What makes a good chart, for you?

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

This

But anyway in general...

-Fairly balanced difficulty (you don't really want to play a 4nps file for 2 mins just for that 15nps ending etc.)
-Balanced patterns not overloading one hand (unless novel or warranted), flow (which is more of an issue in 6k)
-Use of non-generic patterns, giving impression of effort in file
-Completeness feel, see above
-Technicality isn't *too* important so long its not noticeable when playing (no one is going to open up the editor to find every single mistake in your file unless its that blatantly wrong)

EDIT: forgot to add importantly
-Song choice definitely
-Fun factor overrides most of the above

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

A mix of fun factor and technicality. Miss one or the other, and it'll go downhill fast...
And song choice helps a lot too. Sometimes there are songs we all love, but are not very interesting to step, and it's often hard to let your favorite songs go because they're really repetitive.

Now what I don't get is people's inconsistency in liking/disliking certain types of files. Not long ago, people were babbling out how bursty files are "technical" and non-palatable. In fact, Xayphon's The Bird's Poisoned Bathwater was criticized for just that in the DF custom tourney iirc. And now, people are raving about Fast Asleep, basically the same type of song and file made by the same person. What's up with that? Be consistent, dammit. Why do you like the same sort of file and hate another song with those exact same mechanisms? [with practically the same type of music] Furthermore, the criticisms come from the same high-leveled players, so it's not entirely taking two situations out of context.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

This this this. ^^^

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

fun factor

I couldn't care less about being 200% technically correct because I myself break technical stepping conventions for file flow and fun

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

i voted expressiveness, but that's part of what makes a file fun for me. i like to feel like i'm playing to the flow of the song, sorta hence why kil is one of my favorite step authors.

otherwise yeah fun factor and song choice are both really important to me

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

I'll throw my hand in - for me, expressiveness is the most important thing. A lot of the others are still important, but there's no question that I enjoy a file most when it really matches the feel of the song, with the right amount of emphasis in the right places, so that hitting the chart feels like playing along to the music.

I think this is why I enjoy dumps, although I know that some people totally hate them. A really amazing dumpfile is fun and good for scoring, sure, but it also matches the feel of the song, with patterns that reflect the music's changes in intensity and structure. That way, even when hitting a tough 24th stream or something, you can still feel like you're playing along to the music.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

IMO, I think Fun Factor is the most important because I believe that if the file is fun, it should not matter much what the person did in the editor. I admit, back then, I used to take the technical approach but then after talking to a few cool people about it and stuff, I have gained more experience and knowledge about breaking the rules and now I can say that making the file fun is all that matters.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

This poll is retarded and I will say why its retarded once I get home from subway

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

ok im back from subway. the question should be what does fun factor consist of for you? why? because everything else listed is what makes up fun factor. im so ****ing tired of people saying that files have more technicality than fun factor or that flow was taken more into account than fun factor. ever since that QED thread people have been comparing things to fun factor when they have no god damn idea what their talking about. its like mainstream political hot words that are used all the ****ing time. global warming would be a great example.

so please for the love of god stop comparing things that make up fun factor to fun factor itself. not only is it annoying but it makes you look like a no nothing jackass.


OK what i find enjoyable in files is how well the file follows the music. if theres an intense section in a song i expect the difficulty to spike in that section. if theres a soft mellow section in the song i dont expect to be hitting 32nd bursts even if there is a small blip bloop that those 32nds go to. I also enjoy balanced files that dont have a hand biased. sure if the music is mainly panned to the left or right then yes i expect the chart to reflect that but when the music is even and im hitting nonstop left hand running men or hidden 8th jacks on the right hand constantly during 16th js then i will probably not care about playing the rest of the file and i probably wont ever play that file ever again.

for me a fun file has no one concept dominant over another. for example i dont like purely technical charts nor do i enjoy purely expressive charts. a chart that maintains its technically through out while still expressing the song to the best of the step artists ability. as long as i get what the step artist is trying to do that is good enough for me.

i could type out much more but i'll refrain from doing so xd

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

I agree 100% with you, WC. I put expressiveness in the poll, but it's really the balance between that and technicality that matters to me.

I also do care to an extent about liking the song or not. I cannot play any country music, I'll just kill myself 10 seconds in if I do. Also, honki. I like the first 30-ish seconds of honki; they're amazing and I love the music, but as soon as the singing starts, it's like nope not gonna play this and I boo out.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

Nah, you missed my point - when I say "fun factor" here I'm referring to the file just being fun to play in a not-easily-explainable way. People enjoy files for a lot of reasons other than that they're just fun, and that's represented in the poll. For some people, just having fun is more important than anything else, and these people probably tend to enjoy playing dumps. For others, technicality is more important than fun, because most of their enjoyment really does come from seeing how accurate the file is, so they probably think dumps and QED files are worthless and don't understand how anyone could enjoy them. And then you have scoring people who enjoy files based more on how tough they are to AA than on anything else. It's the same with video games; you could ask a ton of people why they like a particular game, and sure a lot of them will say "it's just fun", but others will care more about the graphics or the music or the genre or the tone. Those things can be really satisfying by themselves, and make someone a fan of a game even though they're not going "aww yeah this is so fun" while they play it.

So basically, for me fun factor is NOT an overarching concept that automatically includes whatever you want in a file. The whole idea is that it represents the stuff you can't explain quantitatively, the "I like it because I do" rather than "I like it because of this" approach. And for everyone who likes charts for other reasons - appreciating charters' abilities, aesthetics, a complement to their favorite music, going for stepmania WRs - there are plenty of other legitimate things for someone to care about.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

i dont get"i like it because i do" ive never been able to get how someone can like something and not know why. probably just me though

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?



It has more to do with not being able to explain it because it's hard to put in words.

I can even use an example of a submission to FFR that got -/-/-/--, and that was Arch0wl's Energizer (which you happened to judge). You didn't like the chart at all, but there is the abstract aspect and the long jack that make the file memorable (to me), but you don't feel this because you have a different view on it.

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

yeah wc's right, if you can't explain what are "fun factors" objectively, it's pretty meaningless to tell fun factors are the most important or something here. So you definitely need to define "fun factors" first if you want to start this.

IMO "fun" can be interpreted in many ways, it includes "flow the music nicely", "well structured", "have innovative features", "the difficulty match one's skill level", etc, and not the same level as "technical" or "expressive".

Re: What makes a good chart, for you?

i got what he was doing with the file and knew why he did what he did i just didnt think the file was fit for ffr not that i didnt like it. we didnt have different views on the file it self i just thought the file was too over the top for ffr.