DanceDanceRevolution A (AC)

He doesn't fear legendarily arsecandle charts. He's Chris, and he don't give a shit.

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Something I randomly noticed while playing today: the "Sep 1th" konmai has been "fixed"

New:


Old:

For some other reason, they decided to change the font too.

More thoughts on some comparisons on the spreadsheet ahead.
Single Lv14
Single Lv15

Single Lv16
Unrankable: Pluto S-, CHAOS S-
These two rely so heavily on memorization, that while they are among the most easily passed if you know the gimmicks, going into them blind makes them among the toughest. So for that reason, I will simply leave them out.

Illegal Function Call S- (16.0) vs. on the bounce S- (16.4)
While Illegal Function Call is 20 BPM slower, it is both far more technical and stamina draining than on the bounce (slowdowns, footswitch jackhammers, 270 degree turns, etc.). Jumps and crossovers are used pretty heavily in both, but on the bounce's 16ths last 7 arrows max, while Illegal Function Call has a final stream that lasts as long as 57 arrows (with crossovers). on the bounce S- can easily be a first 16 pass for many players, but Illegal Function Call S- is likely to be one of the last.

MAXX UNLIMITED S- (16.1) vs. 海神 S- (16.5)
MAXX UNLIMITED's main strength, aside from numerous candle patterns in the second half, are its 8th jumps. Not only are they very likely to throw newer players off, they are placed so sequentially that they are unlikely to pick up the beat again. Wadatsumi does not use 16th jumps at 159, and also has fewer instances of candles. There are, however, two freeze arrows with 16ths beside them toward the end, which can be tricky if you do not have a strategy for doing them. But even if those two freeze arrows are dropped, the player loses two arrows at most, and can easily recover by hitting the 16ths as left-and-right gallops.

お米の美味しい炊き方、そしてお米を食べることによるその効果。S- (16.1) vs. POSSESSION(EDP LIVE MIX) S- (16.5)
Both of these charts mainly consist of short trills and 12th arrows with easy patterns, and are difficult mainly because of their respective quantity of arrows. However, the rice song contains a variety of taxing 8th patterns, including jacks, Afronova walks, and even several 360-degree spins, none of which are seen in POSSESSION(EDP LIVE MIX). There is a fair number of jumps in POSSESSION(EDP LIVE MIX)'s chart, but they're only about as dangerous as those seen towards the end of POSSESSION S- and are not as likely to break anyone's combo as 190 BPM 8th step jumps you see in ]お米の美味しい炊き方、そしてお米を食べることによるその効果。S-. While I cannot clearly claim that one is harder to fluke pass than the other in general, the two need not be 4 points apart in terms of passing difficulty.

VANESSA S- (16.2) vs. Truare! S- (16.3)
While very similar in chart style, VANESSA S- uses crossover patterns much more profusely and is overall more difficult to make a recovery, especially towards the end. Truare! does allow for some room to breathe and pick up on the timing again.

Somehow You Found Me S- and 轟け！恋のビーンボール！！ S- (16.2) vs. I'm so Happy S- (16.5)
The only truly challenging part of I'm so Happy S- from a passing perspective is the candle run near the beginning, but at just 17 arrows in length, it's entirely doable if you have a full gauge up to that point. That aside, the chart is extremely straightforward and will not throw anything technical, This makes I'm so Happy S- a solid candidate for a first 16 pass. The other two mentioned have plenty of jumps within 8th streams, contain some 16th crossovers, and have far more arrows overall.

S!ck S- (16.4) vs. Chinese Snowy Dance S- (16.5)
S!ck's chart appears to have pretty much all the difficulty elements seen in Chinese Snowy Dance S- (3-note 16th crossovers, rhythm difficulty, etc.) but throws a lot more of it all at you toward the end. The frequent use of half-speed sections at seemingly unexpected points (to a first-time player) may make it much tougher to read and hit arrows at the appropriate speed as well.

Fascination ~eternal love mix~ S- (16.4) vs. Idola S- (16.6)
Both charts have similar lengths of death runs, which is probably the main basis of difficulty for both. Idola is free of BPM gimmicks, however, while Fascination ~eternal love mix~ will certainly have that as part of the challenge. There are also a lot of patterns that are difficult to alternate or read on Fascination ~eternal love mix~, along with jumps within 4th streams at 400 BPM. Idola is a longer song, but a good length of the song can be used a recovery zone rather than a zone to endure through.

PARANOIA survivor MAX S- (16.5) vs. PARANOiA -Respect- S- (16.6)
Aside from having several more arrows, PARANOIA survivor MAX S- does not give a nice recovery zone before the death runs, unlike PARANOiA -Respect- S-. The ending death runs themselves are also longer and deadlier, while only being slower by a mere 3.3%.

嘆きの樹 S- (16.6) vs. True Blue S- (16.6)
Even without the jumps, the fact that Nageki no ki has a 85-note 16th stream makes it that much more of an endurance test. With all the jumps and a few crossing patterns, it would take far more effort for anyone to pass 嘆きの樹 than to pass True Blue.

Monkey Business S- (16.6) vs. PRANA S- (16.9)
While it is not easy to compare two charts that are technical, I feel that Monkey Business is no less difficult to plow through than PRANA, if for the constant barrage of arrows thrown at 80 BPM, where it gets increasingly difficult to read. On top of requiring more stamina overall, the chart is not free of difficult patterning, either. Lots of candles and some 16th crossovers still await players in that stepchart. PRANA's main issue, I find, has a lot to do with selecting the correct lead foot, but once that is done, it isn't too difficult to play.

Blew My Mind S- (16.7) vs. REVOLUTIONARY ADDICT S- (16.10)
Because REVOLUTIONARY ADDICT cuts you a nice break in the middle, Blew My Mind can be just as draining (if not more) while being far more technical and difficult to read. REVOLUTIONARY ADDICT is mostly straightforward and easy to read aside from the sudden 4x speedup that occurs once in the song. However, the arrows following the speedup are relatively easy to hit, that you can easily make a full recovery before going into the real challenge - namely, the ending. I feel that so many more stamina-draining 16s were introduced after X3, that passing REVOLUTIONARY ADDICT has become relatively attainable compared to the rest of the difficulty folder.

Again, thanks for your work on this!

iamchris4life might as well play some of my god-awful creations then. I'm sure a good handful of them can be passed with ease.

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I'm pretty sure we could give him legitimate dump charts (as in we don't even pretend to sync it to anything) and he could still pass it. I'm convinced he doesn't actually use the same senses we use, so much as he uses the force to directly feel stepcharts. It's the only sensible explanation for how he has pretty much the best timing in the world.

@wrsw
I could just give him this.

(If you want to play this, please turn down the volume!)

EDIT: Better yet, I'll give him sdq20022's Warning!! Pack.

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I HAD MY SPEAKERS UP BEFORE PLAYING THIS!!!! What the F-Word is this euphemism for stool?

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Haha, well, it's an ear rape track made by my friend hamsand210-final. It hurt my ears just as much!
Sorry I didn't put out a warning about what this is...

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I agree there needs to be an update to the wiki, but awhile back I hit Level 3 and Astrogazer showed up in the E.E. stage. (It wasn't available on Level 1 or 2 at that time). Maybe things have changed since then.

What? On the Bounce and I'm so happy are the easiest 16 by far (sould be ranked 15), and you are saying that they are harder than Somehow you found me and MaxX Unlimited? And Paranoia Respect harder than PSMO? Hahahaha, I don't think so

No, not me. I'm pointing out relative positioning on that spreadsheet (made by MilkChan) that I don't personally agree with. Indeed, I also find I'm so Happy and on the bounce to be among the easiest 16s to clear. This is for anyone who plans to use it to decide what to try to pass next.

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On the bounce is a mid 16... For scoring, which is what I judge a chart's difficulty on. For passing, I would call it a 16.1 and for scoring, a 16.6.

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Ok, my mistake, i'm sorry

Yeah, no worries.
All of those were me simply responding to NicholasNRG, actually. You can see the spreadsheet under his post.

I should work on Lv17 and Lv18 soon, although I don't have nearly as much to say on those levels.

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I guess I might take a crack at a few of the 17s. (Please remember these are opinions and especially on some of these harder charts individual's strengths are probably going to have a huge effect on personal biases in ranking these) I'll also take a moment to mention that the BPM tag is not very useful at this point because most songs have enough BPM changes to warrant the tag (of course the effect of the BPM changes does vary substantially. E.g. Possession has the BPM tag, but the changes are not particularly challenging vs. Delta Max where the entire song is a BPM gimmick.)

Hard to rank/maybe unrankable: Delta Max, Delta Max
These largely come down to if you have problems with the BPM gimmick or not. I find to have the much more cluttered beginning (which I find is probably harder than :cha while the second half of the song is not particularly difficult. is somewhat reversed where the first section of the song is not too bad but the second half is much harder (although the patterns are still not too bad for a 17 given their BPM at the appropriate moments). In the charts case I really don't think it matches Tohoku Evolved in terms of difficulty. The patterns in Tohoku are generally more challenging and relentless while having some tough gimmicks of its own.

Elemental Creation (17.7) vs. Anti-Matter (17.5) and IX (17.5)
I tend to think Elemental Creation is rated quite a bit too high likely based off its BPM and endurance requirements. In reality the BPM is not as big of an issue since the patterns in the song tend to be short 3-5 note trills (thus not as much movement across the pad) and since they are so short being too slow isn't as big an issue since you can still get credit for hitting the arrows (not enough arrows for your timing to drift enough to lose the stream) and adjust for the next one. Anti-Matter and IX are not as forgiving with much longer and more complicated stream. They also arguably have less potential areas to rest throughout making me uncertain that Elemental Creation is actually any more difficult to pass from a stamina standpoint.

SABER WING (AKIRA ISHIHARA Headshot mix) (17.7)
I'm not quite sure what I would compare this with. Most of the song isn't too challenging with just a few particularly challenging crossovers in streams. I tend to think they are few enough that it is entirely feasible to pass the song while missing those crossovers which leaves you with a song that is only 316BPM. I tend to think the hardest part of the song is the freeze arrow section (which could be entirely a personal timing issue), but even this is mostly a scoring issue instead of a passing issue. Overall I feel this might be one of the better songs for someone looking to pass their first 17.

Might be rated to low even though I'm not coming up with a great point of comparison: Pluto Relinquish
Pretty much all the main difficulty to this one is squeezed into the ending, however the chart does a decent amount to make the ending even harder for you. BPM gimmicks are used galore which to the unfamiliar can easily catch you off guard making you react late wasting stamina. Other sections of the song are either jump heavy or little hop heavy also contributing to the drain. It adds up to making the ending run hard to last through. Now there are a few breaks or at least less stressful sections to somewhat rest or build up your meter to survive the ending. I'm not quite sure how much to weight this in terms of overall difficulty and as such I guess my thought of Pluto Relinquish being a bit low might be more of a gut feeling.


I might take a look at the 18s in a day or two however I will say a few things stick out to me. I tend to think Elemental Creation is way too high again at 18.6 compared to Triple Journey (18.5) as the latter has far more complicated patterns and I find to be much more exhausting. Pluto the First is way too low. Even though it is mostly the chart it is still very difficult to not hit the shock arrows. They are placed in extremely difficult spots making it very likely someone trying to pass it will trigger many of them draining life while also being unable to read the scrolling arrows due to the shock arrow trigger. I just think the shock arrows are not being given enough credit on this song in particular.

@bari
You mentioned quite a bit of what I planned to write regarding that difficulty. Kudos to you for writing that out! I'll come back to it later when I have time. Hopefully I'll come up with explanations soon enough.

Thanks again!

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just unlocked the new songs! was surprised that even though i can't actually do illegal function call in stepmania (like FC, not pass), my FEET, COULD. so excited! for the first time in my life i passed MaXX Unlimited!!!

Wow, good for you! Congratulations on that!

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Thank you!! Maxx Unlimited always was so scary (those jumps!!!) but I think i"ve played so much since I really last 'seriously' considered it that it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be BTW i didn't FC Illegal Function Call just saying that I actually could keep up with the streams!

seriously no bar jumps on those max songs are just RIDICULOUS!!! : )

New EXTRA SAVIOR songs to be added tomorrow:
• Far east nightbird / 猫叉Master
• Far east nightbird kors k Remix -DDR edit ver- / kors k