Why are Song Difficulties such a Big Deal?

Okay, what i've noticed about the DDR X3 vs. 2nd Mix thread is that a lot of people have been complaining about the song difficulties. I admit that KONAMI has been overinflating the difficulties as of late, but does that mean that the stepcharts aren't any fun? What i'm trying to say is is that if a song has a fun chart, just play it; regardless of the difficulty. Isn't playing DDR about having a good time and getting a good workout, rather than constantly judging how hard or easy a song should be? I know that passing a hard song can generate bragging rights, but what about the recently overinflated difficulties (i.e. FLOWER , Sakura Sunrise as a 15 at one point, Haunted Rhapsody )? You should know that KONAMI won't please everybody with their ratings; and they rate songs according to what THEY think the charts should be. IMO, they got most of the ratings spot on in X2, but in X3 and DDR II, some of the songs were overinflated.

IMO, some of the easier songs on or turn out to be the funnest to play, rather than the old-scale 9's and 10's. Songs such as B4U, Still in my Heart (MOMO mix), Dynamite Rave (B4 Za Beat Mix), Living in America,etc. IMO, are extremely fun to play because they're chock-full of energy and have great charts; so who cares about how they're rated? I don't feel shame playing 7-footers, as long as they're fun.

Where do you guys stand on song ratings and good/fun charts? Why does the community care so much about a chart is rated? There's no shame in enjoying easier and/or falsely rated songs if they have great charts.

Ratings are subjective. There will always be arguments with them, just get up and dance man.

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It gives us something to talk about.
That's all.

It matters. Now I can only get a red star on a Lv 15~ chart because my Groove Radar got too high :<

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Why even have ratings at all if we're not going to make them consistent and accurate? No ratings would be better than incorrect ratings.

Why does any game have difficulty ratings? DDR is no different.

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The purpose of ratings is to give players unfamiliar with the chart an idea of how well they'll be able to play it. That's it A person that can't pass most 15's yet could easily have FLOWER (to use an extreme example) within striking distance, but they may never try it because it's not properly rated and appears to be far too hard. Misrepresentation like that can make the game less fun for players.

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It's not the end of the world if a chart is misrated. It does make for good debate though.

Often times at first glance, a song's reception is made by it's difficulty level; followed by BPM. Sometimes, I think that a song's BPM is slow but has a high rating (14 or 15 on ) when it sound's like a 10 or 11, people might be like "...could be interesting, i'll give it a shot"; while if the slow song WERE a 10 or 11, the same person might be like "...no thanks, i'll pass." The opposite applies to faster songs with low difficulties.

In the case of FLOWER , it got negative reception mostly because of it's difficulty. Instead of "Wow! That's an awesome 15!" (which it should of been all along), it was perceived as "That's the most pathetic 17 i've ever seen." So a song's difficulty can be a big deal because it could mean the difference between a "typical"/"ordinary" song, and a head-turner (whether it be positive or negative). FLOWER 's discussion would be long dead if it were rated properly.

In the case of Sakura Sunrise (if it were a 15); more of the hardcore players would view the song as a joke and not to be taken seriously, and casuals would avoid it more because it "seems" to be harder than most other songs (even if it's not). So something as small as a number change can influence a songs' popularity from both spectrums (casual and hardcore audiences).

In the case of Haunted Rhapsody ; it wouldn't be fun, regardless of the difficulty because it's a trash chart, IMO.

Simply enough, song difficulty, along with proper groove radar recognition, help to give players an idea of how difficult a song is.
What doesn't help is when songs are misrated (the FLOWER example is perfect).

Something that's also important, and I know this has been discussed before, is that the song ratings are based on the default settings, the most important being the speed mod set to 1x. As an example, Bag on 1x is a borderline 15 (10 on old system), but would you say the same for it at 3x?

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Honestly we should go to how DDR Max had theirs. its simple and accurate.

The constant bickering about about the ratings and difficulties is useless. They are the way they are and we can't do anything about it except make the choice to play them or not.

The Groove Radar is incapable of expressing step complexity, like crossovers, and this is the reason many songs are difficult. For example, AFRONOVA (FROM NONSTOP MEGAMIX) has a pretty big radar for an 8, but the patterns are very simple so it's not a 9. Likewise, TRIP MACHINE survivor has a pretty small radar, but the steps are laid out in a pretty funky way. They backpedaled on the MAX style pretty hard.

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There will never be a perfect solution

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As such, there will also really be no end to the debate of song difficulties.

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so, /thread?

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>thread title
because we make it to be.

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>meme arrows.

But seriously, while I can't say it doesn't make for a good argument/debate, it's a pretty redundant one at that. KONAMI's the only jurisdiction that pretty much lays down the law of what is rated what, and sometimes they actually do make a few mistakes rating some songs but fix them in the later mixes (a la X > X2 > X3), and as per usual, somebody "feels" that this song is a ##, but someone else thinks it should stick to that ## because of this or that, so it's also personal preference to how that said player sees the chart in their eyes, unless the chart is obviously mis-rated and pretty much everyone agrees and shit.

So yeah...

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Agreed. This is basically the point I was making with my post.

Big deal because lv 15 feel different with lv 16.

So, misrated level = CHAOS.

How shocking Make it Better rated = 12 that actually feel easier than Dead End that rated 12 too.

X scale is good but Konami team must evaluated again for some misrated songs and fixed on next DDR ARC.

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This reminds me of someone I knew who seriously believed that every chart's difficulty should be judged solely by the number of steps they had, being equal to floor(number of steps / 37), which makes Max 300 exactly a 15.
Yes, he seriously believed that Pluto Relinquish should be a 14 and DEGRS should be a 12 (wtf?!?), just because they had fewer steps than Max 300.