Z-I-v Summer Contest 2014 [CLOSED]

8. THE FOOTSWITCH

I've seen this implemented many times in simfiles, even in this contest. However, for those that do not know, here's some patterns that require to alternate your feet in a single panel:

Red will signify left foot. Green will signify right root. (What is this, Malcom XMas?)

LDDR
LUUR
RDDL
RUUL

Of course, you can have fun and alternate (or make loops if you're ballsy):

LDDRDDL
LUURUUL
RDDLDDR
RUULUUR

If you're really ballsy, you can make footswitches that look like spins:

LDDRUUL
LUURDDL
RDDLUUR
RUULDDR

The most ballsy ones will add crossovers:

LDDLDR
LUULUR
RDDRDL
RUURUL

The possibilities are ENDLESS, people. What I have above are absolutely not the only ways you can or should use footswitches, because there's so many ways you can implement them. If you want to, you can even add footswitches on the left and right panels, but please, for your sake and for others, be very careful. You don't want yourself or players tripping.

If you want to see a file that uses footswitches not only on singles, but also on doubles, check out my TOI4 qualifier entry:
ANDROMEDA -SF_2011 Mix-

Hope this helps!

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VOTES:

+5 しんでしまうとはなさけない! [ddrstepper]
+4 No Sleep [Spork!]
+3 HANGOVER [poyomon]
+2 ナイショの話 [Densetsu.EXE]
+1 Love Day [vincentw]

Honorable Mentions:

STOP
How to Get a Number One Song

TOTALS:

Little Little Princess [brunobg24] - 29
しんでしまうとはなさけない! [ddrstepper] - 28
I Thought I Lost You [mf32892] - 17
The Real Thing [Pandemonium X] - 15
No Sleep [Spork!] - 13
STOP [Scarz] - 11
Love Day [vincentw] - 10
How to Get a Number One Song [Gameoson] - 7
ナイショの話 [Densetsu.EXE] - 7
HANGOVER [poyomon] - 6
Hey Baby feat. Bounty Killer [Astroman129] - 6
Sad Machine [ohaiimian] - 6
I’m Never Gonna Let You Down and Forget You [DDRDAIKENKAI] - 5
Fancy (ft. Charli XCX) [Dreamland200] - 3
Come Get It Bae [hooky] - 2

Simfile for this week:

U Got Me Rocking / MAX

Old Scale: 1 3 6 8 10
X Scale: 1 5 8 12 15

Game: Pump It Up Fiesta 2

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Wait, what?! Really? This is a pad contest; people should be judging the files by playing them on a pad. I've certainly been judging everyone else's files by playing them on a pad. Sure, there's been frustrations along the way (like when Pie-kun showed up with a file that was totally off-sync and it got more points in that one week than all of my synced simfiles combined), but I just figured it was part of the general learning curve, or that people would vote for their friends no matter how much my simfiles improved. Now I find out that many people have been judging my files by playing with their fingers. Okay, cool, well I guess I wasted a lot of hours and calories painstakingly playtesting simfiles that would be dancelike and fun to play on a pad. Obviously all that effort is wasted on people who play with their fingers and then give me feedback that my patterns are boring (despite me utilizing all sorts of tricks to spice up streams and rhythms, tricks that I copied from those exact links above by taronuke and xRGTMx). I guess if people are going to vote for an off-sync file then they will vote for that file whether they played it (or attempted to play it, it was nearly unplayable) on pad or keyboard. But for the rest of the voters, this is a breach of my trust and confidence. This certainly explains how some of the winning files were considered good when I considered them not fun at all. I was really taking some of the feedback to heart telling me that certain patterns/simfiles were "boring," but now you've introduced a confounding factor.

Fixed my post about the footswitches. Colors were off in almost half of the patterns I used.

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Pie's files are known for being off-sync due to a personal issue with his laptop, none of us are favoring him here hun. Along with that, this competition was simply made for you to improve your simfiles, share them, and have fun. If you really are that concerned with your files and the votes you are receiving then just shoot one of us a pm and we don't mind lending you some advice and helping you out. Don't fret too much about it and just have fun.

If you play index, it usually works fine experiencing the same challenges as a pad player (minus stamina consumed mostly). But yeah, if you play spread, you probably won't look at files at all the same way. This is a problem that arises from everyone (not just pad/index players) being allowed to vote, and there's no sure way of enforcing pad/index testing.

While the above post is contains subjective elements, it definitely has a point. I'd say that spread players who doesn't play pad or index (or at least looks at the file from a pad perspective) aren't really privileged to criticize most parts about the patterning of a file. Of course, things like holds and jumps accenting sounds in the song (and the syncing) is probably viewed mostly the same, but crossovers, use of candles, spins, jumpstreams and pretty much everything else isn't at all the same thing. For instance, a LD fast drill or stream is much harder to do spread than index (or pad if you have the stamina), due to spread players having to hit them all with one hand.

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Thank you. But Im not concerned with winning the contest; I'm only concerned with the votes as a measure of how enjoyable my simfile was to play on a pad. I've been putting in a lot of work in this pad contest improving my files for pad players. I really couldn't care less about votes/feedback that is written after someone plays my file on a keyboard. If I were playing these files on a keyboard, I would have found all the files I voted for too boring and voted for completely different files. If so many people are playing the files on a keyboard, everyone should just drop the false pretense about this being a true pad contest.

It really isn't that hard to notice how enjoyable a chart is on pad through the keyboard. I know personally when I judge files, I'm playing on the keyboard, but ghoststepping while sitting down as well. If I enjoy a chart by simply ghoststepping than obviously I'm going to enjoy it if I had an actual pad to play on. Also, as Loodee pointed out, playing index helps a lot with noticing doublesteps and also contributes to measuring how enjoyable the chart is.

With all that being said, how people judge files and vote is completely up to them. There have been plenty of cases of people voting for files that have a ton of doublesteps, which I'm sure most contestants find unbearable, but if they like the chart, who are we to tell them they shouldn't vote for it?

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The problem is if the people who voted for "bad" pad charts wouldn't have voted for them if they played pad themselves. Since it is labeled as a pad file competition, it is understandable that it may upset people who made files optimized for pad play. As you say though, there's nothing wrong with a strictly keyboard player liking a chart that isn't very paddable, even in a pad file contest, hell I really like some "broken" files myself - The issue is if they would have voted significantly different if they did play pad (or, in your case, finding some other way to rate the "pad-fun").

In a contest where everyone votes (which I like for a casual contest like this), there's not much that can be done to resolve this issue. We just have to hope that everyone remembers that it is a pad file competition, and does their absolute best to vote as fair as possible.

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1. Not everyone has the ability/resources/time to test all the files on a pad.
　a. They might not have a PC compatible pad.
　b. They might not be able to play all the files on (let's be real, most people only play this chart or ).
　c. They might not have time to play through them all on pad.
2. (In my opinion), playing index style is a perfectly legit way to judge a file. It's a better way to judge compared to playing ASL; or other ways.
3. Some people won't play files on pad unless it interests them on fingers first.

Maybe those people didn't vote for your file(s) because they can recognize the patterns being used in those guides, and are sick of seeing them. It's like people have their own tastes when it comes to steps or something. When judging simfiles, users can vote however they want. Who are you to get all mad because someone didn't play files on pad? It's not like the rules of the contest say that every file has to be played on pad. Even if it did, how would that be enforced anyway?

If you don't like it, you could always just stop participating since participation is voluntary.

@Loodee I can 100% see where you're coming from, but I'm pretty sure at least 90% of contestants optimize their files for pads and I'm also sure that most contestants have judged on their keyboards. It has never really been an issue until it was brought up just now. I'm also almost certain most contestants never minded their pad files being judged on a keyboard. And you're right: there isn't much we can do about it and we should just hope that everyone is judging fairly and similarly, and for the past couple of years, keyboard judging has been the trend and it has been effective. Like chewi said, if certain contestants don't like how things are done, participation isn't mandatory.

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Re-uploaded the .sm to use the correct artist title, "Tsunku."

1.
a. Then why are they in a pad contest?
b. Then they could play on an easier difficulty; isnt that why and are required?
c. Then why are they in a pad contest?
2. Your opinion is perfectly fine and I've already gone over why my opinion is different considering that this is a so-called pad contest.
3. This is supposedly a pad contrest; it is yet another disappointment to me to find out that some people screen the files and only play some of them on a pad.

"Who am I?" You phrase this as though I'm up on a high horse telling people they have to do things my way. I'm typing all this on my phone and I can't see my old posts, so if I did any of that, then I'm sorry. People are free to do as they please, just like I am free to leave a contest that is advertised as one thing but in reality everyone is doing something else. But I would have chosen not to participate from the beginning and saved myself a lot of time and effort if I had known the truth from the beginning. That's what's actually upsetting about this discovery (that, and the fact that I had been taking to heart the opinions of people who hadn't even played my pad simfile on a pad). Don't kid yourself that this is actually a pad contest, and dont lead other people astray in the future by calling it a pad contest. You can blame my lack of foresight because I didn't notice that the rules dont require people to play on a pad, but frankly that seems like blaming the victim. Is it really fair to say I shouldn't have assumed that the files would be played on pads in a pad contest? No.

I guess it doesn't really matter how you all handle things from here on out; I dont own the contest and you guys can do as you please. But before I go let me say this: even though it was apparently a fact well-known to some/most participants that many people were judging on keyboards, I think it would be the right thing to do to clarify in the rules that, while the simfiles are required to be pad-style, not all the judging will be on pads. That way, future newcomers wont have this same misunderstanding. Thanks for considering my opinion.

If you read the rules, you'd see that there is nothing that stated that these files have to be tested on pad, so if you're upset about it, it's due to your own ignorance about this contest and how it's been run on this website.

Furthermore, in my opinion, it's EXTREMELY easy for most experienced players to gauge how "fun" a pad chart is even if they aren't playing on pad. Certainly most of us can look at step patterns while we're playing on keyboard and tell if they would be uncomfortable on pad. I didn't buy HOTTEST PARTY 2 until years after it came out, but I didn't need to play the charts on pad to know that many of them were simply not enjoyable to play on pad.

Just like if you'd read my last post, you'd know I already addressed that point and asked for the rules to be clarified to prevent future misunderstandings.

Furthermore, in my opinion, it's EXTREMELY easy for most experienced players to sync a file close enough that it isn't completely unplayable.

There's no clarification needed. If it is not prohibited in the rules, then it is obvious that it's not forbidden. No one else has had this problem for the YEARS this contest has been run.

And how could you even be expected to enforce this rule that says you can only play the files on pad? It's completely ridiculous.


With an attitude like this, maybe you're right to sit this tournament out. This is for fun.


Boy, I was right. You're just flaming all over the place.

For everyone's information, the file is completely synced for me. My GO appears correct, but my files are appearing offsync to everyone else it seems. I didn't realize this until I uploaded my file and someone pointed it out to me, at which point I opted to simply quit the contest as I didn't have the time to try to sort through what was wrong with my sync. There's also at least one other person on this site who is having a similar issue.

But hey, feel free to get pissed at me because my files did better than yours. Is this whole thing really just because you're unhappy that your files aren't getting as many votes as you think they should?

So people without a SM pad shouldn't participate? Got it. Looks like a majority of us might as well drop out of the contest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pad files can be played on a keyboard. Pad files can be judged fairly on a keyboard. With practice, the difference between good and bad patterning can be as clear on a keyboard than it is on a pad. This had been the traditional form of judging since the beginning, and you seem to be the only person that has had a problem with it. You're saying the contest was falsely advertised, but where does it say a pad is required to judge? Sure it says only pad submissions are allowed, but nothing about judging with actual pads. If you judge using your pad, then kudos. I really do appreciate and admire the time and effort you spend into judging. But like I said earlier, what we consider a good pad file is up to us, whether we're playing on a pad or not.



That was completely irrelevant and uncalled for, and clearly you didn't read some people's posts thoroughly enough. I can confirm that Pie's laptop is acting up because we both have the same global offset, but his files show up as off-sync for me. No one knows how to solve the issue. Don't act as if your files are superior to his simply because your sync is functional.

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Thank you. I should note that it was ddrstepper who first pointed out the sync issues for me and had helped me try to figure them out for me, so I thank you for that as well.

You're right, Pie-kun; Im sorry for the personal attack. However, I strongly disagree that my misunderstanding was "ridiculous" just because it's never happened in previous years; a better explanation is that it wasnt a problem in previous years because no one ever discovered that everyone was judging with keyboards--after all, it wasn't a problem this year either until chewi revealed the information in his comment. Also, it is not obvious that because something isnt prohibited in the rules, it is therefore allowed and it is the responsibility of each individual participant to imagine all the possible things that are not written in the rules. By that logic, there are an infinite amount of actions that are allowed simply because the rules cant possibly forbid all of them. Anyway, some of us try to stick to the intended spirit of the rules, so my assumption was hardly a ridiculous one.