Stamina Limitations

Actually, PARANOiA ~HADES~ is a 15 as of X3. If I'm remembering the charts correctly, MAX 300's ending is harder, but PARANOiA ~HADES~ wears you out quicker. I'm not certain though, since I've only played MAX 300 on pad once (on Stepmania, and I failed), as I don't have a home version with the song.

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Like what I said in the "DDR X3 vs. 2nd Mix" thread, the X-Scale is really out of whack now. Remember back when they were considering "Sakura Sunrise"- to be a 15? We were like, "WTF Konami?" Good thing it remained a 14.

And was it KONAMI's intenion or ours to rate lvl.15's as standard 10's? I made the assumption that lvl. 15's were standard 10's because MAX300 was a 15. But the X-Scale did correct some ratings flaws such as bag & SAKURA, which I believe are both 13's on now. No way in heck are those two songs considered 15's in the slightest.

Back to the stamina bit, I hope to pass FELM- next time I play at the arcade. That would mark my first official 16 passed at the AC. My I'm So Happy record was from DDR II, so I still don't consider myself to of passed a 16 officially yet.

So, I'm gonna talk about hydration

Have you ever feel more tired after drinking between stages?
I do! (If not, then am I weird or something?)

I mean, if you're going to rehydrate yourselves, do it after a credit. Don't just simply drink and feel like "I AM RECHARGED NOW" and force yourself to clear these hard songs. You'll end up getting even more tired.

So if you still get what I mean so far, I'll explain (I heard this from a PIU player and this does makes sense)
When we drink, our body needs to "spread" the water to the entire body. While the time between stages are short (let's say, 1 minute), these waters have not spread to the entire body yet, so your body is actually doing more work, for DDR, and for the body itself to "spread" the water.

Oh, again, I am sorry if you're having difficulties at understanding my English. I am not a fluent speaker (and I'm feeling that my English is getting worse recently)

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I agree that some of the ratings are just wrong, but for some reason I also won't consider myself a 10-footer-player until I start passing 15s. Sakura, bag, CHAOS and HDV aren't anywhere near as hard as the others. Until I've got songs like MAX 300 passed, I'm still considering myself a level 9 player xD
Good luck with FELM btw, I know it gets really tricky midway-through.


Yeah I get what you mean, if you drink too much between stages you can have a kinda heavy feeling in your stomach, doesn't help much when you're jumping around on the pad I tend to just have a mouthful between songs, if I don't I end up with a dry feeling in my mouth sometimes, really irritating.

Stamina.... let's see.... I'm a long distance runner who has been running for 15 years. As far as DDR is concerned I don't feel that my stamina limits are really pushed until I start playing multiple 10s in a row. Now I will say that for some reason I don't feel like my specific trait translates into DDR all that well. For normal people playing most of these charts is pretty draining, but I have to be an extremist to get any real drain on my stamina. The 10s are focused on speed to drain you quickly so you can feel like "oh this is hard" when I feel 10s should be a more technical challenge with normal music. Most of this doesn't apply to doubles, but you guys get what I mean.

For anyone wishing to push their limits further I would say start off easy and then later actually push yourself closer to your max but not to the point of passig out. This way you can find a clear point as to hard you can push yourself for sustained improvement. It's all about getting used to higher level of stamina drain.

I tend to associate dance games with anerobic exercise, because you can only do it for so long before you're legs collapse in on themselves. So it's all about pushing your anearobic limit wihout actually getting into that zone.

Well this little example actually does describe my sport. I guess I'm wroing.

Back in my prime I padded about a 6 and a half hour nonstop Stepmania run with no breaks.

How many songs did you have? I couldn't imagine going 6.5 hours straight if there were less than 200 songs. In fact, I can't imagine playing 6.5 hours straight, period. I only have the attention-span to play DDR for about two hours tops.

I think back during the DDRMAX2 CS days, I did about 50ish songs in Nonstop (with a break every 5 stages), after that, it started repeating again (I don't like every song in the game so I did about 40-something different songs during that nonstop). I was able to last up to 50ish stages because MAX2's songlist is very weak, in terms of difficulty.

And this was on the pad too.

LOL having a mouthful is irritating for me, personally. As I have problem when breathing with the nose (I breath with the nose and I need my mouth to support my breath, idk why)

Back on topic again, a friend of mine said, play at least two songs above 13 in one credit. You can rest in stage 2 by playing like 10-12 songs, but never drink or take a break, keep playing till the session ends (because of what I said earlier, drink would make you more tired). Then drink, wait around 5-10 minutes, repeat the pattern.

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I do have a kinda dry mouth sometimes so unless I take a mouthful I can get pretty uncomfortable breathing through my mouth when I play xD
I've noticed a considerable increase in my stamina recently though. About 2 months ago, a credit of no-bar FAXX & FELM followed by barring CHAOS as my final stage would leave me pretty drained, I wasn't used to faster songs. No I can no-bar SAKURA , HVAM and exotic ethnic and still have some amount of stamina left. I suppose it's all about practice and pushing yourself.

I tried FELM- at home yesterday and gave up at about 3/4 way. I'll definitely need the bar to try and pass it next time. And since I got 550 Combo on MAX300- last time, I should try getting a FC, I mean, WTF was with that Almost at the beginning anyway? Must of lost my footing. But I will indeed try FELM- next time I play on the machine.

As far as hydration goes, I usually drink a few sips after a few certain songs, when desired. I can't gulp down tons of water at once or it'll be an all-out burp fest for me. and thus, deteriorate my performance.

SAKURA is always the first milestone. I'd drill that song until you can pass it no problems, since it's not terribly hard to get through.

888 is great for learning more expert pattern steps, and once you get that down (and crossovers), is a terrific stamina builder that's fun to play and not unmanagable to pass.

Xepher on 2x/3x is a good warmup to MAX 300 streaming, as it's more consistent throughout the song, and it's higher mean BPM will make MAX 300's voltage more managable to keep up with. plays like a simpler version of the same chart, so if it's giving you trouble, you can consider playing that, too.

Across the nightmare is another good stage that plays like an easier MAX 300 or HADES , and is good for jump pattern and spurt recognition.

TRIP MACHINE PhoeniX is a quirky stage and you'll want to play around with it's difficulties and speed, it's a great training partner, and for a good reason, probably the most popular of the SuperNOVA 2 boss stages. I'd suggest a > > run of the stage, just to see where you're at, both passing and scoring-wise.

For stage 2, play something in the 9-12 X-range (7-8 old school) and focus more on perfecting your timing/score. Yes, while you're still tired. Maybe for your third as well.


Once you get 3 of those pretty much down, here's a small spurt of "step-up" boss stages you'll want to try:

PARANOiA Survivor

CHAOS

Pluto

NGO

on the bounce

Horatio

SABER WING (Headshot Mix)

roppongi EVOLVED
(ver. A > ver. B > ver. D > ver. C)

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Well it was a custom course, and I lied it was a bit before my prime, I think it consisted mostly of songs 5-7 feet with some harder and easier ones thrown in there, obviously it looped a lot. I don't recall if I needed a water, my guess is I didn't, but that was back when I was young and in good shape. All the information about the endeavor went the way of DDR:UK.

So I went to the arcade yesterday and finally passed The Legend of Max .



It's SM on a DDR Cabinet in case you're wondering why the interface looks like that.

TLOM is not really all that hard once you get the hang of it. The intro is pretty much like Pandemonium .

I did lose my footing at the triplet burst towards the end, but when it became 7-note clusters I regained my footing again. Those jumps still get to me too.

Isn't 823,000 pts a bit high for a "C" rank? I thought the cutoff was at 750,000 for a rank C. And on this machine, I can still get an "A" rank when i'm in the 960,000's. So it grades hard and is not true to SN2's ranks. pfft, Duh. The last digit is a 6, so it isn't true to SN2 scale. *facepalm* But all that matters is that I passed a (huh, it's really only a 15?) I thought it was a 16.

What should I try next time? I already passed MAXX Unlimited back when I still had access to a SN1 machine. Maybe FELM .

Hmm, I have managed to pass PARANOiA survivor once, but I think it was a fluke. I haven't been able to pass the death-run at the end again ever since. I suppose that means I'm not ready for X-scale 15s just yet, even if I have been attempting them repeatedly for months now.

XeneSyS 87, if you can pass MAXX Unlimited and TLOM , you'd probably have a fair shot at FELM with practise.
Other 15s to look at would be PARANOiA survivor , PARANOiA survivor MAX and Xepher

@XeneSyS

drill your drills with Horatio :p

grade problems: SM still grades with Dance Points, similar to MAX~EXTREME era. so the score has no bearings to the grade.

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Change the order man, On the Bounce and Horatio.
Chaos, Pluto, Roppongi
PARANOiA Survivor and NGO
SABER WING (Headshot Mix) (just cause the crossover in this + speed make it harder)

My 2 cents : I say just warm up first to get pumped up. Whatever is your highest difficulty you can consistently pass, drop 2 difficulties (highest 12 becomes 10) and do only those as first set of the day. You'll get the blood pumping and be ready to take on the challenge. I've done this before, sometimes very first song being PSMO, only a B. But play it in like the 2nd/3rd set, AA.

In my case, I always put CHAOS , then Pluto , then Sakura . CHAOS and Pluto will be a 13 or a middle 14 once you remember the stops, but I only pass Sakura with an A once thanks to its speed.

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There's a reason they're clustered, take them in any order you want. Different charts for different farts. ;)

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LOL.

Everytime I play DDR, everyone always tell me that I had better use minimal movement, but when I try it, it makes me tired more than when I'm just "playing free and lose without any limitation". And I have tendency to open my mouth. I think I must have been doing that to let more air to come to my lungs.

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