Dump Batch Discussion Thread

[Lights]

At this point i feel theres such a severe disconnect on what constitutes a well made dump that further discussion is pointless as I don't see a lot of common ground to discuss this on with parts of the opposition.

Vrofl and Legacy files are not good comparisons in this case. we're just going to be going in circles until thats been established. Perhaps this would be worth revisiting once a few charts from this batch have been released.

[riktoi]

Originally Posted by WirryWoo

To song artists who in most cases aren't so experienced with rhythm gaming, vROFL and other dumps appear similarly to them so I am mainly speaking from their perspective. This isn't implying that all accepted dumps in Dump Batch are of similar quality to vROFL (and it is not what I'm implying by mentioning it).

You do not chart a song for the song artists. You chart for the player and/or yourself. It does not matter in the slightest how they see your file.

I genuinely don't understand how this can be so difficult. Your argument literally boils down to transformative work shouldn't be transformative, which is just a flat out ridiculous ideology to have.

[_choof]

Originally Posted by klimtkiller

I stepped the TV static very accurately to the music. that part took me hours. ffr is the only 'true' 4k rhythm game left because it actually steps accurately to the music, and it makes ffr unique.

rhythm game purism is such a funny argument
lmao

[_choof]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Not coincidentally, it's pretty much universally agreed upon that almost all the original files in FFR are huge pieces of shit.

is this because of the early stepping meta paired with the state of ffr's engine circa early 2000s or is this because people were intentionally stepping things with incorrect tempos and "incorrect" patterns
you've been a member of this site long enough to know about the game's limitations and that the community's general understanding of what made a file classically good took years to truly develop, even with all of dumb gatekeepy shit that went on during the dark chancellor's era

Originally Posted by WirryWoo

The point I’m raising is from the perspective of the song artist who we’ve all gone out to seek for permissions to use their work and not related to how FFR should remain outdated in the charting meta to cater to the older crowd. If a buffet potentially have many food options, is it intended for the chefs to go serve everything in their inventory to the hungry customers? They can if they want but in most buffets, that’s not the main goal. Similarly, in most cases, it’s not the main intention for the song artist to create content for FFR that calls for dump files.

for many artists, rhythm games are nowhere on their radar when it comes to production. that's even true for many of the styles of music that are currently in ffr. artists in certain idm scenes like terminal11 were physically releasing music in the early 2000s on obscure labels that had absolutely no connection to rhythm games, not even tangentially. the entirety of monstercat is mainstream festival edm. if you want to bring up the pattern argument, artists might be able to catch glimpses of pattern usage in a chart as it's playing in front of them but beyond a certain level it all gets parsed as a blur.

I really think this entire conversation is sullied by virtue of what we call these charts. the etymology of "dump" is that we're just "dumping arrows," and yeah if you tell an artist that you used their music to "create a dump," they have zero context and will assume you're calling their music a "steaming dump."

imo a lot of this can be averted by referring to them as something different, and I really think "abstract" is a much better and much more accurate term to describe them. you're not charting something literally, you're abstracting the feel of the music into the chart itself.

Now that we have more advanced charting mediums, accomplishing creating improved content compared to older times is much more straightforward.

this is all great and cool but still doesn't resolve the problem of a lot of the end-game music being more and more unlistenable as the difficulty increases.

I am not opposed to removing older files (or any files that are deemed low quality) that don’t fit current standards of stepping and having it be fun to play, but I think that’s one controversial opinion I will continue to hold and will always receive push back when I actively make that heard lmfao.

do not remove old content from the game, remove it from ranks

[Tru]

Originally Posted by bmah

I feel as if dumps attack FFR's identity, not that FFR had much of an mechanics-based identity that differentiated it from other rhythm games in the first place. The resistance against putting dumps side by side to normal files is because it brings the game closer to other simulator VSRGs, and in turn REDUCES the uniqueness of FFR. It's not that such files lack merit; it's that FFR has less and less that makes it attractively different from other games, besides maybe a lack of hold arrows. I'd love for FFR to invent a whole new mechanic, but we lack the resources to really make something totally new that stands out. Currently, what makes FFR unique has more to do with what types of charts the game has to offer as opposed to a gameplay-based distinction (except no holds of course). A lot of FFR's past identity was unfortunately based more on limitations rather than innovations. Some of these limitations that were resolved I think greatly improved FFR as a whole, such as weaning ourselves off of framer-based gameplay. But I'm not entirely sure how much FFR would benefit from dumps, though I'm totally willing to have them in the game as a separate category. To place them side by side with normal files is to introduce homogeneity to FFR's identity.

To me, dump files forces us to rethink FFR's identity, how much people even care about identity anymore, and if FFR's overall growth as a site and community can continue with limitations on potential innovations. Dumps to me is one more step towards a lack of uniqueness - but it remains to be seen whether new folks will choose FFR versus other VSRGs in the future. We're certainly getting a lot of new players currently, but they're mainly from pre-existing rhythm gaming communities and I'd like to see some more organic growth. At the very least, dumps are just catering to the echo chamber of seasoned rhythm gamers and we're not really doing much to make it attractive for new, novice players.
Overall, we're looking more inwards than we are outwards IMO.

FFR's content niche, at least since the end of the widget era, has focused on well-polished, quality charts made by some of the best steppers in any vsrg.

FFR's content niche, with the addition of dumps, will focus on well-polished, quality charts made by some of the best steppers in any vsrg.

Many recent file submissions have included some elements that one might have associated only with dump files. These files pushed the boundaries of what FFR would accept. And we've accepted many of them. Because they're well-polished, quality charts.

So this batch just reduces FFR's boundaries to more thorough dump charts -- rather than a handful of elements like in wubdumps, you can make the whole chart have interesting elements to interpret the music to. We're really just allowing another style of well-polished, quality charts.

Just because the boundaries have changed doesn't mean you can't still push them further. Just because we're allowing more explicitly dump charts doesn't take away from traditional "tech" charts. If it's a well-polished, quality chart, it'll be equally appreciated.

It's just up to us judges to maintain the well-polished, quality status of charts with the addition of dumps. I have every confidence in the judge team to do so. We're still looking for internal consistency and musical relevance, as well as effectiveness and "not-complete-bs-ness" of a stepartist's choices. These are exceptionally similar to what we're already looking for. Even if many of the judge team hasn't/don't make dump files, we're also not above asking for insight from people more experienced with dumps to help ensure we're accepting well-polished, quality charts.

Novice players most likely won't see dumps, at least until they skillboost up a bunch from passing Control. I'm not certain it's possible to make a dump chart easier than at least ~65 in FFR's current difficulty scale. But I'd love to be proven wrong on this with well-polished, quality charts.

What really made FFR unique among vsrg's was always being able to play well-polished, quality charts made by some of the best steppers in any vsrg. But also to do that in a web browser with no real additional downloads. Returning that capability after the death of Flash is in development.

--

I also vehemently oppose segregating dumps in any way, be it with a tag, new genre, removed from regular level ranks, whatever. We'd just be setting ourselves up for categorization hell (is x file a dump?) when we encounter those files that blur the edges between dump and "tech." We already have a number of those in the game, contributing to level ranks, behaving like regular files. Because they are regular files.

Just because dumps in FFR is "new" (despite having some already) doesn't mean we need to distinguish them separately in any way. A news post about it is more than enough. We didn't need to segregate Blooddrunk v1 just because it had something new to FFR at the time (hands).

There's no need for any disclaimer on the well-polished, quality dump charts we're likely to accept.

--

Originally Posted by Lights

So, you do raise a strong point that this would cut down on the uniqueness of FFR as a client- there is a lot of truth to the statement. However, I don't necessarily agree that its as big of a problem as some may perceive it to be.

Hi, Non-native fifferian here! allow me to share my experience coming to FFR from an outside source and why I tend to stick around- The community, the (relative to other VSRGs) unique take on scoring via raw goods, the events such as the OT, FFRMas, and previous OWL tournament, and all the different systems of tracking progression. (equiv rating lifetime / seasonal, AV-rank, skill tokens, even tier points). Those are ordered from most to least relevant btw.

By far, the most appealing part of FFR is the community. When compared to similar rhythm games theres no contest, the people here are generally rather friendly and mature and quite frankly the game could be like it was in 2005 and i'd still at least be here to hang out. But beyond being full of good company:

Raw goods is a fun scoring metric thats a lot less ambiguous than some seemingly arbitrarily calculated osu!mania score value or a wife3%, it feels like every error has a lot more weight to it and it introduces, to me, a different way to approach playing. Or at the very least, a different way to set scoring goals.

Obviously I don't need to explain why the events around here are appealing, nor all the different numbers FFR chooses to track, but I can summarize it as FFR having a lot of "minigames" built into the same overall gameplay. theres a deceptively diverse set of things going on. maybe this week youre equiv grinding, then you have a session working on token unlocks or tierpoints and now hey, new tournament / event is starting soon. Sure, osu!mania has its fair share of tournaments, but honestly I think FFR does them better and certainly has more variety in format.

All of this is to say that theres more to FFRs outward appeal than the charts on the engine. A lot of the content on FFR I had previously been exposed to before I really knew what FFR was via etterna packs and to me they just came off as just another file to be played. I never came here to experience this unique set of content because, to me, it already wasnt that unique to begin with and i didn't realize that the content on here was of a very specific type and grade until someone eventually told me. With the benefit of more time and playing more files, sure, theres a strong tendency to some more technical content which is less common on some rhythm games, but I cant say it was ever an influencing factor in what initially prompted me to pick up the game. It was those things I mentioned above, there being dumps in the list of charts wouldn't have even factored into the decision making process.

Sure, I'm only one person, everyones experience and priorities are going to vary- If nothing else, I hope it at least contextualizes the angle I'm coming at this from.

Also wanted to mention that this post is one of the most genuinely heart-warming things I've read in some time, and I greatly appreciate it.

[_choof]

Originally Posted by bmah

The organic growth comes from casuals, the general public. So I view folks like high-levelled players to be influencers in a sense, especially if they display their skills in videos, streams, and so on.

do you remember when you posted a video of lcd soundsystem performing on saturday night live in the ffr discord? you seemed completely blown away by the fact that people liked this band lol. you said some shit about not being able to "get it" lol.
hate to break it to you bub, but the casuals, the general public? they aren't listening to idm, or breakcore, or glitchcore, or any of the rhythmically wild music that currently sits in the highest levels of ffr. they are listening to the artists that show up on television shows like saturday night live.
the way that folks like you and me listen to music after nearly 20 years of playing vsrgs is completely different than how casual gamers in the general public listen to music.

[_choof]

I wonder how many people only know of air by shiki because porterhouse robinson dropped it in a live set

[_choof]

Originally Posted by klimtkiller

FFR has for years prided itself on having high-quality files; charting was down to an artform, and it actually took skill to make a good chart.

what do you mean, was? it still is, you dork.

this is also probably demotivating for the stepartists who put so much effort making their chart perfect all this time. it’s like it was pointless and it’s like, why continue to put in effort anymore into charts, or chart at all?

I dump a bunch of time into my charts, trying to figure out precisely what it is I want to communicate with my chart, and how to represent the music as well as I possibly can. none of this is pointless, and none of it is devalued.

[bmah]

Originally Posted by Tru

FFR's content niche, at least since the end of the widget era, has focused on well-polished, quality charts made by some of the best steppers in any vsrg.

FFR's content niche, with the addition of dumps, will focus on well-polished, quality charts made by some of the best steppers in any vsrg.

Many recent file submissions have included some elements that one might have associated only with dump files. These files pushed the boundaries of what FFR would accept. And we've accepted many of them. Because they're well-polished, quality charts.

So this batch just reduces FFR's boundaries to more thorough dump charts -- rather than a handful of elements like in wubdumps, you can make the whole chart have interesting elements to interpret the music to. We're really just allowing another style of well-polished, quality charts.

Just because the boundaries have changed doesn't mean you can't still push them further. Just because we're allowing more explicitly dump charts doesn't take away from traditional "tech" charts. If it's a well-polished, quality chart, it'll be equally appreciated.

BUT as I said earlier, FFR risks becoming just another analog to other rhythm games with these similarities. "High-quality dumps" are not something I dispute as mentioned earlier, but it'd be great if further innovations can be conceived in turn to combat a lack of differentiation. Is community (every game has a community) and a more curated list of charts alone good enough for the site to thrive through years to come?
I'd hope you'd address this with a holistic perspective of FFR and its overall outlook and growth through what makes it stand out from other games, something it has less and less of as time goes by. I'm not here to dispute the nature of dumps themselves.

Originally Posted by _choof

do you remember when you posted a video of lcd soundsystem performing on saturday night live in the ffr discord? you seemed completely blown away by the fact that people liked this band lol. you said some shit about not being able to "get it" lol.
hate to break it to you bub, but the casuals, the general public? they aren't listening to idm, or breakcore, or glitchcore, or any of the rhythmically wild music that currently sits in the highest levels of ffr. they are listening to the artists that show up on television shows like saturday night live.
the way that folks like you and me listen to music after nearly 20 years of playing vsrgs is completely different than how casual gamers in the general public listen to music.

Yeah I remember that and still think that band is shit lol. But I digress.
You actually present a potential argument to have such "casuals" be interested in listening to new types of songs they would otherwise not be aware of. As you mentioned, casuals listen to those latest up and coming bands. FFR could be an introduction to other types of music, and not necessarily "rhythm game music" either. There's a large number of folks here who appreciate stuff like ambient, idm, etc. as you said. For a while, especially in earlier years, FFR made a greater case to promote artists. Actually, as recently as a few months ago, we're trying to bring back this emphasis via detailed front page posts.
tl;dr yes casuals don't listen to breakcore...but why not let FFR be an avenue to promote new music. Get that curiosity of new genres of music going through the medium of a fun game.

Originally Posted by Lights

Hi, Non-native fifferian here! allow me to share my experience coming to FFR from an outside source and why I tend to stick around- The community, the (relative to other VSRGs) unique take on scoring via raw goods, the events such as the OT, FFRMas, and previous OWL tournament, and all the different systems of tracking progression. (equiv rating lifetime / seasonal, AV-rank, skill tokens, even tier points). Those are ordered from most to least relevant btw.

By far, the most appealing part of FFR is the community. When compared to similar rhythm games theres no contest, the people here are generally rather friendly and mature and quite frankly the game could be like it was in 2005 and i'd still at least be here to hang out. But beyond being full of good company:

Raw goods is a fun scoring metric thats a lot less ambiguous than some seemingly arbitrarily calculated osu!mania score value or a wife3%, it feels like every error has a lot more weight to it and it introduces, to me, a different way to approach playing. Or at the very least, a different way to set scoring goals.

Obviously I don't need to explain why the events around here are appealing, nor all the different numbers FFR chooses to track, but I can summarize it as FFR having a lot of "minigames" built into the same overall gameplay. theres a deceptively diverse set of things going on. maybe this week youre equiv grinding, then you have a session working on token unlocks or tierpoints and now hey, new tournament / event is starting soon. Sure, osu!mania has its fair share of tournaments, but honestly I think FFR does them better and certainly has more variety in format.

All of this is to say that theres more to FFRs outward appeal than the charts on the engine. A lot of the content on FFR I had previously been exposed to before I really knew what FFR was via etterna packs and to me they just came off as just another file to be played. I never came here to experience this unique set of content because, to me, it already wasnt that unique to begin with and i didn't realize that the content on here was of a very specific type and grade until someone eventually told me. With the benefit of more time and playing more files, sure, theres a strong tendency to some more technical content which is less common on some rhythm games, but I cant say it was ever an influencing factor in what initially prompted me to pick up the game. It was those things I mentioned above, there being dumps in the list of charts wouldn't have even factored into the decision making process.

Sure, I'm only one person, everyones experience and priorities are going to vary- If nothing else, I hope it at least contextualizes the angle I'm coming at this from.

I'm very stoked to hear this. I can only hope that new folks have a similarly open outlook as you.
I think what we're missing are tools to more accurately measure the opinions of the general populace of FFR, NOT the "perceived" populace of FFR (the vocal, active community). Tools such as polls built into the site that pops up for every single user, so that even "quiet casuals" can participate.
Do you remember the time a couple months ago when the FFR game was down? Players I've never seen before suddenly started popping up in the Discord server asking for help. These are folks who would likely have never made a visible presence otherwise - I think this is proof that there are a lot of folks out there who just play the game and don't say a word. It'd be great if we could reach out to everyone on various subject matters and get a truer overall opinion of the site as a whole.
(and I think it's a mistake to assume that only the people who speak up matters)

Just to reiterate, the reason why I'm putting so much emphasis on this holistic perspective is because it ties back to FFR's growth and identity. Just trying to keep a perspective to have the site and community healthy for years to come. Dumps? Great. But let's continually try to come up with other new things while we're at it.

[FlynnMac]

From a player perspective: I would actually enjoy and play FFR more if there were 'dumps' in game, not separated to where they don't count for anything. Maybe just like a tag or something so people know. But as a player, I actually enjoy listening to good music as I play, not just the same boring assfartcore stuff, and 'dumps' really provide there where FFR lacks songwise. The idea that 'dumps' are bad and shouldn't belong feels pretty elitist to me personally, since 'dumps' don't necessarily take away from a chart's quality if done in the right manner. It just personally feels like there's a major disconnect between steppers here and players in that sense. It may just be me but I do not care in the slightest if it is technically accurate, if it is just bpm synced well enough and follows along decently, I'll like it. FFR can still have high-quality files and allow 'dumps' in game. It's not hard, just stop gatekeeping so higher level players actually have more of a reason to play the damn game.

[bmah]

Dumps are fine but I sense that it caters mostly to a vocal minority who are very active in the community and are capable of playing them. We keep talking about getting more content for higher-levelled players. Just as one can argue "higher level players actually have more of a reason to play the damn game" I'm still concerned about content and innovations for...well...everyone else? It circles back to what I mentioned earlier about organic growth and not only looking towards very seasoned players that are already familiar with rhythm games.

[WirryWoo]

Originally Posted by riktoi

You do not chart a song for the song artists. You chart for the player and/or yourself. It does not matter in the slightest how they see your file.

I genuinely don't understand how this can be so difficult. Your argument literally boils down to transformative work shouldn't be transformative, which is just a flat out ridiculous ideology to have.

So why do we go out to seek for permissions on FFR, but in Etterna and maybe osumania, we can chart whatever we want without worrying much about seeking for permissions? If I really wanted to chart something for the players and myself, I would have chosen other music that we don't have permissions for on FFR.

I don't understand how my argument boils down to that ridiculous ideology. All I'm doing is using past examples of what was previously done to create FFR's identity (at least I thought these are fair examples) and trying to understand how well stepped dumps can fit into that vision. I personally don't see it fit based on what I said, and it's fine to disagree with my arguments, but please do point out specific disagreements in my argument so we can see where the differences of our opinion lie.

Originally Posted by _choof

for many artists, rhythm games are nowhere on their radar when it comes to production. that's even true for many of the styles of music that are currently in ffr. artists in certain idm scenes like terminal11 were physically releasing music in the early 2000s on obscure labels that had absolutely no connection to rhythm games, not even tangentially. the entirety of monstercat is mainstream festival edm. if you want to bring up the pattern argument, artists might be able to catch glimpses of pattern usage in a chart as it's playing in front of them but beyond a certain level it all gets parsed as a blur.

I really think this entire conversation is sullied by virtue of what we call these charts. the etymology of "dump" is that we're just "dumping arrows," and yeah if you tell an artist that you used their music to "create a dump," they have zero context and will assume you're calling their music a "steaming dump."

imo a lot of this can be averted by referring to them as something different, and I really think "abstract" is a much better and much more accurate term to describe them. you're not charting something literally, you're abstracting the feel of the music into the chart itself.

This is a fair point. I understand that not many musicians are intentionally creating content specifically for FFR and I agree that song artists may not have the gaming comprehension to rhythmically parse steps in stepfiles. But if a song is intended to be rhythmically simple, yet we are creating a well crafted dump just to improve song choice variety for the higher skilled players, wouldn't that be blatantly obvious to see how certain sounds are unnecessarily stepped as a blurb of arrows? By creating these well crafted dumps, are we really abstracting the feel of music appropriately or are we only just doing this to cater the vocal high division playerbase? I personally believe it's the latter.

Originally Posted by _choof

this is all great and cool but still doesn't resolve the problem of a lot of the end-game music being more and more unlistenable as the difficulty increases.

The statement you are responding to was more so addressed to why Legacy files are offsynced (at least it's why I think it is). It's not a proposed solution to resolve how unpleasing music is to listen to for higher difficulty files.

Originally Posted by _choof

do not remove old content from the game, remove it from ranks

That's fine too. Being aware of the community's stance on this, they won't like this idea either because there will be arguments like: "Why is file X removed from ranks? That's my best score in my Top 100... and this file is removed from ranks because it's just a 'bad' file?!" Again, it's a controversial opinion I'll always have, so I won't comment further on it haha.

Originally Posted by FlynnMac

From a player perspective: I would actually enjoy and play FFR more if there were 'dumps' in game, not separated to where they don't count for anything. Maybe just like a tag or something so people know. But as a player, I actually enjoy listening to good music as I play, not just the same boring assfartcore stuff, and 'dumps' really provide there where FFR lacks songwise. The idea that 'dumps' are bad and shouldn't belong feels pretty elitist to me personally, since 'dumps' don't necessarily take away from a chart's quality if done in the right manner. It just personally feels like there's a major disconnect between steppers here and players in that sense. It may just be me but I do not care in the slightest if it is technically accurate, if it is just bpm synced well enough and follows along decently, I'll like it. FFR can still have high-quality files and allow 'dumps' in game. It's not hard, just stop gatekeeping so higher level players actually have more of a reason to play the damn game.

I don't personally see it as gatekeeping to dislike having well crafted dumps in game. I think the primary concern myself and many others who disagree with having well crafted dumps is how similar FFR will become with other rhythm games if we start introducing these files in the game. If someone really wants to play these well crafted dumps, there is more support in Etterna via dump packs right? There's the FFRmania engine as well. There are essentially options to cater to the higher skilled crowd, yet there is still dissatisfaction because for some reason, these files need to be on every rhythm gaming medium. We've already seen enough higher level players playing only the hardest files in FFR and then disappear until the next OT. They're really not playing the game if they keep doing that, right? Haha.

[Tru]

Originally Posted by bmah

BUT as I said earlier, FFR risks becoming just another analog to other rhythm games with these similarities. "High-quality dumps" are not something I dispute as mentioned earlier, but it'd be great if further innovations can be conceived in turn to combat a lack of differentiation. Is community (every game has a community) and a more curated list of charts alone good enough for the site to thrive through years to come?
I'd hope you'd address this with a holistic perspective of FFR and its overall outlook and growth through what makes it stand out from other games, something it has less and less of as time goes by. I'm not here to dispute the nature of dumps themselves.
[snip]
Just to reiterate, the reason why I'm putting so much emphasis on this holistic perspective is because it ties back to FFR's growth and identity. Just trying to keep a perspective to have the site and community healthy for years to come. Dumps? Great. But let's continually try to come up with other new things while we're at it.

Originally Posted by WirryWoo

I don't personally see it as gatekeeping to dislike having well crafted dumps in game. I think the primary concern myself and many others who disagree with having well crafted dumps is how similar FFR will become with other rhythm games if we start introducing these files in the game. If someone really wants to play these well crafted dumps, there is more support in Etterna via dump packs right? There's the FFRmania engine as well. There are essentially options to cater to the higher skilled crowd, yet there is still dissatisfaction because for some reason, these files need to be on every rhythm gaming medium. We've already seen enough higher level players playing only the hardest files in FFR and then disappear until the next OT. They're really not playing the game if they keep doing that, right? Haha.

Keeping dumps out of the game in favour of a unique experience from other vsrg's has been the strategy of the past 10+ years and this game has basically not grown at all in that time.

At the very least, we're trying something new to FFR here, and expanding the pool of viable artists to select music from. To me, dumps will be at worst neutral in "growing the game."

If you want to grow this game, it isn't going to be purely from good content. Countless SOTWs have proven this.
The site sees its heaviest traffic during events like the OT. So host an event.
FFR files are just notes. So advocate for/develop new mechanics. Host an event with new mechanics.
The most distinguishing factor FFR has ever had was being able to play it in a web browser. So go help develop rrr.

From a new content perspective, this batch was a relatively obvious move. We can find ways to incentivize the type of files you want to see too. If you have ideas on either what you want to see brought in or how you want to do so, I'm all ears.

[Lights]

+1 to choofs suggestion for calling dumps "abstract charts".

[mi40]

Originally Posted by _choof

do you remember when you posted a video of lcd soundsystem performing on saturday night live in the ffr discord? you seemed completely blown away by the fact that people liked this band lol. you said some shit about not being able to "get it" lol.
hate to break it to you bub, but the casuals, the general public? they aren't listening to idm, or breakcore, or glitchcore, or any of the rhythmically wild music that currently sits in the highest levels of ffr. they are listening to the artists that show up on television shows like saturday night live.
the way that folks like you and me listen to music after nearly 20 years of playing vsrgs is completely different than how casual gamers in the general public listen to music.

i love yellowcard and blink 182

[Lights]

Originally Posted by mi40

i love yellowcard and blink 182

omg i need a 109 diff dump of all the small things

[Wiosna]

I do want to give my input on what FFR's identity is to me and how dumps would affect that from a stepper's perspective as well. My post is awfully long so I'll just spoiler it into pieces. Given my experience across multiple 4K VSRGs, I ultimately feel that people saying that FFR's identity being a safe haven for "high-quality non-dumps" is selling FFR as a game really short and that there are many different things that FFR brings from other 4K VSRGs. Moderators can move this into a separate thread because it's an awful lot of text that could be its own discussion.

A small background: While I made my first FFR account about 12 years ago and was active in this community from 2010-2015, I was never in touch with the stepping community until about late 2019 to early 2020. Most of my reputation (from 2015 to today) as a stepper came from my presence and contributions in other communities -- primarily osu!mania and, to a smaller extent, Etterna/StepMania -- so I do consider myself to be an initial "outsider" or non-native in the FFR stepping community.

When I rejoined the FFR community with the intent of sending files, there were multiple things that stood out to me from VSRGs. I can summarise them into three main factors: a lack of hold mechanic, a different playing meta, and existing drastically different stepping philosophies from other rhythm games.

1. Lack of hold mechanic

I think the main aspect of FFR stepping that stood out to me was the lack of a hold mechanic. The degree to which more contemporary Etterna files and osu!mania maps use holds (even with the latter having release timing) is really substantial and I don't think FFR steppers, whether it'd be for visual emphasis or to add another layer of mechanical challenge into the chart. I don't think insular FFR steppers realise just how heavily holds are being used outside of their circle -- the lack of holds is in itself a distinctive part of FFR's identity. And I know many players from osu!mania actually consider this a plus, too.

And I consider the lack of holds to be a constraint that breeds a lot of creativity as well. When I was transitioning from EO/o!m to FFR, a lot of my files had many holds, and just removing the holds made those files feel naked or incomplete. Using colour theory can bring you so far because, frankly, holds and white notes are not the same thing. And with fewer and fewer players using snap colours in gameplay (because more players from other games are coming to FFR), even colour theory would be lost in translation over time. Going through FFR files and understanding the constraints of the game's mechanics forced me to reshape the way I convey a song to players. I nowadays focus far more on pattern "flow", how patterns feel to play kinaesthetically (what kind of strain does this pattern cause? how much? etc.), and how to emphasise musical motifs through kinaesthetic means.

I attribute this paradigm shift in my stepping greatly to the constraints put onto FFR files and how I can work around them. While most of my output isn't made for FFR specifically, I still shaped my approach around this constraint on FFR, and I'm more than grateful for FFR inadvertently giving me a new lens for how to approach stepping. It's also for this reason that I would never want a hold mechanic for FFR and why I really empathise with hi19 when he alluded to (reasonable) stepping constraints breeding creativity. It's the main thing that really makes it stand out from other rhythm games, in my opinion, and its consequences on the stepping meta have been beautiful to see.

2. Different gameplay meta

For me, the general "meta" of playing any game is extremely important when submitting content to any community-based game. FFR, in particular, lends itself to a completionist meta despite having a skill rating system in-game. FFR has a limited (albeit large) pool of files, and the most commonly accepted goal on an individual file is reasonably achievable -- a AAA grade. Even the skill rating system is based more on high SDGs, which are, in the grand scheme of things, close to a perfect score. There is a rate function and people use it, but the primary way of playing FFR is through achieving a (near-)perfect score on 1.0x and only that. The average rank system and AAA/FC/TP bars also facilitate this.

This is something that also distinguishes FFR from other VSRGs. There is no clear end goal for Etterna charts. Got a AAA on 1.0? Try it on 1.1+ for some percentage, maybe a AA. Or maybe go for a score with much better accuracy -- but what percentage? 100% scores are virtually unachievable now. Not to mention the MSD system compels players to attain 91-97% Wife3 scores instead, far from a AAA. While osu!mania does have a curated (Ranked) section of the game that forces people to play on 1.0x rate, the ranked section is not taken very seriously. The gameplay meta as well focuses on attaining 96%-98% scores (very far from AAAs) rather than near-perfect scores (SS-ranks). FFR having a much clearer score range to attain scores primarily on 1.0 leads to forming manifestly different playing habits and some interesting questions for FFR steppers as well.

The tendency to think of FFR as more of a completionist game makes me think about the potential "value" of each file that I submit would bring. What would make my submission, if it were to get accepted, stand out from the other files that are already present in-game? In other words, is my file redundant? This means more to me than in osu!mania, where curation happens much more frequently and there is negligible incentive to play through everything ranked. So I end up having to be more cognizant about what I send by thinking about what would be a valuable submission to FFR. I can always submit a chart I think is good and enjoyable, of course, but I think finding a way to make my files stand out in some way is just as important from the pack if not more. There are also other things like how steppers can get away with more technical accuracy (e.g. using a 48th gallop + 16th rather than a 32nd burst) because the established goal for FFR is a AAA (which isn't awfully tight) rather than a quad or really good accuracy, but this is a smaller thing but still a factor nonetheless.

The fact that charts are primarily played on 1.0 also affects the value of certain charts -- specifically ones in which its auxiliary appeal lies in how useful it is for improving specific skills (e.g. jumpstream ability, stream ability, chordjack ability, etc.). This is a pretty big deal because some charts that would be played and enjoyed very heavily on osu!mania and Etterna may not have anywhere the same degree of appeal on FFR.

A quick example would be my Sharpnel JS files in my Sharpnel Instrumentality Project pack made last year; they average about 300 scores on Etterna and get about 4,000 plays on average on osu!mania despite not being Ranked or Loved (both ways of curating maps), both of which are extremely high values for their respective games given their circumstances. These high playcounts are primarily because of how osu!mania/Etterna are played and the presence of rates. It wouldn't have anywhere as much appeal on FFR, even if FFR does have a rate mechanic, because it's just not the main way people play FFR. It's also for these aforementioned reasons that I regret submitting too many of my Sharpnel files to FFR (Moonearth and Shind Bad specifically), but it's too late for that now. But these are factors that I feel I should consider when it comes to "stepping for FFR", and these factors definitely constitute part of FFR's identity to me.

3. Existing stepping meta and philosophies in the community

The existing stepping meta is, to me, an identity in itself. I think there has already been a lot of discussion about just technically focused FFR's catalogue is -- so I won't pry into it further. But the existing catalogue does give some ideas on how to approach stepping and the type of music that can be stepped for FFR. But in addition to the existing catalogue, the catalogue is still expanding. There are so many people producing enjoyable files of this nature (Pizza, M0nkeyz, Deamerai, DarkZtar, Tru, etc.), most of them still active is a genuinely great thing for both FFR and VSRGs in general imo. Would the inclusion of dumps make them tilt towards a different style? Perhaps, but based on my observations of how communities and charters grow, their origins/roots will still shine through even if they go through some gradual changes.

Another thing about the stepping meta that I feel is overlooked is just the existing philosophy of additive layering that is much much less prevalent in 4K VSRGs today -- layering through the quantity of sounds happening at a specific time rather than the textures or qualities of sounds. I believe bmah is making a thread about this very soon so I won't go too deeply into this, but from my experience, understanding stepping from this perspective was extremely eye-opening for me.

And the existence of multiple ways of even something as fundamental as layering is important -- any layering approach that isn't in vogue that's still logical and appropriate will compel both charters and players to turn their heads and think about what's exactly going on in the chart. Most charters (even dump charters) do make an attempt to make sure that the chart communicates the details present in a song of course, but I think there's an additional flavour necessary to get players to focus more intimately on the song's details. And I have deep respect for many people in the FFR community who try to subvert players' expectations of how charts should go in one way or another. FFR files often having this less popular approach to layering today is both fascinating and educational to me. I do think that additive layering has been getting neglected a little bit by some judges based on what I've seen, but that's an issue less with having dumps in-game and more of a failing on the judges' side.

The two factors about the existing stepping meta on FFR will obviously affect the palate of FFR players too. Because of this combination of gameplay meta and existing catalogue, I found that the typical FFR veteran's palate is quite different from the average strong osu!mania/Etterna player. There will naturally be charts with cross-community appeal (I've seen a lot of people on both FFR and osu!mania really like Writing on the Walls), but a chart like jh05013's The Lady Is A Trump (that is quite liked by multiple D7 players and some D6 players based on a quick survey I did), I'm not sure will have the same appeal for osu!mania players around the same skill level. Trying to figure out what exactly makes players from a community really like something is one of the most interesting things to me as a stepper, and having various different communities to appeal to is naturally great, because I want to be the best stepper that I can be.

Some closing thoughts:

All of this is obviously just my perspective, and I don't expect every stepper from multiple different rhythm games to share the same sentiments -- my goal here isn't to tell people that everyone will think that FFR has an established identity. But to me, as someone who has been wandering through one rhythm game after another for at least 12 years, FFR has a very clear identity, even if it isn't necessarily felt as if it did. With the presence of dumps in the game, I'm not quite sure how much FFR's identity will change from my perspective. The first factor is obviously unaffected by the inclusion of dumps (you don't need holds for dumps), and I don't expect dumps to change how the game is being played either, so the second factor is unchanged too.

Maybe the third factor will change quite a bit. I understand hi19's concern (?) of allowing dumps in-game stilting creativity in one way. I find that the most joy that I get from playing through files is less from playing through good files, but from discovering a file that breaks conventional moulds of a good file that is still enjoyable and communicates the details of the song well. It's not that good files don't have merit, of course, but it's something that motivates me further as a stepper to keep going because it's an affirmation that there is still stuff out there to explore.

Dumps from the FFR community, while will likely have some unique edge to them, will probably come off as less unique than some of the more cutting-edge charts that FFR has to offer. I think that's a very fair concern and I think the strongest defence for not having dumps in-game. A counterargument is that the use of ghost notes in themselves I think can lead to alternative avenues of creativity that maybe FFR regulars can exploit too. It's something that I'd like to see in the future, but I'm not quite optimistic about it. I think FFR will lose some of its unique identity through accepting dumps, but I don't expect it to be something that would cause FFR to be Just Another VSRG In The Abyss of 4-Column Keysmash Simulators.

The concern of the inclusion of dumps leading to people making charts that are awfully overemphasised even to a calm song is also fair, and I don't think internal consistency and musical relevance are sufficient factors to mitigate this, based on my experiences in the back-end of the osu!mania ranked section. A quick example would be Ideal Ratio [Oni] but with 48th bursts/64th bursts rather than the 32nds-40ths that it has now. Still logically consistent and musically relevant, but a much less enjoyable experience for most players because the exaggerated rhythms feel much more exaggerated than the average wubstep chart. I've volunteered as a bit of a consultant for the dump batch to see if there's anything that can be done in that respect, but striking a balance between artistic expression and egregious overexaggeration is very difficult, especially with FFR treading into unmapped territory. In this sense I think a lack of trust in judges is very valid.

I'm also speaking from solely an artistic perspective. I think there are valid concerns about how more casual players (or just <D5 players) aren't being accommodated for (or rather, D6++ players are being accommodated for disproportionately more than those players through the acceptance of dumps and dump batches), and that the easy batch is likely insufficient given the prevalence of lower-level players and that there hasn't been any progress in fostering among many steppers a need to provide content for newer players. But I don't think axing the dump batch or not allowing dumps would resolve much -- the issue at hand is symptomatic of a much larger concern at hand.

All in all, I just find the concern of FFR's identity being challenged and potentially homogenised to be valid, but I think the concern is excessive. There are way more things that make FFR stand out than just a catalogue of non-dumps. The very first reason at least, the lack of a hold mechanic, is something that stood out to me as a player and stepper much more than a lack of dumps. And it's something that the FFR community has worked around and developed theories for over at least two decades. And the completionist meta, manifestly different score goal from other VSRGs, existing catalogue of files and philosophies that are so different from other VSRGs, and a different audience are all factors that differentiate FFR from its contemporaries like Etterna and osu!mania. Having dumps won't change those as much as I think they would, especially with tight control and (hopefully) a critical lens as to what kind of dumps FFR would like to accept in the future.

I don't expect anyone to read this in full, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Since people are talking about FFR not having an identity, I feel that it's worth sharing how I feel about its stepping community and how different it is from other rhythm games I've been in.

[_choof]

Originally Posted by WirryWoo

But if a song is intended to be rhythmically simple, yet we are creating a well crafted dump just to improve song choice variety for the higher skilled players, wouldn't that be blatantly obvious to see how certain sounds are unnecessarily stepped as a blurb of arrows?

you can pretty easily explain this as a chart creator to an artist by just telling them you're charting something that's not rhythm. take a crash cymbal. the standard charting meta would necessarily dictate that this be charted with a jump, possibly a hand. with ffr you don't have the option to use a hold and have it end at the same time the sound does, so in nearly every case, this would just be jump/hand followed by play time silence. put a particularly interesting bit of reverb on the crash cymbal's tail and the standard charting meta would still want the same jump/hand, even though the sound itself is doing something different.
and honestly with this example, if you told an artist you were charting reverb it'd probably blow their mind lmao

By creating these well crafted dumps, are we really abstracting the feel of music appropriately or are we only just doing this to cater the vocal high division playerbase? I personally believe it's the latter.

"well crafted" in bold because that is key. if it's a well crafted chart, then you can easily do the former. if it's made just for the sake of getting a 100+ chart out of some pop music then yeah it's the latter.
while yes, an abstract chart is going to probably be harder overall than a technical chart for the same song, it doesn't always have to be that much harder, and you can still incorporate abstract stuff in a technical chart as well (think of it as trading technicality for playability). abstraction will probably end up making more and more sense the better and better a player becomes.

Originally Posted by bmah

tl;dr yes casuals don't listen to breakcore...but why not let FFR be an avenue to promote new music. Get that curiosity of new genres of music going through the medium of a fun game.

allowing abstract charts wouldn't dissuade this at all lol this is somewhat of a moot point, possibly working better in the argument for them

Originally Posted by bmah

I'm still concerned about content and innovations for...well...everyone else? It circles back to what I mentioned earlier about organic growth and not only looking towards very seasoned players that are already familiar with rhythm games.

the innovations for everyone else are going to need to come from additional mechanics in the game itself. modes with higher keycounts (implement 6k and I will make so many charts for this game again), mines, holds, rolls (but call em something more intuitive), etc.
also run more easy song batches and incentivize the seasoned players to make more easy charts. seasoned players want to make stuff around the difficulties they're most comfy with.

[loftyb]

Lack of a hold mechanic alone should get steppers in this game to understand that “tech dumps” or “abstract” files can and will be fun and innovative when applied to the ffr engine.

Some of you oldheads literally don’t get how tech dumps are charted.

[sff_writer_dan]

Yeah when I made the comparison to legacy files, I thought it would be pretty clear that it was a joke, just like taking the "dumps means the steps don't map directly onto distinct sounds" concept and applying it, for humour, to legacy files being incredibly out of sync.

It definitely is the case that there are probably people here opposing dumps because the name evokes files like vROFL where you just "dump" notes into a file, so I think it might be worth the effort to find a better name that evokes what people want, but I also don't think 'abstract' gets you there either. There's definitely still a direct connection between the music and the steps, as I understand it, you're just taking liberties to replace what might be a single quarter note with an 8-note roll when the song has a buzz. It's still starting and stopping to the music, it's just a more liberal interpretation of a pattern inside the note yeah?

I think there's a lot of potential in being able to take more downtempo stuff and make it more technically difficult and a higher difficulty with 'dumps' being allowed, not just songs that are >100

Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way 'dump' is meant to be used here could easily cover stuff like the opening buzz tones in Dendrite which are nothing in the v1, and single notes in the v2, being like bursts or rolls instead which would make it "a dump" technically but still be as low as 50 or 60 depending on what else is done in there.