I like that you recognize that there have been some good things out of SN and SN2 (Planet songs, etc.)

Zeta's charts exceed most DDR players expectations because no one on this fucking planet could have seen KONAMI turn a song like ZETA into a LEVEL 15 chart with over 600 steps...

As for Mei and Vanessa - whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch, complain complain complainNOT HARD ENOUGH...

Enjoy your dead series

Come on Bolt, don't pick on Aegis. He's just trying to be like you.



Again.

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Stop picking on me.
Leave me alone.
Let me cry.

Shut up.
Boo fuckin' woo.
Wahh.
It's just the Internet.

Go play Tsugaru then.

<.<

I dunno.

This comment both offends me and the many lives that were lost from this chart.

Besides Ryu would just see this as a challenge, try it out, complain how easy the chart is and compare it to the ALMIGHTY ITG CHART LORDS which will then result in Catherine giving birth to 5 retarded Baby-Lons.

It's only a matter of time.

APPEND: oops, broke ZIv

EXTRA APPEND: Fixed so it doesn't look like TOPIQ has been SUMMONED again.

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wow this is falling apart and I'm not the cause of it this time O_O

You sir just made my day

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After all my debating at least let me keep the points I earned. I deserve that at least. I'm not trying to sound like an elitist. I just want to walk away after playing DDR a satisfied player. THAT'S ALL!

All of you act as though I don't care about DDR. I've only been playing 10 years. That in itself should say something. To DDR's credit, I could play 5th,MAX,Extreme, and (Chaos) for the rest of my life and never have any complaints.

I understand where you're coming from Ryu, even if it's not my own cup of tea. What I personally like the most about DDR is that it has such a wide variety of challenge and ease that allows anyone to pick it up and have fun and experienced players can keep challenging themselves for a long while. This is obviously the point VD was meant to drive home. ITG made things harder, more daring, but still kept things wide open for players with less skill. So I liked that series too. The second game, and the spiritual succession of the series through Pump Pro shows how quickly the charts, the music selection, and the game overall was maturing. It renewed my interest in the Pump It Up series.

Now, once you jump from the public game series to the keyboard packs found on forums you've totally lost me. Especially when every song is seven minutes long and has only one Challenge 14 chart on Single. That might be fun to some people (or else such packs wouldn't get created) but it narrows the band to such a minor niche that you've lost 98% of the DDR crowd and even a good chunk of the ITG crowd doing so. So don't act surprised when you're the only one in the room who likes the Valkyrie Dimension Challenge charts.

You have every right to your opinions of course, as does everyone else (Cause which charts are good and which charts are bad are now and forever will be purely one's opinion), but I can't help but agree with "stop trying to have them to shake your hand". It's just a game, this is just a website, and your points will never stay still no matter what you say or do here. And when others try to impose their opinions on you as facts or mock you for what you like, just ignore them.

I certainly wasn't trying to attack you on a personal level or anything. You're definatly free to feel however you like. I was mainly trying to point out that I don't think your complaints about DDR are completely accurate today. In the day of DDR Extreme or even SuperNOVA 2, I think you were dead on since DDR did have that problem of having a small amount of songs being drastically more difficult than the rest. However with X2, I think they've done a fine job of smoothing out the curve as well as providing a good number of songs that are diffifult without being just stupid like SN2.

However, I still don't want to see DDR become like ITG, where the average song on the highest difficulty is hard just for the sake of being hard. X2 reaches the equilibrium I like between fun songs and hard songs.

Back to the original topic. "When you say ITG is better than DDR, what do you mean when you say ITG?"

I like playing custom simfiles by step artists that step with the style I like.
It comes down to several things.
Doublestepping, attention to music, pattern use, difficulty selection, hands.

Doublestepping:
Konami: I have to adjust my playing style to doublestep any crossover unless I can see the crossback or I know the chart. Otherwise, I'll end up facing away from the screen half the song. It's not really better on doubles, because on doubles you have to follow crossovers to be in the right position.
Exception: Universe 3. Every song I've played from Universe 3 has been practically flawless in this regard. What was done differently, and why for only that game? If Conga wasn't flawless, I wouldn't have taken the time to FC it.

ITG Officials:
Most charts, I can play without adjusting my playing style. I can crossover and do a couple measures crossed over, knowing that the crossback has been planned. Doubles charts also have very few flaws.
Exception: Hip Hop Jam DX. I don't want to do spins at 200 bpm.

Customs:
I've found a whole community of step artists that make custom files that have 0 doublestep flaws every time they make a simfile. It's not just something they do for 1 pack, or something they usually do, but sometimes let some slip in, it's something they specifically set out to do. The step artists I respect and play files from go over their files before releasing them and make sure to fix every doublestep they can find. Doubles charts are practically nonexistant though.
Exception: Noob artists. Some people just haven't learned how to spot doublesteps. I'm not counting people who intentionally put doublesteps as noobs, since I usually see doublesteps in the files of people saying, "This is my first file, please be nice.", or similar. The people who put doublesteps in intentionally know what they're doing and say so in their song description or pack description, so I know what to expect from them.

Me:
If you see a doublestep in one of my charts, (besides Clowns, that was a joke), it's probably a corrupted file.
Exception: Addicted. I thought it would be funny to put a hand+spin in. Clowns was a joke file, and was actually written by a program I wrote to create bad charts. See, making bad charts is so hard for me, I couldn't do it myself, I had to write a program to do it for me.


Attention to music:
Konami:
Most songs are not stepped to what I consider the full potential of the music. Often there will be some complicated rhythm in a song, or even just the occasional drum roll, or short burst. These things are either ignored, or a couple crossovers are thrown in. (and then forgotten about within the next 3 steps, see above)
Exception: Boss songs, some challenge charts, and Universe 3. Why do only a few songs get this special effort?

ITG:
Varies. Closer to the music than Konami generally is, still not quite there. Most expert charts have some extra notes that aren't in the music, but at least they also have the notes that are in the music.
Exception: Utopia SX. Which I have actually seen a good explanation for. "Utopia" is a thing that doesn't actually exist, there is no true utopia. So those chaotic sections follow that.

Customs:
Those same step artists I mentioned above? Yeah, they also try to follow the music very closely. Not just on a few songs, but on every song. They check over their charts, looking for missed rhythms, things in the music that the chart does not bring out.
Exception: Not really any. The people who don't try to follow the music closely just aren't in the group.

Me:
I try to follow the music closely. I'm not perfect, and I have trouble picking out some rhythms, but I believe I do a better job than Konami usually does.
Exception: Hands take priority. I'll follow the part of the music or lyrics that fits the hand pattern I want to do.


Pattern use:
Konami:
All across the board. The problem that seems to have come up recently is they use too many crossovers at too high of a speed. Their philosophy seems to be that since crossovers were fun as 170 bpm 8ths, they must also be fun as 180 bpm 16ths. Especially in boss songs.. Maybe they do it with the intent of increasing the separation between the scores people get on those songs. I've seen plenty of tournament rounds decided by less than 10 excellents. I've even been in one of those rounds. I'll admit that this is much less likely to occur with the high speed crossovers; the difference that makes you get an excellent in an easy pattern can make you get a miss in a high speed crossover pattern.

ITG:
Also all across the board. The critical difference is that in ITG, there aren't LDRLUL or LDRDLURUL patterns all over the place in Pandemonium, Summer, and Vertex^2. You're going to point to Bloodrush, but actually look at it. It has crossovers, but the long crossover streams are anchor streams. The patterns like what we see in PHO, PRO, VDO, and other boss songs, stopped with Mythology at 138 bpm.

Customs:
Again, all across the board, but also, like ITG, the really technical crossover patterns stop at the 140 bpm mark. Anything faster either uses anchors, only does the crossovers in short burst, or is a joke chart.

Me:
I use anchors everywhere I have fast crossovers.


Difficulty selection:
Konami: (for DDR X2 AC as a whole)
Number of S charts: 406
Number of S charts: 119
Less than 1/3 of songs get a chart. Why? I've listened to plenty of songs and thought, "This could use a challenge chart.". It gets even worse if your criteria is "I want to play something that's a 16 or harder.". You have 39 charts to choose from, and that's being generous, 14 of those are for songs that have a harder chart. Doubles has the same problem.

ITG:
Out of the 140 songs in ITG 1 & 2
Number of songs without SX: 24:
Number of songs without DX: 14
Almost 1/6 of songs didn't get an SX chart. And the ones that didn't, the SX chart would have had to add lots of extra things not in the music to be different from the SH chart. These numbers are a bit off, a number of the songs recieved an SX or DX chart in ITG PC. 26 songs have a singles chart that's 11 or harder. 21 doubles 11s and harder. You can say that's 2/3 the number that X2 has in the 16-19 range, but X2 has over 3 times as many songs.

Customs:
Every song has a chart. The problem? Every song has only a chart. 9s are almost unheard of, and anything below simply isn't there. Plenty of 11s and up though. You want to play a 17 (ITG scale)? I've got 25. Made by people proven able to pass them. Happy with just an 11-13? 2543.
The problem is doubles. Very few custom artists make doubles charts.

Me
I step DX first. Then, as time allows, DH, DM, and DE. Then I add the singles charts. Very rarely do I leave a song with only a DX chart, and when I do, it's usuallly because I haven't had time to make the other charts.


Hands:
Konami: They avoid hands altogether. I can understand that, I don't hold it against them. They have to make charts for arcades where cleaning the pads is regarded as a crime. Their other market is people playing at home on soft pads that would probably malfunction on hands. So avoiding hands is actually the most sensible course for them.

ITG: They had some hands, but hands were a new thing, and they didn't really know what to do with them. They tried some things, made a few hand charts, but mostly stuck with the tried and true.

Customs: Complex hands aren't really done, except for the occasional bracket chart.

Me: Call me crazy, but I'm experimenting with hands, seeing what I like, what I want to do, what I don't want to do. I know I don't want to do that middle 6 arrows hold that's in BYM DX and Disconnected Disco DX. I'm trying new things, putting my hands in unusual places. Kneedrops, 16ths on hands, hand patterns that move across the pads, foot patterns while hands hold freezes stretch hands, I do it all.


That freaking announcer:
Konami could fix everything else on this list and I still would not play their games.
I am not buying or paying to play any new Konami DDR games until that announcer is gone.


I don't play Konami charts because they have too many doublestepping flaws.
I play a few ITG charts because I've played all the songs to death.
I play few customs because they don't have doubles charts.
I play all my charts because I made them and I know they're what I want to do with that song.

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^^ That is probably the best post in this thread. I agree 100%

It all comes down to what people like to play. Nobody really plays ITG officials anymore. When you go to the arcade and see people play ITG, they might play 1 or 2 officials, but they mostly play customs. Is that still considered ITG? I believe so. Why? It's about the community. The good players, the bad players, the just-for-fun players, the step artists, all of them define what ITG is.

Also, people generalize stepfiles all the time as either "DDR-like" or "ITG-like". Honestly, the vast majority of "ITG simfiles" are nothing like ITG's charts. Like I said, nobody plays officials anymore, and that's not just because of the songs being 6 years old or the sync issues, but because the charts really aren't that good.

DDR players who do not play ITG associate any "hard" simfile with ITG. I've seen it on 4 different forums from a ton of different people, including people on this site. The opposite is true as well. Sure, the majority of simfiles made for ITG are 10-11, but there are thousands of 9 footers to play, and yes, that's as easy as they get. Why is that?

Well, (I am honestly trying not to sound elitist here but I probably fail at it) the harder charts from ITG officials and whatnot have made ITG players better at dancing games than DDR players. It's not always the case, but it makes sense. The good thing about ITG is if you can pass most 9s, you can definitely pass a 10. X2 isn't as bad in this regard, but prior to that, there was a giant gap between 9s and 10s in DDR. It takes a lot more work to get to that on DDR than it does on ITG. On ITG, it's just very gradual. The high-end 9s prepare you for the 10 and 11 footers (On a day like today is probably the only 9 footer with an 11 foot-ish run). DDR's high end 9s before X2 did not prepare you for the 10s. Rhythm and Police, HVAM, Afronova, etc. All of those are nothing like any of the 10s DDR has. (let's just ignore Sn2 since 50% of the 9s there are actually mid-level 10s) ITG prepares the players for 11s, 12s and 13s too. Custom songs (obviously) do that too.

Honestly, I am very happy with DDR X2. It's the first DDR mix with charts I actually like ( I like Uni3, but it has no arcade form, which makes me sad). I usually go through each DDR mix and find music for me to restep. I didn't find much I'd change here. I'm restepping some of the boss charts because they honestly aren't hard enough, but other than that Konami did a good job.

I still play 7 footers once in a while, but they get boring. Say person A is a DDR player who can pass all of the 9s and 1 or 2 10s. Person B is an ITG player that can consistently pass 13s. Person A is more likely to find 7 and 8 footers fun, and is unlikely to play 5s unless it's on heavy mode. Person B is going to find 9s just as boring as the 5s because he can just play harder stuff.

Also, I bet Dukamok wrote VD oni, haha.

But yeah, I'm not done with my post, but Imma stop typing. I'm not bashing anyone on this site or in the DDR community. Remember, I'm a DDR player too. I've been playing DDR more than ITG lately. Both games have their flaws, and when it comes down to it, customs are the way to go, whether it's a 7 or a 13.

All of that being said, Think ya better D is one of my favorite charts on DDR.

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Maybe I'll get tomatoes thrown at my by Kyzentun and others for this, but I don't view doublestepping as a "flaw" in a chart. If you're doing nonstop 16th note streams with your arrows on 5x (which is what most custom ItG charts seem to have degraded to nowadays) then yes I could see how a doublestep would be bad. But otherwise, a stream of LRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLR for every single step of a song is incredibly boring to me. That's the reason I don't really like a lot of Universe 3's charts ... they're too straight forward and predictable. I really ENJOY charts such as Leading Cyber, Un Deux Trois, Jane Jana, and Healing Vision (Angelic Mix).

As for songs not being stepped to the "full potential" of the music (translation: Karaoke Steps or Beatmania Steps), I'd say there are two reasons for that. (1) It's nice to have some variation in songs. Some people like K-stepping and etc, some people don't. Why should the game cater only to you? (2) In some ways your feet become a musical instrument when you play DDR. There's no way that the charts for So Deep or Witch Doctor go with the music, but you have to admit it's pretty damn cool to hear two really good players stepping to them on Heavy --- their feet become like an extra rhythm track.

I'm only going to throw tomatoes at you for exaggerating overly and deliberately picking strawman examples.
You might have noticed that when I listed "Customs" I specifically stated that I searched for step artists that don't step constant 16th streams, use complex rhythms, and have varied step placement.
I could go into why I consider being straightforward and predictable a good thing, but I don't feel like writing another long essay right now.

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