Practicing PA.

[Tophius]

Hey guys. I was wondering if I could get a few pointers on how to make my PA better (significantly better). I'm just completely fed up with SDG/BFing really simple songs, and I've hit a roadblock in terms of advancement in skill.

Thanks in advance.

[.Holy]

Practice would be one pointer. Playing on a higher speed mod is also a little helpful because if you have to react faster your more likely to get perfects... don't play on x3 if your on x2. I usually play on x1.75 on FC's and if I want to AAA something I just play on x2. I don't really try for AAA's but I think this tip is alright for getting more.

[Tophius]

Originally Posted by .Holy

Practice would be one pointer. Playing on a higher speed mod is also a little helpful because if you have to react faster your more likely to get perfects... don't play on x3 if your on x2. I usually play on x1.75 on FC's and if I want to AAA something I just play on x2. I don't really try for AAA's but I think this tip is alright for getting more.

I seem to do worse when I play on 1.75X. I personally play on 1.5X, and it seems to be going good. I'll give it a try, and see what I think.

Do you know any good FFR/SM songs that would help me get better at PA/MAing songs?

[Frozen Beat]

I would recommend 1.75...


By the way...lowering your avrank increases your PA at an absolutely insane rate.

[infinity.]

Originally Posted by Frozen Beat

By the way...lowering your avrank increases your PA at an absolutely insane rate.

...
were you even thinking when you posted this?

[Tophius]

Originally Posted by Infinity.

...
were you even thinking when you posted this?

Now that I think about it, that makes no sense. In order to lower my Avrank, I would have to get better at PAing songs. 1.75X isn't working for me, it's actually made my PA worse. Any other suggestions?

[eric25]

You could try playing Stepmania. The timing windows are harder and if you got good at Stepmania, your FFR game could be better.

[Tophius]

Originally Posted by eric25

You could try playing Stepmania. The timing windows are harder and if you got good at Stepmania, your FFR game could be better.

I've been trying to get into SM some more, but I don't see a realy improvement in my PA/MA yet. Do you have any stepfiles that you would recommend to me, so I can get better?

[ninjaKIWI]

Play easy stuff on SM like Haydens Ageha, and You Are. Play until you can AAA stuff atleast as hard as those on SM, then you should be fine on FFR 'cause FFR is easy ****s.

It takes a while, but it's worth it.

[i love you]

1. Start off by Practicing PAing on EASY songs first! Don't worry about comboing while you practice PAing. (A lot of people don't know this which is not surprising)

2. You need windows XP and a good keyboard if you want even better PA. Vista sucks for FFR. The most common keyboards most people use are either a logitech keyboard or some kind of "laptop-ish" keyboard. If you have a laptop, thats fine too although not everyone likes to use laptops so they get like an attachment keyboard to plug in the laptop.

3. Playing Stepmania can improve your speed and PA/MA by a lot if you play enough. If you don't have stepmania, you can download it at either www.stepmania.com -or- www.stepmaniaonline.com.

4. Sometimes, changing the key-mapping can help you get better at PA. Also, it's better if you play spread because that's the best style and the most commonly used style.

5. Practice! Practice! Practice! I can't stress that enough. xD

EDIT: Some packs you can start with are DDR packs, ITG packs, or basic SM simfiles like: Haydens Ageha, Quesar, or any simfiles with a difficulty of 11 or below.

[Tophius]

Originally Posted by i love you

1. Start off by Practicing PAing on EASY songs first! Don't worry about comboing while you practice PAing. (A lot of people don't know this which is not surprising)

2. You need windows XP and a good keyboard if you want even better PA. Vista sucks for FFR. The most common keyboards most people use are either a logitech keyboard or some kind of "laptop-ish" keyboard. If you have a laptop, thats fine too although not everyone likes to use laptops so they get like an attachment keyboard to plug in the laptop.

3. Playing Stepmania can improve your speed and PA/MA by a lot if you play enough. If you don't have stepmania, you can download it at either www.stepmania.com -or- www.stepmaniaonline.com.

4. Sometimes, changing the key-mapping can help you get better at PA. Also, it's better if you play spread because that's the best style and the most commonly used style.

5. Practice! Practice! Practice! I can't stress that enough. xD

Thanks for the tips!

I do have Windows XP, and I will never change it for that crappy Vista. My keyboard sucks (in my opinion), so I should go buy a new one. It's an old Compaq keyboard. ._.

Which one is better- SM or SMO? I have SM 3.9 at the moment, SM 4 kept screwing up on me.

I do play spread, I play AS KL. What would be an alternative to that?

EDIT: Oh yeah, I've had this on my mind and I've been wanting to ask it to someone. Are there any official stepfiles for SM? The only stepfiles I have at the moment are ones from packs made either on FFR or on ODI.

EDIT2:

Originally Posted by NinjaKIWI

Play easy stuff on SM like Haydens Ageha, and You Are. Play until you can AAA stuff atleast as hard as those on SM, then you should be fine on FFR 'cause FFR is easy ****s.

It takes a while, but it's worth it.

Can you send me those stepfiles, please?

[Xx{Midday}xX]

There are 3 downers that I confront when I observe my PA.

1) You can't control reflexive reaction/anticipation: This is caused mostly by repeating a song/sequence too many times. Bad habits form, causing you to "lock your fingers" in a way that obstructs your accuracy. Easiest solution is to whore a variety of songs with a variety of step patterns at the same time. This is the problem I encounter the most.
2) You can't read: This is caused by either arrow overlap, or your speedmod is too fast. Overlapping arrows tend to mess up my reading. I had to switch from 1.5x to 1.75x in order to get good PA on Epidermis. (Now I'm permanently 1.75, sometimes 2x.) Obviously, if the speedmod is too fast, you can't read/react fast enough to hit the arrows on time.
3) There is a specific pattern that automatically causes you to lose your PA: Most players coin this as a mental block. The best way to avoid mental blocks are to vary your playing and playstyle, or just take a break all together. If it is a technical problem, meaning you couldn't do the certain pattern from the start, the only thing I can tell you to do is ... practice?

If your goods are random and sporadically placed as well as frequent, the only way to raise your PA is to increase your stamina and concentration. This is the hardest way to raise your PA though. =/

[Tophius]

Originally Posted by Xx{Midday}xX

There are 3 downers that I confront when I observe my PA.

1) You can't control reflexive reaction/anticipation: This is caused mostly by repeating a song/sequence too many times. Bad habits form, causing you to "lock your fingers" in a way that obstructs your accuracy. Easiest solution is to whore a variety of songs with a variety of step patterns at the same time. This is the problem I encounter the most.
2) You can't read: This is caused by either arrow overlap, or your speedmod is too fast. Overlapping arrows tend to mess up my reading. I had to switch from 1.5x to 1.75x in order to get good PA on Epidermis. (Now I'm permanently 1.75, sometimes 2x.) Obviously, if the speedmod is too fast, you can't read/react fast enough to hit the arrows on time.
3) There is a specific pattern that automatically causes you to lose your PA: Most players coin this as a mental block. The best way to avoid mental blocks are to vary your playing and playstyle, or just take a break all together. If it is a technical problem, meaning you couldn't do the certain pattern from the start, the only thing I can tell you to do is ... practice?

If your goods are random and sporadically placed as well as frequent, the only way to raise your PA is to increase your stamina and concentration. This is the hardest way to raise your PA though. =/

I'm willing to try anything. The amount of AAAs that I have, compared to the amount of FCs that I have is horrible. :P

What I find is that I can PA Jumps and Chains pretty well, but I'm horrible at PAing Streams and Jumpstreams.

[LLaMaSaUceYup]

JUDGE 7 ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THEEEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!
Seriously.

[who_cares973]

ive gotten worse at ffr ever since i started whoring sm haha

[Nuada]

When I'm trying to improve my DDR PA (Yeah I know it's slightly different, but it might still apply, and since you're willing to try anything you can give it a go and tell me how it works for you )

I find the official DDR simfile (thanks ddruk!) and play it in stepmania (I don't have a pad so I have to turn off failing). The only difference is I slow the actual song speed down to like 70%. It's hard to track my improvement because I don't have a pad, but when I go back to the arcade I usually do a bit better. I'll then increase the speed to 80%, then 90%, finally stop playing it in SM when I hit almost all perfects.

Maybe try slowing down the songs? No guarantees on this one, but it works for me on DDR.

[Flandre Scarlet]

Originally Posted by i love you

Quesar

Quasar lol.

Just keep practicing on easy songs, and work up to higher difficulties. Basically what everyone else has said.

[inflames07]

Apparently everyone says masturbating before you play helps..

[Sir_Thomas]

Originally Posted by Tophius

I've been trying to get into SM some more, but I don't see a realy improvement in my PA/MA yet. Do you have any stepfiles that you would recommend to me, so I can get better?

Main reason people dont like playing Stepmania is because half the people who hear "Play Stepmania man it owns." doesnt know how to add Cmods... So they are usually stuck with two preset speedmods and the default Xmods.

[blindreper1179]

the whole average rank thing is a good idea though. lowering it makes you play all the easy songs. start there. find all the 1,2,3, etc. start off easy you know? the songs may be boring but it'll show off in the end.

and the whole vista thing isn't bad. i've AAA'd songs like lovely lovely lovely, and many others on my vista laptop.