Z-I-v Summer Contest 2020

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Kinda OT at the moment but I'm really surprised nobody stepped Astra walkthrough by paraoka last week. It's a song that's extremely receptive to jumps. (Just listen to it if you don't know what I mean.) I would have stepped it myself but it has more of a boss song flair to it so I'm not exactly confident I could do that right.

I don't really like this theme cause I'd much rather step songs that don't have simfiles for them already. Especially not songs with simfiles that just got made earlier this year. But I'm not the host so whatever, I'll see what I can come up with.

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Woof. Some people can't take criticism (or lack thereof).

As for my simfiles... come on. Do I have to say it? Go wild on my choices of songs. I welcome others interpretations, good or bad. It's fun to compare others simfiles (as is the f***ing point of these contests).

One more thing... feel free to ask me for new graphics if you're gonna step my songs (or don't. You be your own artist, IDC)

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Yeah, I don't bite. If anybody wants to know what I thought of their file, they can PM me and ask for a review. I just don't post public reviews because it takes too damn long for me to write a proper review for 40+ files a week.

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IMO different cuts should be allowed since: 1) the previous cuts might be bad (audio quality, offsync, etc.), 2) we might not agree with someone else's cut, and 3) this theme has already been done 5 times in previous summer contests and they all allowed different cuts, so I don't know why this one should be any different.

Sources:
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/thread?threadid=3884&page=41#p208837
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/thread?threadid=4984&page=25#p259724
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/thread?threadid=5965&page=44#p301576
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/thread?threadid=6685&page=40#p323029
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/thread?threadid=9922&page=25#p415342

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VanEden already provided an exception for audio quality and errors, but otherwise the cut has to be exactly the same. Your other points are still valid.

Five times, actually. In 2018 one of my themes (Deja Vu) was a restep theme and I allowed different song cuts. Needless to say I agree that having different song cuts should be allowed. Doesn't bother me personally since the songs I'm interested in are fine as is IMO but I still think it's kind of a silly rule.

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Ah, I forgot about that one, added it in my post, thanks!

APPEND: As for me, I know which song I want to step, but my cut is a little different (only the ending has changed), so I'm not gonna submit anything this week unless the rule changes. In this case, I don't mind either way since lately, I've been busy outside of the contest, although I'd still like to see the rules stay more or less consistent from year to year.

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On top of how boring the theme is (step a song from 3 months ago), the rule of having to use the same exact cut makes no god damned sense. Hopefully the benevolent gods running this contest are willing to listen to the pleas of the peasants and at least change that much.

Anyone that just wants to game the voting doesn't really need to read a single comment to have a pretty good idea of which ones will be popular and which ones won't be. Toss 3 5-point votes to the ones that you believe are the weakest. Maybe toss a couple points to the popular ones so what you're doing doesn't look that obvious. Killing the open discussion of files just because of the freak scenario you described isn't worth it.

It's basically the same thing for me but the other way around. If it's a uhhhhhhh 15-17 on the new scale, I'm probably not going to bother because I never cared for the super hard stuff in DDR, I appreciated the easier stuff which was still interesting and fun to play, and I loathe the direction the series took recently. That subjectivity is fine if we're talking about which songs to keep in our collection, but if we're going to vote on a stepfile design contest then I believe neither of us is being fair. Granted, it wouldn't exactly be fair to give Song A (1:30 of just a flat beat with 10 seconds of instruments) and Song B (a more elaborate song with more potential for interesting steps) the same perfect score, Song A's steps could be accurate but also pretty boring, but the extreme example of a Song A doesn't really happen often. You need to keep a super open mind for people's musical tastes and that's one of the hardest things to do when judging a stepchart.

It's not so much about harder charts winning as it is easier charts being ignored. If we're being fair, nobody should ignore a stepfile just because it was too hard (like you said people should) or easy. Your post was missing that huge distinction you didn't get to: if the chart is way harder/easier than what the song would be like in DDR at that difficulty, then not voting for it or giving it less points is fair. But then some people like DDR's latest charts (which are harder overall) and some don't, so everybody's voting under their own preferred standards without any one guideline for everyone to follow and it's kind of messy.

I guess it wasn't an issue because maybe nobody bothered to post a lot of feedback before (I don't know, I wasn't around), but those that do post feedback now were told to cram it. Those that don't like the feedback they get can either question its validity or just ignore it. It's not worth stifling stepfile discussion for everybody else. That was a fun thing in those other contests from many years ago, people would post about the songs and discuss them, some feedback was good (comments on what was good and bad about the chart) and some was bad (i dont like the song) and the latter would be called out. That discussion helped people realize what really was fine, what could use improvement, and what people liked. Did drama happen? Sure did. Was it better than having zero discussion about the stepfiles? Absolutely. Despite the drama and discussion, never did I see any of the organizers say "hey fellas please stop talking about the files in the contest".

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I've been participating in the Summer Contest off and on for the past 10 years and I do have to say that I can never remember feedback being discouraged/banned from the thread in prior years. If anything, people were actively encouraged to post their feedback and most people were eager to get feedback on their file. I understand some people may be sensitive to criticism on their files, but I have to wonder why these people are participating in a simfile contest where they're volunteering their files to be publicly judged by others to begin with. And I don't understand why the onus should be on us to PM the 40+ members of the simfile contest to get individual feedback for our file every single week. That just seems ridiculous.

for those that are complaining about not getting the place they wanted: your time will come, i promise bc i felt the same way too

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Not saying that the discussion of simfiles should be killed, just that it could be organized a bit better - I had offered the usage of a Google form for collecting and presenting feedback, which seems like a pretty good solution since feedback could be presented after voting is over. It'd also be self contained in a single area, instead of skimming through 30+ pages of a single thread. Down side would be that a form doesn't really allow for discussions.

Alternatively, what about breaking feedback and entry discussion into separated threads? Such as "Z-I-v Summer Contest 2020 - Week X Group Y feedback"? Then all the feedback and related discussions could be contained in there. It'd be nice to have a relatively clean thread discussing the tournament rules / clarifications / overall discussions.

Alright, I will address some of the points being made here. I apologize to everyone who is just here to participate in good faith and that have no need to get caught up in any drama.

First of all I have not once said that feedback is banned, and I don't know how it spiraled down to anyone thinking that. I wholeheartedly encourage giving feedback, and in my original post I even put it in bold as the main takeaway. I said to wait until the end of the week, or if it can't wait ask for private feedback. I also said to make sure it's constructive criticism, not because I don't want anyone's feelings hurt, because people were going to the mods with complaints of actual harassment. I'll quote the document that I told everyone to read:

"If you play a file that blows you away, remember who made it. Look at what they do. At the end of the week, see who won. Maybe go back and play those songs again. Notice the ingredients that go into a winning file. See something you thought was really well done? Try doing that next time."

Feedback to me is more of an auxiliary way of improving, and criticism or the lack thereof shouldn't be used as a crutch or to explain away anyone's performance. What's more important is actually examining files you enjoy and files that placed well and really see for yourself what they did to get that place. When you have over 40 files a week that are curated and ranked on people's enjoyment with which you can extrapolate and incorporate into your files, and instead place the issue on not being simply told outright what people think of the file, then you might not be in the right mindset for improvement. So while feedback is important, it should not be placed at the same level of the personal experience of playing the files. And even then it is in no way banned or discouraged.

Your level of enjoyment in this contest cannot be derived exclusively from what place you get. If you find the fun in self improvement and simply coming together with everyone with a shared passion for making files, then arguing over what people like or who needs to vote for what becomes a triviality. If you come into this tournament with a negative or disruptive attitude, looking to find anything wrong with anybody and anything, then of course you're going to find it, but that detracts from the experience of others who are here with positive energy. I've said before, but these tournaments run on good faith, and have little time or place for anyone hellbent on seeking out negativity or fighting against the established procedure for no reasonable gain. If you're incapable of participating without seeing everything through this hypercritical lens, then I recommend stepping back for a week or two to reexamine why you entered in the first place and to come back with a more beneficial mindset to facilitate cohesiveness and good sportsmanship. Or you can drop out.

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Putting aside how a Google form allows for zero discussion, the problem with posting feedback AFTER voting for that week is over is that nobody's really playing those files anymore. We're busy either preparing the next file or playing the files we'll be voting on. I'm not gonna go back to check the previous week's files to discuss the feedback you posted. Posting feedback and discussing it as everybody's playing the same files is what makes the most sense to me, doing it after the fact is kind of silly.

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I think this is a pretty good example of what VanEden is talking about in terms of having a negative attitude. You're just putting down a suggestion (reiterating the downside that was already presented with that suggestion) and not adding anything of real value here.

I've suggested in those same posts just simply moving the feedback discussions to a separate thread, to keep the main thread to tournament discussions, announcements, and clarifications. That has none of the downsides you're focusing on.

I'd just like to post this in case it helps anyone - and I don't know if it will - but I wasn't always particularly good at making simfiles. Some may say I'm still not good at it. Those people would be wrong. But what I discovered about myself is that I became way better once I stopped taking it so seriously.

I also got better when I decided to step for myself, not what I thought other people would like. That realization came with the knowledge that certain people might never give me points, since I don't step anything they like. There's no way in hell Quickman would ever give me any points, for example. But it netted me more points than if I tried to appeal to other peoples' tastes.

I offered something of """real value""" which is explaining why releasing feedback after voting for the week is done is dumb, something that's still an issue in what you suggested (a separate thread) and is still an issue in what the contest organizer is asking people to do. Telling people to not talk about the files at the time everybody is supposed to be playing them because it might skew voting is plainly absurd and gives far too little credit to those participating, as if their personal opinion would change that much because they read that someone else liked a file. If people's opinions changing that much due to "peer pressure" is worrying you that much then just make the votes in the spreadsheet anonymous. But this suggestion will be promptly ignored, just like the one about having people vote on their opposite group, or all the people asking for the identical cut rule to be changed.

You have to consider who the feedback comes from. Feedback from people that chart similarly to you will be way more useful than feedback from someone that doesn't. I know the feedback I got from people that mostly liked keyboard files (this shit is too easy LOL) was useless, but the feedback I got from people with similar tastes was helpful. You're free to ignore all feedback obviously, but it shouldn't mean that feedback conversation should be stifled.

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The main reason that votes are now anonymous is because "back in the day", some people have just voted for the simfiles that were getting the most votes. That's why votes are private now. Of course feedback is different but still. I'm fairly mixed without much preference. Earlier I was firmly in the "feedback at the end of the week" group but now I'm not so sure.

Unless you're talking about something else or I misunderstood your post or there was a typo, votes aren't anonymous right now, the results have a spreadsheet saying who voted for what.

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In a perfect world, this would be true, unfortunately it very much does happen.


That's basic human nature. Subconscious or intentional, people's opinions are shaped strongly by public appearance.


The votes are revealed at the end of the week, much how I would prefer feedback be handled, because if they were made public throughout the week anyone could just see who voted for what and use that to shape their votes.

Saying there's too much downtime between submitting the file and getting feedback while the contest is moving on is to assume that feedback is solely so you can do better in this contest, and not primarily for your own self improvement in general which in reality takes time anyway.

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