Erysys' DDR Edits

I've been working on making some challenging edit charts for some DDR songs that I don't think have difficult enough steps.
All of these are paddable singles charts made for the official sims I got here at ZIV. Figured I'd share them if anyone is interesting in trying them out. They are all 'Edit' difficulty, but made to be Challenge/Oni steps, and rated on the 1-20 scale.
I've got more that I want to make so I'll be uploading packs of them all at once as I finish them, and updating here. For now I'm just interested in making charts for existing songs that don't have a challenge chart, and don't have official steps higher than 13/14, but if you've got a request let me know.

Erysys Edits Pack 01
Songlist:
16 .59 / dj TAKA
15 CENTAUR / Jimmy Weckl
18 MAXIMZER / CLI-MAX S.
16 Programmed Universe / kors k
16 SEDUCTION / nc ft. FINALFORCE
16 Star Trail / Nhato
17 The Least 100sec / Hirofumi Sasaki
16 Two Months Off / TECHNO MASTERS
17 un deux trois / SDMS
15 VANITY ANGEL / FIX X

I myself am an editor (except a lot of my edits are notorious for being deliberately terrible and unplayable on pads).
I may as well have a look! Have you ever tried writing Double mode steps before?

EDIT: I'm test playing a few of your steps as I write this. I'm aware these are your first files. If you want me to talk about some issues I've had with them, what you could do to improve, etc. let me know! I'll be happy to get back to you in detail.

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MAXIMIZER: Dear GOD, that was... er, interesting. This was /not/ fun to play on pad.

.59: Surprisingly very good. I was about to say "I love the bracket-jumps onto 16ths and how they'll piss off DDR players", but then there's a few that you simply cannot bracket, so... er... Never mind, they're just jumpsteps at a high speed.

The Least 100Sec: Also another good one. Again, obviously ITG-skewed with plenty of jumpsteps, which I'm okay with.

Programmed Universe: Slightly less good than The Least 100Sec and .59. Maybe has to do with the fact that the song itself has a slowdown that kills the fun for me.

Only played four, but played all on pad, so there's something. Overall I think this isn't bad at all and definitely makes it more fun for me to play stuff like .59 when there's an actually challenging chart behind it. Keep it up.

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@Newbstepper: I want to do doubles charts at some point, but I've only got one pad to play with at home, so no real way to test them out. I'm open for any feedback too. I think I went a little overboard on a couple of these, but that was kinda the point. ;P

@Quickman: Thanks for playing. MAXIMIZER was intended to be pretty ridiculous. I was going to try and chart a 19 for it too, but I couldn't do that without it being too stupid. I'm more of an ITG player anyway so I guess it shows in the charts I make. I have some full ITG-style charts (hand, mines etc) that I've done too. I may upload those soon when I get graphics made for em.

Thanks for checking out my pack.

For today, I'll briefly talk about just a few basic things that you should know if you wish to create pad files that are more enjoyable. I found these issues to be pervasive throughout your pack, so maybe we can work on these first.

1) Creating a smooth flow
I'm sure you know about it already for the most part, but often times, it is disturbing when you make a file that forces a player to use the same foot twice to hit two consecutive arrows. This is often referred to as "double-stepping", and for many players, this often breaks what feels like a continuous stream. They can be tolerable if 1) the two arrows are sufficiently spaced apart (at least 1 200 BPM beat apart is my personal tolerance level), and 2) they appear no more than once or twice at said speed.

The first example is taken from your Star Trail chart. Here, it's just 8ths at 148 BPM, so having it once in a while (if by error) is usually tolerable. Persistent double stepping often breaks your balance, however.


Now let's take a look at a 140 BPM 16th stream you put in un deux trois (you'll see this same song brought up a few more times). Had you replaced all those up arrows with down arrows, a player could perform them as a regular crossover (although that creates another issue I'm going to discuss in the next paragraph). You generally want to avoid doing this.


Here's un deux trois again (right after the holds above). When testing a chart, you should take some time to remember which foot you used last. You don't have to try out on a pad to know; it can be visually detected in many cases.



2) Using jumps sparingly
This seems to be a theme with many of your charts; on certain 16th streams, you seem to like putting jumps whether or not they are warranted by the song itself. In most cases, you want to limit jumps to where the music either gives you strong beats, or when you need to switch directions (preferably when both happen).

Here's un deux trois (which made a 1st, 2nd, and now a 3rd appearance) - yeah, you certainly went very overboard here.
Most players do not find NGO S- to be very fun, for similar reasons - lots of fast jumps without good (musical) reason. Add to the fact that many of these are corner jumps away from the arrow before it - in many cases, this makes a chart needlessly challenging.

Yeah, that's a bit much to say the least.


3) Alternating facing directions often
If you ever performed a crossover correctly, you probably noted that you need to turn your body left or right to hit the arrows. For example, a L-D-R-D-L or L-D-R-L-U-R pattern starting with your left foot would make you face towards the right, as you hit the right arrow with your left foot. Similarly, a L-U-R-U-L or L-U-R-L-D-R pattern starting with your left foot would make you face towards the left, as you hit the right arrow with your left foot. If this isn't familiar to you, give it a try on a pad.

Facing one direction (either left or right) for too long is often considered poor chart design, because its repetitive motions cause players carpal tunnel. You want to have a good (although not necessarily perfect) balance of left and right turns.

Here's a shot taken from your Two Months Off chart. Unless you intended the player to spin at this speed (I really hope not), you'd force the player to step twice with the left foot to start each stream without tripping himself/herself. This can be fixed by placing another arrow in between the short bursts of 16ths or removing an arrow from each stream.

Assuming you did that, the player would perform R-D-L-D-R twice starting with the right foot. Once the left arrow is hit with the right foot, the player faces left. This alone is fine, but if you continued this pattern for a while longer, it would be less than a pleasant experience for the player. You want to make sure the player faces to the right soon afterwards.

Perhaps the most well-known example of a poorly designed official chart in this regard is SUNKiSS♥DROP S-. Take note that you don't want to put this many repetitive patterns, especially if they have a direction bias (like it does here).



Finally, I'm sure you knew this already... but I'll remind you just in case.
Please refrain from spamming arrows (especially jump arrows) just because you can, like you did in your MAXIMIZER chart. It's just not a fun way to increase difficulty. The chart's difficulty feels forced rather than called for.


Yes, I understand it was tempting to make a chart as "ridiculous" as is. It's great if you can have fun with it though. But if you want to share your pack with others for them to actually play on pad, it is usually a bad idea to make a chart hard for the sake of making it hard.



If you're capable of reading charts correctly, you don't really need pads to test out a chart (although it's certainly a good idea to use them, if you have them). You could do various things to test out charts, including using your hands (or feet) to follow the arrows while sitting and watching the screen. One other thing you can do is to draw out a double pad on paper, and use your fingers as legs to move around the pads (this is optional).

Well that's it for today! Thanks for sharing your work! If you want me to review specific things privately, feel free to message me at any time.

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Well there's an in depth response. Thanks a bunch.
Some of those double-steps were certainly intentional (Star Trail for example), but there were definitely some I didn't consider when I was charting (like in Two Months Off and un deux trois, which definitely got a little overboard).

Definitely appreciate the detailed feedback though, thanks for the taking the time.

My pleasure. Glad you appreciate my response! I look forward to your future packs! Take care, fellow stepper!

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