Dear Stepfile Artists,

[Shaydow]

and to site admins / submission judges. First let me say thank you, I appreciate new songs, and have always appreciated FFR. I was a subscriber long ago, and let my sub run over 5 or 6 months AFTER the site went down, hoping the extra income would help the site get back up faster. That said, I've got to rant...

What is the deal with new songs ( in this regard I am referring to anything 9+ ) and the difficulty of them? I'm sorry, I have always been a " casual " FFR player, it's my HOBBY and I like it, yet I accept that no matter how much I play, there is a limit to my skill level and I will NEVER be as good as, ummmm, " You Guys ". I'm FINE with this, HOWEVER, I am NOT fine with songs being VASTLY different in each category. I mean, I just came back to play all the new songs in over a month since I last looked up new songs ( I will be honest, most days I play I don't even open the site, I just launch the standalone and set random #-# based on how I feel / how long it has been since I last played ) and I was blown away, and NOT in a good way! It seems as though you step artists are trying to cater more to the " Hard cores and the cans " then to the " casuals and can not ".

Example? Let's look at Southern Cross. When I started it was an 11 ( FMO ). Now I UNDERSTAND why it was changed to a 10, I am not arguing that. Why I choose this as my example however was this once WAS an 11, and is STILL a 10, yet I played 2 new 9's today that made it look like you should make southern cross an easy 9 or even an 8! You guys are adding triples to EVERYTHING, trill and jump patterns that should NOT be 9's but 11, etc. Today playing many of the new 11's I got so PISSED, I don't even feel like I'm playing the songs anymore. So many times I felt you just added steps for ANYTHING YOU COULD. Playing drums one minute and have to do filler for background piano or vocals during the maybe 1/16 of a second the drums stop? COME ON. Your adding so much and trying so hard the songs just become a spam fest and don't even FEEL like the song, at least to me!

So what am I getting at? I want to FEEL like I'm playing the song! Do I have problems with new songs? NO. Do I have problems with new HARD songs? NO! What I DO have a problem with is the song trying TO HARD, and then " just because it has or does not have x patterns, it will be Y difficulty ". Just because it doesn't have those same patterns, doesn't mean it belongs in the same category! Stop over doing EVERYTHING, and for the love of Pete Judges, stop adding these over-layered songs to EVERY CATEGORY. When I'm playing a 9, it should FEEL like a 9, hell maybe even a LOW 10, not an 11! When I'm playing a 10 or 11, I want it to feel like a 10 or 11, not a spam filled mess that should be a 12!

In closing, I want to restate that I DO IN FACT appreciate everyone's hard work, I DO like new songs, and I appreciate that time and effort all of you step artists put into your songs. Make no mistake about this. I just feel MANY of the newer songs are over done to compensate for there now being less casuals, and many are in the wrong difficulty category, regardless of what patterns it does or does not have.

Thank you for your time.

Peace,
Shay