Counting Combos - A History of the Japanese DDR Community

Got my copy today (love the cover art, seriously ), read through the Intro and About The Author but I had to bookmark the start of "1998" since I had work today/yesterday. Will be reading this later on today to it's fullest and may possibly give my own write-up about it.

Also Aaron, I would very much like to sort of "advertise" your book on November where I am hosting a DDR panel at a local convention in my area, I'll bring my own copy of the book but I will pretty much explain the details of the book, where they can purchase it, etc., etc. if it's alright with you

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I'm fine with that, sure.

What I remember happened at an expo in France was the organizer ordered 10 or so copies beforehand (this was the older, much crappier version of the book called "Combo's Continuing") and sold them at the expo with plans to continue selling them on the site after the fact if there were any left, but most of those copies were spoken for already.

Amazon and CreateSpace are the two main places you can purchase the book. The price is the same but shipping options may be a bit different. All the same, it might be more worthwhile to order a bunch of copies and save on shipping (though it does balance out a bit since shipping is more expensive for heavier packages).

For example, 10 copies + shipping means you could still make a profit if you sell most of them at $10 a piece...if that is an alternate goal for you, that is.

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Uuuhhh...I was actually just going to put the book, links, prices, etc., on a PowerPoint actually XD

I wouldn't mind selling the books at a convention, but the issue with that would have to be that since I am selling something, I think I might need a sort of "Dealer's" pass in order for me to sell it within the convention grounds. Seeing that I've read many cases where it's in some way shape or form "illegal" to sell without a "Dealer's" pass/table, it would be a little hard for me to do so unless I actually got a table to sell the books, unfortunately for the convention in November, I do believe all the positions are filled. The least I could try is maybe ask the local dealer's that sell books/manga at the conventions about your book to see if they can have it in stock for future conventions?

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A bit late on this since I already posted a pic of the books all lined out, but it is a nice feeling to get a shipment of your own book:



I'm going to start sending PMs to those that helped me with this so I can get them shipped out

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Thanks for responding. In a few years (after law school), my fiance and I would love to visit Japan for a time and meeting you would be an honor. In addition, you'll have to sign my book!

Again, thank you for writing this; additionally, if you ever need to talk about to a guy who started the game more recently, I'm your guy.

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Mine came in the mail! Can't wait to read!

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Great news! Hope you enjoy it.

How long did it take to ship to you, by the way? I know shipping to Japan is a pain but I hope it is reasonable (cost-wise) and somewhat fast to ship within the States.

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There was a dealer in Atlanta, Georgia via Amazon who had two copies left, which is how I got mine. I am in no position to answer your question, BUT!

I did have another question with regards to the tournament scene:

American style tournaments that I grew up with used an Extreme machine. As a result, the tournament were always scored on the Perfect Attack (PA) system:
Perfects 2points
Greats 1 point
Good 0 points
Boo -1 point
Miss -2 points
OK 3 points

This was done because the scoring system valuing each arrow made almost no sense. The letter grading also seemed to have very little rational with several instances arising in which a person with 3 greats more would have the higher "score" according to the game. My theory was that the value of certain arrows were determined on the difficulty of hitting them. (maybe odd notes like 32nds or whatever were worth more?)

The issue is that through extensive testing, the only solid truth appeared to come from a Perfect full combo. The placement of the only great in a combo seemed arbitrary with regards to score and didn't matter which 1 great came first. In some instances, people would even get the same score with various number of greats, different scores if the got the same number of greats or even if one didn't full combo, etc. The system for that machne made very little sense. That being said:

What was the Japanese reasoning for rejecting the PA system (above) on earlier mixes since the early mixes (pre SN2?) held rather arbitrary standards of grading?

As a side note: even though I personally like the new scoring system of X2 and find it fair due to the equal weight of each arrow, several players still use the PA system while making a Marvelous marker holding the value of 3 points. It's pretty mixed over here with some people using the score and some people using the modified PA system. Thoughts?

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Using (SN2/X) score works well if the "highest" judgment being taken into regard are Perfects, such as when two people are competing for a PFC. However, it does not work so well when both players are easily capable of getting PFC or near-PFC scores, because then the highest judgment being taken into regard are Marvelouses. For example, recall Dr.D's video of getting a 0 perfect Black Flag on Brilliant 2U, meaning a single great and the rest Marvelous. The machine score would rank that significantly lower than someone who "barely" PFC'd it with several dozen Perfects, because the machine focuses on Perfects more than Marvelouses. In this case, using EX score with Marvelouses worth 3 points would be obviously superior.

that's also why I like ITG scoring

I disagree. D: I think that the highest regard being Marvelous makes more sense for the score base on account that a great is roughly half a great where as a marvelous is barely better than a perfect even if terms of timing. That 1 great should be more costly, and at certain point (it varies pending on song), the perfects total up to a great.

I struggle with this a lot too, but ITG shouldn't even be considered since the ratio of a Fantastic to an Excellent is very different than a Perfect ot a Marvelous. (Perhaps this would be better for considering in your argument and further prove your point, but it's kind of an interesting debate. This is not the place for it.)

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Around a week. Not too bad.

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I ordered mine's sometime late August (let's say, August 28th), Amazon said it would arrive sometime September 4th.

I got my copy September 1st. So I would say shipping from the US seems to be pretty fast

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Edit> Those shipping times are really decent, actually. Standard rates for me means the shipment gets here in about 6 weeks. With express it is about 3 and with super-duper express priority mail it still takes about a week.


Because for those older mixes, everyone was playing under the constraints of the game scoring system; everyone was struggling on the same plane. For example on DDR Extreme, steps at the end are weighted more heavily than at the beginning. Well then, you had better not get a great near the end, even if your rival already had 2 greats near the beginning. Oops, you got a single great at the end and lost to someone with more greats just because he had his near the beginning? That's too bad. Was there complaining and shouting and screaming over these cases? No.

Tournaments were by and large mostly social gatherings. No prizes of any real value were handed out because gambling laws in Japan make that illegal (except for official tournaments held by Konami, but even then they were prizes, not cash, possible also related to gambling laws). Of course, entry fees are usually minimal, too (a few hundred yen at most).

For online scoring sites, the "greats away from an AAA" system was popular. On a huge chart, you would have a number for each song on each difficulty (Single and Double). A "0" meant an AAA. In general only FC scores were counted, though sometimes people would try to pass off 2 greats and a miss as 3 greats. For that reason there was also an unofficial counting system that was just "non-Perfect" steps instead of "great" steps, but that wasn't done so much.

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I've been reading the first couple of pages of the book, and I have to say this:

I knew you were part of the Japanese community, but I had no idea you were in it since the very beginning. You gave out most of the essential details of your DDR adventures, and you give backing facts to help readers who are not familiar to the game to let them know what you are talking about. Hopefully, by the end of this week, I'll finish up reading this.

Also, the printjob for my book seems fine. I didn't get a slant like XeneSyS 87 did, so there's that!

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Fair enough, but I am surprised that for, at least in those cases, someone didn't decide to host a tournament using a more balanced system (such as PA).

I don't have a personal problem with either idea, but I have hosted tournament over hear on several machines and ended up using the PA (or MA for Marvelous Attack?) system out of convenience for the older players who were used to it. I have found out that DDR tournaments with stronger players have reached the point of using the score, but I feel that is a side effect of newer machine rather than finding the old scores as fair.

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xRGTMx>Yes, I'm very old

Wulfy013>

There were still tournaments that went by number of perfects/greats as opposed to machine score, though there were many cases where both players had the same number of perfects/greats and the lopsided machine scoring system tended to ensure those cases would only rarely happen. (Through pure chance, sometimes you could end up with the same machine score with different numbers of Perfects/Greats/Etc. but that is another story)

PA/MA is used nowadays, especially since there is a 1:1 relationship between Perfects/Marvelous/Greats/etc. and machine score in terms of PFC/MFC noting that location of Perfects/etc. in the song (beginning vs. end) does not affect score differently. (You can still get the same score with two different sets of Marvelous/Perfect/Great/etc. steps but again, that is another story)

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I do have a lot to say about this topic but I'll keep it brief for now. In short, I don't think Machine score from any DDR game should decide a tournament match (maybe SN1 since could be an exception for me).

People always get me wrong when I say that so let me make something clear. I LOVE machine score from SN2-X3. I could make a whole post why I love it but that's not what I wanna say now. In a tournament setting, if your really looking for a fair way to determine the best player, none of the scoring systems will do it, even ITG's.

The DP system is the fairest thing I've seen so far but I do see room for improvement. To use the extreme example Zowayix said, I once got 0 perfects and 1 great on a song.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj2PBENGkU8
What if some one was playing against me at the time? What if they really got a PFC with let's say 40 perfects. By machine score, they would clearly win, but would anyone seriously feel they should? I actually know people who do feel that way and am curious to how many more people on here feel that as well. If you want to start a discussion about it I'd be happy to join in on it.

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It's an extremely tough call, and that's why it should be to the director's (TO's) discretion.

I see the benefits of both, but it is just ridiculously hard to make this decision overall.

It's a fun discussion to be had, but I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts in a more appropriate forum, of course.

EDIT
As another note: Aaron, I was fascinated to see the difference between Excellent, Perfect, Fantastic, and Marvelous; is there a way or a source to find the exact timing differences between every level of judgment for both games?

I am have a thought with regards to this idea, and I hope to hold a dialogue with you Dr. D with this information to perhaps publish something of mild value.

Ugh, EDIT EDIT:

Aaron, are you saying that the value of the first arrow in terms of getting a great/Perfect/Marvelous is different than getting the same judgment on the last arrow? Or are you saying a score of

999,000

could be achieved with 99 Marvelous and 1 great versus 100 perfects?

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I primarily focused on the upper judgments but those values can also be determined with the same method. Most of the hardcore crowd (which are the only ones really interested in some of these exact differences) tend to only want the smaller windows. However, I still think that information is lying around old forum posts and I probably wouldn't have to work out how small the windows are by hand. When I have some moments to rub together I'll try to dig that up.

EDIT> I'm not positive on this, but from an old forum post:


I'm not sure on DDR at the moment (still looking) but I do know the Good window is rather tiny compared to the great window and close to the boo window (on older mixes that still used it). Great attacking was possible but Good attacking (or Boo attacking, if such a thing existed) was much much harder to try and accomplish.

(For others' reference, from the FAQ on my site



EDIT> Oops, I didn't notice the word "different" in the first sentence. Of course they value of the step doesn't change depending on where in the song you get it.

The first one. However, you are almost right on The 2nd one. The value of each step is based on the number of steps/freezes/shock arrows in the chart, and the value of a great, perfect, marvelous, etc. is consistent on a per-song basis.

If you can get a score of 998,700 (random example) with all Marvelous and 1 Great, that same score is also achievable with a Perfect Full Combo that has ... (counts on fingers) 130 perfects.

(I count in binary on my fingers for those curious)

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Does anyone else here suddenly feel very proud of every marvelous attack they've ever had? I am.

Okay Aaron, you're reaching a point of fantastic interest for me:

In my edit edit, I meant on newer mixes. I thought that each arrow, on say X2, held the same value at all judgments. I knew, already, that Extreme, etc used a different system. Does that system still exist in X2 so that getting a 1 great and the rest Marvelous can result in different scores due to the location of that great?

Secondly, could you explain the relation of the number of perfects/arrows/etc for attaining certain scores? If it is a binary relation, is it possible to explain that relationship, or would it be obvious given any basic knowledge of binary? What about greats? (The only standard deviation seems to be goods and marvelous which is 0 and Perfect+10 respectively, correct?)

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