[MinaciousGrace]

k since we're going all out time for me to post my thoughts on the subject because this is also something I happen to care about

first let's clear something up:

There's a difference between "drama" where people pettily squabble over minor and inconsequential differences in opinion and look like total asshats

and "drama" where a group of people incessantly circle jerk each other into oblivion due to inability and unwillingness to provide any critical feedback to each other for fear of hurting the feelings of the dude who's penis is up their ass and throw their arms up in a gigantic fit when they're told anything else by anyone else

so yes you invariably cannot have a pack exist without one of the two forms of "drama" but that doesn't mean that you get to sit there in your circle jerk and shrug off every instance of it as the former. Well I mean it wouldn't be a massive circle jerk if you weren't doing that but anyway that's besides the point because I'm telling you right now this is the second instance.

The second instance of "drama" tends to happen when there's a stark ideological difference between two groups and one group desperately clings to an inferior modus operandi derivative thereof for whatever reasons, and simultaneously refuses to modernize while prejudiciously chastising the works of others outside the circle jerk while also simultaneously continuing to churn out their own trite and banal works. That isn't to say that every technical chart is bad because that would be pretty antithetical to everything I believe in as well as untrue; some of the charts in this pack were excellent by any number of standards, however, the majority were fucking awful and entirely forgettable.

Yes we all know where this is going but I'm fucking tired of hearing people say shit like

"I'm looking at whether I'm having fun or not"
"all of the "technicalities" that we've been teaching over the years often times ends up stifling that creativity"

when they are the same people who are the same people saying shit like

"dumps are unacceptable and bad always and can never be creative or a legitimate form of art or expression"

And yes stargroup I do respect you as a creative mind and a stepartist but I cannot fucking wrap my head around how you can hold those two opinions at the same juncture in time.

It's fucking baffling that a group of "technical" "elite" stepartists can make the transition from "totally abiding by all technical rules" to "occasionally shunting technicality for expression and patterns that are fun to play" but can't seem to take the next step to "finding a balance between technicality and artistic liberties appropriate for the song in question".

It makes no sense from either a practical or artistic standpoint and I would go so far as to say that anyone still clinging to the entirely obsolete ideals of "pure technicality" is a total fucking idiot.

There is absolutely no reason that:

A dump cannot be fun.
A dump cannot reflect the essence of a song without adhering to its form.
A dump cannot also incorporate technical structuring into its form.
A dump cannot be made with effort.
A dump cannot be creative and expressive on multiple levels.
A dump cannot be "higher quality" than others in its genre.

There's no fucking rule that says every dump must have 64th walls and be a fucking unplayable abhorrent abomination of a file. In fact rules of "pure technicality" go further in this direction than any dump files. There are going to be fucking garbage technical files and garbage dump files and excellent technical files and excellent dump files- that's just how the fucking world works.

So no you guys don't get to sit here and circle jerk your entirely mediocre pack and pretend like it's the fucking stepmania messiah pack because it didn't allow dumps. And no you guys don't get to sit here as artists and circle jerk each other for putting an arrow to every obvious note strictly PR'd to the last one. That's not fucking hard. Not only is it not hard but the vast majority of files in this pack managed to offend very basic principles of stepping that no contemporary dump artists would make. Shit like don't put 10 fucking seconds of silence at the start of your file for no reason you fucking moron. Shit like don't insert 50 seconds of 2 nps slow sections when the rest of your file is 15 nps.

For fucks sake it's not even like this pack would never have been good if it didn't include dumps. Even a small amount of effort to refine most of the files in the pack would have had ridiculous return on investment in terms of quality vs time. But NO. We can't have that because telling someone making holdspam patterns the same nps as non holdspam patterns is fucking stupid from a play perspective might hurt their feelings. Fucking get over yourselves.

Every year you people get this fucking idea in your head that the game is totally dead and a new pack needs to be released and then you put all this fucking effort into it and shit it out and it's totally forgotten by the next year because you fucking make files nobody wants to play.

Why the fuck was FFRCP 4 such a massive colossal failure from the players' perspective? BECAUSE EVERY FUCKING FILE HAD 10 MILLION MINES BECAUSE APPARENTLY THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO EXPRESS ANY CREATIVITY IN CHART MAKING GOOD JOB GUYS.

Fucking get over yourselves. Either take your heads out of each others' asses long enough to understand what people who play the game want to play or just stop making charts and let us do it.