How do I get better/faster?

[OmegaOrdoss]

Hi, I know this is a difficult question to answer beyond 'just play more duh' but I'm really curious if any of you high rank veterans have any advice? I am a long-time veteran player but after many long breaks my skill is lower than ever.

I played index naturally, and I made it up to around 65 difficulty on 'index friendly' songs.
Today I play spread, askl, 3x speed, I do not use clipping, and my browser has occasional frame skips?? Either way, playing spread I am stuck trying to FC <40 difficulty.

I would like to be able to comfortably FC 60-70 difficulty spread, its the whole reason I switched over, but I do not seem to be getting any better, especially around jump chains.

Anybody got any advice? much appreciated!

[dadcop2]

are u playing ffr and expecting it to not skip frames
lol

[Celirra]

The day frame skips stop is the day that I skillboost tremendously on FFR.

[Walrusizer]

https://github.com/xwidghet/stepmania/releases

and then play more

[dadcop2]

play more and play more jacks and runningmen so u dont end up like walrus

[Travis_Flesher]

You have to want it. Approach your playing with the mentality that you are trying to improve and get better. Try to get your timing to amazing where possible. Use a standalone in low quality and close all other windows to get better response time. Find custom settings in your options menu. Also try setting your judge offset to -0.05, that helped a lot for me. The fact that you asked this question tells me you're having difficulty, so play difficult songs and just see how fast you can physically make your fingers mash. Then when you go back down to easier ones, it's like removing the lead donuts from your baseball bat. Sometimes it helps not to try real hard to get in sync with the arrows, but to just relax and find a rhythm. Know when to buttonmash and when to use precision to attain the highest possible score. As time goes on you will improve. Keep in mind that you are trying to achieve the highest number possible in your 'score' slot, not to impress anyone but to get better, then if you succeed it will be impressive. If all else fails go running outside in the sunshine and get some exercise. Also, and this is starting to get theoretical, I've noticed that on some high speed songs as the rhythm takes control it helps to visualize the arrows as revolving about on a wheel instead of ascending linearly. If you find yourself flustered when it frame skips, I recommend at that point focusing and trying to play through because oftentimes a frame skip/lag implies that the beat is about to drop. It can become a different ball game if you play progressively. It also helps to try different framerate. Try something between 180 and 250. My computer is old, so you might wanna go even higher than that.

[omega_grunt666]

Play above your comfort level, play patterns you find difficult, try stepmania and harder judgement settings. Play as much as possible, but take breaks, and be sure to always warm up first. Make sure you're playing from a comfortable position, good angle on the keyboard, comfortable arm/wrist rests.

Its easy to fall into the trap of playing the same few songs over and over again, but experiment, try new things.

As for my personal experience, I prefer to play a wider spread using the numpad.(as56/zx23) And it sounds stupid but the last tournament I played in, I made sure before bed I was focused on the game. Thinking about patterns, going through the motions in my head. And of course getting a good nights sleep, I found I played much better the following day. Maybe it was just the fact I was then comparing end of the night derp play to fresh start morning stuff, but psychologically it helped keep me motivated and practicing.

Granted, I don't even really play that much anymore because of the frameskips, moved mostly to SM. :P

[Wayward Vagabond]

Originally Posted by Celirra

The day frame skips stop is the day that I skillboost tremendously on FFR.

Back in the days of pre public release of the av-miss glitch fix ffr ran like hot knife through room temperature margarine

[Charu]

Originally Posted by Celirra

The day frame skips stop is the day that I skillboost tremendously on FFR.

This is quite literally why I stopped playing

[Gigamu5e]

I have a list of songs I keep going back to. I've played them a lot and can anticipate when certain patterns show up. I wanted to have a little fun and tried to increase the speed (the rate option) of a few songs. This makes you focus on hitting the notes, but since there's less room for error, it'll help with timing as well. Might not work for every song if they have a fast stream of notes, but it's fun to try them out.

It helped me get to D3 so maybe it'll help you get the FCs you deserve.

[Ristyy]

Try stepmania

[happyhardcor3]

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...d.php?t=120256
^ standalone flashplayer would prob help a bunch if your playing in browser I had best results with fp9 and 12

[V-Ormix]

The thing I wish I knew long before I retired stepmania is you can get a variety of leverage and control when you start to tighten certain mechanics of your technique.

One example is to lift your fingers for "strokes" rather than striking the keys downward. You can think of your rists as having dual muscles for lift and downward push
.
Maintaining focus while reading is half the game imo but it's good to incorporate other muscles almost in a compound cycle. What I mean by this is every individual arrow could correspond with another muscle movement. What I usually do is a set of 3 starting with my finger on an 4th note my rist on a 16th and my arm on an 8th and then the cycle repeats ect. again emphasizing lift as apposed to downward force which is a momentum killer. Also try to reduce shaking in general.

[MinaciousGrace]

wait did you want to get better and faster

or better or faster

or get better faster

or get faster better

im sorry i hope you get well soon

[SNOWLEGEND]

So i consider myself a noob still but i guess it depends on what you want to get better at. There is two main ways (I think) you can go about it.
1) Accuracy- Focus on easy songs and make your pa count as good as possible meaning SDG, or AAA. For this you probably want to focus on songs that are your level and under.
2) Speed- Focus on songs that are out of your comfort zone. Might want to find songs that you like and set goals along the way. Basically get as fast as possible and then soon what was out of your comfort zone will be easy.
Personally I play the 'speed' way. I find it more enjoyable and a little more relaxing since your not constantly trying to get a perfect PA. Plus it feels REALLY good knowing you are good enough to actually get a decent PA on a song that you couldn't even play a month ago.

[RitzC]

Find songs that really feature the technique you want/need to work on! Counter-strike/CS Custom gun sounds is awesome for getting mad jack skills, carol megamix has fast but not-too-hard runs as well as jump sequences that get progressively more difficult. If you can do level 40 songs, you can definitely do MAX forever. Sometimes just playing level 80 songs and letting the arrows sink into your optical nerves while your fingers flail randomly can teach your brain things without you even realizing. I used to feel like progress came faster and easier starting out, like you'd get a technique down and all of a sudden a bunch of songs would become easy. Now it's like, if I can get my rank down 30 points on a level 85 song, that's some progress.

[Rapta]

if ur d5 or higher and motivated and want me to give personal lessons i will, just hit me up
ill gladly pass on what i've learned from experience