Oni/Challenge Mode Questions

I have some questions about oni/challenge mode in the arcade:

1. Are you allowed to start with any modifiers for the entire course? (Like 2x speed, for example.)

2. Does this apply for all arcade versions?

3. Is it predefined whether you get 1, 2, or 3 lives after beating a song, or is it random? (I don't want to pass a song and end up getting three lives when I should have only gained 1 in the arcade, for example.)

4. If it's not random, is there a website that shows how many lives each song in a course lets you gain? (I want to pass these courses legitimately!)

Asking because I want to go through the courses on Stepmania, but I don't want any advantages unless that's the way it is in the arcade. You don't have to answer every question. Thanks!

(Anyone is welcome to fix any one of my answers if they are incorrect)

1. I do believe some of the arcade mixes (i think MAX through EXTREME) had you with modifiers from the starts. I think MAX had Oni Mode (Challenge Course) in which it gave you 3/4 bars of life, if you got less than a GREAT!, one life is taken away. Mess up 4 times, DONE. MAX2 had Nonstop Mode where it gave you the full DDR life bar and you danced "nonstop" to selected mixes. Not sure if modifiers could be used in MAX2 or if they were selected on certain sets in Nonstop Mode for that particular arcade mix. Extreme had both, each with their own life bar (Nonstop and Challenge). I do think that from here on out you could use modifiers for the Nonstop Courses, but for Challenge Mode i am not so sure if you could do this or if it selected certain mods from the get-go.

2. After EXTREME came SuperNOVA, in which (i think) gave you the liberty to add as many modifiers to any nonstop and challenge course that you wanted to do, and from then on it was like that (???).

3. I think within most DDR arcade mixes, if you FC (or PFC on some mixes) a song within a challenge or nonstop course (with the 4 life bars), it gave you an extra life. You starts with 4 bars generally, i think in later mixes you can modify this to have either 4 bars or just one bar left (for an EXTREEEEEEEEEEME challenge).

4. Like i mentioned in 3, Most of the time it gives you 4 bars for every Challenge/Nonstop course you do, if you lose one bar, you are stuck having that many lives unless you AA or AAA (FC or PFC) the song within the challenge course. I think in the newer arcade mixes it can give you a certain set of bars instead of just 4, but this is as far as i can tell you from my knowledge of the Nonstop and Challenge courses in the arcade mixes of DDR, also DO NOT TAKE THIS TO HEART as some of the information may be incorrect for certain mixes.

Hope this helped.

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1. That's the US CS versions. MAX AC had no courses. MAX2 AC is when Oni courses were first introduced (which the mode was then used in MAX US CS). MAX 2 US CS had Nonstop Mode which sort of paralleled Party Collection's Nonstop mode. Extreme AC had Oni and Nonstop modes, but Nonstop in EX AC was limited to 4 stages. Nonstop has always allowed modifiers while Oni never has.

2. SN applies to the last sentence above.

3. Continuing on the subject of SN, in any Oni mode regardless of mix you'll start off with 4 bars, however unlike MAX2/EX, you won't always recover a bar if you break combo/drop holds in an Oni course in SN. Normally in MAX2/EX if you drop a bar you'll recover either 1 or 2 pieces I THINK depending on the overall difficulty of the course (I think i've actually gotten all 3 back before but don't remember), but there are some courses (or just the BossRush courses) in SN that on certain stages you won't recover any bars or only a certain amount. I think on most Oni courses that it will fully recover regardless of difficulty and if there's no life bar lock in SN in stead of only partially recovering like MAX2/EX, making Oni courses on SN slightly easier. Im pretty sure this applies to SN2 AC as well.

4. Can probably be summed up in the above paragraph. I think you're right about the "certain set of bars" part for X/X2 but im not completely familiar with courses from those mixes sans Dance Drill courses.

For point 4, some courses in X and X2 give 8 bars on Normal difficulty, and 4 on Difficult. Other courses just use the regular life bar. The interface makes this clear: when selecting course difficulty it will tell you if the bar is normal or lives.

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Ahh, I guess it's going to be impossible for me to figure out how many lives I'm supposed to get for every course unless I actually play them in the arcade. I'll just have to accept however many lives Stepmania gives me. Thanks for the info guys!