honest question

[ScylaX]

That's something I wondered about since I learned about the difference between spread and index style.
Why did people play index in the old times? And why was it a fad? Because that's certainly not what I'd qualify as a "natural" or "practical" disposition to play any arrow game ever.

Beatmania players used to have one hand for the 7keys and the other hand for the turntable because that was a natural position when files weren't mad [A], even though it would appear strange today, it was a kinda rational approach at the times.
But I can't get what subtleties back then would have encouraged people to play index. When I say I wondered about that I mean "I wouldn't even have considered index style to be something valuable and conceivable before seeing that much people play like this".

So there, give me your best shot : why would people play index before ? seriously that's a style as impractical as it gets. When I started Stepmania in 2007 and played exclusively pad files, spread style was just the way my finger naturally placed themselves on the keyboard, would I have been a genius back in 2005?????

[choof]

the only thing I can think of is from when dance with intensity was the main simulator
it was a dance dance revolution simulator, so two feet on pad = two fingers on arrows

I never played index seriously, but when I started playing FFR/SM, I did play four fingers on arrows

[alloyus]

Thought people played index to imitate pad play

[rCaliberGX]

Emulating DDR, and because of that in the old days if you used anything other than index (and maybe one handed?) you were the equivalent of bs

[Izzy]

Because it felt like a more legitimate style of play at the time to emulate 2 feet on a pad. The game and community evolved and people moved past that. As an old index player I still find it to be a lot of fun in its own way. The more drastic hand movements and positioning is much more involved in my opinion.

[Trumpet63]

Originally Posted by ScylaX

I wouldn't even have considered index style to be something valuable and conceivable before seeing that much people play like this.

I think you're asking, why don't people play using the meta-game's style. The short answer is, it's fun.

Another way of thinking of it, if a player is unsuccessful using the meta, i.e. spread, they might find themselves more at home using a different style or a different set of rules. In that case, they reduce the number of people that they are competing with, the implicit seriousness of what they're doing is reduced, and they are still being challenged by what they're doing. All signs point to a more enjoyable experience.

You can't really criticize the way a person plays a game.

[noname219]

The game didn't allow to assign keys until much later, around 2008 if I remember correctly. And a lot of people moved to spread around that time.
Before that, people used programs like Autohotkey to simulate spread play. Spread may seem more natural now, but it wasn't possible back in the very early days. There's tons of threads in 2003-2004 about the best finger position and playing style, you can find some answers there.

[ScylaX]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

I think you're asking, why don't people play using the meta-game's style. The short answer is, it's fun.

Another way of thinking of it, if a player is unsuccessful using the meta, i.e. spread, they might find themselves more at home using a different style or a different set of rules. In that case, they reduce the number of people that they are competing with, the implicit seriousness of what they're doing is reduced, and they are still being challenged by what they're doing. All signs point to a more enjoyable experience.

You can't really criticize the way a person plays a game.

Index is an alternative way to play, just as pettanko was, just as any restrictive rule you can apply to yourself to explore new aspects of the game
But that's about it. It's a restriction. And it asks more experiences to be skilled in index than what it takes to be skilled in spread.
That's why I was really surprised to see how popular it was and how seriously some people seemed to take it back in the days and stuff. It's actually quite fascinating how the "keyboard community" evolved from the traditional DDR. Dark times.........a very conflictual era........it was war back then..........

Originally Posted by MrPopadopalis25

I don't think it ever occurred to me to try spread when I was starting out. I began playing FFR and SM because I was on a DDR craze and was waiting to buy a pad, and one-hand was what came natural due to other computer games having you put one hand on the arrow keys. Then the switch to index was to replicate pad play since most of the files I played were pad files anyhow. I guess I stuck with index moving forward into KB files because I was accustomed to the style already and the files I liked (streamy stuff like CIA Rave, Rose, Gradeus, For FFR, etc) were more fun when played that way.

Yeah usually one-hand is the second style I see people naturally adopting, but index? I have yet to witness that miracle

Originally Posted by noname219

The game didn't allow to assign keys until much later, around 2008 if I remember correctly. And a lot of people moved to spread around that time.
Before that, people used programs like Autohotkey to simulate spread play. Spread may seem more natural now, but it wasn't possible back in the very early days. There's tons of threads in 2003-2004 about the best finger position and playing style, you can find some answers there.

Actually I still don't know if it's a good/decisive argument, as I personnally started playing spread with my arrow keys too, just like playing one-handed may come naturally. It's not obvious how it makes playing with both your indexes more practical or how it was a decisive reason to foster index style, you clearly restrict yourself from laying the fingers that you keep over your keyboard on your arrow keys.

[lurker]

ffr didn't allow for custom keys so play was focused around the dpad
one hand and "four key" (proto spread, most people's keyboards didn't allow hands) were natural choices for those with little to no DDR experience. those who did play DDR, however, played index since that more accurately simulated pad play
in the early years index was the fastest way to play since it gave one's fingers the most freedom to move around
stepmania allowed spread play years before ffr did so it's no surprise innovations happened there then very slowly trickled down

[noname219]

Originally Posted by ScylaX

Actually I still don't know if it's a good/decisive argument, as I personnally started playing spread with my arrow keys too, just like playing one-handed may come naturally. It's not obvious how it makes playing with both your indexes more practical or how it was a decisive reason to foster index style, you clearly restrict yourself from laying the fingers that you keep over your keyboard on your arrow keys.

Here's some very early answers :

Originally Posted by mrkatana

I use two fingers, which are my right index and ring finger. It just feels uncomfortable any other way.

Originally Posted by ReiWonr

well my 1 hand is more accurate and ive been doing it for 8 months while what me and my friend call pecking (2handed with index's) is a tad more fun and better for fast runs, but alot less accurate. On slow songs i 1hand and on fast i 2 hand. Im happy because i just fc'ed FF7 battle theme 2handed, and am on the hi scores for it

Originally Posted by Reach

2 index fingers is a pwnage setup dude.

actually its my favorite.

cause its fun as hell, you can hit really fast arrows and you don't get tired. you can also hit basically every arrow patten with ease...except turn/spin stuff which can be really annoying.

being good 1 handed is the most impressive. and anyone who thinks 1 handed is easier because of 3 fingers is wrong. very wrong.

Also Arch0wl was an index player :

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

I use 2 fingers, my index finger on my right hand and my index finger on my left hand.

But yeah, once you reach a certain level of ability, 2-handed directional keys was considered a better technique than index.

[Mollocephalus]

index is fun as hell and i only learned to play it in the latest year after a lifetime of spread. if you try it you'll see!

[ilikexd]

Besides all the reasons why people would choose it as a play style, it has a few advantages in that it seems to be easier to get near-perfect MA and even FA with index rather than spread on evenly-spaced streams. Trilling in general is easier, and one-handed trilling is massively easier as well.

[justin_ator]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

Another way of thinking of it, if a player is unsuccessful using the meta, i.e. spread, they might find themselves more at home using a different style or a different set of rules. In that case, they reduce the number of people that they are competing with, the implicit seriousness of what they're doing is reduced, and they are still being challenged by what they're doing. All signs point to a more enjoyable experience.

This is actually ~90% of the reason why I play Diagonal Scroll still

[Guest15937]

I didn't even know most people used two hands until like 2 years after I started, and that's the main reason I still use one hand today.

[choof]

Originally Posted by ilikexd

and one-handed trilling is massively easier as well.

is there truly such a thing as one-handed trilling when playing index

[Leo137]

That's because you played Stepmania because you wanted to get the feel of DDR and score better next time you go to the arcade, and if you didn't had a dancemat, that keybinding goes perfectly to match the movement of your legs (crossovers are a thing in DDR and you cannot simulate that in spread).

As a similar case: Beatmania players when playing lr2 use to keymap the keyboard to match the pad shape (something like shift/x/d/c/f/v/g/b), even if you could say that the natural way to play lr2 would be a o2jam-esque config (caps/s/d/f/space/j/k/l)

[ScylaX]

Originally Posted by noname219

Here's some very early answers :

the zeitgeist of the ancient era sure was interesting