Any way to not feel this way?

[DossarLX ODI]

Class in ten minutes but I'll see what I can input

1. First, and although obvious, still important: That some players can't play certain songs. Maybe not a big deal to some, but there's one song I think sounds just so beautiful and I'll never get to play it so this isn't a small point.

Rather than worry about playing the file you can just listen to the song. Sometimes I focus way too much on the file I'm playing when the song itself is actually good and it kind of ruins it for me too; if there is a song you really like, you could even try stepping it yourself if you want -- the idea of a token is to be a reward for accomplishing something and giving variety to the game.

2. The social disconnect. I don't feel on the same ground on the forums as the players that have the really hard skill tokens. It's an extra way they can connect but I can't, and although I've added a bunch of them to my ignore list, it still just seems so annoying all the time. As it stands now, I would rather just try to stay away from them. And they like their little elite group so that they'll defend the tokens, and seeing that they probably make the majority of the posts around here since most of the weaker players have already had enough of the worse than locked content and quit. As such, the tokens are probably not going away.

By "added a bunch of them to my ignore list" do you mean the hard skill tokens? Rather than stressing out unlocking the skill tokens, look at your progress in the game. I picked up pad play and I've only recently been able to go above 150 BPM on foot, and it's not a good idea to think of players passing 16+ difficulty when I am actually making good improvements to my speed and stamina.

Do *NOT* think of yourself as a weak player just because you aren't D6. Nobody is calling you a weak player. Nobody is calling me a weak pad player even though I haven't passed any 13s on pad. Again, look at your progress and don't keep comparing yourself to D6/D7 players.

3. The difficulty. No, not what you likely think. What I mean is that, in my rating of video games, this used to have the best possible rating. Why? Because you could just play songs of any level and have fun with them. Now, it's the worst possible difficulty level where it's ridiculously hard to unlock too many things. I have played tons of other games, and absolutely none of the other ones have anything nearly as hard to unlock as this game does. So, in this category, IMO, this game might even be dead last among all games ever made.

I think of FFR like DDR -- the expert players on DDR manage to show everyone else the newest boss songs that Konami has released. I think of FFR the same way; a player unlocks a file and shows it to anyone that doesn't have it unlocked. Skill tokens are simply just another way for you to view your progress in the game; they are not mandatory and do not count towards public ranks.

4. The target audience and its implications. Back in the old days, I had played this game more than anyone else. I thought it was one of the most fun games ever made and it was made so that the highly dedicated fans like myself could really enjoy it. But now look. It's clearly catering to the very best players as the target audience. So, the staff, or some subset of it, hates all non-elite players. That's probably not the case, but that's how it comes across to me.

That's more of a problem that lies within the batch itself. Players are more willing to utilize as much as they can in a song and layer elements etc. rather than take out a lot of notes to make an easier file.

5. The psychology effects on playing the game. I just feel like I can't enjoy the game anymore because of the above. I also feel like I don't have the determination to play it very good anymore.

Look at YOUR progress and stop comparing yourself to D6/D7.