R1 - Actual Song Difficulties (game is inaccurate)

04-23-2004, 09:55 PM

An old thread, but with R2 coming out, I think it's necessary to revive and sticky it.
-----------------------------------------
As everyone knows, the song difficulties are extremely messed up. So much so that according to the game, Lethal Injection is easier than Bubbleman. The primary problem is that there have been no standards for stepfile difficulty ratings. Think about it. Isn't it odd that no song in the game is easier than 2 foot? If Mario is 2 foot, then how easy would a 1 foot song be? So easy it's not even worth putting in the game? Was FFR Special Mix (when it existed) 1 foot?

We must eliminate the use of an arbitrary numerical system to rate stepfile difficulties. It is meaningless for a stepfile maker to assign a difficulty to his stepfile when he is not comparing it to anything else already in the game in doing so.

What I have devised is a standard for sorting songs into difficulty levels. It uses only 6 levels, not 10+, so it should be easier for stepfile artists to put their songs in the proper difficulty levels.

The levels are broken down as such:

Beginner: Very simple step patterns, nothing more complicated than quarter notes (except maybe a short pattern of eighths here or there.) Jumps are kept to a minimum.

Easy: Streams of quarter notes and streams of slow eighths. Jumps may be slightly more frequent. Sixteenth notes are practically nonexistant.

Intermediate: Fast streams of quarters and eighths, some with jumps in the stream. Sixteenth notes begin to show up more frequently, as well as awkward rhythms. Some songs may have similar step patterns as Easy songs, but Intermediate songs are usually faster.

Advanced: Requires very fast fingerwork, but still not too uncomplicated for most people to do. Fast streams of sixteenth notes are common, as are extremely awkward rhythms.

Expert: Difficult to read songs that are still doable, though not FC'able, by most good people without keysmashing. May contain very fast streams of sixteenth notes, and some 32nd notes in moderation. Requires far more skill than Advanced to rack up a sizeable combo.

Master: The hardest of the hardest - songs for folks like Reach, Nima, Arch0wl, etc. Hard to clear and even harder to score well on.

----------------------------------
----------------------------------

That being said, I have sorted every song in the game into these new difficulty brackets. I hope they will soon be adopted, as it is a very accurate representation of difficulty, and is far more informative than the current system.

The letter before the name corresponds to the genre the song can be found in. This list took many hours to create, and I hope it is seriously considered.

Beginner
-----------
(A) Mario 8Bit Eighties Remix
(D) Trip To The Moon
(D) Activity Unbroken
(D) SkellyBones
(D) Computer Dreams
(D) Dance 2 This
(D) Halcyon
(D) The Color of Battle
(H) Love You Anymore
(H) Seattle's Finest
(H) 100 Bar Blackout
(H) This Beat Is For Tha Streets
(H) Freak Out
(R) Stay With Me
(R) For Who I Am

Easy
-----------
(A) Bubbleman Stage Theme
(C) Moonlight Sonata
(D) 136.6
(D) Soul Shift
(D) Get on The Move
(D) Story of Snowman and Sunshine Girl
(D) Falling Into You
(D) Spontaneous Hydroxide
(D) Raindrops
(D) Euphoria
(D) Salad For Your Tuesday
(D) Terror From Beyond
(F) Cat Walk 2
(F) Too Tight
(F) Funk In G
(H) Return F Superdouble
(R) Resistance

Intermediate
-----------
(?) Burnout
(?) Secret Zombie Room
(?) La Luna Caida
(?) Ingenuity
(A) Boss Machine
(A) One Last Battle
(A) Megaman 2 Dr. Wily theme
(A) Crystalis House Leaves
(A) Metalman Goes Clubbing
(A) Legend of Zelda Remix
(A) 4FT3R M3
(D) Dendrite
(D) Alpha Helix
(D) Emotions
(D) Life Goes On
(D) Massive
(D) Breaking The Common
(F) Slap Guitar 2
(H) The Essential
(H) Shag
(M) Ball of Malt
(M) She Bangs William Hung Version
(P) Stay With Me v2
(R) Until The End

Advanced
-----------
(?) Fett's Vette
(?) Abtrusity
(?) Green Twilight
(?) Water Like Pudding
(?) Synesthetic
(A) Final Fantasy 7 Battle
(D) Beethoven Virus
(D) Blank Knowing
(D) Contra-distinction
(D) Stalled Out & Sushi Bars
(P) NeoMAX
(R) Last Firstborn

Expert
-----------
(?) For FFR
(?) Lethal Injection
(A) Chrono Trigger Boss Theme
(C) Rondo Alla Turca
(D) CIA Rave
(D) Uber Rave
(P) Party 4u 'holy nite mix'

Master
-----------
(C) Revolutionary Etude
(C) Flight of the Bumblebee
(C) One Minute Waltz
(C) Caprice
(C) Molto Vivace
(D) HELLBEAT
(D) RunnyMorning (SGX Mix)
(P) AIM Anthem
(P) Silence

Thoughts? Suggestions? Everything is welcome.

EDIT: Moved Uber Rave because I was thinking about doing what Fusi0n suggested, and his suggestion sealed the deal.

EDIT: Blank Knowing was accidentally in Beginner. Thanks to aperson for pointing it out.

fusi0n · 04-23-2004, 10:01 PM

in my opinion, Uber Rave would be in expert, not master.

nice work though, we do need a new system.

04-23-2004, 10:08 PM

Done.

VxDx · 04-23-2004, 10:26 PM

I didn't read all of it, but hellbeat should be expert not master IMO. I can pass it easily.

Blox · 04-23-2004, 10:28 PM

Eh, 4F73R M3 may not be that difficult of a song but it has some odd points and a nice mix of various step patterns. Plus the ending and a small portion of the middle are relatively fast. On the other hand, I don't think it would be right on the next list with the other songs in that division. Making this paragraph irrelevant.

Right.

Well, what I was trying to lead to is the FF7 theme. 4F73R M3 is DEFINITELY more difficult in all aspects to FF7, and it is on the easier list. However, as I said above, 4F73R M3 does not fit with the harder songs. My suggestion would be to put FF7 in the slightly easier difficulty rating.

ImEric12 · 04-23-2004, 10:36 PM

I definately agree.. I'm around the difficulty level of 'Difficult', but I started playing some Very Difficult songs the other day, and realized I can pass most of them, whereas there are quite a few difficults I can't pass.

**Freak83** · 04-23-2004, 11:04 PM

Lethal Injection is not meant to be in the catagory that you have it in right now.
Acording to the way you listed it, the way I made it I had thought it to be much closer to advanced songs than expert ones.

I did a similer thing for the FFR League. Going over every song in the game (at the time I made it), except I sorted it into beginner, average, advanced, and expert, and then assigned it 1-3 stars depending on how it fit into that difficulty.

04-23-2004, 11:11 PM

Actually, Freak, this difficulty system was inspired by the groupings in the FFR League.

**Moogy** · 04-23-2004, 11:12 PM

The only classical song that counts for anything is Molto Vivace... the others are retarded and don't go to the music...

**Freak83** · 04-23-2004, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chardish

Actually, Freak, this difficulty system was inspired by the groupings in the FFR League.

Ah, I see

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moogy

The only classical song that counts for anything is Molto Vivace... the others are retarded and don't go to the music...

Doesn't mean they're not fun to play still

[/quote]

wildman · 04-23-2004, 11:43 PM

Thanx! This will make it much easier to determine what kind of song we would be playing.....cuz you got to admit, Lethal Injection is an expert song and not just "tricky"!

**aperson** · 04-24-2004, 07:22 AM

Blank Knowing isn't really a beginner song, more like advanced.

Privateer · 04-24-2004, 08:09 AM

With speed mods available, nothing should be too hard to read. If it is, that means it's retarded.

04-24-2004, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aperson

Blank Knowing isn't really a beginner song, more like advanced.

Don't know how I missed that, must have been a mistake. Fixed.

05-12-2004, 09:21 PM

Added more recent songs to the list.

**Tasselfoot** · 05-13-2004, 06:56 AM

chardish... 100 bar blackout has about 30-35 really fast doubletons (either 16ths or 32nds, i don't know) throughout the song... and therefore, shouldn't be in beginner. i still have a hard time FCing it every time, and i'm currently #1 ranked on that song with 5 goods... aka, i doubt it can be PCed.

**87x** · 05-13-2004, 07:14 AM

you shouldn't of said that you got #1 on that with 5 goods.. people are going to try and rape that song now..

anyway.. good job chardish.. i found your lists to be accurate (of what I saw), but to divide all of our songs into only 6 different catagories.. might be a but off.. see.. with some of those songs, they fit there catagories but are still uncomparable to the other songs in its group.... for example.. molto vivace compared to hellbeat.. Fotbb compared to revolutionary etude.. maybe a 7th or 8th catagorey is needed.. but.. thats just my opinion..

hm©

**Kilgamayan** · 05-13-2004, 07:34 AM

I propose the new category 87x suggested is called "WTF".

**lightdarkness** · 05-13-2004, 08:57 AM

Great system, addapt it synth!

05-13-2004, 02:05 PM

87x, I know 6 categories is a very small number. However, it seems like the more categories there are the more debate emerges over what falls into what categories. If we have 15 levels of difficulty like on SM, it will be difficult for people to decide "Hmm, is this a 9 or a 10" etc.

In addition, stepfile makers are responsible for determining the difficulty of their song. This is a lot easier to do when they only have 6 choices instead of a larger number. True, Hellbeat is nothing when compared to Molto Vivace, but the point is, both of those songs are unquestionably harder than anything in the lower 5 categories. Unquestionably is the key word here. The more categories there are, the more ambiguous the difficulties get.

04-23-2004, 10:01 PM	#2
fusi0n FFR Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Indianapolis, IN Age: 36 Posts: 2,158	in my opinion, Uber Rave would be in expert, not master. nice work though, we do need a new system. __________________

04-23-2004, 10:36 PM	#6
ImEric12 FFR Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Next to Hooker Land. :o Posts: 1,952	I definately agree.. I'm around the difficulty level of 'Difficult', but I started playing some Very Difficult songs the other day, and realized I can pass most of them, whereas there are quite a few difficults I can't pass. __________________

04-23-2004, 11:12 PM	#9
Moogy 嗚呼 Join Date: Aug 2003 Age: 34 Posts: 10,303	The only classical song that counts for anything is Molto Vivace... the others are retarded and don't go to the music... __________________ Plz visit my blog ^^^ vintage signature from like 2006 preserved

04-24-2004, 07:22 AM	#12
aperson FFR Hall of Fame Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Houston Posts: 3,428	Blank Knowing isn't really a beginner song, more like advanced. __________________

04-24-2004, 08:09 AM	#13
Privateer FFR Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 2,962	With speed mods available, nothing should be too hard to read. If it is, that means it's retarded. __________________

04-23-2004, 09:55 PM	#1
User6773 Guest Posts: n/a	R1 - Actual Song Difficulties (game is inaccurate) An old thread, but with R2 coming out, I think it's necessary to revive and sticky it. ----------------------------------------- As everyone knows, the song difficulties are extremely messed up. So much so that according to the game, Lethal Injection is easier than Bubbleman. The primary problem is that there have been no standards for stepfile difficulty ratings. Think about it. Isn't it odd that no song in the game is easier than 2 foot? If Mario is 2 foot, then how easy would a 1 foot song be? So easy it's not even worth putting in the game? Was FFR Special Mix (when it existed) 1 foot? We must eliminate the use of an arbitrary numerical system to rate stepfile difficulties. It is meaningless for a stepfile maker to assign a difficulty to his stepfile when he is not comparing it to anything else already in the game in doing so. What I have devised is a standard for sorting songs into difficulty levels. It uses only 6 levels, not 10+, so it should be easier for stepfile artists to put their songs in the proper difficulty levels. The levels are broken down as such: Beginner: Very simple step patterns, nothing more complicated than quarter notes (except maybe a short pattern of eighths here or there.) Jumps are kept to a minimum. Easy: Streams of quarter notes and streams of slow eighths. Jumps may be slightly more frequent. Sixteenth notes are practically nonexistant. Intermediate: Fast streams of quarters and eighths, some with jumps in the stream. Sixteenth notes begin to show up more frequently, as well as awkward rhythms. Some songs may have similar step patterns as Easy songs, but Intermediate songs are usually faster. Advanced: Requires very fast fingerwork, but still not too uncomplicated for most people to do. Fast streams of sixteenth notes are common, as are extremely awkward rhythms. Expert: Difficult to read songs that are still doable, though not FC'able, by most good people without keysmashing. May contain very fast streams of sixteenth notes, and some 32nd notes in moderation. Requires far more skill than Advanced to rack up a sizeable combo. Master: The hardest of the hardest - songs for folks like Reach, Nima, Arch0wl, etc. Hard to clear and even harder to score well on. ---------------------------------- ---------------------------------- That being said, I have sorted every song in the game into these new difficulty brackets. I hope they will soon be adopted, as it is a very accurate representation of difficulty, and is far more informative than the current system. The letter before the name corresponds to the genre the song can be found in. This list took many hours to create, and I hope it is seriously considered. Beginner ----------- (A) Mario 8Bit Eighties Remix (D) Trip To The Moon (D) Activity Unbroken (D) SkellyBones (D) Computer Dreams (D) Dance 2 This (D) Halcyon (D) The Color of Battle (H) Love You Anymore (H) Seattle's Finest (H) 100 Bar Blackout (H) This Beat Is For Tha Streets (H) Freak Out (R) Stay With Me (R) For Who I Am Easy ----------- (A) Bubbleman Stage Theme (C) Moonlight Sonata (D) 136.6 (D) Soul Shift (D) Get on The Move (D) Story of Snowman and Sunshine Girl (D) Falling Into You (D) Spontaneous Hydroxide (D) Raindrops (D) Euphoria (D) Salad For Your Tuesday (D) Terror From Beyond (F) Cat Walk 2 (F) Too Tight (F) Funk In G (H) Return F Superdouble (R) Resistance Intermediate ----------- (?) Burnout (?) Secret Zombie Room (?) La Luna Caida (?) Ingenuity (A) Boss Machine (A) One Last Battle (A) Megaman 2 Dr. Wily theme (A) Crystalis House Leaves (A) Metalman Goes Clubbing (A) Legend of Zelda Remix (A) 4FT3R M3 (D) Dendrite (D) Alpha Helix (D) Emotions (D) Life Goes On (D) Massive (D) Breaking The Common (F) Slap Guitar 2 (H) The Essential (H) Shag (M) Ball of Malt (M) She Bangs William Hung Version (P) Stay With Me v2 (R) Until The End Advanced ----------- (?) Fett's Vette (?) Abtrusity (?) Green Twilight (?) Water Like Pudding (?) Synesthetic (A) Final Fantasy 7 Battle (D) Beethoven Virus (D) Blank Knowing (D) Contra-distinction (D) Stalled Out & Sushi Bars (P) NeoMAX (R) Last Firstborn Expert ----------- (?) For FFR (?) Lethal Injection (A) Chrono Trigger Boss Theme (C) Rondo Alla Turca (D) CIA Rave (D) Uber Rave (P) Party 4u 'holy nite mix' Master ----------- (C) Revolutionary Etude (C) Flight of the Bumblebee (C) One Minute Waltz (C) Caprice (C) Molto Vivace (D) HELLBEAT (D) RunnyMorning (SGX Mix) (P) AIM Anthem (P) Silence Thoughts? Suggestions? Everything is welcome. EDIT: Moved Uber Rave because I was thinking about doing what Fusi0n suggested, and his suggestion sealed the deal. EDIT: Blank Knowing was accidentally in Beginner. Thanks to aperson for pointing it out.

04-23-2004, 10:26 PM	#4
VxDx FFR Player Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 1,871	I didn't read all of it, but hellbeat should be expert not master IMO. I can pass it easily.

04-23-2004, 10:28 PM	#5
Blox FFR Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 90	Eh, 4F73R M3 may not be that difficult of a song but it has some odd points and a nice mix of various step patterns. Plus the ending and a small portion of the middle are relatively fast. On the other hand, I don't think it would be right on the next list with the other songs in that division. Making this paragraph irrelevant. Right. Well, what I was trying to lead to is the FF7 theme. 4F73R M3 is DEFINITELY more difficult in all aspects to FF7, and it is on the easier list. However, as I said above, 4F73R M3 does not fit with the harder songs. My suggestion would be to put FF7 in the slightly easier difficulty rating.

04-23-2004, 11:04 PM	#7
Freak83 FFR Simfile Author Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Toronto Posts: 3,281	Lethal Injection is not meant to be in the catagory that you have it in right now. Acording to the way you listed it, the way I made it I had thought it to be much closer to advanced songs than expert ones. I did a similer thing for the FFR League. Going over every song in the game (at the time I made it), except I sorted it into beginner, average, advanced, and expert, and then assigned it 1-3 stars depending on how it fit into that difficulty.

04-23-2004, 11:11 PM	#8
User6773 Guest Posts: n/a	Actually, Freak, this difficulty system was inspired by the groupings in the FFR League.

04-23-2004, 11:43 PM	#11
wildman FFR Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Nevada Posts: 73	Thanx! This will make it much easier to determine what kind of song we would be playing.....cuz you got to admit, Lethal Injection is an expert song and not just "tricky"!

05-12-2004, 09:21 PM	#15
User6773 Guest Posts: n/a	Added more recent songs to the list.

05-13-2004, 06:56 AM	#16
Tasselfoot Retired BOSS Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Widget Heaven Age: 40 Posts: 25,184	chardish... 100 bar blackout has about 30-35 really fast doubletons (either 16ths or 32nds, i don't know) throughout the song... and therefore, shouldn't be in beginner. i still have a hard time FCing it every time, and i'm currently #1 ranked on that song with 5 goods... aka, i doubt it can be PCed. __________________ RIP

05-13-2004, 07:14 AM	#17
87x Retired Staff Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: VA Age: 38 Posts: 4,379	you shouldn't of said that you got #1 on that with 5 goods.. people are going to try and rape that song now.. anyway.. good job chardish.. i found your lists to be accurate (of what I saw), but to divide all of our songs into only 6 different catagories.. might be a but off.. see.. with some of those songs, they fit there catagories but are still uncomparable to the other songs in its group.... for example.. molto vivace compared to hellbeat.. Fotbb compared to revolutionary etude.. maybe a 7th or 8th catagorey is needed.. but.. thats just my opinion.. hm© __________________ RAVEnHEXa: Lip ring is because I want to be a professional piercer. 87x: more like.. professional goth.

05-13-2004, 07:34 AM	#18
Kilgamayan Super Scooter Happy Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Location, Location. Age: 39 Posts: 6,583	I propose the new category 87x suggested is called "WTF". __________________ I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o' that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.

05-13-2004, 08:57 AM	#19
lightdarkness Summer!! Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: New York Age: 35 Posts: 11,308	Great system, addapt it synth! __________________

05-13-2004, 02:05 PM	#20
User6773 Guest Posts: n/a	87x, I know 6 categories is a very small number. However, it seems like the more categories there are the more debate emerges over what falls into what categories. If we have 15 levels of difficulty like on SM, it will be difficult for people to decide "Hmm, is this a 9 or a 10" etc. In addition, stepfile makers are responsible for determining the difficulty of their song. This is a lot easier to do when they only have 6 choices instead of a larger number. True, Hellbeat is nothing when compared to Molto Vivace, but the point is, both of those songs are unquestionably harder than anything in the lower 5 categories. Unquestionably is the key word here. The more categories there are, the more ambiguous the difficulties get.

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