[Concluded] 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

[MarioNintendo]

I'm happy that AJ gave me an 8 at Wheelpower and Go. Made me feel like I knew what I was doing, after all. In the end, I might've lost because some judges were not the best at their job. I'm fine with that.

The fact that we get simfile feedback helps us giving feedback to judges so that themselves get better at doing their jobs. And that's totally fine.

I "stepped" Palms Read 2 because I knew I had no chance of winning this tournament. I had quit the moment I saw the notes for round 2. I felt like none of my efforts were getting paid off. I was comparing my files to others, with my keen eye, and often thought "this should rank me between third and first place for sure". Not being narcissistic or subjective or anything, I really believed it. Over the first two rounds, it became quite apparent that my stepping style simply did not come across. I am curious to know what the issue was with it. Were the judges looking for technicality over fun? The opposite? I can't tell after all of this. I am confident in the fact that I am a great stepper and that, with maybe a different judge roster, I could have had real chances of winning. However, after all this turmoil, I am fine with the results as they are. I gave up, so no hard feelings for round 3. I just wish I'd give up for other reasons, though.

I wasn't doing this for the money in the first place, I was legitimately trying to get better at stepping. I put my soul in every one of my simfiles, which is no easy work. I play them over and over until my fingers know them by heart. They might not be perfect, by any means. I can find many mistakes in my first two serious submissions, since I kept on playing them even well after the rounds ended. I still feel they deserved better, but I can live with that.

I have to be honest, here. I love the people who organized this tournament and helped it become a reality. But I absolutely hated how it unfolded. That's not even because I had no idea of what was happening behind the scenes, or because the deadlines were not met (I always expect delays, really, FFR Queue taught me this). It was because I genuinely felt like I gave it my all and got nothing in return. Heh, maybe I should have judged for this tourney. Maybe in the end this is the result of my own choices. Irony. I'm not blaming anyone. Just a bit sad, is all.

So that 8/10 means a lot to me, AJ, and thank you for the solid review. I read what you wrote and I feel the exact same on all of those files. To you, I tip my hat. I could not have done it any better.

And I tip my hat to everyone else who made this happen as well, not just AJ. Hat tip all around. We as a community should learn from this event, because this did not happen in vain. In the end, I stepped two songs that I think should have seen the light of day, but never will. That's the only thing I'm sad about. The rest, truly, is fine with me.

[hi19hi19]

As well meaning as that post is, I encourage you not to pin any blame on the judges.
It's not easy being impartial, especially with so much on the line.

While I'm not Buddhist, I believe the Buddhist view of basic goodness is especially relevant here- nobody in this entire situation went into it with the explicit goal to hurt anyone else.
So you have to remember that these judgements were not born of malice but necessity- this is, after all, a competition, and you sign on to such things when you agree to compete.
It's fine to believe that the judges might not have agreed with your philosophy on what is valuable in a file (this is the origin of my complaint about the judging, by the way), but you can't hold them doing their best against them. Given the circumstances, every judge did what they thought was right.

The best attitude to have is to ignore attachment to what could have happened, and instead be proud of your own achievement and learn from the experience.

[MarioNintendo]

I don't blame anyone; truth be told, I don't even know who the other judges are lol. I simply said that because it seemed to be the thought floating around this thread (edit: that the judges were not the most qualified at judging). I don't have any problem revoking this idea, if that's how it came across.

I don't think the judges gave my file a lower a rating in order for them to win the prize. That thought is absurd, and in no way reflects my position. I simply mean that I at least felt reassured that AJ's reviews were in agreement with the way I felt over the files I played. For example, hi19, I completely disagreed with your reviews most of the time, and they made me uncomfortable, since I genuinely started questioning both my simfile tastes and my stepping abilities. So I just feel at peace now. No harm done. I regained confidence, and to me that's the most important thing.

Yeah, come to think of it, this tourney hurt my confidence in my stepping abilities as a whole, so I can't help but feel refreshed to see I wasn't so out of bounds with my files, at least in AJ's opinion (edit: which I have always deeply trusted).

[Wayward Vagabond]

I just hope the people who organized this will use it as a learning experience for next time. Stepcons are a neat idea that can potentially bring the best in steppers so its something I'd like to see continue

[PrawnSkunk]

This event was inspired by the drive to test something new. Had we had decided to challenge a bracket-style tournament, there is no knowing who might win, or how successful the outcome. We now know what does, and what doesn't work in an official stepcon. Although this event may end on a sour note, I would like to personally thank everyone in this tournament for participating! I hope everyone made a stepfile they are proud of. I will be organizing judge review distribution, so expect a little pink envelope complete with Hershey's kisses in your inbox tomorrow! xoxo

[hi19hi19]

Thanks.

[TC_Halogen]

Any word on when the Paypal stuff will be sent out? I haven't received anything yet, but I was asked about information for receiving the prize.

[PrawnSkunk]

Prizes have been sent out today for all recipients who PM'd me their PayPal information.

[t-rogdor]

Originally Posted by PrawnSkunk

Prizes have been sent out today for all recipients who PM'd me their PayPal information.

thanks now i can actually say playing stepmania helped fund my drug addiction

[ilikexd]

It didn't, though.

[PrawnSkunk]

All judge review notes have been sent out!

[t-rogdor]

Originally Posted by ilikexd

It didn't, though.

you wouldn't believe what $25 can buy these days

[MarioNintendo]

Thanks prawn

[Wayward Vagabond]

I'd like to know who judged my spinal explosion girl file.

[xXOpkillerXx]

I'd like to know who judged my Children's War file.

[hi19hi19]

On my final, I lost points from some judges for overusing color theory (a valid complaint) and for making an understepped, easy file (also valid) and for some minor consistency issues (definitely valid)

But there's one review I swear isn't even about my file:

"cuts in the beginning are pretty messy. they need better transitions."
If you listen to the entire thing, you'll learn that my file is literally just a whole 3 minute block near the end of the song. There are no cuts at all in my file outside the start and end.
And thus every transition is exactly as it is in the original song. I lost points from other judges for my file being too long or starting/ending at a weird place (very valid) but it's pretty blatantly wrong to say my transitions are bad because there are none.

"better syncing can avoid some quantization errors (i.e. unnecessary 192nds on rolls)"
With three obvious exceptions, there are no 192nds on any of my rolls except for where I intentionally used color theory. The exceptions being the 5/4 roll (5/4 is properly quantized with 192nds using a white arrow) and of course the two rolls that change speed, rolls where the winning files also had white arrows because that's correct.

"the cuts are more than likely what is causing sync issues."
There are no sync issues because there are no cuts rofl the song is literally just 200bpm the whole way through and so is my file.
If something looks like a sync issue, it's because I used high BPMs and subbeats to make sure my color theory arrows were actually in the right place. This is a pretty important technique and if anything that should get me MORE points instead of less, as most people who use color theory just leave their white arrows a 192nd early/late and this frequently causes frame issues in FFR.



I swear this review was meant for someone else's file.
That or I'll just have to content myself knowing someone has finally snatched the record of "most objectively incorrect review of one of my files" from its long-time record holder.
Oh well.


EDIT- The review that is very obviously Dossar's is actually the review with the most helpful feedback. (Also a pretty crushingly low rating, but certainly well-justified) So, I appreciate that a lot.
Is it bad I can tell who a judge is just from the format they use for their notes...?

[lurker]

it only says that no one cared enough about reviewing to come up with some kind of standard
the fact that aj's review on my first round file was three times longer than the others combined is a much more blatant sign of that

[xXOpkillerXx]

Here are three of the four notes I had Lmfao:

Children's War (F5) - 3/10
layering in intro is much too dense, same with sections such as @ 52s. additionally, it's not really anything close to straight jumpstream. same with the other sections that are jumpstream. file is incredibly dumpy with mountains of mistakes mostly in the jumpstreams.

Childrens War (F5)
[3/10]
- This file just looks like a gigantic copy and paste of hand stream
- A song like this wasn't meant to be stepped as a nuclear blast jumpstream/handstream file. It's just the same repetitive patterns over and over with nothing interesting to the song.

Children's War (F5) - 2

Not too sure about the triple at 9.922
Jump usage is odd at 24.655 and there are too many jumps at the second part of this section.
I'm not sure why you did jump/handstream for the vocals
The 8th note triple usage near the end makes no sense.



I dunno what to think of that seriously...

Judge 1: I don't get what you mean by "straight jumpstream". I purposely layered my file heavily because I think it's a very hyped song that absolutely fits such a high difficulty level (without being fucking buzzes everywhere rofl). And yes there are sounds to the 16ths which let me step those parts that way to keep the density higher than in the less intense parts of the song. Also "mountains of mistakes" well you're a judge damnit your job is to point out those mistakes so people can fix them...

Judge 2: I don't even know if I want to answer that. Every JS pattern I modified as much as I could (which was fairly enough) and please tell me why it wasnt Meant for JS.

Judge 3: I'm just concerned about that last comment, not sure what you meant by that (ending handstream?)

The other judge was also pretty subjective but gave detailed notes (thank you) with comparisons to help understanding the mistakes.

That's all I wanted to say :3

[MarioNintendo]

Just an update, I disagree with my reviews as well for the most part... But different tastes for different people

[Gradiant]

Originally Posted by xXOpkillerXx

Childrens War (F5)
[3/10][/b]
- This file just looks like a gigantic copy and paste of hand stream
- A song like this wasn't meant to be stepped as a nuclear blast jumpstream/handstream file. It's just the same repetitive patterns over and over with nothing interesting to the song.

I didn't play the file, but this is some pretty bad notes stuff right there.