User Simfile Questionnaire

1. Quality. I don't care if you have 500 simfiles. If they all suck, I won't download them.

2. As long as there's actual graphics, and they don't look like they took five minutes in MS Paint, I'm okay with just about anything.

3. I mostly like other BEMANI songs (as well as stuff from other video games in general), but I enjoy occasional songs from other sources like licenses and whatnot. I honestly haven't listened to anyone's user-created songs...other than shitty PARANOiA and MAX remixes, but I don't know that those count.

4. Not big on Challenge-only songs, but I really don't mind Challenge charts otherwise unless they're like some of the charts from X where all they do is TEEHEEHEE SHOK AROZ

5. I don't really pay attention to mixes. With the exception of a few of UNIVERSE's Power Mixes, they don't really grab my attention that well.

6. Probably not. I almost never play courses on SM.

7. No. Again, not a big course person.

8. Yeah, background videos are kinda nice.

9. Everything at once. Fuck this "unlock" shit. It's especially irritating when you keep playing to unlock a song, and the unlock completely sucks.

10. Yeah, I pay attention to difficulty, kind of. I think most charts that go higher than ten are pretty shit, so I don't bother downloading them. I prefer stuff in the 7-10 range and usually download sims as such.

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1) Quality all the way. I'd rather have ONE good simfile than 50 shitty ones. No arrow vomit here, please.

2) Yeah. I'd rather have original, unique graphics for simfiles. They give the simfile a little...personality, if you will.

3) I'll take any type of song as long as it CAN be stepped. An old friend of mine (that I know in person) has simfiles here (look under Raziel X), and while the songs can be stepped, his steps were shit. They were of high speed and full of arrows for no good reason.

4) I expect from charts either an variant or a harder chart, usually the latter. No shock arrows or mines, however. As for -only charts, only as long as it's a remix of a song used in the same mix.

5) I don't mind them as long as they're mixed properly and no shitty transitions (I'm looking at you SuperNOVA 2 NONSTOP MEGAMIX)

6) Not a fan of courses.

7) Nah...see 6.

8) Yes please, as long as it's displayed properly. No stretched She Is My Wife videos please.

9) Having unlocks is nice, but I prefer everything at once.

10) I look for fun, yet challenging simfiles.

Answer 1:
Definitely quality over quantity. I like stepcharts that are fun to play and fit the mood of the song. It makes the simfile unique and more distinct.

Answer 2:
Graphics to me matter to some extent. I personally don't like seeing songs without banners. Banners do show part of the effort on how much effort someone put into the simfile. They don't have to be done with super photoshop skills, but I do prefer well made banners.
As for backgrounds, I don't really mind whether there is one or not. I like seeing them, but not seeing them will not affect my overall opinion on the simfile.
As for the CD Titles, I'm not a big fan of them. I usually end up removing them. Though if they were in a simfile set and had a CD Titles, I wouldn't mind. Basically saying, for personal songlists, I don't having them, but for simfile sets, I don't mind them.

Answer 3:
Well, I'm not too big of a fan of mainstream songs, but I do think they play a roll. It gives more selection and variety. Although I like seeing more music by Bemani and users. When playing a simfile Bemani songs and user-made songs are what I play.

Answer 4:
I don't really have any set expectations for Challenged charts. I can be equally as satisfied with a more challenging chart as I would with a variation of the Expert chart. I like the feeling of not knowing what I'll get for a challenge chart.


Answer 5:
I'll just tell you flat out no. I was never a fan of the compilations of a few songs in one song. It may be original, but it never sparked my interest, nor will it ever.

Answer 6:
I don't download courses as I never use the mode in the first place. Although I may check them out if they were included/added later in a simfile set.

Answer 7:
I probably wouldn't want to participate. Mainly for a few non-game reasons, but also because I wouldn't consider myself a great SM player.

Answer 8:
Yes indeed. I like to see background videos. Even if they are just random. If it's a music video, an OP/ED to an anime, or a IIDX video, I like to see them included. If it's just generic video (like some IIDX video), whether they are included or not is no skin off my nose.

Answer 9:
I do like seeing unlocks as it gives a more of an arcade feeling to it. There doesn't have to be too many but 4 to 10 unlocks sounds absolutely fine.

Answer 10:
Lately, I started to mainly play hard simfiles, but seeing an easy, but fun simfile is nice to see as well. Seeing a fun stepchart makes the simfile more unique to someone else who stepped the same song.

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When it comes to simfiles, do you look for quantity, or quality? For example, would you want 125 really bad simfiles, or 50 really good quality ones? Quality, by a long shot. I hate playing a sim and having to endure a poor chart. There goes two minutes of my LIFE. I'll save the song and toss the steps.

Do graphics matter? For example, do you want to see generic graphics (like UNIVERSE) or unique graphics? What about backgrounds or CD covers? I <3 unique graphics. Banners (or CD covers if/when I get an X2 theme) especially, but backgrounds are pretty awesome too. However, this isn't a deal-breaker, because I like to play most of my favorite charts on an ITG2 machine, and to do that I have to ditch the graphics

What kinds of music do you want to see stepped? Do you want mainstream songs, songs from BEMANI titles, user created songs? I'm up for anything. Surprise me. However, with all the competition over BEMANI songs, the chart(s) better be damn good. Original songs are a nice change of pace.

What do you expect from Challenge charts? A harder chart, or a variant of the Expert chart? What about Challenge-only songs. (see DDRMAX2) I don't mind Challenge-only songs, but I prefer to have at least two choices for chart. As for what a Challenge chart should look like, it depends. I tend to gravitate towards charts that are really different from Heavy.

Would you like to see Xmix or Power Mixes? What kinds of songs would you want mixed? I prefer the songs as courses rather than directly mixed.

Would you download courses? For example, what if they had songs that weren't unlocked yet. (like BOSS RUSH X2, etc.) I love me a good course now and then. Sure.

Would you participate in a RANKING course? For example, a course of about 5 songs and whoever gets the highest score gets the next song to be unlocked before anyone else. Meh, with my PA/FA/SA as bad as it is, this would kinda suck for me Timed unlocks are OK.

Do you like background videos, like music videos for licenses, or IIDX videos? If the song has a dedicated BGV/BGA, it's always cool to see that playing. For example, watching the smooooch official steps go with the BGV made me really happy.

Do you like having a default list, then songs come as 'unlocks'? Or do you want everything at once? I don't care too much one way or the other.

Do you look for difficulty when you download files? Do you prefer really hard simfiles, or fun ones? "Really hard" and "fun" aren't mutually exclusive That said, I don't like charts that are hard for the sake of being hard, and always pick funfactor over difficulty.

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Q6 : Nope. I prefer single ones.

Q7 : Nope. I don't like courses too much. Time doesn't matter. I'll wait patiently until a song (s) is unlocked.

Q8 : I like all of them.

Q9 : Everything at once would be much better.

Q9 : Nope. I randomly download simfiles. I don't are about difficulty as long as I can have myself enjoyy playing. So I think, I go for fun tunes.

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Question 1: There has to be a decent mixture. I wouldn't want one great simfile over 200 crappy ones, but I wouldn't necessarily want 5 crappy ones over 1 good one either. If there are enough good ones out of a bunch of crappy ones that I'm willing to play, I'd be fine. If there aren't many good ones, though, I'll end up having trouble fishing out the ones I'd want to play and end up deleting it.

Question 2: It isn't really a dealbreaker, but they're nice.

Question 3: Anything except that generic FFR shit that you see in every other simfile. Not really interested in dancing to the same genre over and over again, variety is really nice. That's probably one of the reasons I don't like FFR simfiles so much.

Question 4: I like challenge charts. I don't like challenge chart abuse where the chart stops making sense to give it a harder difficulty (Kind Lady, Universe 3. Look it up). I'm fine with either a keyboard or pad chart, so long as the keyboard chart doesn't really abuse jumps like, yet again, most of the simfiles on FFR. I swear, like 90% of them have pretty much every note a jump.

Question 5: I'd rather have courses in nonstop/oni form, but these are fine.

Question 6: Probably not.

Question 7: That would actually be kinda awesome imo.

Question 8: I like IIDX videos and whatnot.

Question 9: I like unlocks. I don't know why other people don't really seem to, but I do.

Question 10: Fun all the way. Difficulty is a nice factor that's involved in fun (I'm not willing to download a chart that's about as easy as 5.1.1. , even if it's supposedly fun as hell). It can't be too easy, but it can't be too hard either.

Question 1: Quality, having a bunch of shitty songs I never play is a waste of space.

Question 2: I honestly don't care. Except when it comes to backgrounds, because I create one whenever I can although they don't look that good.

Question 3: I'd like to see more rock music. The charts for the rock songs I've downloaded were awesome.

Question 4: I expect every little detail on the song to be marked and I'll be disappointed if I don't see it. Even in Challenge-only songs. Yeah, I'm kind of picky like that.

Question 5: I'd rather download a course.

Question 6: Neither of us have downloaded a single course, so I guess no.

Question 7: Haha, no. Knowing the lineup of people who play RANKINGs I wouldn't stand a chance in hell.

Question 8: I'd appreciate a good one every now and then. But honestly the only time I look at it is while watching a video of someone else doing it unless it's really noticeable.

Question 9: Unlocks are stupid. I downloaded the song so I could play it right off the bat.

Question 10: I look for both if I can, otherwise I just look for a fun one. 10 footers are nice, songs like the arrow vomit I'm making are just plain fucking stupid.

So yeah.

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When it comes to simfiles, I prefer quality over quantity. I am fully aware that few people play doubles and fewer make doubles charts. Off the bat, if I see a doubles chart, I will download it as it tells me that the user has put enough effort to include such charts. They are usually bad though so I do not hold it against them. I see effort as a sign of quality.


I hardly work with graphics so I tend to ignore them. If I had the ability to make them, however, I would try my best to have the art capture the essence of the song. Say, for example, that a song is about two puppy lovers whose lives revolves around each other. I would use a walnut as the background to represent the story in the song, especially when the song title lends itself to the graphic.


I select my songs based on the demographic I am targeting. If they like their Konami Originals, I will make some. If they like their autotuned mainstream music, I will suck it up to make a simfile that will please them, despite my personal preferences. With that in mind, I would like to see obscure songs to be stepped, as long as it lends itself to the DDR atmosphere. "Dancing" to Freebird or Du Hast is just something that will never happen.


I do not expect much from a challenge chart. I use the "challenge" difificulty when I see that an older simfile deserves an alternate chart, be it a harder one or an easier one. That is the reason why I refrain from using them in my simfiles. Leaving that slot open allows me to go back to that song to give it a fresh new approach. I will discuss challenge-only charts further below.*


In all honesty, I do not want to see any power mixes or xmixes made by users that hardly know what they are doing. It stands as a fact that the first few projects that person works on will never be as great as their future projects as they are either new to the hobby, or new to the equipment that they are using. As such, synchronizing them would be such a hassle and will take time that can be directed on other projects. I do not have any songs in mind to be used in a "mix". It is solely up to the mixer to blend the songs to make something catchy.


I would download courses, either as a Nonstop or Challenge course. I would prefer it as a Challenge course as it can give the creator more flexibility in making 6 or 7 footers as hard as 9 footers while making a fun theme out of it. The courses featuring a song or two unavailable to the pack grabs my interest, but the problem lies in that a person can download the course and just extract the new simfiles without even playing the course itself.

Question 7:
Would you participate in a RANKING course? For example, a course of about 5 songs and whoever gets the highest score gets the next song to be unlocked before anyone else.

I would participate in a ranking course as it promotes interaction with the pack's fanbase. The thought of a person cheating will arise but it all comes down to if they are willing enough to lie to themselves to have access to a song a few days before its intended release date. The lack of people participating should and will not affect the simfile pack as the song featured as the prize will be released to the public days later, so there is no need for people to worry about missing songs from a pack.


I have a neutral stance when it comes to background videos. My only request of them would be to have them in the highest quality possible.


I favor the idea of having a default songlist with "unlocks" appearing weeks later. It not only gives the demographic to try out each song once, but it also allows the creator of the pack to continue working on the rest of the pack while the community enjoys the first batch. If the demographic gives good comments and reviews on the default pack, it can enourage the pack creator to work on the simfiles that were not able to be released with the initial batch. And if the reviews are unfavorable, the pack creator can pinpoint the problems and work on certain simfiles to improve the overall pack.

I look for difficulty in a simfile, but not like how others approach it. If the charts are labeled as 10 or above, I ignore them. If the simfile only has one chart, I ignore it as well. I have more interest in the 5-9 footer range as it gives me the assumption that the creator is trying interesting patterns and is not overdoing the song.


* = As you may be aware, DDRMAX2 AC introduced the new Oni mode which used a battery meter instead of the dance meter. For the most part, the challenge-only charts were remixes of older konami originals. I believe this was done so that the challenge difficulty would not intimidate players as much when they see that it's a remix of an old favorite. However, what made the courses a pain were the awkward step patterns and offbeat steps found in the charts, such as the ecstasy, am-3p, and higher remixes. Those were intentionally done to rob a person of passing the course and forcing them to play the course again and again until they learned the patterns. And it did not help that they were initially available through courses.


Well played.

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1. Quality, obviously
2. Good art immediately makes me want to play a simfile, just something about it, but as far as your stuff is Chewi, I love your work
3. Bemani stuff mostly, IIDX music.
4. A different take on an expert chart. (not just with some notes swapped around, literally a whole different take)
5. Honestly, I don't like these generally, at least the X-mixes. The only nonstop mixes I find myself enjoying are the ones on the official DDR OSTs
6. No.
7. I wouldn't do this.
8. Very much so
9. Everything all at once, you can't really "lock" songs with Stepmania and I hate keeping up with packs that continually add songs. I'd rather download one pack with a bunch of songs at once and wait for another batch of songs in the next patch a while off.
10. Hard, fun simfiles are my favorites. I look to K//'s simfile's when I think of hard and challenging, not over the top hard, but the bpm changes are usually pretty fun and gimmicky when he chooses to use them and his steps always match the song perfectly. As far as hard stuff goes, I really don't like the difficulty getting much beyond an ITG 12, but that's just me.

fix'd. none of them are off beat, but higher and AM-3P remixes have wrong notes syndrome. ecstasy oni is perfect.

ANYWAY...

1- quality. i'll take 1 good simfile over 100 i would never play.
2- banners are a must for me, but backgrounds not so much.
3- good music. i dont care if its mainstream, bemani, or something i've never heard of. good music is good music and often times if people rave about a simfile i will download a file for a song i've never heard just to check it out. so type of music doesnt matter.
4- i expect it to be a challenge chart. kind of a dumb question. it can be easier, harder, the same difficulty, or non-existent. as long as the chart is good it doesnt matter, as konami has taught us.
5- NO.

6- no.
7- no.
8- yes yes yes. i have random videos playing so it isnt a huge deal (just like BG images) but they are awesome to have.
9- no unlocks, please.
10 - i dont like things over ITG 12, i wont play most files over 11 with my feet. i dont care about difficulty though as long as notes arent blatantly missing on hard without an expert chart to make up for it, that way i can have it either way

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thanks for the correction, n00b. I didn't know the correct term for that, and it didn't help that I typed all of that in the dead of night.

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Courses are good for playing a set more than unlocking songs (see below), and as far as I'm concerned improve the overall quality of a released pack. They're also good for those that put out a lot of individual songs and are only coursing their work or their work plus widely circulated officials. Either the songs all need to be in one place or part of the course's download as a matter of convenience.


I have two answers...

1) There's no setup in-place, not even StepMania Online I don't think, that would allow for this to take place. If there were, this would basically be fanAmuse and that would be awesome. Sites like ZIV could host weekly drills and ranking contests, it would be glorious!

2) If you're speaking specifically of doing everything manually, as in the unlocks are unreleased songs and you find a way for people to post their scores from StepMania without cheating then PM a link to a winner several days before uploading the new song publicly that would be pretty cool too.


Yes, it's a shame to waste content that was already there. licensed music videos and even game videos from IIDX songs and such make for good variety and add to songs. However if all there is is a VHS cap of a blurry music video then I'd rather pass. Again, the quality of the files matters and badly encoded videos or bad source content makes things look trashy. My biggest pet peeve with official videos in official DDR is they never could understand how to make the black level BLACK!


To quote a great simfiler of the days of yor:


I never use StepMania's unlock system, not even for public setups, there's no good reason to. Even if I have to go into each sm file and remove #SELECTABLE:NO/1/2/ROULETTE; manually I will get full access to the complete songlist right away because that's the way I want it. Once you put the files into people's hands you have to accept that they have access to everything immediately.

I prefer any kind of "unlock" system the way you ran it in mania mix. Release a default set, then slowly crank out additional sims until you've decided that you should stop. That works in a StepMania environment in the way that a software lockout does not.

foonmix ran into this same problem. They used the unlock system too but they also had "secret" files hidden in each release. The first foonmix had a song "over the wall of Z" that was unplayable until you renamed the file extension from .d^^ and .s^ to .dwi and .sm. in foonmix PLUS they knew people would be on the lookout for that so they got sneaky and made a ZIP with a hidden song and a few other goodies, renamed it as .ini and placed it in an innocent looking folder in a song that had a lot of scripted background changes. Once that was discovered there was no way that they'd keep secrets hidden among the data like that with hundreds of Japanese players now checking the contents of the packs against data type scanners. in foonmix 2 they simply held the secret songs back and released them separately on the website after a certain amount of time had passed.


I prefer packs that give everyone access at some level. Having a pack of Challenge-only simfiles is one thing but if the songs have full difficulty levels then anyone should be able to pick it up and play even if it's their first time playing a DDR game ever. Having some songs peak out at a moderate level and some songs go crazy is good, just like the music selection having difficulty diversity is always a good thing. Never be ashamed to release a song with X-level 8 Expert steps... or level 20.

1. Quality. There are tens of thousands of simfiles out there, and a good 75% are absolute garbage. Another 15% are bad, but tolerable enough and the remaining 10% range from "okay" to "excellent". For all you Konami step haters, they have a MUCH better track record than most user simfiles artists and I include myself in that.

2. Well-made graphics make a simfile look more professional.

3. Music that is suitable for DanceDanceRevolution. This spans a wide enough area of music to make up for songs that just aren't enjoyable to play on DDR.

4. I want a challenge chart to be unique from the other charts that already exist for the song. There are many oni charts in user made simfiles that simply copy and paste the heavy chart and add some more notes.

5. Maybe, if they were done well enough.

6. Probably not, I'm quite satisfied with the courses Stepmania comes with.

7. In Stepmania? No. In real DDR? Yes.

8. Yes.

9. Everything at once. I don't think most people have the patience to continually check a thread every week and download the latest added songs, at least for user simfiles.

10. If there's one thing that is easy to come by in user simfiles, it's difficulty. If there's one thing that is hard to come by in user simfiles, it's fun.

My answers are bolded.

Question 6:
Would you download courses? For example, what if they had songs that weren't unlocked yet. (like BOSS RUSH X2, etc.)
No.

Question 7:
Would you participate in a RANKING course? For example, a course of about 5 songs and whoever gets the highest score gets the next song to be unlocked before anyone else.
Also no.

Question 8:
Do you like background videos, like music videos for licenses, or IIDX videos?
They make a file better, but aren't necessarily required.

Question 9:
Do you like having a default list, then songs come as 'unlocks'? Or do you want everything at once?
Sort of. There's nothing wrong with giving people files as you finish them (that's what I do). And unlocks are good, provided that people bother to try unlocking them. I think we had a bit of a problem with this in DDREncore.

Question 10:
Do you look for difficulty when you download files? Do you prefer really hard simfiles, or fun ones?
Fun > difficulty, for me. That said, I'm not the sort of person that finds 5s fun.

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Eh i'll answer them while I burn my AP on LoZ.

Q1: Quality. Nothing much to say.

Q2: For me, it matters. (If a person does not make GFX, I make some for myself.) I prefer the classic unique graphics and not like the generic ones today. I'm not into CD covers (AKA those square-sized graphics) even though it hints of bringing back the nostalic DDR.

Q3: I prefer the BEMANI titles i'm familar with. I'm not a huge fan on mainstream songs unless it's a song I like. (*cough*Bassunter?*cough*) Another word for me (as a past simfile artist) is that i'm looking for songs that HAVE NOT been stepped yet. That includes user-created songs (or "doujin" songs) or songs that is not mainstream but deserves to be on DDR. (A few samples can be from my simfile creations list.)

Q4: I don't know. I see CH as a harder difficulty to Heavy, of course in a different step pattern away from Heavy. The CH-only songs shoudl go range from 7-footer and over... I don't know.

Q5: I prefer to see something with ITG bomb challenge? Nah just kidding. But XMixes or Power Mixes aren't my biggest thing. So NO.

Q6: I never downloaded a course before. I'll force myself if it's a requirement from this person's pack...

Q7: Not sure. Again it's something i'll do only on DDR. For StepMania, I just want the songs already unlocked so I can enjoy. (Again I don't own a pad. So keyboard all the way. )

Q8: Yes I like background videos. If a song does not have it's own video, at least do a good job at "BGM arrangements".

Q9: EVERYTHING AT ONCE PLEASE!!!!

Q10: If only I have a pad, I would get the fun simfiles. If I like hard, it's only for my keyboard skills. So it's a mix-mix.

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