Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

[bmah]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

bmah, there's no such thing as a 128th arrow. Come on.

Actually there is, or can be of any denomination, but anyhow I misspoke there. I meant 192nd.

take that back, it IS 128ths

It's easy to tell people to "stop being obsessed with consistency" when you can AAA the chart (so difficulty consistency doesn't affect you).

There are other parts of the song that can justify for the trill's difficulty. I disagree that it's out of place. It has -nothing- to do with my own performance.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

The argument about BPM scaling also depends on the intensity of the song itself. Listening to Suit Up here, the first 1/4 BPM cut is definitely a stretch considering there's bass drums playing on 4th notes at 110, and they're typically the prominent instrument. The second BPM cut has an accent on each hi-hat, but lacks the heavy percussion that the first one has, so a 1/2 BPM structure would be acceptable here. A 1/4th cut is a bit of a stretch here too.

The 1/2 BPM cuts in between the verses of the song are perfectly appropriate.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

Pretty lame week overall. Despite being one of my least favorite types of music, Sagano Rakuyou Emaki was a standout for how well-made the file was. Definitely the favorite of the week.


Alice's Garden
PR errors everywhere in the grace notes. Grace notes should follow the direction the tone is being rolled. Also some more minor PR errors in the melody, such as a repeating jump near the middle where the tone actually goes up. In a file this simplistic literally all there is to do is get the PR absolutely perfect; that it is incorrect is a problem.
Not sure about the arrow colors: either the white arrows were for color theory and went to absolutely nothing, or the BPM was wrong. Use small BPM changes to avoid this. Either way the arrows were the wrong color and that was annoying.
Overall just your typical technically weak file that got in because it's easy. Judges please be more harsh with this level of file in the future.

Note: As far as stylistically, I've said this before and I've said it again: easy files should have a consistent beat and give new users something to follow to practice reading and rhythm. This overabundance of ambient, color-fucced gracenote fests are bad for the game and push away potential new players. I would actually prefer being the most harsh with easy files, as it's the experienced players who know they will have to wade through some bad files to get to ones that make sense. New players shouldn't be thrust into the world of ~dumpy artfiles~ without at least the chance to understand the core of the game first. It's why we moved Synthlight files to Legacy and it's why we should hold files like this to an incredibly high standard before accepting.

Sagano Rakuyou Emaki
Interesting layering scheme, PR and the white arrow color theory followed nicely and was used where appropriate.
I applaud your restraint in not stepping the trills. The difficulty flows really well as a result.
Despite not being a fan of the music, I happily concede that this is a really well done file and an excellent addition to FFR for those who do like this genre.

Suit Up
Started out really fun. The half BPM sections made sense to me. As noted, the green color theory arrows were frequently a frame off. Use BPM changes to fix this next time (if you want an example, check my Silence file from my Tournament Pack. It's a huge pain in the ass to do correctly.)
The trill was definitely a huge difficulty spike but whatever, sometimes you need a dumb difficulty spike to give an otherwise bland file some character. It's a tradeoff.
The quarter BPM section was a little excessively hard to read. Got pretty repetitive after that, to be honest.
Overall just a really repetitive song pick, then you put some gimmicks and difficulty spikes in to give it replay value.
On one hand it's not that bad technically, cool song, fun to play and all that, so I guess it's fine. On the other hand though it was a pretty weak song choice from a steppability perspective and that's why people are raging, I think.

XTC Hill Zone Act 24.7
Super generic file. Lots of little background rhythms that could have been utilized to give some variety that weren't, especially in the beginning. Not saying what was stepped was wrong, just that there were some missed options to spice it up.
Most steppers have made a file with lol16ths and jumps to the bass drum, glad to see the tradition lives on. (DESTINYYY)
Overall nothing hugely wrong with it, nothing majorly recommending it. Cool Sonic nostalgia from the sound effects. 24ths and the color notes to Big were fun little interludes (was that a Game Grumps sample at the end? lol). JS patterns were solid.
Like there's not too much overtly wrong with the file except for the fact that I'm a jaded old stepman and have seen all this before so yeah. Good stuff, I suppose.

[Choofers]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

Pretty lame week overall. Despite being one of my least favorite types of music, Sagano Rakuyou Emaki was a standout for how well-made the file was. Definitely the favorite of the week.


Alice's Garden
PR errors everywhere in the grace notes. Grace notes should follow the direction the tone is being rolled. Also some more minor PR errors in the melody, such as a repeating jump near the middle where the tone actually goes up. In a file this simplistic literally all there is to do is get the PR absolutely perfect; that it is incorrect is a problem.
Not sure about the arrow colors: either the white arrows were for color theory and went to absolutely nothing, or the BPM was wrong. Use small BPM changes to avoid this. Either way the arrows were the wrong color and that was annoying.
Overall just your typical technically weak file that got in because it's easy. Judges please be more harsh with this level of file in the future.

I had this marked down as a 3.5 until I had to pass, due to it already being accepted. I don't get why it received the scores that it did rofl, the pattern usage is blatantly incorrect, grace notes make absolutely no sense, it's super boring, and yet the highest it got was an 8.5.

Judges need to be harsher, otherwise we get shit files that people don't like in-game.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

Hey Choof you gotta be politically correct, it's not "people don't like this file" because I realize one person likes the file.

The problem is we are trying to appeal to more than just one person when you put something up for public consumption on a site with thousands of active members.

[Choofers]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

still a bad file

[mi40]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

i think we just need to step newgrounds techno

lmk if u object to my suggestion

[hi19hi19]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

still a bad file

I was being sarcastic rofl

hard to be sarchasm on the internet oh well

i think we just need to step newgrounds techno

lmk if u object to my suggestion

omg or, or

get this

we could step artsy ambient flashberb songs

but we could step them in a technically sound way


CRAZY

[KiI14]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

rofl Alice's Garden so bad

[Choofers]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

posting after kil doppleganger

[popsicle_3000]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

i like your comments hi.

[mi40]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

1 32 32 1 32 32

[Choofers]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

I really want to see your take on kyuin

[qqwref]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

Actually there is [128ths]

Not in DWI or SM files (so, by extension, not in FFR) - everything is quantized into 192nds. If you try to step 128ths or 20ths or whatever, the program will just snap them to the nearest 192nd as soon as you load it up.

Anyway, about the difficulty spike, I AAA'd it too, but it still bothers me because I know if the same exact thing was in a harder file I'd be stuck with one or two misses, and that really sucks on a combo scoring game.

[Fission]

Re: Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

I'm gonna be stepping MOSAIC.WAV songs until the day I die and possibly afterwords as well.

ew