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

come on guys stop spreading the hate we all live on the same earth LiVe In PeAcE

EDIT: i dont remember making this post

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QFT

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With Chaos and Legend of Max, they are (well, if you play them in their original mixes anyway) boss songs, so really Konami's just using the opportunity they have there to properly fuck with the chart to make it harder (and espcially as nowadays the extra stages are all on Oni mode, they want to put in a few tricks in that'll properly challenge the player). Sure, they didn't have to do it, but you can see why they did. Of course, they go a bit over the top with normal songs that don't need the speed ups like Flow (true style) or Poseidon, but still.

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true, my examples are boss songs, but they are also songs that dont actually have those stops or BPM. the least 100 sec. is actually 240 BPM,and actually has tempo shifts. i LOVE that chart too. thats a case where i think beginners should just be SOL if they cant read that fast, because that song is legitimately that fast.

if legend of max was the only extreme song to double the BPM, it wouldnt be a big deal either. like i was saying, one is okay but if you only introduce so many new 10s/15s i dont think every song should have a gimmick. of the 10s in extreme, LOM, PS, PSM, and sakura had their BPMs doubled. bag had its cut in half. thats ALL the new 10s on singles, and all the previous 10s had their BPM doubled as well. for the longest time we couldnt get 10s without the BPM doubling.

i think the first 10 we got without the BPM doubling was mad blast on festival and G2 on UM2 (i cant remember which came out first, but i know they werent too far apart). IMO thats far too long of a time to go without a 10 being a standard song, and 10s as standard songs are few and far between.

i completely agree with you on flow (true stle) and poseidon, flow oni would be such an awesome chart if it wasnt for the speed up.

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Trigger is so random. At least in Max 300 the BPM matches the song-title, and Drop Out was the first double-speed song I think. Also "The Monster Is Coming" was the first 10 in DDR on singles mode and it's speed was legit (not doubled). It wouldn't make sense if Max 300 was followed by MaXUnlimited where the speed of Max 300 was 300 and MaxX Unlimited was 150 to 160, and Max.(period) is probably the worst song for artificial speeding, however MANY fan-based ITG crap packs are MUCH worse with speed changes and stops and all that gimmicky nonsense, comments on those files are usually "EPIC simfile". I'm also strongly against nonsense sync gimmicks but very rarely they actually work ("Stop And Go" from ITG3 is awesome, and "Dancingbox" from R2112 just fits so well, I couldn't imagine it synched any other way).

As for "The A La Menthe" I bet your simfile for this song is different than mine. I got mine from CheeseMix 2 a LONG time ago, it was the first 10-foot chart I AAA'd, and the music video was from Oceans 11 some scene where a guy is dodging lasers by doing some sweet moves, it's such a great simfile. I don't duplicate songs either, so if I ever downloaded a pack with another "The A La Menthe" I would compare the two songs and keep the one that is better.

I agree that the speed changes are stupid on many new boss songs also the charts have become nonsense (don't go well to the music and don't flow well), I attributed this to (dunno if what I'm saying is true I think it is) Phrekwenci (Donnie D'Amato) who after many years finally got on-board with Konami and since then I can see his crap simfile charts now in official DDR games, ESPECIALLY on all the tougher charts. IMHO he was one of the worst simfilers ever, but he had alot of popularity in the community and many players don't care about quality.

As far as DDR not being beginner friendly at the arcade, tough. It never was, when I began playing there was no beginner mode, you just played whatever song on light mode that was easy, same with beginner now, a Boss song is appropriately rated on beginner, it's really no tougher than another beginner song, but the fact it's much faster makes it rated higher than other beginner songs. Let the noobs fail, they'll learn to not pick the song again, Boss songs used to be in Red as well, a warning that they weren't easy, and the BPM should be displayed, enough warning for noobs to stay away.

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the a la menthe simfile that dukamok passed was this one.

dukamok a la menthe
mad matt a la menthe

i posted both to show you the true difference between flat foot and bracketing. you can clearly see dukamok's body stays in place the entire time, thats true bracketing. his accuracy is also absolutely terrible. mad matt's video shows his feet for a bit, thats actual flat footing. he has to move his body and feet just as much as a tip toe player does, he just steps with his foot flat, partly on the center panel, it doesnt ENTIRELY remove body movement, it just reduces it since you dont have to move your foot from the center of the panel just the edge.

what is this "the monster is coming" song you are talking about? i've played on 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, extreme, SN, SN2, and X cabs and NEVER seen this song. i have the home versions for all the main mixes, including extra mix, and it isnt on those either. 10 never existed until 7th mix, so i have to call shenanigans here. there is no simfile, there is no youtube video, so i need some proof of this. 9/apocalyptic was the highest difficulty up to 5th mix (not including disney mix, but its 1-10 scale doesnt seem the same as the main mix scale except for KOs transplanted that kept their normal rating), 6th mix had NO foot difficulty, and 7th introduced 10 so i want to see what mix this song was in and what the chart looks like.

and i know DDR wasnt beginner friendly at the arcade back in the day. IIDX isnt either. i dont agree with having to pick a 1 on basic and fail it repeatedly, i like the idea of a proper beginner mode like the games have now (i dont know if you have noticed, i only noticed because of stellar master mode and what not that beginner charts are much more similar to light charts now, only easier and they dont encourage stepping back to the center anymore). i never agreed with the IIDX mentality that you start with a version that has 5.1.1. and fail it on L7 until you can pass it, then move on to other songs and do the same. yes, there should be a learning curve, and maybe you shouldnt pass your first song ever, but it shouldnt be as bad as it used to be, and it isnt. still, certain songs arent accessible to beginners based solely on speed gimmicks, not step difficulty. this is what i disagree with most. like IIDX 9th style, i dont think that game had beginner, so L7 was the easiest difficulty, right? i'm not saying quasar L7 should have been easy enough for a monkey to pass, i'm saying PSM shouldnt have had its speed gimmick and should have been a legitimately hard for a newbie to pass as quasar or stoic.

also i didnt know d'amato was phrekwenci from back in the day, i remember seeing him as a green foot on DDRFreak. the d'amato name popped up on some of the ITG3 simfiles but i didnt know who it was. when did he start working for konami?

on that same note, bag didnt have its half speed gimmick in IIDX. its 7k chart is absolutely awesome, too. i would love to see something based on that for its DDR oni chart rather than them using the "old" heavy chart for oni. difficulty on a song like bag is possible without changing the speed, IIDX taught us that and its made by the same BEMANI team. so i'm not saying newbies should be able to pass the red songs just because the entire song list should be accessible, i'm saying they shouldnt be able to pass them because they are legitimately hard rather than "ZOMG FAST ARROWS!".

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Paranoia survivor Max had changed speed modifiers on 9th style so that they had a less effect than normal, so speed wasn't too much of a problem, though the gimmicks (that are only on the singles charts) are a tad annoying. It was a 5 on L7, compared to the 6 of quasar and 7 (now 8) of stoic. It wasn't intended to be as hard as either of those songs, and it is the easiest Extra Stage IIDX has ever had, as it's only a 9 on A7 and doesn't even have an A14 chart. If they made the Light7/14 charts for it nearly as hard as quasar or stoic, it probably wouldn't have an A7 chart or H14 chart.

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I believe Phrek got in for DDR SuperNova 2.

The Monster Is Coming from Dancing Stage Feat. Dreams Come True a console only release for PS1-Japan released December 25, 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_-0L6lg8nw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Stage_featuring_Dreams_Come_True#Music
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/577260-dancing-stage-featuring-dreams-come-true/faqs

I couldn't find a video of the step-chart but I could send it to you, the simfile has always been listed as a 10 on hard mode, not sure what the game says, but the song is very tough, every bit a 10-footer. I got the simfiles from DDR:UK, and that was the first 10-footer I knew of. Also the DDR 2nd Mix -Append Club 1- and -Append Club 2- games were the first releases to have 9's, and I actually owned those and had a PS1 and played the actual games, they absolutely had 9 footers (and horrible 30FPS arrows).

You can find the chart using this Step Chart Generator:

http://www.ddruk.com/chartgen.php

Song: Opening Theme -The Monster Is Coming-
Mode: Single
Difficulty: SManiac

BPM: 160
Difficulty: 10

There may have even been an arcade release of this game.

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yeah, i have both PSX club versions and the DC club version as well, i know where 9s come from. i also have PSX versions of TKD, DCT, oha! studio, best hits, and what not, i just didnt play them much. on that note, if you can find the dreamcast version, its 60 FPS. just saying also, 2nd mix on dreamcast has all the 1st and 2nd mix songs, VERY good game actually. well, not all. strictly business isnt in there. but still, good game if you can find it.

now then, there were also 3 games for PSX that used the 3rd mix engine. oha! like 12 songs, as if i didnt feel gyped enough that i paid money for this, i put it in and it has no damn songs . TKD and DCT both have oni. there is a super maniac difficulty after the maniac difficulty. these games have basic, trick, maniac, and super maniac. on that note, TKD and DCT both have NO rating system of any kind. fun stuff. i dont know who rated that simfile, but it isnt accurate. maybe it deserves 10, but unlike the disney mix songs that at least have a rating, it isnt "officially" the first 10, that still belongs to max300 and maxx unlimited simultaneously since 6th mix didnt rate songs. ugh, i cant believe i paid MONEY for these games, but i guess it came in handy for something.

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In fact there were two.

Dancing Stage feat. Dreams Come True was AFAIK only available as an upgrade. It has the honour of being the only DDR release I know of to have a version that runs on System 573 digital and ALSO System 573 analogue (the latter is emulated and working in Mame).

*disappears back to lurking in this thread*

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Okay I fixed 8-Bit Trip:
#OFFSET:-0.058;
#DISPLAYBPM:133;
#BPMS:0=133,144=123.17,152=133,392=123.17,400=133;

The BPM and OFFSET were both significantly off-beat (the errors were compensating each other though) so that the arrows begin behind, become ahead, behind, ahead, behind (sync errors are my pet pieve). IMO it's all messed up, but I fixed it, now I will give it a shot.

EDIT: I also tried playing flat-foot, I had to focus on hitting the arrows with my heel to keep my feet on the arrows. I found this to be slower and tougher than toe playing, it took more effort to do spins and I had to concentrate more to keep lifting my legs up (I had a desire to stand on the center button and tap the top arrow with my toe without stepping on the arrow). So I really had to focus on big steps and hitting arrows with my heel to do this properly but I don't see how it makes you play better.

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I love how this thread just became a stage for hellrazor to show how wrong he is about everything, and how terrible he is at rhythm games, syncing, and social interaction. Keep on being worthless, hellrazor. You're fighting the good fight. Don't let any logic or common sense stop you!

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um

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I'm gonna head for that Leonard guy's house.

Hi revolver.. yeah you suck. Why... because that was the most retarded thing ever. KTHXBAI

(and if JanoDX sees this THIS IS SARCASM!!!!)

I'm serious I was only joking so if you take this seriously or anything relax man, I'm just here to see what's going on.

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Ditto. I stopped by to see if kickass à l'awesomesauce was being served, but that just tasted like drama. I demand a refund

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Then allow me to prove my point.

I played 8-Bit Trip last night (first time playing the song) and I passed with a fairly decent score on my first try. I have never passed a 13 on my first try and many 13's I still haven't passed, yet this one is considered a 14 (I've never passed a 14 before). Why did I pass it? Because it's 'artificially difficult". 888 is harder than this song, yet the OP thought this song was harder and suggested this would make for a DDR-20 but the difficulty is based on his cheap play style which automatically makes songs easier to pass.

A few years ago I invited a guy over who won the regional ITG championship and could clear all the 13's including the toughest ITG course on expert mode. He had a hard time passing 9's on my pads because he couldn't slide his foot (flat-footing) to cheat the arrows, he didn't know how to pick up his feet and hit arrows, he also didn't know how to do turns, spins, etc all he could do is slide his feet around and double-step everything, but since he couldn't slide his shoes on my lexan panels he wasn't able to play. It was a very disappointing experience because I really wanted to compete with him on some hard non-ITG songs.

My point is that DDR should not base their steps on flat-foot or bracketing or any cheap play-styles, and that these cheap play styles artificially increase the difficulty = bad.

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he isnt terrible at rhythm games, provided what he says about his scores is true. thanks for bumping the thread and adding absolutely nothing. i'm not sure if you had noticed, but the conversation was 100% dead at the time you posted.


i cant believe that after all this you still dont have the slightest fucking clue what flat footing is. quit talking out of your ass. i dont care if you can pass 13s, you dont know a god damn thing about this game and show your ignorance on the subject (how songs are "designed" to be played, "cheap" play styles, what you THINK flat footing is, thinking DCT has foot ratings and saying there was a 10 in the 3rd mix days, thinking it didnt have an arcade release, etc). everything you have said about DDR has been wrong.

also, if you have a different controller than everyone else, it doesnt prove you are better. there is a screen that pops up after every song, it has a score on it. THAT is the proof of who is better regardless of their play style. if you have your own controller that doesnt allow arcade play, you cant judge someone's performance on it. stop acting all high and mighty because someone couldnt play on your pad. there are some bad ass IIDX players who cant play at the arcade because the turn table is further from the keys and stiffer, and the keys are more spread apart than the home controller. that doesnt mean those IIDX players "cheat" at home, it means they use a different controller. so shut the hell up about your fucking pad, it doesnt make you better because someone who uses a different play style couldnt use it god damn thing.

on a side note, flat footing doesnt involve sliding your feet. either you're making this up, or neither you nor him knew what flat footing was.


i dont believe this at all. this would require you to know what flat footing is in the first place, and we have established time and time again that you dont have a clue about anything you post about.

also, yet ANOTHER contradiction from you. in one post (made after this part i'm responding to) you continue to call flat footing a "cheap" play style. in this post you say its harder. in case you're just completely fucking stupid, and it isnt only a dance game thing, "cheap" in reference to games means the same thing it does in reference to cost. it takes little of whatever it is you need (effort, money, etc) to get your result (video game, score, beat the opponent). THAT is cheap. if its "lower and tougher than toe playing, and took more effort" then how the hell is it cheap?

but it doesnt matter since you dont have any clue as to what flat footing is anyway.

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He is making all of that up. It's pretty obvious. The stories, the accomplishments, everything. Anyone who would win an ITG regional championship and could pass 13s/14s wouldn't have a hard time passing 9s EVER, unless the pad was completely broken. He seems to just make all sorts of bullshit up about how every good player 'cheats' and 'just slides everywhere' because he's butthurt that he is nowhere near that skill level. Does hellrazor even have any proof for any of these accomplishments that he's talking about?

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I have tons of screen-caps and videos on youtube. HellRazoR35 is my youtube profile, my pads are functional, and I don't know why he couldn't play on my pads but it was very disappointing, we didn't play anything tougher than 8's and easy 9's, he won the Knoxville, TN regional ITG championship in 2007.

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