DanceDanceRevolution A (AC)

Can you please elaborate on what this means?

EDIT: Thanks, very helpful

It's one of the many note patterns named after specific charts (Tell from ITG). Refers to a step-step-jump pattern where the step right before the jump is shared with the jump (so the player can't footslide it). There can be notes right before or leading into the pattern, but not right after (otherwise it would be a jump in the middle of a stream).

It's not terrible for a 19 it's terrible in general. Out of the 19s this is easily the second best but EGOISM is a problematic chart itself already. Hella shit here goes to nothing (what the fuck do those footswitches/drills go to?) yet other places are understepped (the slowdown immediately preceding), lots of the crossovers end in awkward positions that force you to doublestep and there's just too much doublestepping in general. Also, I'm not against high speed crossovers but the amount of candle crossovers in these crossover streams is kinda asinine (Destination Relapse from ITG Rebirth 2 got lots of hate but those crossovers are handled with MUCH more care).

I guess I should give Konami credit for not making this 1000% fucking stupid like PRevo or VDO.

Is your issue with how these difficult elements just don't flow well in Endy, and not necessarily the elements themselves? Just trying to make sure I am reading your post correctly.

Did you just bring a fan made pack into an official game conversation?

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I notice every 19 is overstepped and is filled with questionable patterns, as if after the 18-level mark they just don't know what to do. It's not particularly hard to make a chart that challenging and have good patterns throughout without making it seem like a complete mess at times and just stuffing in notes to inflate the difficulty (how you doin' PARANOiA Revolution).

I think ENDYMION is ok, straightforward in some sections, but I am not thrilled by the jump patterns and footswitches. I'd put this ahead of PARANOiA Revolution but below OT"P" as far as difficulty goes for 19s.

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It's a valid comparison.

There is no forced doublestepping in ENDY at all. Unless you mean during those freeze arrows in that one 220 BPM section, or unless you're talking about EGOISM there, then yes. From what I see, all of the crossovers resolve themselves pretty well and do not end in awkward positions as you say they do.

It's a ridiculous chart but not as terrible as you're making it out to be.

The litmus test I personally use is play it at half tempo; are any doublesteps still required (a.k.a. stuff like afronova walks being fair game and whatnot). And honestly, at half-tempo there's nothing in there that's actually a complete mess.

(Also as far as VD/PRevo being a mess goes, A: yes, and B: I'd like to see someone step a 19 (translation: ITG 14) on those two songs that doesn't suck, I can't)

EDIT: Now that I think about it, IIRC konami admitted that they don't have anyone who's good enough playtest the 19's, and if that's true, that means they're also charting blindly - and trust me, even if you're going through with a watchful eye, it's stupidly hard to catch everything on a chart you're only good enough to test the 20% of.

The eAmusement participation system is a different beast from eAmusement in general. Before that point, new game versions were sold as upgrade kits and the cabinets were a fixed price (likely pretty expensive, similar to the DDR A US cab prices I hear around here), and the eAmusement service was (presumably) a separate recurring fee. Konami's intent with the eAmusement participation system was to lessen the initial burden of getting the game hardware. Taken from an announcement thing I saw awhile back (read with Google Translate), the cabinets are a lot cheaper, and for the most part (I think IIDX was the last holdout on this?), updates to the next game version were sent through the network. This also came with Konami taking a portion of revenue, so the games are required to be online so the data for coin drops can be sent to Konami (though if the network is under maintenance, or temporarily unavailable for whatever reason, the games can keep track and then send the data once the network is available again). This kind of arrangement also makes it easier to license songs, and the licensing can be in a per-play deal, as opposed to a flat price for the package.

The DDR A U cabinets? Don't do ANY of this, as far as I can tell, they just provide the online functionality. You can't tell me $12k for a new cabinet is the "cheaper" price. I imagine Konami might have thought it wasn't such a great idea to require online connectivity for the US, as there may be arcades that don't have an internet connection (though their stupid bulk purchase requirement that I've heard about prior to Uniana taking over the distribution kinda nullifies that sort of thing...), and thus wouldn't have been able to consider purchasing the game. Konami did try the eAmusement service in the US back with SN2 (there was one arcade somewhere in IL that had it), and both SN2 and X were advertised as supporting eAmusement on Konami's site.

There are no passes, no excuses. When it's your job to make sure a chart is of good quality for however many people around the world are going to play it, you better make sure every aspect is looked at thoroughly and that there are no errors. There's no excuse for poor charting when this is your job and people who do this casually in their free time like us do a better job.

This doesn't even apply strictly to something like ENDYMION, this is for any chart that they put out there in DDR.

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Just checking your logic: Assuming none of us here can clear a high-level 19, can any of us do better at charting one? (Never mind, you say so. Either way, point still stands, can you provide an example?) Can any of us chart a 20 that plays much more smoothly than Konami's 19s? I'm not arguing it's impossible, I don't know if it is.

The 8th note jacks are supposed to be hit how else? I'm seeing places where I'd be required to use the same foot 4 TIMES


YES. You actually don't need to be good at the game beyond understanding what's fun to play and what's not, many people chart above their skill level without sucking this bad.

And on that note, someone questioned bringing up fanmade packs into this comparison, I counter with the fact that if over 50% of DDR Challenge charts were fanmade they'd be laughed off by everyone.

Orrr, you could footswitch on some of the up or down arrow jacks. A good portion of the 2-note up and down arrow 8th note jacks flow pretty well when you footswitch them (i.e. hit the first "up" with your right, then, hit the second "up" with your left)

EDIT: I guess the part that you really have to figure out how to reduce doublestepping, is the beginning 220 BPM section, with the jumps in the 8th stream and the 16th trills.

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I don't understand. How is it possible for a location to have eAmusement and not be in the eAmusement participation system? The games in the US do have updates sent through the network, otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for Fungah! to see Endymion and Ace For Aces on ~day 1. And that means they have constant connectivity, which means they can send coin drop data. Why would there be an in-between arrangement that says "we'll pay full price for the cabinet and not send you any coin drop data, but we'll also always be online and receive realtime updates, giving us the ability to send coin drop data"?

Charting blindly would be quite dumb of them, considering there's a perfectly good strategy they can use even if they can't play 19s directly (just playtest them at 0.5x rate, 0.6x rate, etc.).

@rayword45 Those are jacks. Yes you're supposed to hit them with the same foot. The other "jacks" are intended to be footswitches. There really aren't any major flow issues in this chart that I could see and I've been watching the video over and over and even slowing it down in StepMania. It's not as bad as you think it is.

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None of those are doublesteps; they're jacks and they're intentionally made to be stepped with one foot. Doublestepping refers to two different arrows that have to be hit with the same foot.

e: ninja'd

How, when we don't have an official 20 to base charts off of? Even in Stepmania, there's only a few that I know of; as to how smooth they are, see for yourself. (not pictured: two other 20s, one of which is a groove radar special, as well as a 22)

I'm talking about the minijacks during the slowdown, a fuckton of them (like at 0:53) require you to either spin or hit TWO DIFFERENT SETS OF MINIJACKS with the same foot. And to the guy who recommended footswitching, that might work but that's not an assumed pattern with this design and it's also ass.

Also explain to me how you hit the whole pattern of 5-note clusters at 0:27 without doublestepping or spinning. And there's more I'm not taking the time to point out.

Honestly I'm surprised I have to defend this claim at all, 220bpm candle crossover streams would immediately repulse most people I would've thought and that's not even the worst part (those may be technically OK but they're not FUN).

Sadly yeah, lol.