Is "artificial" difficulty a good or bad thing? (continued from DDRX2 AC thread)

hellrazor, you just dont know what you're talking about at all. i play a bar flat foot style. all this means is i use the bar, and my feet are kept flat rather than using my tippy-toes to hit the arrows. its in no way similar to bracketing, and in no way requires you to double step.

if you had half a brain, you would know that some patterns are too fast to double step, not too fast to crossover. use pluto relinquish as an example. you simply CANT double step that. you MUST cross over, or bracket. bracketing isnt double stepping. flat footing, same as a tippy-toe style but using your whole foot instead of the tip of it, still requires you to double step. the concept of "not being able to turn your body fast enough" just doesnt exist.

this again goes back to what i said earlier, keep your elitist "this is how DDR is played, you must crossover and dont you dare put your whole foot on the panel, dont fucking bracket its cheap" bull shit out of the thread. pointing out that someone double stepped is just plain stupid, and elitist.

as for your statement that a flat foot player cant enjoy spin spin sugar, are you referencing the extreme 2 version, or some simfile you have and just magically expect people to know? again, i play flat foot, but you dont know what that is so who are you to say i cant do the spins in spin spin sugar? who are you to say i cant do the cross-pad spins in superstar nevaraka mix doubles from UM2? who are you to say i cant do exotic ethnic doubles? who are you to say i cant enjoy said charts when i set out to PA/AAA them? who are you to say i cant enjoy oasis expert because i'm one of the guys who uses the "swap feet on freezes" method? as i already said, i think that chart is sweet. we dont remove the need for a step artist to place arrows in technically accurate padable patterns because as i pointed out to you, there is a huge difference between pad files and keyboard files. a pad 14 doesnt need to be bracketed, regardless of what you try to claim. on the flip side, pad 14s, .59, on the jazz, ordinary world, all can be bracketed. its just another play style someone can choose.

the plain and simple truth is that you think your way to play is the only right one, and that no other DDR player using a different style can enjoy the game because they are playing wrong. further more, if bracketing is cheating because you move less and expend less energy, what are your opinions on proper running form and breathing techniques to preserve energy and stamina? because really, all these methods like using the bar, bracketing, etc are just the dance game versions of proper running form, something ANYONE can adapt to be a better runner (as opposed to bracketing which not everyone can do).

tl;dr - you're an elitist, a douche bag, and an idiot.

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I just ran into a wall of text. Now my head hurts.

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Who ever knew ratings & difficulty was serious business?

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Yeah really, is it that big of a deal?

Fuck this thread, I'm going home.

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No, but some people seem to care way too much about other people's playstyles rather than focusing on their own so-called "correct" way.

lol @ "flatfoot is similar to bracketing"

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LOL I PLAY FLATFOOT WITH THE BAR SO I MUST BE A CHEATER AND ALL MY SCORES ARE THEREFORE NOT LEGIT ROFL

Seriously guys get a fucking grip, at the end of the day it's still just as challenging to get a good score on Reaf just as it is to clear Pandy nobar

ps: 16th streams are FUN, ddr needs more of that!

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8-bit trip is just a 12 with fully realized rolls. Most of the difficulty is derived from actually having to time those rolls instead of just BS-ing them. On that note, the chart is definitely made for someone that uses the bar to take some weight off and concentrate on timing.

There's a big difference between flat-foot play and bracketing. In bracketing, your feet don't move horizontally more than once or twice a minute. Flat footed play requires somewhat abbreviated but similar movement to toe-based play. It's bracketing's total lack of horizontal movement that makes most anti-bracketers doubt whether it's a reasonable play style.

I'd play flat-footed a lot more if I could, because it'd save me energy when I start getting tired, but my feet are so big that on recessed pads I can step where the arrow is and never actually make contact with it. Toe play is more comfortable for me anyway and allows for better feedback and movement (I'm a really slow reader so this is all very important).

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The file is from a future stepping pack.
When he double steps it's actualy foot-switch that he have to do.
I'm not a future stepping fan but now you know why it's "poorly made" (or not).

Yeah big Kudos, because it's a file designed to be bracketed. So doing hands on this... that's Zetorux, he is awesome.

You should try it then (it's from Tachyon Alpha).

I don't agree here. Flat is flat. You can flat foot without bracketing. Bracketing is something else.
I mostly only play ddr and i play flat-foot. Try to bracket on ddr pads, you'll have fun (yeah i tried ahah).


@xRGTMx : Oww don't run into it ^^'... but you know, with all those walls, we will make a ZIv castle

@Mercury : Yeah at more 16th streams, but not only this. And i'm a cheater too ! >.<

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after just playing endless 16th streams in custom songs on a local itg, no it doesnt

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I will give the song a try, I'm a toe player and it looks doable to me.

My whole point is that I think DDR should NEVER make a song that can't be passed with normal toe play (each foot in the middle of the arrow and no double-stepping, one step per arrow). ITG never made a song that wasn't designed for normal play and DDR shouldn't either.

I remember MJ Emzerian going off on players for their play style saying that they were wasting their time cheating the charts. He was a big reason ITG charts were so well done, he has always been very good at quality pad charts and was a big influence on making ITG charts playable. Play-style helped cause the death of ITG, players were cheating charts to get good scores making the songs much less physically challenging, to the point where it spread to anyone who wanted to get good scores, then the game became pointless...

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hellrazor, i demand videos of you doing EOTC, daikenkai, breakdown, and HVAM without double stepping. youre so against it this shouldnt be a problem right? if you cant deliver, then like i said keep the elitist bs out of the thread.

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I've seen EOTC and HVAM done properly, EOTC is nuts though and HVAM forces you to be backwards for one section near the end. I can't find any videos but I promise I've seen both of those done properly before.

I double-step them personally although I feel dirty when I do this.

I'm not fond of those charts though, fast spins are not fun to me, but someday I may practice those songs enough to figure them out. If you want to learn how to do them correctly, slow the song down and memorize all the steps, play it over and over, speeding it up until you can do it on 1x.

Better analogy would be Wii - Sports - Baseball.
Game is designed for a full swing like a real baseball bat for batting or pitching.
You can play the game easier by sitting down and flicking your wrist for harder hits and faster pitches and less energy expended. Even though this is possible and it cheats the game, the Wii should not design a baseball game that requires a player to sit down and flick their wrist (let them cheat but don't design the game to force cheating; don't make it impossible to be played normally).

If the game was made impossible to be played without cheating (as in cheating is required to pass) then the difficulty level is artificially inflated because the difficulty scale is based on regular pad play and YES a 13 is supposed to be insanely difficult.

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i thought you might say something like that, and the honest to god truth is i wouldnt EXPECT anyone to be able to do that for several reasons, but you have proved my point. also, i didnt say i wanted you to find me videos, i said i wanted videos of mr.elitist yourself doing it.

you feel that yours is the only correct style, and you say you must either spin and turn your back to the screen or double step songs like HVAM. the problem is you think spinning is the only proper way. ignoring my point about how you dont make the rules and your style isnt the only one, you COMPLETELY ignore the existence of another play style for those same patterns - out stepping. i can out step HVAM and EOTC. i dont because it wrecks my PA, and i dont argue with the results screen like some people, but i can. this is why i think its funny that you're offering me advice on how to learn to do these songs "properly". its a perfectly legit way even if you're only concerned with "not double-stepping", but since you didnt even know what flat footing was before this thread, i doubt you even knew about out stepping in the first place.

pro tip - when someone can double step, cross over, out step, afronova walk, spin, and do half turns he doesnt need your advice on how to do a song "properly"

as for 13s being "insanely difficult", they are. even bracketing there is technique involved. it might not involve the stamina flat footing or tip-toeing does, but its difficult. if it was easy to bracket, dukamok would have done way better than 69% on the a la menthe, while you watch videos of pure stamina machines scoring int the 80s on it. bracketing isnt cheating at all, it isnt the be-all-end-all of DDR techniques for a guaranteed score. it doesnt even guarantee a pass (see again: dukamok playing the a la menthe). accuracy is still a huge factor, and from all the bracketers i've talked too, PAing/FAing/MAing is harder when bracketing than when stepping normally.

oh, and your point about MJ going off on ITG players. he wasnt pissed that people were ruining the game or anything, he's pissed that people werent conforming to his play style and playing the songs like HE would. big difference. i'm not even going to go into the whole "quality charts" in ITG thing. i think i've beat my opinion of that to death, i think i even said it in this thread already. even still, MJ might have made ITG charts, but players found a way to do things he didnt intend to be done. this isnt a new thing. when street fighter was new, canceling fierce into hadouken was a glitch, hitting someone multiple times to form a combo was a glitch (hitting AND throwing characters in hit-stun was supposed to not be possible, throw combos were removed), crossing over was a glitch, tick throwing was an oversight. these are all huge parts of street fighter today, just like bracketing is part of ITG.

i looked at your profile, you've clearly been playing this game for a decent amount of time seeing as how you beat me to the punch on registering here, and that baffles me man. how can you have been playing for this long and still honestly think that you're playing "wrong" if you are double stepping, not know what flat footing and out stepping are, and think that all 14s are charts designed to be played on a keyboard? i also dont understand how you dont get that, despite me telling you this several times, this is a DDR thread. we were talking specifically about DDR boss songs. i told you repeatedly that this wasnt about stepmania keyboard charts being played on ITG.

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Your right, I don't know what you mean by "out-stepping" because I don't make up cute names for how to play DDR, I just play and have been for over a decade (you can find my profile on DDR Freak if you want to place a date on me). I also didn't know what Candle Stepping was and I would have been better off not knowing (it only deals with a complaint from the bracketer or flat-footers or something about not wanting to move their body to hit arrows), I pretty much live in a cave and play for exercise (not to top any scores other than my own, even though I have over 15 quads). Do you know what YAS is, while that dates me it just shows that people make up cute-names for stuff all the time, they come and go and prove nothing about knowing how to play machine dance games, for instance my son likes "The Big Jump", unless I explain what this means you will have no idea what "The Big Jump" is or how to do it, all you know is that it's a cute term used to describe something in a machine dance. If you saw "The Big Jump" at an arcade I'm sure you would be able to do it without hesitation even if you didn't know what my son called it.

MJ did complain about people playing incorrectly, his rant was stating that they were not getting a workout this way, and were wasting their time. MJ and I both play for the workout factor, in fact he was the main reason I bought a Cobalt Flux doubles kit a long time ago, and the reason I began playing doubles charts. I still have a huge folder of Udderdude / MJ simfiles, I used to chat to both of them on AIM way before ITG back when Bemanistyle had active moderators that rejected simfiles if they were subpar.

I downloaded the Tachyon Alpha pack, I think 8bit trip is the only decent file in the whole pack, and I still don't consider it a 14 at all it looks very passable, definately much easier than Summer, but then again the difficulty was placed based on (bracket or flat-footing or whatever) Summer speedy mix is a 13 based on normal play because of the insane hell runs, when converted to bracket or flat-footing it becomes easier because the hell runs are cheated. 8bit Trip is a 14 only because the steps are fast and the song is long, there are no hell runs so it's really not that hard (I have speed and endurance). I just need to figure out what's wrong with the BPM (why does it change from 133.03 to 122.8 over and over???), then I'll put it on my dance machine and give it a shot.

PS YAS - Yellow Arrow Syndrome. Happens when people didn't sync their file and just recorded in selection using the smallest arrow possible (this was a 1/16th note at the time thus Yellow Arrow), the chart was full of Yellow Arrows and was usually "deleted due to YAS".

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Then stop talking about fighting games.

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lol @ you thinking anyone wouldnt know about YAS/BAS/PAS etc., like it only ever existed on bemanistyle in relation to simfiles. i know we talked about this kind of stuff on AIJ, the most prime example is electrotuned where they put a tempo change in there to make up for a measure that is 4.5 beats long and avoid BAS through the whole song. how about the legit YAS in konoko? or in FAXX because of poorly timed stops? its still something that exists today and is talked about, pretty much everyone knows what it is so it doesnt make you special.

out stepping isnt a term i made up, its a term that was being used on AIJ before ITG was a thought in anyone's mind. lets say you have crossed over so your left foot is on right and your right foot is on down. you step out around your left leg to move your right to up. that is out stepping. despite how you're trying to make things sound, me mentioning this wasnt a way to show i'm better at dancing games than you, i dont know why you brought that crap up. i was just saying that for some "old school" elitist you sure dont know much about the game if you dont know that you can step this way. as for it being a cute little name that you think i made up, its no more of a cute little made up name than double stepping or crossing over.

candle stepping isnt a complaint from flat footers, as was pointed out, flat footers move just as much as tippy-toe players. flat foot means you step with your foot flat as opposed to on the tips, not that you bracket. IMO, candle stepping is easier to do while flat footing than while tip-toeing around the pad, so its a pretty bad comparison to say flat footers complain about candle stepping because they have to move their body (which they dont actually, candle stepping is just running in place, no body movement involved just leg movement).

to your complaint about flat footing being cheating on summer, like i said, we step the same way a tip-toe player steps, we just have our foot flat when we do it. how is that "cheating" exactly? i also like "there are no hell runs so it's really not that hard". for one, a song doesnt need "hell runs" to be hard. vertex^2 doesnt have one. pluto oni doesnt have one. maximizer oni doesnt have one. return of the toe jam doesnt have one. i can list hard songs without hell runs all day. also, isnt "hell run" another of those cute names you dont use for things dance game related due to you being a real man and playing girlie j-pop infested games for "exercise"?

you're complaining about play styles when you dont even know what they are, and despite having it explained to you, you STILL dont know what they are. your "old school" status means nothing in this argument, so bring up you having been playing for over a decade means nothing. this isnt about "i'm better and i've been playing longer", we arent the only ones here that have been playing for 10+ years.


FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

okay fair point.

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If you are talking about bracket charts like Anisakis or Future Destination, yeah i really agree with that (on the fact that this kind of chart should never be officials).

Yeah Emzerian is so good on stepping chart. He made so much solid stuff with crossovers on single and double that we didn't had when this came out.

(i readed most of the wall, but this took a lot of energy lol).

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YAS is not quite what you described. Imagine a new simfile maker not understanding the meaning of BPM or OFFSET, then you'll understand what YAS meant then. What your thinking of is an offset where the arrows are still on-beat just on a different note like the entire Chaos chart.

HellRun is another cute term, I never said I was a real man not playing Jpop, in fact I have an entire folder of Jpop and I made a Britney Spears song pack and a Jungle Book song pack, and I still like Pokemon at 32 years old... Yes crossover, etc are all cute terms, and not knowing an accepted term doesn't mean someone doesn't know how to properly play dance games.

I also never said I'm better than you or anyone else, work on your reading comprehension, but the fact that you reference AIJ tells me alot about you already.

FYI, I worked on the ITG Rebirth simfile pack, it's completely full of charts designed for "normal" play. I also pride myself as a syncher more than anything else, check out some of my simfiles on this site.

Otherwise Noob, you are full of yourself, all I have been trying to say is that DDR should stick to designing their charts for normal pad-play, if you want to play them another way go for it, but they should just keep their step patterns logical unlike most of the crap you see coming from the "elite" stepfile packs (which are almost all garbage typically).

Anyways I'll give you a +5 because you taught me some new terms, go enjoy life, smile, be happy, anger towards others will only negatively affect yourself so cheers.

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the j-pop comment was an extreme version of your comment about not using cute names because you only play for exercise which sounds a lot like "i dont find this game fun" when you make it in statement as to why you dont know or use "cute" names. on a side note, i might have to look into this jungle book pack, put some of the good ones on my flash drive next to i just cant wait to be king.

and while you didnt directly say you were better than anyone else here, no one was taking a crack at anyone's playing style OR posting about their scores but you. maybe i read too much into that, but it sounded like you were trying to qualify yourself to say that double stepping is bad.

as for ITG rebirth, you guys put a lot of work into it and made a community happy and should be proud of yourself, but its very similar to official ITG charts. i dont like official ITG charts. some are good, just like some of rebirth was good, but things like 16th runs to a slight snare roll (hardcore symphony expert, mellow expert) dont appeal to me. its not what i want, although the vast majority of it is uninflated difficulty.

say i'm full of myself all you want, but all i want out of DDR is for konami to make their game so that when my arcade gets it anyone can play it without artificial difficulty and beginners failing the legend of max beginner because it scrolls too fast for them. thats the very definition of artificial difficulty right there, the notes arent any harder than any other beginner chart, it just scrolls twice as fast. on the flip side, experts shouldnt fail a song just because they arent familiar with the 47 stops like chaos. and whether they choose to use the bar, double step, crossover, flat foot, tip-toe, bracket, or shuffle every song in the hopes it gives them afronoval walking everyone should be able to enjoy it without their song suddenly going from 135 BPM to 940 BPM for no reason other than it giving konami the lulz.

last thing, aside from me wanting you to stop with the "right way" thing, there was no anger. i get irritated when people tell anyone that there is a "right way" to play a video game. i love discussing said games though.

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