DanceDanceRevolution X (AC) (International)

The bars look the same, but because the stage is thinner they can't hold as much weight. If that's what's going to happen, it'll take only a matter of months. There are enough bar rapers to break every American DDR X from Irvine to Elizabeth.

I'm 5"0, and I never touch the bar except for doubles. I don't know what the definition of "bar raping" is, but because I'm so short, I often have to "push off" the bar to reach the other side of the stage in time (especialy on La Senorita maniac), and sometimes to stop my momentum from carrying me off the side of the stage (Boom Boom Dollar KOG G3 maniac / Breakdown maniac). I've never considered that cheating, and I hope nobody else does :{

I used to know a friend who used the bar on doubles in the same way some american players use it for singles - holding onto the left bar with his left hand, the right bar with his right hand and leaning backwards. He was over 6 foot tall, and he could reach every panel on either stage from that position. I've seen him full combo PSM Oni Double Maniac, and pass Get The Party Started Nightmare like that.

He was an amazing player, by the way. He just used it as the ultimate cheat code, and he was the only player in the UK tall enough to do it

I could go on a ranting debate about bar use but I'll just say this instead.

What I cant stand is when people call me or other people who use the bar bad players or most commonly cheaters.

What people fail to realize is the fact that I am still a very good No bar player. You can ask for video requests if you'd like. I can still score very well on song without the bar so to call me a bad player for using the bar unfair. Besides that, I am the kind of player who plays for scores. Some people like to play for fun, others like it for freestyling and players like me for high scores. One thing we all have in common is the fact we must pay our money to play the game. If you play for fun are you going to go and pay money to play terrible charts you dont like? Probably no. If you play for free style are you going to play all the most difficult songs that doesnt have room for free styling? presumably not. And if you pay to play for score are you going to try your best to get a good score? I'd think so.

tl;dr
If you are paying money for your round make sure it is the most useful to you. If your shooting for score then mostly your score will be increasing if your using the bar instead of not using it. To me Im not going to pay money to get mediocre scores.

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Ok, so I actually stopped playing DDR just after Extreme came out. The machine I learnt to play on (Solo 2000) didn't have a bar, and all of the local players didn't use the bar, because we'd never thought of it.

When I started playing again (a few months ago), every forum I went to was full of massive arguments about whether using the bar is cheating or not . I met a guy called KDogg, who is apparantly one of the best "PA" players in the UK, saw him play a couple of songs where he used the bar, and AA'd everything. I played a few credits with him, and when he noticed that I didn't use the bar, he stopped using it as well. He still AA'd everything, so he certainly didn't DEPEND on the bar in order to play. He just chose to use it most of the time, and when I played against him, he stopped using it, to make it a fair game.

After that, I figure that people must use the bar for lots of reasons. I I've seen Dr.D's videos as well, and I know he uses the bar, but he's obviously one of the best DDR players in the world, and nobody can ever say he's "cheating", because he's just so good at every single aspect of the game, that he's obviously going to be just as good with or without the bar.

I think the important argument is how MUCH easier the bar makes the game. I've seen a lot of players who absolutely cannot play the game at all, unless they have a bar to hold onto. I tend to think of them as being worse players than myself, but there are also players like KDogg and Dr.D who are better at DDR than I could ever possibly become, and they're obviously using the bar out of choice, not because they need it in order to survive.

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edit :

Video of me playing doubles on the Dancing Stage Disney Rave test machine. Hopefuly this explains what I mean by 'pushing off the bar', to control momentum. I do it a few times at 1:20. At some point, I also grab the bar to stop myself falling off the machine. I'd obviously never seen the steps before, and the 1/16th runs took me by surprise.



I hope nobody considers me a massive cheat, for the way I play :{

I always play with bar. Not because I can't play without, but because I'd rather not look a bit silly flailing around doing 300+BPM 8th runs.

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A few years ago I brought this up on Aaron in Japan when Aaron got his 300th AAA on MAX 300. He's a very good player so I asked if he'd ever AAA'd MAX 300 without bars and without mods, or any song for that matter. I became a punching bag for my effort. If someone can score AAA on a song as hard as MAX 300 300 times why can't he once score AAA on a song at least as hard as PARANOiA once without the bar and without the mod? No answer to that. Yet there were claims that he had but never once was video proof posted like his MAX 300 videos.

That's proof positive to me that using those handicaps gimped his ability to balance himself and gimped his ability to read the arrows in default mode without help. That's why using those handicaps are considered cheating, it gave him an advantage he didn't have when playing normally. And unless Konami puts motion sensors in the bar it can't be counted against him (on the machine at least).

Dr. D claims he is as good a player without the bar... After all of him I've seen I'm inclined to believe him even without some kind of proof. But that leads to another question for me... If he's just as good without them why does he use them at all? If you're bowling and you use the gutter guards it's considered a handicap. You don't come back with the argument 'Oh, I never gutter ball.' Because then people ask you then why not play without them? The ball's not going to gutter right? So you're safe whether the gutter is there or not. But there is a difference, Dr. D said he scores better that way and his credits are worth more to him that way. That's fine. Since I don't play for scores I could get nothing but As all night long and as long as I'm playing songs I like, on DOUBLE, unattached to the machine so that I can put some flair into my dance routine, that's the best way -I- can spend my credits. But using mods and using the bar is still considered cheating for that very reason, you want to score higher. Either you're okay with the fact that you augment the game to do it or you're not.

If you're okay with it then acknowledge it for what it is, just like I acknowledge that the most fun I've ever had playing GTA is with trainers. I beat the game without any help first, but once I'm done I can increase the replay value by giving me an RPG with unlimited ammo... on automatic. I don't care what you think, that's a whole evening of gut-wrenching laughter right there. And if someone comes along as says 'You're cheating.' I'll just say 'I know.' I already beat everything the hard way.

Yeah, I'm dumb and thought you were Fallacy. The internet is a great place to make a fool of yourself late at night. But when the morning comes and you focus your eyes on those posts, you realize that some of them had some errors.

Using the bar is not cheating, and the only people who say it is are the ones who haven't developed the skill to pass 11s or 12s bar or no bar. If I wasn't bored I wouldn't be wasting my time arguing with people who simply aren't skilled enough to realize the difference, or open minded enough to not call other people cheaters.
If you're going to call people who use the bar cheaters, then I'm going to say you're a cheater too. I bet you use your whole foot when you step, to improve your balance. That's cheating because it makes the game easier. If you want to not be laughed at, you have to play up on your tiptoes the whole time. You also have to play barefoot. Shoes make the game too easy. That's the way the game was meant to be played. Barefoot on your tiptoes, or you're just a joke flailing like an idiot.

You bring up the old argument of saying people look dumb flailing around with the bar, Well, guess what? You look just as dumb flailing around without the bar. In fact, you probably look worse, with your arms flailing around trying to keep your balance, and leaning around randomly trying to get to the arrows. From a normal dance perspective, of people playing DDR is a terrible dance. There is very little smooth motion. There's the constant pounding of the feet, but not at a constant rhythm. All upper body motion is only for balance, there's no attempt to move the hips or arms in any interesting fashion. No head motion to indicate thoughts or emotions. All in all, DDR as it's played by 99.9% of people is not dancing, because it has no expression in it. Real dances express something. DDR doesn't.

At the end of the day, it makes the difference of those last few perfects, or last few excellents. You have never been anywhere near getting AAA. You have never spent a solid hour on one song, trying to trim off those last 2 greats, and felt the frustration. You don't know what you're talking about.


Oh, and for the people who don't realize, it's just as possible to play doubles with the bar, and once again, the bar players dominate the score boards. Again, it's just a matter of holding onto it properly. You can't put your weight on it, it needs to be just that extra bit of balance.

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Oh my god...

10 years on and we're still having bar raping arguements?!

Yeah, there's always a fresh supply of ignorant noobs. I'm fully awake now, so I'm off to actually do something meaningful with my morning.

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Congrats people, the last 2 pages are now full of tl;dr posts that are frankly the same tired garbage that ruined most of DDRFreak.

It's ignorant to think that arguing bar usage will get anyone anywhere. The smart thing to do is just not say anything; if someone calls you a bar raping cheater, be the bigger man and let it slide instead of repelling all meaningful, interesting discussion with a wall of text that won't convince the person who insulted you to change their views on anything. Let them have their views, and they'll play the game how they want and get the scores they get. No one's going to decline you a job later in life because you refused to argue with an idiot on the internet.

Or, rather, make a new thread for it so I can thoroughly ignore it.

[/cranky]

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Those are probably the only times I ever need to use the bar, so I wouldn't consider it cheating. Here's a good laughable example (the freeze at the end):



That happens from time to time at the arcade so I'm glad the bar is there so that I can bounce off of it. I also notice that people that are in line tend to touch the bar while I'm playing. I don't like that so I pretend that I'm a bar player and hold the bars in a manner that shows I'm mocking them when the song starts.

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I think bar/no-bar and mod/no-mod is a eternal fight.

My opinion is that the bar make the game easier like using mods (kinda like AeronPeryton said). But you can't claim it's cheating while it's allowed on a lot of tournements and a lot of players play like this.

Everyone should play how they like. The only thing players should do is start plating no bar and with low or no speed-mods. For 2 reasons : know how the game was a long time ago, know how to move without the bar. I'm sad when i saw players playing 3feets at x3 with bar :s

I'm a bar and speedmod player. But when i saw someone doing something amazing without bar, in my opinion, he diserved more "holy sh** amazing" than me. Cause for me playing with no bar and no mods is like an other mod so playing with bar/mods is easier but not cheating.

And i always play extra stage (SN/Extreme) on random + nobar. This can help me for playing no bar and no/low speedmods. And that's fun (so i'm bad at nobar but not so bad :p)

EDIT : I forgot to say that i like Tyma's video on double. It's nice to see you play, it's like you almost freestyling. Oh i forgot too, the funny thing is that i'm still playing double nobar for now

EDIT FOR DOUBLE PLAYERS : Please make more videos. I like double a lot, but i'm stuck at 9's and i can't find a lot of good videos on YouTube. This mod deserved more videos. I would upload my only video if this didn't was a crappy score : 79% on Lady Bug double expert on a R21:s.

Oh, and video with full body like Tyma did, it's good to see how to make some moves. Go go double !

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Yawn. Bar, no bar. I play without bar, and I also play without mods (except for Bag sometimes, but that's 'cause I suck) - other people play with both. Who is "right"? The short answer is, I don't give a shit either way - only fanboys do.


From the angling of the text, that sign is clearly intended for people behind the stage, and not for the players themselves, which makes sense.


Hahahahaha. I'd love to see someone bust out the moves from DDR on a dancefloor ("Go on, they're playing 2 Unlimited, do the expert doubles chart!!!"). Just because it's labelled as a simulation doesn't mean it has to be in any way accurate to real life, just like Beatmania and Guitar Freaks.


Pro tip: You look silly flailing around doing 8th runs at 300+ BPM bar or no bar.


YOU MASSIVE CHEAT >:{

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I was bored on the internet late at night, and I couldn't go to sleep or play stepmania because I was waiting for a friend to work out whether he can come over today.

PanStyle: A lot of my videos are on doubles, look some up. If you have any specific song requests, PM me or bump my attention whore thread in General Discussion. Almost all of my videos are full body.

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I give more respect to people who can play as well 1x no bar (DJ stunna being a great example) then I would for the same skilled player using bar and options. However, this does not in the least implicate that there is something wrong with the latter player only that I acknowledge that it takes more hard work and dedication to be that good at the former players conditions.

There is also a cap to playing no bar. I seriously doubt we are going to see some no bar players pulling sick scores on the BS songs konami has dished out the passed few years (FELMO, Faxx Oni, PRO, PHO, and possibly trigger oni.

At best, I think no bar is a good style to have fun with and even freestyle (I actually do play no bar often when I re play songs I have already PFCed, you just dont see videos of those songs) but, when it comes to scores, these is a limit to how high a person can achieve.

btw I have a couple good no bar videos on my youtube. Search Dr.D AAA's AA no bar and Afronova heavy no bar AAA. Both of these were years ago too so I hope you can assume I'm better now.

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The world needs more full-body videos :{


I would be interested to know (and please god, don't anyone hate me. for asking this).. What is the hardest thing that you can pass, without using the bar. As far as I'm concerned, you're the best DDR player I've ever seen, and I'd like to know where you think the limit is.

I'm asking because I honestly want to know at what point I should give up trying to pass hard songs, and at what point you think I will need to use the bar, in order to keep passing harder songs.

Yeah i already saw some of your videos

We just need that other double players make videos too cause' double has some awesome stepcharts (ddr or itg).

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*raises hand*

The majority of my videos are of Doubles charts. And expect to see a video of all of the DDR charts as that's my goal for my youtube channel.

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So NAOKI must acknowledge the fact that US/EU DDRX cabinets are pretty poor.

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Ahah you are crazy. But if you do that, try to do this at arcade. And on different one. That's more fun and beautifull

@Brazen : Eh that's a video from the French Japan Expo i saw it on a french forum "orgames". I think we will have video from the cabinet, cause there is a big french tournament there

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