The Simfile Quality Debate

[Kraezymann]

So I am confused, please help me out.

Pertaining to the songs stargroup and kaiten123 are talking about; I haven't listened to either song, so no one can say that one song is better than another, right?. Because there is no proof that its true?

Its the same when I see posts about files. Until I play a certain file, no one is right, correct? Because at that point all I am reading are opinions about it. And so, the file becomes completely subjective (unless there is something mathematically wrong with it, like offset or the song is of poor audio quality), right?

I think that having something that doesn't have anything special about it (sg provided Planet Karma as an example) still wouldn't appeal to everyone, because of the fact that it doesn't have anything special about it:

Originally Posted by stargroup

==Planet KARMA== is almost universally liked because it doesn't contain strong features that the community is unfamiliar with

Wouldn't someone find that boring? Unoriginal?

Since it is impossible to please everyone at any given time, there can be no basis for something to be factually better than something else.

Or did I completely miss the point? Remember, I don't quite understand everything within the debate, so I probably screwed up somewhere.

[kaiten123]

Originally Posted by stargroup100

There is absolutely no way in which that first song is better than the second.

its funnier and more original, but of course that is my subjective opinion. in your subjective opinion that may not be the case.

Originally Posted by stargroup100

it's about objective standards that define what makes certain sounds pleasing to the ears.

different people ears find different sounds pleasing. actually its not even your ears that decide what sounds are pleasing, its your brain and:

Originally Posted by dictionary

sub·jec·tive:
existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.

Originally Posted by different dictionary

Resulting from or pertaining to personal mindsets or experience

so yea, by definition, whether a sound is "pleasing" is subjective. it takes place entirely in your mind. someone who's mind is different enough will find different sounds pleasing and you have no objective claim of your pleasing sounds being better than his.

any criteria for quality you make based on something being "pleasing" will inevitably be subjective since pleasure is a subjective experience.

Originally Posted by Kraezymann

I think that having something that doesn't have anything special about it (sg provided Planet Karma as an example) still wouldn't appeal to everyone, because of the fact that it doesn't have anything special about it: Wouldn't someone find that boring? Unoriginal?

i actually quit out of planet karma both the times i tried to play it since it wasn't interesting

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by Yesssss

oh... I thought that similarities within the biological responses of the human population constitutes as objectiveness whereas the differences were the subjective elements.

Apparently they're both subjective? Is there no word for "similarities within the biological responses of the human population?"

There is no reason to believe that a particular style of stepping is more biologically appealing than another style of stepping. If anything, people are conditioned to favor the charts they've become accustomed to playing most frequently.

[Yesssss]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

There is no reason to believe that a particular style of stepping is more biologically appealing than another style of stepping. If anything, people are conditioned to favor the charts they've become accustomed to playing most frequently.

Uh... actually having the bpm right is a "style" of stepping that is universally more appealing...

[stargroup100]

In the case of Planet Karma, I did say that there wasn't any strong features, but there were some aspects that made it a little bit different from other charts. For starters, rather than being one really long song, it's more like 5 smaller completely different movements, which is easier to keep the player engaged. In addition, there are small details that add significant appeal, such as changing backgrounds and panning effects. In this sense, the chart is a little bit more than just "a boring chart with nothing special about it."

My point however, is that if there were strong features, there would be no way it could be a popular chart. Pop songs are the same way. It could be an unoriginal song with nothing special about it, but the fact that it doesn't have strong features is what makes it popular.


Let's take another comparison. A chart can be "objectively wrong" if it's off-sync, as in the BPM and rhythms are wrong. Now the question is, why is this considered objectively wrong? It's not because it's impossible to enjoy. It's because it's a standard that we have set. Why is this a standard? We understand that lining up notes with the amplitude peaks makes a chart inherently more fun. Likewise, finding other patterns can also make a chart inherently more fun. Positioning the notes on the columns in relation to specific frequencies (pitch relevance) is an example. Does that mean a chart that does not follow pitch relevance isn't fun? No. However, doing so does help make your chart inherently more fun. In this way, "objective" qualities of a chart are really no different from "subjective" qualities. Art is subjective in many ways, but without objective rules and standards, you just have a chaotic subject of absolutely nothing that can be taken seriously and studied.


Another reason why a lot people think a lot of things art-related are more subjective than they actually are, is because of the psychological inclination to be more open-minded and liberal. People think that by saying everything is subjective and there are positive qualities to everything, they will become more open-minded and seem more intelligent. A bad song could have a positive quality to it, but it doesn't make the whole song overall any good. However, this inclination to subjectivity is flawed because it lacks common sense. The ability to logically and emotionally interpret a piece of work is obstructed by the need to appear open-minded. You can verbally express that you dislike a song and still recognize its positive qualities, but it doesn't change the fact that you hate the song. But the fact that you can recognize this means you already can tell the difference between quality and preference. In such a way, the distinction does exist.

[Arch0wl]

Since bufang and Yesssss made the same point re: bpm, I'll just save time and address Yesssss's:

Originally Posted by Yesssss

actually having the bpm right is a "style" of stepping that is universally more appealing

Even BPM isn't totally consistent across games, since some people like doubled/halved BPMs depending on the way the song "sounds" -- MAX300, for example -- and fancy BPM effects a la O2Jam. Still, most people wouldn't consider sufficient syncing a stepping style because that comes before any notes are placed. And even if they did, the variation in preference after you have sufficient syncing is enormous.

Also, this brings up an interesting point:

Originally Posted by stargroup100

Let's take another comparison. A chart can be "objectively wrong" if it's off-sync, as in the BPM and rhythms are wrong.

While I can't think of anyone who likes a 150 BPM song stepped at 145 BPM, there are countless examples across music games where people have liked charts with "wrong" rhythms.

[ScylaX]

It tends to be objective when you get to be used to the technical parameters involved in the game, such as the rythmic tropes in the music. Anybody that plays DDR on pad for instance will not naturally be concerned about that because the chart is directly focused in the vibes and not on "musical details". The difference with KB chart is the fact that, with the time, it became more and more centralized over the "actual" sounds of the music stepped and thus, founding a "technical" aspect of the game.

So yeah it's really just a matter of experience but the community tends to have a few opinions (such as the technical accuracy of stepfiles) that became canonical for whatever reason. When I get back to playing some files I used to love when I began to play the game, I just feel like they're not of my taste anymore since I conditioned myself to play "correct/modern packs" for a while.

[Arch0wl]

Even communities go through preference changes when the charting authority changes and they're expected to get used to a different style. The methodology for determining what was a "good" 8-foot chart in the Tournamix era of DDR is now very, very different. Back then you were expected to be inventive with rhythms, and going to the song's main melody (what they called "karaoke") was frowned upon. They would even welcome double steps, which are something of a sin to some stepping styles now. Largely due to ITG and the influence of charters like Chris Foy/DukAmok/Omid, the DDR community's ideal 8-footer now would be, at best, a 3/5 in the Tournamix view due to being too "karaoke" among other things.

It's attractive to always imagine that our current state of doing something is an improvement on some previously worse state, but you have to establish that there's actually some form of progress happening. The food world can be an enormous victim to this false-progress mentality; the fashion world is at least honest about it.

[Patashu]

sorry but the only objective measure of simfile quality is how many people play it

by my Objective (tm) measure:

Legend of Zelda Remix is the best ffr file
A Kidney Stone is the best ts song (but An Exaggerated Simulation of Plasma Particle Trajectories hard is the best chart)
星の器～STAR OF ANDROMEDA (ANOTHER) is the best bms
Bad Apple!! is the best osu beatmap
MAX 300 is the best stepmania online file

[FFR4EVA_00]

it is impossible to make a file that everyone will love
it is only possible to make a file that everyone will hate because there are in fact very, very basic standards to be met in making a file
there is no place for objectivity in creative processes and continuing to make discussions such as this will only promote the idea that there is via reverse psychology or some similar means

[kaiten123]

stargroup, fun-ness isn't an inherent property of the chart and the fact that different people experience different amounts of fun from the chart is sufficient to prove that. by definition this makes in not objective.

objective does not simply mean following some set standard. for something to be objective it must be an inherent property of the object it's self completely distinct from how the object is experienced.

and arguing from "common sense" is silly since that is subjective too.

[kommisar]

why does everyone play uber rave even though it sucks

[Reincarnate]

Everything associated with simfile quality is subjective -- that's pretty much all there is to it.

[kommisar]

that could be said about anything in life

[stargroup100]

Originally Posted by kaiten123

stargroup, fun-ness isn't an inherent property of the chart and the fact that different people experience different amounts of fun from the chart is sufficient to prove that. by definition this makes in not objective.

Never said fun factor was an inherent property of a chart. The feeling of fun is the result of effective applications of techniques that are by nature inherently more fun than other approaches.

I could walk a mile and say that it felt really short, and another person could walk that same mile and say that it felt long. That doesn't change the length of the mile, it doesn't mean that our opinions are wrong, it just means that the length is one mile but might feel like something different.

Originally Posted by kaiten123

objective does not simply mean following some set standard. for something to be objective it must be an inherent property of the object it's self completely distinct from how the object is experienced.

The reason these standards are set this way is because that's "just the way it is." The fact is that putting notes on amplitude peaks is more fun than not doing so, so a chart is objectively better when it follow this technique (tl;dr charts are more fun when synced properly).

Math is similar. People consider math an objective field, but that doesn't mean that everything in math is proven to be perfect. For example, the very definition of an axiom of mathematics is a mathematical proposition that is not proven but simply taken for granted because it is self-evident.

Scientific theory works in a similar way too. It's an observation you assume to be true based on evidence, but does not need to be proven rigorously (that would be a scientific law iirc).

Just because maths and sciences are more pure than social sciences doesn't mean that there aren't objective conclusions drawn and applied from the social sciences. The concept of what makes a chart inherently more fun than another falls in the area of social sciences. Art is simply an organized approach to using what we know about we inherently like and then applying it to a piece of work. Without these objective criterion, you wouldn't have art.

Originally Posted by kaiten123

and arguing from "common sense" is silly since that is subjective too.

In what universe does the notion of common sense fall into a subjectivity?

Subjectivity means that different people have different views on the subject, but the definition of common sense is a set a propositions and beliefs that most people agree is of sound judgment. How is this subjective?


I mean, by your reasoning, everything in the world is subjective because everything we feel and sense is simply a set a electrical signals wired to our brains through our nervous system. For all we know, everything we know to exist and to be true could just be an illusion created by the neurons and the signals they send. Therefore, since nothing is objective, we might as well not even use the concept of objective and subjective.

The problem is, you still don't have a good idea of where to draw the line between subjective and objective. Heck, why bother calling things "natural" and "technology." Human beings are part of nature, so why isn't technology, which is made by humans which were made as a result of nature, part of nature? Let's just throw out the idea of nature and technology because everything is natural. The reason we have this distinction is because of the standards that we have set. Stop trying to over-reason things.

[justin_ator]

I don't really understand why there is so much of a debate over this topic. I mean, honestly every bit of this game is opinion. If someone decides they aren't going to play FFR that's most likely because in their opinion it isn't worth the time.

ps, I liked Planet Karma. It was an engaging file, and had, as stargroup said, several segments to it that keep things from getting repetitive and boring. Not a big fan of long songs though.

I like short songs.
I like files that are on sync.
I like files that have more than one pattern in them.
I don't like awkward patterns like the bursts in Hardkore Atomic.
I like jumpstream that doesn't get repetitive.
etc, etc.

It's all opinion...

edit: I fight with my girlfriend about music in general like this all the time. She's like, 'this band sucks' and I just look at her now because she knows my response to that is, 'no, you just don't like it.'

I don't like country, but that doesn't mean it is bad music.
Very similarly with stepfiles, just because I don't like the jacks in Einstein Rosen doesn't mean that the file is bad.

[stargroup100]

There is this much debate because we're trying to determine what objectives makes a chart fun. If we can figure out the answer to this question, we could make more quality charts more often.

But the argument is more focused on the distinction between the two rather than the application of the concepts.

[Reincarnate]

It's because you keep trying to call it an "objective standard." That's throwing off this entire thread.

If you want to define "objective standard" as "a standard that can apply to a large cluster arising from segmentation" then fine, but it's not really "objective."

It's like asking "What makes for a quality winter wardrobe?" The answer will depend on who you ask and what year you're asking it. Standards change all the time, so you're going to waste time in this discussion by trying to call things "objective" when so much changes from one iteration to the next across various groups.

You may touch on a few things that remain ever-present even among all iterations, and that's fine -- but calling it "objective" is going to be incorrect.

[stargroup100]

But that's just what it is. I can't think of a different way to describe it.

Why do pop songs use standard chord progressions? Because it sounds good. Why does it sound good? The intervals are considered to be consonant. Why are those intervals more consonant than others? They just are. No other reason. They just are.

"Objective standard" are the only words that come to mind to describe this. If you can think of a better way to describe it be my guest. But that's just how it is.

[Reincarnate]

Okay but I am telling you right now, you're misusing the word "objective."

"Objective" means something that is NOT influenced by feelings, bias, prejudice, or personal interpretations. It's true for me, true for you, and true for everyone. If you're making a statement that is based on opinions and not facts, it can't be objective.

A better phrase to use might be "core standards" or something. "Core" implies something central, important, and widely-present, but not necessarily universal and hard-set in its truths.

Originally Posted by stargroup100

Why do pop songs use standard chord progressions? Because it sounds good. Why does it sound good? The intervals are considered to be consonant. Why are those intervals more consonant than others? They just are. No other reason. They just are.

Standard chord progressions sound good to many people, but they don't sound good to ALL people. That's why you're going to derail the thread by calling it an "objective standard" because you're trying to imply that there is something that EVERYONE likes no matter what.

And we actually do understand why certain progressions sound better than others to different people -- and why we enjoy music to begin with. It ties into the nature of harmonics and the mathematics of language and how it weaves into various biological processes that are associated with utility-increasing metrics. Since these metrics will largely differ from person to person on a biological level, that's why we have different tastes in music. </gross oversimplication but the central point here is what matters>