[HammyMcSquirrel]

Would it be too drastic of a compromise to allow people to ask a judge if a song they want to step is already in a private queue on a case-by-case basis? The only information needed would be the song title and possibly the song artist. With the potential of overlap in stepping files being more uncommon because of our diverse selection in songs, the same logic can also apply to the chance of a file in the private queue being exposed if we're allowed the chance to confirm.

I think the peace of mind would go a long way if people knew they had that option. I'm sure a lot of step artists have a different mentality towards stepping a fresh song for FFR vs a different take on an existing song in the game. In my case, even if a file I made ended up being the same if it were a V2/[Another] compared to a first release, I would rather put the time towards a different file. Not to sound as if I don't appreciate alternate takes on stepfiles in game, I just generally have more interest in contributing new songs to the game than more stepfiles.

As far as the surprise aspect of new files for tournaments, I can only speak for myself as someone who wouldn't be bothered by knowing a song name beforehand. If there was a list of songs and someone said, "Some of these might be in the next official tournament." I would actually see a potential of more hype because hearing the song would allow me to speculate on what kind of difficulty, division, etc it would be for and therefore make me pay more attention for its release. I feel that a big part of the tournament is the fact that it's a new stepfile for everyone. As long as people aren't being exposed to the stepfile itself beforehand, I don't see the system becoming less adequate.

I don't think anyone wants to remove the private queue entirely, but it's worth exploring a middle ground here.