New Difficulty System Name Suggestions

[bmah]

Only issue I see in that list is that it can appear more confusing. We're used to seeing stuff like "Difficult" and "Very Difficult" as individual components, but to someone else, it can be viewed as the splitting of a difficulty into two parts. Splitting that even further would appear more confusing. You'd have a title that's like the subgroup of another subgroup.
"What's Difficult+? Huh? That's not Very Difficult? Doesn't + imply it's very difficult?" a new user may think.

IMO, I think the list gives an overly micromanaging appearance. It would've been more appropriate if difficulties like "Challenging" didn't already have two terms with a magnitudinal description as their differences.

Otherwise, you may as well have Challenging, Very Challenging, Very Very Challenging, and Very Very Very Challenging.

[leonid]

Divide the 20 difficulties into five groups of four, and tell them apart by appending four different smilies to them.


01- For Beginners Only
02- For Beginners Only
03- For Beginners Only
04- For Beginners Only
05- Easy
06- Easy
07- Easy
08- Easy
09- Standard
10- Standard
11- Standard
12- Standard
13- Challenging
14- Challenging
15- Challenging
16- Challenging
17- For Masters Only
18- For Masters Only
19- For Masters Only
20- For Masters Only

[wildfireskunk]

I'm not big on the + signs next to the existing difficulties. bmah pinpoints the same problem I have in that having each word span four different difficulties is just untidy and not very nice.

[DossarLX ODI]

Actually, it would be the opposite. If a new user finds discussions that have taken place over the past nine years, then it will look very untidy and confusing. It's really not that hard to see that + means the higher end, lol (hell even look at FFR tournaments. hi19's tournament had D5 split into like four parts? D5A, D5B, D5C, and D5D. He also had a lot of subdivisions in D1 and so forth)

[MarioNintendo]

Originally Posted by bmah

Only issue I see in that list is that it can appear more confusing. We're used to seeing stuff like "Difficult" and "Very Difficult" as individual components, but to someone else, it can be viewed as the splitting of a difficulty into two parts. Splitting that even further would appear more confusing. You'd have a title that's like the subgroup of another subgroup.
"What's Difficult+? Huh? That's not Very Difficult? Doesn't + imply it's very difficult?" a new user may think.

IMO, I think the list gives an overly micromanaging appearance. It would've been more appropriate if difficulties like "Challenging" didn't already have two terms with a magnitudinal description as their differences.

Otherwise, you may as well have Challenging, Very Challenging, Very Very Challenging, and Very Very Very Challenging.

I can only partly agree with this. It's true that, when you look at it, the "very"s and the "+"s can get confusing for newcomers. However, I also believe that, once you get to see the whole list to understand the logic behind it, it's hard to get confused. Maybe, when the new difficulties are applied, a quick reminder in the engine (like a help panel when you first log in that would also be available afterwards somewhere) would be the solution to this problem you mentioned. We could also go directly in the newbie forums to make a poll or something to see how the newcomers react to the list.

[igotrhythm]

I like this idea a lot. Get a post in the newbie forums so we can get a larger sample of the community involved, instead of just the opinions of those that have strong opinions regarding file difficulty.

However, if a news post isn't going to get people's attention, I don't see a sticky/announcement doing much either. Still, can't hurt to try it.

[bmah]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

It's really not that hard to see that + means the higher end, lol

And as I said, would be fine IF it wasn't for the fact that there were already magnitudinal descriptions for these old difficulties.

If there was such a system like:

Difficult
Difficult+
Challenging
Challenging+
etc.

I would be perfectly fine with this. But you already have "Very" describing high and low ends of these magnitudes, so further dissecting it with "+" would be even less straightforward. Right now, you're proposing for:

{Name}
- {Subname}
- - {Subsubname}

I propose to either think of a few new names to replace descriptions with "very", or go back to many other people's suggestions with unique descriptions for each difficulty.

[DossarLX ODI]

I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself on how for the past nine years these difficulties have been used. Back in 2005 when I first was playing FFR I wasn't confused by "Challenging" and "Very Difficult". Using + is *nothing* like saying very very difficult, because if I was a newbie back in 2005, I was 11 years old and basically knew very little about the game at all, and knew that very difficult was a lower rating than challenging, there isn't going to be that confusion compared to coming up with names that will make older discussions way more confusing.

I would think "very difficult" would be harder than "challenging" back in that time, but I knew the ratings and it made sense with the discussions at the time. "Oh hey, this is only challenging. But this is very difficult? Wait, what is Very challenging supposed to be? What does it compare to?"

[bmah]

But back then, you didn't have a second descriptor subdividing it even further. You had "challenging" and "very challenging". You didn't have "challenging", "challenging+", "very challenging", "very challenging+". That's way too many subdivisions. A new user may not see that as very intuitive. One subdivision's enough.

[qqwref]

Honestly I don't even see the "Very" as a subdivision anymore. A VC isn't an extra hard C file, it's a separate difficulty entirely.

We don't even have to use the +s - actually, we could just have (for instance) both 15 and 16 be called For Masters Only, like what we always did with the 1-99 system. It might be a little confusing at first but I think people would quickly realize that 15 means "a low FMO" and 16 means "a high FMO".

Bonus: Oni doesn't become yet again even harder to achieve...

[Zakvvv666]

Originally Posted by qqwref

We don't even have to use the +s - actually, we could just have (for instance) both 15 and 16 be called For Masters Only, like what we always did with the 1-99 system. It might be a little confusing at first but I think people would quickly realize that 15 means "a low FMO" and 16 means "a high FMO".

This idea actually seems REALLY good, this way we not only have the new system, but it won't mess with people keeping track of VC AAA's, FMO AAA's etc. and would likely make everyone much happier including myself.

[stavie33]

If I were a noob and saw the +, like in most other games that have a + added to anything, it means higher end. Take shooters for example. You have an upgrade, lets say fast reload, and lets say you have another upgrade called instant reload. Fast reload allows you to do, lets say an active reload like in GoW and it gives you more powerful bullets and reloads quicker, and lets say instant reload immediately reloads your gun so you can non-stop fire. These are different perks, one is not a 'faster' version of the other. Lets say like in most games these perks are upgradable. You'll generally see on the menu then 'fast reload+' and 'instant reload+'. This just means you have a higher level of upgrade, and no one would get confused between whether fast reload+ is the same as instant.

Maybe this is a bad analogy, but if we properly define difficulties and have it listed/stickied where any noob can find it, they will realize that those are distinct difficulties, and + just means the higher end of those difficulties.

I don't feel like scrapping everything we have because as Dossar said, we've been using them for 9 years and even if we change their names people will still be using them. They are ingrained into the site by now, and it would take longer to learn a whole new mess of difficulty names that are unnecessary and in a way even more misleading/confusing than what we already use. Yes when I started I was confused as to whether challenging is harder than difficult, where the hell tricky even stood, and whether Master was above Guru. This can all be solved by just making sure there is a place that's easy to find, and in the open that defines the difficulties.

This confusion will occur no matter what we choose, why is training higher than easiest? Where would training stand? Challenging is still confusing compared with difficult, none of this gets fixed, all it does is require the 9+ year community to completely relearn everything, make all previous discussions unreadable, and then have noobs learn an even more complex system with 20 different difficulty names. Honestly I think it would be quite easy once we explain whether challenging > difficult in general for any competent person to realize 'challenging+ is obviously higher than challenging, and very challenging is higher than challenging and as a different rating is probably higher than challenging+'. The plus connects the two difficulties, and thus I'd find it hard to believe someone would think the order goes C, VC, C+, VC+ instead of C, C+, VC, VC+.'

An easy solution would be just have actual difficulty numbers out of 20 next to the file, like in beatmania and new DDR, they don't require difficulty names. When I talk about DDR, it's always been 'this is a 10, this is an 8', and for beatmania 'this is an 8, this a 12'. That's simple, used in other rhythm games, and cannot be misleading.

PHEW long post

[i love you]

Originally Posted by qqwref

Honestly I don't even see the "Very" as a subdivision anymore. A VC isn't an extra hard C file, it's a separate difficulty entirely.

We don't even have to use the +s - actually, we could just have (for instance) both 15 and 16 be called For Masters Only, like what we always did with the 1-99 system. It might be a little confusing at first but I think people would quickly realize that 15 means "a low FMO" and 16 means "a high FMO".

Bonus: Oni doesn't become yet again even harder to achieve...

When you put it this way, I must agree.

Still, I thought it would be cool to change those "For __ Only" names and to rename the 1-14 names to the ones Silvuh thought of on his post. It just sounds better and makes more sense AT LEAST for me anyway lol.

EDIT: Holy shit stavie LMAO (Big ass wall of text xD)

[popsicle_3000]

i'm still a fan of nois's suggestions. plz no +'s...

[One Winged Angel]

I'd prefer if there wasn't any overlap in the difficulty titles (i.e. FMO being reserved for both 15 and 16). Would look cleaner choosing a different name for each level, despite the fact that the community has grown accustomed to referring to the vast majority of more difficult songs as either FMO or FGO.

Plus I really want Brutal as the rating for 18 or 19 :twisted:

[MarioNintendo]

Originally Posted by qqwref

We don't even have to use the +s - actually, we could just have (for instance) both 15 and 16 be called For Masters Only, like what we always did with the 1-99 system. It might be a little confusing at first but I think people would quickly realize that 15 means "a low FMO" and 16 means "a high FMO".

Maybe this, then?

01- Easiest
02- For Beginners
03- Very Easy
04- Easy
05- Standard
06- Tricky
07- Difficult (D)
08- Difficult (D)
09- Very Difficult (VD)
10- Very Difficult (VD)
11- Challenging (C)
12- Challenging (C)
13- Very Challenging (VC)
14- Very Challenging (VC)
15- For Masters Only (FMO)
16- For Masters Only (FMO)
17- For Gurus Only (FGO)
18- For Gurus Only (FGO)
19- Brutal
20- Insane

[iironiic]

Originally Posted by stavie33

PHEW long post

Not your longest post ;)

Just a small question. What if we just refer the difficulties as "15" or something, and then give a set range for "Masters"? So for example, the current "FMOs" (would prefer calling them "Master" instead) can have difficulty 15-16. That way, people can count how many "Master" songs they have AAA'd, etc. We don't need to come up with 20 names. Just saying difficulty 15 gives a good idea of what to expect in the file.

[25thhour]

Originally Posted by MarioNintendo

Maybe this, then?

01- Easiest
02- For Beginners
03- Very Easy
04- Easy
05- Standard
06- Tricky
07- Difficult (D)
08- Difficult (D)
09- Very Difficult (VD)
10- Very Difficult (VD)
11- Challenging (C)
12- Challenging (C)
13- Very Challenging (VC)
14- Very Challenging (VC)
15- For Masters Only (FMO)
16- For Masters Only (FMO)
17- For Gurus Only (FGO)
18- For Gurus Only (FGO)
19- Brutal
20- Insane

Yes! This is perfect! Doesn't stray too far off the original one and keeps the harder songs grouped together to tell if low/high.

[BahamutZER0]

Not a fan of reusing the name for multiple difficulties, if you're really that concerned about supporting the legacy (so to speak) difficulty names I don't see what's wrong with using a + or something just so you can tell them apart.

I'd rather if we were going to bother to revamp the difficulty system we didn't choose a naming scheme just on the basis of preserving the old names though, because without that requirement no one would ever choose this setup with or without the +s over a more natural one.

[ShadowDueler97]

Some of the ideas I have are: Legendary, Impossible, Unbeatable, Insanity, Overload, and........ CHUCK NORRIS xD :D