Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Actually not joking: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...E9Xp2E/pubhtml


...So I need your help and ideas to come up how to fill 25 minutes and represent the game as good as possible, not just play hard songs.




So far, one idea is to have a course with progressively harder songs until it will be on my limit to keep up with, or maybe do some gimmicky stuff (whic hsadly i suck at atm )

General no's are dumps, buzznoise, copyrighted k-pop or that stuff.

Music that will be good will be bms, video game music remixes and such.

I'll update this thread with ideas and suggestions.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

dang that is sic

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

HOLY CRAP. this is amazing. who are the "runners"?

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Not seeing it in the spreadsheet but that's awesome man. I like the idea of courses upgrading in difficulty over time haha.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

what's the speedrun aspect of stepmania, if i may ask?

it will be hard to appeal to the speedrun crowd with stepmania unless you're going to be doing something like the TAS-bot block

that granted, i recommend utilizing VG music to your fullest advantage (using songs from stuff like chrono trigger, castlevania come to mind)

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Usually crowds have positive reactions to Xmod charts where you can barely see anything happening. Throw in one of those.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

you should get windeu to throw together a course file for the showcase

edit: he's busy :<

editedit: you should pick a file that you can play on haste and call it a "speedrun"

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

That's awesome. I guess the schedule can change anytime but you're in a good time slot. You could end with a Mega Man song or something.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Thursday 1/7 at 5:07PM

If we're being technical, it would be beating any song in the fastest time, so at the highest rate. Similar to how there are individual level runs for some games.

Though really that would just devolve into 'who can mash at the fastest rate' so there'd also need to be a 'no damage' category whereby no notes are missed.

But doing it as a TAS would be incredibly boring and the whole point of a TAS run is to either break the game or entertain. Can't do that when all you're doing is watching a thousand arrows flash and show perfect, it would be the same as listening to a song on Youtube with a static image as the video.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

get someone to step https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEOrv3XG30c i'm sure twitch chat would appreciate it
oh wait "no dumps" aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

nice :)

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

I have a number of charts that fit the criteria you want for this showcase.
I'd be glad to help you build a course.

I have a file for this that is almost finished. It's shaping up to be absolutely fucking nuts, the kind of thing I wonder if Staiain can actually even break 90% on.
Might be an amusing thing to end with. A whole course, 22 minutes of legit files showcasing the game in the best light... then end will a full cancer dump to cancer music for the Twitch trolls

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

I agree to this post

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

The most important part of this, and probably the hardest part for Staiain, is to be an entertainer.

Let's be honest here, if anyone who is like D3 or better plays this game, it's guaranteed to be mindblowing to anyone watching that hasn't played themselves.
Sadly, very few viewers are going to be able to tell the difference between what Staiain AAs and what, say, I play to AA. It's crazy shit to everyone either way.
People are automatically going to be wowed no matter what you do.



So the raw skill at the game isn't going to be the hard part.
The hard part is going to be making it interesting, to have a character and some kind of narrative for people to follow, or else 25 minutes is going to be a long fucking time.

Look at witwix. Everyone knows he's really fucking good at IWTBTG/Boshy/whatever it is he is playing. That's cool for a little bit, but what keeps people loving him is his character and his entertainment value.

I would be glad to work with Staiain on this because that's what is going to make or break this showcase for the stream, for the charity, and for our community.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

An example of what I mean:

So you sit down, and the first file you play is something like Etude for the Sinners.
Long intro with like 1 NPS gives you time to explain the game, then once the basic concept of arrow -> hit the key sinks in, you get the immediate wow factor of a wall of JS.

That gives a narrative for people to follow. It's more interesting then just sitting down and playing idk, RATO or something, even though to an experienced player it might be way more obvious that RATO is the more impressive file to play well on.

From there, it's important that you KEEP YOUR COMBO.
People who are watching have no concept of accuracy, and are completely unable to read anything.
There's two things they can focus on: the lifebar, and the combo meter.
If you keep your lifebar topped and the combo unbroken, you are a god.

So you do 8 minutes of stuff that's fast, but you can reliably FC.
Then you can say something like "Okay that was a nice warmup" (cue more minds being blown, THIS ISN'T EVEN HIS FINAL FORM!?)

Then you play something that's actually hard like Thunder Light 1.5 (except rates isn't that great to do, because it's hard to explain the distinction between scroll speed and music rate, so I'll try to find/make a suitable 250bpm OH trilling file to recognizable video game music or appropriate bms stuff)

You get your first combo breaker, and everyone understands now like... Shit this is what the real deal looks like. Damn.

From there you can introduce some different concepts that are easy for people to understand.
Say take 15 seconds to explain what a jackhammer is, then play some jack file.
Doesn't matter that you're not the best at jacks, nobody needs to know that, you are more than good enough to entertain and show off some different stuff in the game.

You can show off xmod stuff here too maybe, if you feel comfortable with it.

20 minutes passed.
Now people think they've seen everything.
You take like a minute to explain "Okay so, so far I've been playing some fun legit files. But the Stepmania community is a bunch of nerds, we have our memes... there's something called dump files. The arrows don't go to the music at all, it's just meant to be as hard as possible. This is really, honestly, the hardest thing I can play."
(cue even more minds being blown, IS THIS TRULY HIS FINAL FORM!?)

Then you play a dump to cancer music, Twitch chat goes wild, and you get like a high A and people see what a file that actually makes your lifebar not be constantly topped look like.
You win, you take a bow, that's the end.





That's a narrative and a character.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Another really important consideration, and I'm not making this up:

Make sure your keyboard is mic'd appropriately so that the stream can actually hear it.

The keytaps are like half of what makes Stepmania impressive to witness.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

as a side note very few people are going to be able to tell the difference between a dump and a legit file and I would argue that the existence of "quality dumps" is one of the cornerstones of what truly separates sm from other games

although I agree they should be avoided unless played as one of the last charts to showcase a "lulz level"

but honestly i think the charts that you end up playing are largely irrelevant

i think in order to properly appeal to the speedrunning crowd you essentially have to convince them that what you're doing isn't mindless mashing

for example, when playing a game at 30 fps frame perfect timing falls within 33ms timing windows

frame perfect timing is a concept speedrunners can relate to and even on files of considerable difficulty 70%+ of your inputs fall within frame perfect timing

this should be something that speedrunners can find to be impressive regardless of whether or not they can play the game

e: damn you ninja'd me in large part while i was typing this and eating breakfast

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

actually knew about this for a couple of days when the AGDQ speed running list came out, pretty nice you managed to get this in to the event

The only concern I have is people having no clue what's going on when you are playing, but both hi19 and mina have given good ideas for ways to appeal to the crowd/ make them feel not so confused

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

A big part of it too is going to be addressing the questions you always get and the banter between levels

Like I can tell you right now, someone is always going to be curious why "Marvelous" is better than "Perfect" ("wtf how can something be better than perfect") and being able to joke about how it honestly really doesn't make any fucking sense, and maybe being able to explain the origins of the system (Perfect came from DDR, but then it was realized that something stricter was needed) and, as Mina said, you can even go into the millisecond window (explained in terms of frames, which is something the speedrun crowd is very familiar with) to blow some more minds once they realize "Marvelous" is literally frame perfect.

Also being able to talk while you play, which I know you are already really good at, is something a lot of people find impressive.


EDIT- another question, which I'm sure you are familiar with from streaming, is "do you just memorize everything?"
Being able to answer that with "no" convincingly is important. If people don't believe me I ask them to pick a pack from the pack list I've never even heard of and sightread some files, but you're not going to have that luxury so figuring out another way to explain it is important.

Re: Guys, I got StepMania into AGDQ!!
 

Just play my files