Samus's guide to FFR

[Samus Aran]

Sometimes I type out somewhat long stuff I wish I could just send out to players so they can get better and I never post it because it sounds dumb reading through it to myself. But I might as well suck it up and post it anyways!

Some beginners tips
SETUP
Stepmania and FFR are 4 arrow smash hand eye coordination reaction games. When you start out you're going to want to decide if you want to read your arrows going up, or going down. Most other rhythm games default scroll direction is downwards such as in guitar hero, pop'n, or beatmania. You're not at a dissadvantage if you decide to go downscroll, but stepmania and ffr's default scroll direction is up. After that you want to set your keybindings and scroll speed. Pick a speed that is fast enough that you're comfortable with it, but not so slow that all the arrows start to clutter the screen.

Mindset


Additionally do not focus on your skill rating, or other arbitrary numbers, only focus on yourself as a player. You'll improve as long as you know you are. And you may even surprise yourself at some skill boosts you'll get. The skill rating thing is really there just to group you into divisions for tournaments more easily. It CAN help once you start AAA'ing stuff to get you thinking what can I AAA if i really work for it? (and for epeen big numbers, for people like me that's all.)

PLAYING
From here on out you basically just want to play at least 1 hour a day picking songs that you can play that aren't overwhelming. Try your best to hit every single arrow. You know your limits better than anyone but definitely try to push yourself to improve if that's what you want.

Levels 1-50
Early on you will want to focus a lot on hitting jumps, this is any combination of 2 arrows at the same time, it's tricky on the brain so it's good to learn! It will get crazy the higher difficulty you go.

You'll also come across various combinations of 3 arrows especially on stepmania where you could be holding a freeze arrow and hitting a jump at the same time.

A good way to push your limits is to find songs with short bursts of arrows like 3 or 5 that are faster than what you would normally hit, so you can get used to playing faster. Work your way up to something like 16 arrow streams, and then you can work your way towards endless stuff from there at that speed. repeat the process everytime you hit a plateu of speed.

Go for full combos as best as you can. Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

Levels 50-70
You can be comfortable playing around this difficulty probably in 2 months or so. You'll find some very tricky songs in this range that involve a pattern called Jumpstream, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Strings of arrows that have a pattern something like jump, step, jump, step except at a higher speed than what you would see before. This is one of the core abilities to get good at on ffr and stepmania, it's fun to play, and it looks cool from a spectator standpoint.

You'll also begin to encounter a thing called jacks, this is any number of 2 or more arrows on the same arrow forcing your hand/fingers to move up and down rapidly. This is also a core skill. Additionaly you may encounter some jumpjacks where a fast series of jumps result in your hands and fingers jacking rapidly.

Keep doing your best here, a LOT of people get stuck playing around this difficulty for possibly years! You'll be able to comprehend a lot of stuff up to the 80's, but the main focus here should be working on your jumpstream and jacking skillsets.

Go for full combos as best as you can. Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

Levels 70-85
You're almost at the top of the difficulty ladder on FFR! You'll want to keep playing songs just out of your comfort zone to get better. Push your stamina at this point to where you don't burn out so easily on 80's+.

Go for full combos as best as you can. Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

AAA'ing stuff:
Up to this point if you have not been AAA'ing (getting all perfects on your songs) you've only been playing half of ffr. If you are now comfortable playing stuff in the 80's you should be ready to really work on your timing. Go back to the 40's-60's and start AAA'ing stuff. basically repeat everything you read up to this point except apply it to AAA'ing stuff. If you skipped up to this point and just want to AAA stuff off the bat, be my guest, it will not be as easy without some core skills to rely on. I only got my first AAA's after like a year of playing xD

FFR is very limited in song choice around 2000 songs or something are in the game at this point. And only like 100-150 of those are actually somewhat challenging. So if you want to keep improving your game try out Stepmania! There are something like 10,000 really good songs for practicing and just having a blast on. It's not as orginized as FFR to just pick a difficulty and play, so you'll have to download packs you think are around your skill level. But there's so many, it's just so fun to explore what's out there, and you'll basically not be bored for years xD

[TheRapingDragon]

Hi! I'm a new player! Looking around I saw this was a guide and thought I'd have a read...

Originally Posted by Samus Aran

Sometimes I type out somewhat long stuff I wish I could just send out to players so they can get better and I never post it because it sounds dumb reading through it to myself.

Well that's a pretty negative start. Should I really trust you when you can't trust yourself?

But I might as well suck it up and post it anyways!

Well I mean why not?

Some beginners tips
SETUP
Stepmania

What now? I thought this was about FFR?

After that you want to set your keybindings and scroll speed.

How do I do that?

Pick a speed that is fast enough that you're comfortable with it, but not so slow that all the arrows start to clutter the screen.

How do I change my speed?

Mindset [and image]

You want me to be positive but you started this post by being negative? I'm very confused right now. I also don't understand how this helps me to get better? Also, it's a game, what's wrong if I'm happy with playing it my way? Are you telling me the only way to enjoy FFR is to constantly improve?

Additionally do not focus on your skill rating,

My what? What's that?

or other arbitrary numbers, only focus on yourself as a player. You'll improve as long as you know you are.

Will I? And what if I don't improve, is that because I don't know I am? What do I do if I don't improve. How can I improve, so far this guide hasn't told me anything that's actually guidance.

The skill rating thing is really there just to group you into divisions for tournaments more easily.

What is this skill rating thing?

It CAN help once you start AAA'ing stuff to get you thinking what can I AAA if i really work for it? (and for epeen big numbers, for people like me that's all.)

AAA'ing?

PLAYING
From here on out you basically just want to play at least 1 hour a day

What if I don't have that long? What if I want to play longer? Will these impact my ability to improve? Is this the only way to play FFR?

Try your best to hit every single arrow. You know your limits better than anyone but definitely try to push yourself to improve if that's what you want.

Is this really a guide? How do I ensure I hit every arrow? What actual guidance can you give me to do that? How do I push myself to improve, what things should I be doing?

Levels 1-50
Early on you will want to focus a lot on hitting jumps, this is any combination of 2 arrows at the same time, it's tricky on the brain so it's good to learn! It will get crazy the higher difficulty you go.

And ignore all the other combinations of arrows? But now I'm failing songs? What if I can't hit other patterns, does that matter? Why should I focus on jumps, what inherent improvement factor do they have over focusing on everything (to improve everything) or focusing on my weaknesses to improve those?

You'll also come across various combinations of 3 arrows especially on stepmania where you could be holding a freeze arrow and hitting a jump at the same time.

I thought this was a guide to FFR? Why are you talking about Stepmania?

A good way to push your limits is to find songs with short bursts of arrows like 3 or 5 that are faster than what you would normally hit, so you can get used to playing faster.

Actual guidance! Great, now the pre-amble is out of the way we're really getting started. But there's so many songs, how do I know which ones have bursts of arrows? Can you perhaps guide me to good song choices to improve on?

Work your way up to something like 16 arrow streams,

To what? But I'm playing jumps, now you want me to hit these streams things?

and then you can work your way towards endless stuff from there at that speed. repeat the process everytime you hit a plateu of speed.

Repeat what process?

Go for full combos as best as you can.

Okay.

Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

How? This guide is very limited in actually explaining how to do things. How do I improve my timing and stamina? All you've told me is to 'hit bursts to improve speed'. And what if I can't read the bursts?

Levels 50-70
You can be comfortable playing around this difficulty probably in 2 months or so.

Well that's very presumptuous. So if I haven't hit that level in 2 months are you telling me I should quit because I'm not good enough? What if I don't hit this level in 2 months, what should I do? Can you actually guide me?

You'll find some very tricky songs in this range that involve a pattern called Jumpstream, and it's exactly what it sounds like.

Well you never explained what stream means so no, I don't know what that means.

Strings of arrows that have a pattern something like jump, step, jump, step except at a higher speed than what you would see before.

I can't visualise this, but don't worry I looked around and found an actual guide.

This is one of the core abilities to get good at on ffr and stepmania, it's fun to play, and it looks cool from a spectator standpoint.

Why do I care about spectators? This is a guide about FFR, not about becoming popular through rhythm games. Also, Stepmania? I really should look this up with how often you're mentioning it. Also, wouldn't every ability be a core ability when it comes to hitting all the arrows?

You'll also begin to encounter a thing called jacks, this is any number of 2 or more arrows on the same arrow forcing your hand/fingers to move up and down rapidly. This is also a core skill.

So can't you just tell me all the core skills required in one section rather than dotting them about randomly? (Also, I encountered these jack things way before level 50 and was completely unprepared because your guide never mentioned them until now, so thanks for that!)

Additionaly you may encounter some jumpjacks where a fast series of jumps result in your hands and fingers jacking rapidly.

Umm...okay?

Keep doing your best here, a LOT of people get stuck playing around this difficulty for possibly years! You'll be able to comprehend a lot of stuff up to the 80's, but the main focus here should be working on your jumpstream and jacking skillsets.

Why?

Go for full combos as best as you can. Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

This is the second time you've said this.

Levels 70-85
You're almost at the top of the difficulty ladder on FFR! You'll want to keep playing songs just out of your comfort zone to get better. Push your stamina at this point to where you don't burn out so easily on 80's+.

I'm starting to think your entire guide boils down to 'play the game and learn the patterns'. That's not really a guide you know?

Go for full combos as best as you can. Improve your timing, and improve your stamina and speed.

And now you've said it three times.

AAA'ing stuff:
Up to this point if you have not been AAA'ing (getting all perfects on your songs) you've only been playing half of ffr.

I don't agree with your percentage. If I've played through all the songs then I've played 100% of FFR, I just haven't perfected it. That's not the same as 50%.

If you are now comfortable playing stuff in the 80's you should be ready to really work on your timing.

So at no point in the preceding years working up to this level should I work on my timing? So I'm just a fast, aimless freak? I'm like the hulk, great.

Also, wait, didn't you already say like three times to improve my timing? I'm really confused about what I should be working on and when.

If you skipped up to this point and just want to AAA stuff off the bat, be my guest, it will not be as easy without some core skills to rely on. I only got my first AAA's after like a year of playing xD

This is not a guide! This only tells me that you had difficulty, not how to improve my timing. I'm starting to think this isn't even worth the bother.

FFR is very limited in song choice around 2000 songs or something are in the game at this point. And only like 100-150 of those are actually somewhat challenging.

Yet you're telling me I'll be spending years getting to a top level. That's challenging. Therefore, if I'm just starting out, everything is challenging. For you to tell me only 100-150 is challenging is insulting to my beginner skill level. What kind of guide is this?

You're also bashing the very game you're writing a guide about.

So if you want to keep improving your game try out Stepmania! There are something like 10,000 really good songs for practicing and just having a blast on. It's not as orginized as FFR to just pick a difficulty and play, so you'll have to download packs you think are around your skill level. But there's so many, it's just so fun to explore what's out there, and you'll basically not be bored for years xD

So in the end, your lasting impression is to forget about FFR and its limited song choice and play the superior Stepmania? Well why didn't you say that in the first place! This has been a complete waste of my time.

Now...can someone direct me to a guide on how to download this 'Stepmania' thing?

[Gradiant]

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Stuff

Okay

[Xx{Fallen}xX]

Wow I think this is a great guide.

I'm starting to think your entire guide boils down to 'play the game and learn the patterns'.

I feel like there is actually a lot of wisdom in this. I think when the game comes down to its highest level it's just a matter properly executing patterns you have trained to play.

[_Zenith_]

Originally Posted by Gradiant

Okay

Yeah, honestly can't tell if he is serious or not but either way, dick move?

I halfheartedly agree with the above diagram, because in itself it looks like it is directed to kids. It does apply to rhythm gamers, but I could imagine different words being used instead.

---

*this is where I'm going to throw some information before dissecting the latter of the OP*

- Osu! and Sound Voltex default scroll direction is Down
- Cabinet Rhythm Games (ITG, PiU, DDR, etc.) default scroll direction is Up
- Scroll Direction is merely a preference and has no effect on a players skill compared to another player
- There are many key setups to choose from, such as Index, Spread, Sprindex, Semipentanko, etc.

---

Speed for newer players is generally slower to give them time to adjust to the timing window (which can be tweaked using the Judge Offset on FFR, Stepmania also has an offset feature). In terms of growth, I would recommend newer players slowly boosting their speedmod by .1x every time they feel comfortable with the already used speedmod prior to the change.

---

As a new player, I would never focus on the numbers presented in Ranking and Skill Level. Instead, I would focus on the charts that jump out to me and are rather fun to player even though I'm just starting off and not able to handle the chart yet. If a new FFR player already has prior Rhythm Gaming experience, I would definitely recommend trying a song in increments of 10 difficulties to see where you are at in terms of this game.

---

PLAYING: One hour a day will vastly help you understand and process FFR.

---

I'll comment more on the Leveled Sections, but you have 1-50 spaced too far imo. 1-30 is roughly where the "Beginner" section is for skill. I also would ask you to avoid the Stepmania/FFR comparison as they are two different games with similar/the same mechanics and this is labeled as a guide for "FFR". Other than that, this is really helpful in understanding the game. This guide along with Rushy's Terminology Guide will surely help a new player rise through the ranks quickly.

[V-Ormix]

Learn how to read and acquire a physical technique i.e. make "less" noise from keytaps to sound impressive and actually be proficient. It's the greatest deal of developing a feel for the game through conditioning taking yourself through the various increments warming up properly and not getting burnt out and thus becoming discouraged when your said performance is decayed and far from optimal towards your content.

Setting goals is always a useful and common sense practice that at the very least it wouldn't be possible to convince yourself that you couldn't achieve them.

Remember to be the best "you" can be, competitions fine, but that all depends how well you take losing weather or not your the kind of person who just gets back up and shrugs it off to take a better shot

[Samus Aran]

long response o.o

This is quite a silly post i feel, but i shall respond!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Hi! I'm a new player! Looking around I saw this was a guide and thought I'd have a read...

All right let's do this!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Well that's a pretty negative start. Should I really trust you when you can't trust yourself?

Up to you, if you look at my scores and think hey I wanna be as good as that guy, this guide can potentially help!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Well I mean why not?

ye

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

What now? I thought this was about FFR?

FFR and Stepmania are similar enough that it's worth mentioning both, especially on a site where just about half of it plays ffr and the other half sm.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

How do I do that?

in options, it's fairly intuitive

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

How do I change my speed?

in options, it's fairly intuitive

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

You want me to be positive but you started this post by being negative? I'm very confused right now. I also don't understand how this helps me to get better? Also, it's a game, what's wrong if I'm happy with playing it my way? Are you telling me the only way to enjoy FFR is to constantly improve?

This is a guide to help you improve, if you are happy with where you are at in terms of skill, you don't have to improve. Play for fun!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

My what? What's that?

It's basically your level,

it's determined by what difficulty mathematically you should approximately be able to AAA

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Will I? And what if I don't improve, is that because I don't know I am? What do I do if I don't improve. How can I improve, so far this guide hasn't told me anything that's actually guidance.

I'm saying don't focus on FFR's rating numbers such as average rank, skill rating, and grand total. Focus on yourself as a player and push your limits if you want to improve.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

AAA'ing?

Acquiring a perfect on every arrow for a given song

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

What if I don't have that long? What if I want to play longer? Will these impact my ability to improve? Is this the only way to play FFR?

You can play for as little or as long as you want, 1 hour is a reasonable time for a session, and it doesn't have to be every day. I'm hoping to get you in the proper mindset for growth and improvement. Again if that's what you really want.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Is this really a guide? How do I ensure I hit every arrow? What actual guidance can you give me to do that? How do I push myself to improve, what things should I be doing?

And I try, oh my God, do I try
I try all the time in this institution
And I pray, oh my God, do I pray
I pray every single day FOR A REVOLUTION!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

And ignore all the other combinations of arrows? But now I'm failing songs? What if I can't hit other patterns, does that matter? Why should I focus on jumps, what inherent improvement factor do they have over focusing on everything (to improve everything) or focusing on my weaknesses to improve those?

I mentioned earlier to try your best to hit every arrow, focusing on jumps more however is a good way to improve early on. You'll find that they are inherently twice as hard to hit than a single arrow, therefore it's a good thing to focus on making sure you nail.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

I thought this was a guide to FFR? Why are you talking about Stepmania?

Chances are you'll hear about stepmania at least once on this site that hosts both FFR and stepmania communities.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Actual guidance! Great, now the pre-amble is out of the way we're really getting started. But there's so many songs, how do I know which ones have bursts of arrows? Can you perhaps guide me to good song choices to improve on?

This is not such a strict training regime type of guide, if you're playing for 1 hour a day, play new songs, take note of songs you like and of songs that are challenging for you.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

To what? But I'm playing jumps, now you want me to hit these streams things?

Again earlier i mentioned hitting every arrow, we're going bit by bit and now i'm saying improve this other skill you'll need.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Repeat what process?

The process of pushing yourself to go faster, through learning to read faster jumps, and faster harder and longer streams.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Okay.

ok

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

How? This guide is very limited in actually explaining how to do things. How do I improve my timing and stamina? All you've told me is to 'hit bursts to improve speed'. And what if I can't read the bursts?

You'll feel it man!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Well that's very presumptuous. So if I haven't hit that level in 2 months are you telling me I should quit because I'm not good enough? What if I don't hit this level in 2 months, what should I do? Can you actually guide me?

It's an approximation, probably not a very good one, but if you look at those difficulties now and go wow i can be there in 2 months, it might be quite encouraging to really strive for that skill.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Well you never explained what stream means so no, I don't know what that means.

I can't visualise this, but don't worry I looked around and found an actual guide.

Cool, use that one!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Why do I care about spectators? This is a guide about FFR, not about becoming popular through rhythm games. Also, Stepmania? I really should look this up with how often you're mentioning it. Also, wouldn't every ability be a core ability when it comes to hitting all the arrows?

Yes every ability is core. The more you play the more you'll build up on these skills. I thought I'd throw in the bit about spectators because at some point in time, you'll wow someone with your amazing skill.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

So can't you just tell me all the core skills required in one section rather than dotting them about randomly? (Also, I encountered these jack things way before level 50 and was completely unprepared because your guide never mentioned them until now, so thanks for that!)

I suppose I could do that, but no one is perfect! Besides that this guide is basically garbage compared to the other one you found.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Umm...okay?

ok

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Why?

those are 2 of the hardest things to get good at, it'll help just trust me bro

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

This is the second time you've said this.

it's important!

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

I'm starting to think your entire guide boils down to 'play the game and learn the patterns'. That's not really a guide you know?

Sorry this isn't what you wanted. it's short enough of a post that that is the gist of what you're supposed to get from it though. But again if you don't want to improve then this isn't where you want to be in the first place.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

And now you've said it three times.

It's VERY important

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

I don't agree with your percentage. If I've played through all the songs then I've played 100% of FFR, I just haven't perfected it. That's not the same as 50%.

So at no point in the preceding years working up to this level should I work on my timing? So I'm just a fast, aimless freak? I'm like the hulk, great.

Also, wait, didn't you already say like three times to improve my timing? I'm really confused about what I should be working on and when.

This is not a guide! This only tells me that you had difficulty, not how to improve my timing. I'm starting to think this isn't even worth the bother.

Take what you'd like from this post, as you and I've mentioned earlier it's more of a play more to get good kind of deal kind of post. Work on your mindset to improve, and have fun while doing it, and you'll get to where you want to be.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Yet you're telling me I'll be spending years getting to a top level. That's challenging. Therefore, if I'm just starting out, everything is challenging. For you to tell me only 100-150 is challenging is insulting to my beginner skill level. What kind of guide is this?

You're also bashing the very game you're writing a guide about.

It takes time to get good, you're not going to be able to play the hardest songs right off the bat. The more you play the less inclined you'll be to play say a level 10-20 song when you can AAA 60-70's. I may have had a jab at FFR's difficulty there I admit though.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

So in the end, your lasting impression is to forget about FFR and its limited song choice and play the superior Stepmania? Well why didn't you say that in the first place! This has been a complete waste of my time.

It's not been a waste of time if you had fun playing it. This is all about basically you just play a lot to get good, and focus on the challenging aspects. Have a good mindset to improve and have fun. They're not the same game but they're similar enough that playing both helps you improve on both. And again you'll at least see some sort of mention of stepmania while on this site that hosts both sm and ffr communities.

I don't look at a game I've beaten like say Actraiser 2 and then think it's a waste of time because now I can beat a game like I Wanna Be The Boshy.

Originally Posted by TheRapingDragon

Now...can someone direct me to a guide on how to download this 'Stepmania' thing?

yo man i got your back!
http://www.stepmania.com/

[Mahou]

I wrote a legit FFR guide.

[rzr]

this is funny, the colors caught me eye
less of a guide and more of an intro, but it serves it's purpose nonetheless

[_Zenith_]

Originally Posted by Mahou

I wrote a legit FFR guide.

There is legit not enough guides about FFR.

[Hakulyte]

I'm bored, here's a wall of text my semi-advanced FFR guide for laughs with an overly high amount of unnecessary theory: (Suggested at anyone D1-D7 who took the time to read the FAQ for terminology and hopefully get their first AAA.)

This guide exist for only one reason. You played a song, you got a good/average/miss/boo and you're not sure why. You may have some ideas, but you're not sure exactly how to approach that problem anymore.
This guide is actually about taking that big word called "Skillz" and turning it into concepts that you can relate to and eventually use as a guideline to practice and improve.

---

FFR Skillz are divided in 5 categories: (The % is about how much you should invest in each)

25% Concentration/Consistency/Keyboard setup [The Flow]
40% Stamina/Conditioning/Speed [Self-Benchmark]
20% Muscle Memory/Anticipation vs Reflexes/Skillsets/Playstyles [Execution]
10% Settings/Judge Offset/Adjustment [Tuning]
5% Lag/Computer/Standalone Flash Player/Framers [Artificial Difficulty]

---

~ [The Flow] ~ (This is different than accuracy, creating a flow won't guarantee extreme accuracy, only good enough accuracy to stay in the AAA timing with FFR. Getting additional accuracy is obviously welcome, but not necessary.)

This is the ability to maintain your speed and the AAA/FC at same time. It's pure control where you outspeed the song or at least maintain your accuracy and speed high enough to do the entire song properly. I consider that getting AAAA is the extreme form of creating a perfect flow. It should not be your goal directly, but a guideline as to what you should try to do. In terms of semi-advanced guide, I won't get in details as to how to quad songs (that would be an advanced guide), I'm just going to focus on how to get Rank 1/AAAs on FFR as this is hard enough to do already. Keep in mind that quadding hard songs on FFR is practically impossible due to the nature of the game. A song has to have near perfect conversion to let you hold Amazings on it. It is not the case for the great majority of every songs. Even the best player in the world should only be able to quad a handful of songs on FFR. It's not something you have to worry about.

...but how do we create a Flow? You have to practice a few things:

---

Concentration:
- This is used to identify patterns and start them properly. (Yes, we usually call this "Reading notes". Very simple to understand, very hard to master!)

What are the main problems that can happen if I lack concentration?

1. The arrows could be moving too fast, making you unable to keep up with them.
Keep in mind that while reading fast is good, you should pick a speedmod that you can comfortably hit the pattern your reading speed is the worse at. Example: There's no point to optimize your speedmod for streams if when you try to read jumpstream you get overwhelmed by all the arrows. You should use the speedmod that feels the most comfortable with the hardest patterns for yourself. *I personally keep swapping speedmods for complex 32nd sections and dense jumpstream until I find the right middle*

2. The arrows could be moving too slow, making you lose your rhythm.
You usually want to move up your speedmod, get some space and a speed that fit more properly with your reflexes. The alternative is to screencut so you can take advantage of how slow the arrows are moving and anticipate patterns to hold AAA on, but this is only a backup strategy for quick AAAs that are within reach. If your goal is to get better overall, you shouldn't focus on doing this.

3. You could get confused because there's too many patterns at same time(a) or in a row(b).
A) If a pattern left you confused, it's important to take the time to stop, possibly take a screenshot, check a replay, isolate the pattern and figure out how it works. This is the best way to solve mindblocks and to move on. Mindblocks only exist because you created them with bad habits. A mindblock happens because you're unconsciously trying to hit each arrows perfectly and you unconsciously try to hit a certain pattern "as best as you can", but you're clearly doing something wrong. This something wrong can only be fixed if you know exactly where each parts of the pattern start and how to properly hit it.
B) If you mess up because a pattern constantly repeat itself, you have to keep in mind that a pattern that repeat itself is more complicated because it builds up pressure on your fingers over time. Therefore, you will eventually run out of stamina even if at first you could hit them right. The longer a pattern will repeat itself, the more it will put pressure on your fingers. The most obvious example of this is a jack. The longer a jack is, even if it's in your comfort zone, the more it will drain your energy. An unusual pattern like an awkward set of jumps, known as anchors can also create the same problem. You may need to isolate them, practice them by hitting keys lighter/using different posture/setup and if it's still not enough, you may have to train yourself to increase your max speed for them. I consider this a concentration issue if you overreact or try to mash these patterns instead of getting ready to hit them like every other patterns. Saving stamina and using it properly to hit these works with Consistency which is the next tool needed for a "Flow".

You can train Concentration by:
- Taking breaks (from a few hours/days up to a month) Take that break when you feel like it and go at your pace. This isn't work, it's a game. Even if you want to play it competitively, you shouldn't burn yourself out over it.
- Eating well, sleeping well, exercice etc. (yes, you can skillboost by changing your bad life habits! I mostly moved from D4 to D5 by doing this only.)
- Taking care of yourself in any way you can think of. (You will most likely play better if you're not worried about anything in your life and having fun while playing because you can fully dedicate yourself on hitting notes properly.)
- Conditioning will give you a temporary fairly solid boost too. (I refer to that quick 30min-2hours warm up session on Stepmania/FFRMania/FFR on rates etc. where you play hard files you can barely do, just to make sure you're ready to play.)
- Playing with a speedmod slightly higher than what you normally use. (It's something that you should try doing once in a while, if after a few songs it still feels too fast, you can just go back to your normal speedmod. It should visually feel slower than before because your eyes tried to adapt to the higher speedmod.)

---

Consistency:
- This is your ability to distribute your stamina to maintain control as long as possible.
- This is also your ability to finish a pattern properly to transition to the next pattern as fast as possible.

What are the main problems that can happen if I lack Consistency ?

4. You can gradually lose speed while moving from one pattern to another.
I've placed emphasis on making sure you start patterns correctly, but finishing patterns correctly is also important, but not as much as starting them properly. If you start a pattern properly, you'll create a scenario where it's as easy as it can be to maintain your stamina and your speed until the end of the pattern. In this scenario, it should be fairly easy to raise your finger back and move to the next pattern. If for some reason, a pattern is simply very hard and you need to transition into another pattern without having the time to raise back your hand, there's some shortcuts you can take to save "tempos"*. You can by example sacrifice some stamina to hit multiple jumps in a row that continued after a pattern. Just think at all these songs with mini-jacks in them, jumps+notes or jumps close to each others in a row after a pattern. You can double tap the second to last note of a long jack to push your finger away so you don't have to raise your finger back by yourself. If some patterns are awkward because of their slowness (think at very slow [1][3][2][4] repetitive notes by example. You can hit them harder and use stamina to your advantage to push your hands away from the keyboard so you can delay yourself back to finish these patterns without completely breaking your flow.) * You want to voluntary delay yourself this way rather than moving back your hands and hitting the pattern because you'll be able to conserve more speed/stamina which may useful for the next few patterns (!) *

Tempo*: This is chess terminology for doing a move with more than one function. Example: You move a pawn forward to defend/attack, but you also create space from where your pawn was before for your other pieces to attack etc. In one move, you managed to accomplish multiple goals at once usually giving you a small edge. In FFR's context, I'm using this word to describe the fact that you can simply not raise back your hand and rapidly chain other patterns at the cost of stamina that you saved to hit patterns that may have normally made you mess up. I'm pretty sure you can think of a few charts with these patterns. (hi bmah)

5. You can get "random" goods!
Maybe you hit your keys a little too early, maybe you hit them a little too late. When you get this good you usually know you moved a little too quickly or not fast enough while doing a pattern. You can adjust your judge offset if it's slightly wrong by playing the specific song for a while, going to the score result screen, right clicking where it says Speed: Mirror: etc. and checking which value the game is giving you and then using this value. Keep in mind that you probably want to stay fairly close to judge offset 0 if you're playing a song with patterns that you want to manipulate. Jumptrilling rolls with a high or low judge offset could be a little more difficult than intended. Practicing AAA-holding on songs or patterns you have trouble to keep AAA on will help as well.

You can train Consistency by:
- Playing files that are slightly too easy for you and focus on your accuracy as much as possible. (makes you create a buffer of accuracy that absorb all your potential small mistakes that aren't bad enough yet to turn your perfects into goods)
- Playing files that are slightly too hard (!) for you to focus on your ability to hold combo as much as possible. (this practice stamina distribution and the goal is usually to try to maintain a clean looking score @ X-0-0-0 or as close as possible to this.)
- Adjusting your Judge offset as needed. (You should only care about this if you get more perfects than amazings when you play)

---

Keyboard setup
- What keys you're using will affect greatly what kind of scores you will get and even what kind of patterns you're good and bad at! What I'm going to explain is valid for spread players only.

What are the main problems with Keyboard Setup?

6. My keyboard don't work when there's 3-4 keys at same time!
You probably want to go on this site:
https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsci...explained.mspx
..and make sure that the 4 keys you're using are all triggered properly at same time. If you can't find anything that works, you may have to find another keyboard.

7. I have no clue what keys to use on my keyboard, what should I do? I think it matters.
- Far away keys are known for helping players to hit stream more easily. (QW and some numpad keys like 89/ZX,. etc.)
- Close keys are known for hitting jump/jacks more easily. DFJK, CVNM (only 1-2 keys in-between)
- Mid-range are fairly hybrid and should do decently such as QWOP, ASKL etc. (4-6 keys in-between)
^ This is only half-true. The only reason why this would be true is that your hands would naturally be inclined in a different way by using these styles. Close styles usually keeps your fingers inclined at 45 degree. Far away style is close to 90 degree and hybrid is like 60 degree or so.

If you're bad at doing streams or jacks. It's probably because you've been using one of the two wrong settings to play. Having your fingers too much inclined will make you slip more often and make you get random boos. Playing with fingers at near 90 degree will make jacks feel really awkward to hit and your fingers will receive a lot more pressure from the keys as they directly throw the pressure back at the tip of your fingers.
You can google about how to use a proper "piano posture" and adapt this directly to FFR. tl;dr: You want to have your hands mid-air falling at like 60 degree which is a good compensation. You can rest one hand for additional stability.

As for where exactly to place your hands, you can simply try to close your eyes and let your hands fall on your keyboard naturally and then you use whatever is close to these keys.

A fun thing to keep in mind is that if you're really good at jacks but weak at stream you can raise your hand a little more to like 70-80 degree and you should get control for stream, rolls and all these accurate patterns. The opposite is also true. You can also change your hand posture slightly for specific patterns.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Laptop Keyboards, Mech Keyboards and Keyboards in general all feel fairly different when you play them. Mech keyboards feels like an ideal mix of laptop keys while keeping normal solid keys, but may cost a bit more for the advantage. If you own a laptop there's good chances you have a good keyboard for accuracy, just make sure you don't pound keys too hard. If you only have a normal rubberdome keyboard, depending on the brand it can do the job as well. *I personally prefer mech keyboard because to me it feels like they're pretty versatile no matter how you play with them.

You also probably want to avoid wireless keyboards for input delays etc. this is not the best game for them.

---

Summary of ~[The Flow]~

So, basically by having concentration, you should be to constantly identify and start patterns correctly. You can then move on to distributing your stamina properly in case there's tricky patterns. Being able to maintain your consistency will make you avoid losing speed and hopefully hold that AAA if the song is within your physical limits. Of course, this is all assuming you're placing yourself properly while playing and you feel comfortable hitting every patterns as accurately as possible.

Last few indicators that your flow could be improved;

1. You did multiple patterns and started losing almost enough stamina to lose control except that none of them were jacks or anchors jumps. (stream and jumpstream in general can be practiced enough to not burn your stamina much unless the pattern repeat itself indefinitely)
2. You hit keys really quickly at a not constant pace in a very erratic way like "fast galops" or "quick bursts", but no continuity. (this can happen if you're using a low speedmod and hit what you see instead of feeling the speed and using the space adequately.)
3. You're mashing. (please don't bother anymore unless you're playing some dump file in FFRMania, not only combo-scoring no longer matter, but you're probably wasting more stamina mashing than if you hit the notes properly.)
4. You have a lot of trouble doing transitions from one pattern to another. (You may want to do a bit of planning on this as you can take a break in the middle of certain patterns or even do clever things like hitting patterns with multiple purposes at same time.)

---

~ [Self-Benchmark] ~

I'll continue this if there's some kind of interest. This guide is probably more useful for myself than the other players because I can easily explain what's going on and why. I don't expect the average player to read this and become illuminated suddenly and fix all their weaknesses magically. I also realize I should simplify this post, but honestly none of you will probably read this completely.

[TheRapingDragon]

Originally Posted by Samus Aran

This is quite a silly post i feel, but i shall respond!

No silliness intended, just trying to get used to the forums and the game. Have to start somewhere, so I appreciate the response!

All right let's do this!

That's more positive already, I'm pumped.

Up to you, if you look at my scores and think hey I wanna be as good as that guy, this guide can potentially help!

I think I'll just play for fun at first, let the competitiveness come later.

ye

ey?

in options, it's fairly intuitive

in options, it's fairly intuitive

Sorry, I'm counter-intuitive.

This is a guide to help you improve, if you are happy with where you are at in terms of skill, you don't have to improve. Play for fun!

Solid guidance.

It's basically your level,

it's determined by what difficulty mathematically you should approximately be able to AAA

Thanks!

I'm saying don't focus on FFR's rating numbers such as average rank, skill rating, and grand total. Focus on yourself as a player and push your limits if you want to improve.

As a mathematician, I find it impossible not to let the numbers control me. If you can direct me to a mathematically-free version of FFR I'm sure I'd love it.

Acquiring a perfect on every arrow for a given song

More solid guidance.

You can play for as little or as long as you want, 1 hour is a reasonable time for a session, and it doesn't have to be every day. I'm hoping to get you in the proper mindset for growth and improvement. Again if that's what you really want.

Good to know. You see, I was seeing these people playing hundreds of songs, getting mad amounts of scores, even a top 10 where people got billions (!!) and I could only imagine how many hours they played to get that and it worried me that perhaps you were undercutting the amount and trying to keep newbies down, you know, rich getting richer and whatnot.

And I try, oh my God, do I try
I try all the time in this institution
And I pray, oh my God, do I pray
I pray every single day FOR A REVOLUTION!

Singing along to the songs? Well okay but the people on the bus might get a little annoyed, I mean my constant tapping is already drawing the ire of the woman beside me.

I mentioned earlier to try your best to hit every arrow, focusing on jumps more however is a good way to improve early on. You'll find that they are inherently twice as hard to hit than a single arrow, therefore it's a good thing to focus on making sure you nail.

So then shouldn't I focus on triples and quads because they are inherently thrice and frice as hard to hit than a single arrow?

Chances are you'll hear about stepmania at least once on this site that hosts both FFR and stepmania communities.

Okay, thanks.

This is not such a strict training regime type of guide, if you're playing for 1 hour a day, play new songs, take note of songs you like and of songs that are challenging for you.

They all are, should I just quit?

Again earlier i mentioned hitting every arrow, we're going bit by bit and now i'm saying improve this other skill you'll need.

But I'm getting lost, should I maybe keep an excel sheet with all my skills on it and keep track of which ones are improving?

You'll feel it man!

It hurts.

It's an approximation, probably not a very good one, but if you look at those difficulties now and go wow i can be there in 2 months, it might be quite encouraging to really strive for that skill.

I strive, boy do I strive, but then you get to a point in your life where you go 'what am I striving for?' you know? And I mean I've strived and I've strived and all I have are these two striving kids and a striving mother-striver of a wife and it's really disheartening.

Yes every ability is core. The more you play the more you'll build up on these skills. I thought I'd throw in the bit about spectators because at some point in time, you'll wow someone with your amazing skill.

Thanks. I started the excel sheet, added in core abilities to skills. Colour coded it so I wouldn't get confused.

I suppose I could do that, but no one is perfect! Besides that this guide is basically garbage compared to the other one you found.

Don't put yourself down like that. As you said, there's always room for improvement. You could always aim to have the best guide around within 2 months? AAA a guide like nobody else?

if the hardest things to get good at, it'll help just trust me bro

Thanks sis! Or are you a mate person? Thanks pal? God this is such a nightmare, friendisms are really beyond me, chum.

Take what you'd like from this post, as you and I've mentioned earlier it's more of a play more to get good kind of deal kind of post. Work on your mindset to improve, and have fun while doing it, and you'll get to where you want to be.

I can do it!

It takes time to get good, you're not going to be able to play the hardest songs right off the bat. The more you play the less inclined you'll be to play say a level 10-20 song when you can AAA 60-70's. I may have had a jab at FFR's difficulty there I admit though.

But I have an FFR seminar in 10 days and the whole board is going to be there. Phil's going to be there and he's like level 40 so how am I supposed to compete against that? We're going to play multiplayer, he's going to beat me, I'll never get that promotion.

I don't look at a game I've beaten like say Actraiser 2 and then think it's a waste of time because now I can beat a game like I Wanna Be The Boshy.

But I doubt you look back on it with fond memories. No-one looks back at Actraiser 2 with happiness in their heart.

yo man i got your back!
http://www.stepmania.com/

Awesome, chum...pal, matey mate. Thanks a bunch!

[_Zenith_]

I find it hysterical that you're acting like a "new player" when you aren't so thereby your posts have little to no meaning as you have no perception on how a new player would respond to this guide excluding obvious questions a new player would have.

[TheRapingDragon]

Originally Posted by _Zenith_

I find it hysterical that you're acting like a "new player" when you aren't

Then it was a success! But how did you manage to see through my carefully constructed ruse?

[rzr]

I'm sure it had nothing to with your 10+ years on the site lol
edit: also let's get 5 more posts so this can go to page 2 cuz this thread is waaay too long

[botchi246]

What is arrowsmash

[V-Ormix]

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

I'm bored, here's a wall of text my semi-advanced FFR guide for laughs with an overly high amount of unnecessary theory: (Suggested at anyone D1-D7 who took the time to read the FAQ for terminology and hopefully get their first AAA.)

This guide exist for only one reason. You played a song, you got a good/average/miss/boo and you're not sure why. You may have some ideas, but you're not sure exactly how to approach that problem anymore.
This guide is actually about taking that big word called "Skillz" and turning it into concepts that you can relate to and eventually use as a guideline to practice and improve.

---

FFR Skillz are divided in 5 categories: (The % is about how much you should invest in each)

25% Concentration/Consistency/Keyboard setup [The Flow]
40% Stamina/Conditioning/Speed [Self-Benchmark]
20% Muscle Memory/Anticipation vs Reflexes/Skillsets/Playstyles [Execution]
10% Settings/Judge Offset/Adjustment [Tuning]
5% Lag/Computer/Standalone Flash Player/Framers [Artificial Difficulty]

---

~ [The Flow] ~ (This is different than accuracy, creating a flow won't guarantee extreme accuracy, only good enough accuracy to stay in the AAA timing with FFR. Getting additional accuracy is obviously welcome, but not necessary.)

This is the ability to maintain your speed and the AAA/FC at same time. It's pure control where you outspeed the song or at least maintain your accuracy and speed high enough to do the entire song properly. I consider that getting AAAA is the extreme form of creating a perfect flow. It should not be your goal directly, but a guideline as to what you should try to do. In terms of semi-advanced guide, I won't get in details as to how to quad songs (that would be an advanced guide), I'm just going to focus on how to get Rank 1/AAAs on FFR as this is hard enough to do already. Keep in mind that quadding hard songs on FFR is practically impossible due to the nature of the game. A song has to have near perfect conversion to let you hold Amazings on it. It is not the case for the great majority of every songs. Even the best player in the world should only be able to quad a handful of songs on FFR. It's not something you have to worry about.

...but how do we create a Flow? You have to practice a few things:

---

Concentration:
- This is used to identify patterns and start them properly. (Yes, we usually call this "Reading notes". Very simple to understand, very hard to master!)

What are the main problems that can happen if I lack concentration?

1. The arrows could be moving too fast, making you unable to keep up with them.
Keep in mind that while reading fast is good, you should pick a speedmod that you can comfortably hit the pattern your reading speed is the worse at. Example: There's no point to optimize your speedmod for streams if when you try to read jumpstream you get overwhelmed by all the arrows. You should use the speedmod that feels the most comfortable with the hardest patterns for yourself. *I personally keep swapping speedmods for complex 32nd sections and dense jumpstream until I find the right middle*

2. The arrows could be moving too slow, making you lose your rhythm.
You usually want to move up your speedmod, get some space and a speed that fit more properly with your reflexes. The alternative is to screencut so you can take advantage of how slow the arrows are moving and anticipate patterns to hold AAA on, but this is only a backup strategy for quick AAAs that are within reach. If your goal is to get better overall, you shouldn't focus on doing this.

3. You could get confused because there's too many patterns at same time(a) or in a row(b).
A) If a pattern left you confused, it's important to take the time to stop, possibly take a screenshot, check a replay, isolate the pattern and figure out how it works. This is the best way to solve mindblocks and to move on. Mindblocks only exist because you created them with bad habits. A mindblock happens because you're unconsciously trying to hit each arrows perfectly and you unconsciously try to hit a certain pattern "as best as you can", but you're clearly doing something wrong. This something wrong can only be fixed if you know exactly where each parts of the pattern start and how to properly hit it.
B) If you mess up because a pattern constantly repeat itself, you have to keep in mind that a pattern that repeat itself is more complicated because it builds up pressure on your fingers over time. Therefore, you will eventually run out of stamina even if at first you could hit them right. The longer a pattern will repeat itself, the more it will put pressure on your fingers. The most obvious example of this is a jack. The longer a jack is, even if it's in your comfort zone, the more it will drain your energy. An unusual pattern like an awkward set of jumps, known as anchors can also create the same problem. You may need to isolate them, practice them by hitting keys lighter/using different posture/setup and if it's still not enough, you may have to train yourself to increase your max speed for them. I consider this a concentration issue if you overreact or try to mash these patterns instead of getting ready to hit them like every other patterns. Saving stamina and using it properly to hit these works with Consistency which is the next tool needed for a "Flow".

You can train Concentration by:
- Taking breaks (from a few hours/days up to a month) Take that break when you feel like it and go at your pace. This isn't work, it's a game. Even if you want to play it competitively, you shouldn't burn yourself out over it.
- Eating well, sleeping well, exercice etc. (yes, you can skillboost by changing your bad life habits! I mostly moved from D4 to D5 by doing this only.)
- Taking care of yourself in any way you can think of. (You will most likely play better if you're not worried about anything in your life and having fun while playing because you can fully dedicate yourself on hitting notes properly.)
- Conditioning will give you a temporary fairly solid boost too. (I refer to that quick 30min-2hours warm up session on Stepmania/FFRMania/FFR on rates etc. where you play hard files you can barely do, just to make sure you're ready to play.)
- Playing with a speedmod slightly higher than what you normally use. (It's something that you should try doing once in a while, if after a few songs it still feels too fast, you can just go back to your normal speedmod. It should visually feel slower than before because your eyes tried to adapt to the higher speedmod.)

---

Consistency:
- This is your ability to distribute your stamina to maintain control as long as possible.
- This is also your ability to finish a pattern properly to transition to the next pattern as fast as possible.

What are the main problems that can happen if I lack Consistency ?

4. You can gradually lose speed while moving from one pattern to another.
I've placed emphasis on making sure you start patterns correctly, but finishing patterns correctly is also important, but not as much as starting them properly. If you start a pattern properly, you'll create a scenario where it's as easy as it can be to maintain your stamina and your speed until the end of the pattern. In this scenario, it should be fairly easy to raise your finger back and move to the next pattern. If for some reason, a pattern is simply very hard and you need to transition into another pattern without having the time to raise back your hand, there's some shortcuts you can take to save "tempos"*. You can by example sacrifice some stamina to hit multiple jumps in a row that continued after a pattern. Just think at all these songs with mini-jacks in them, jumps+notes or jumps close to each others in a row after a pattern. You can double tap the second to last note of a long jack to push your finger away so you don't have to raise your finger back by yourself. If some patterns are awkward because of their slowness (think at very slow [1][3][2][4] repetitive notes by example. You can hit them harder and use stamina to your advantage to push your hands away from the keyboard so you can delay yourself back to finish these patterns without completely breaking your flow.) * You want to voluntary delay yourself this way rather than moving back your hands and hitting the pattern because you'll be able to conserve more speed/stamina which may useful for the next few patterns (!) *

Tempo*: This is chess terminology for doing a move with more than one function. Example: You move a pawn forward to defend/attack, but you also create space from where your pawn was before for your other pieces to attack etc. In one move, you managed to accomplish multiple goals at once usually giving you a small edge. In FFR's context, I'm using this word to describe the fact that you can simply not raise back your hand and rapidly chain other patterns at the cost of stamina that you saved to hit patterns that may have normally made you mess up. I'm pretty sure you can think of a few charts with these patterns. (hi bmah)

5. You can get "random" goods!
Maybe you hit your keys a little too early, maybe you hit them a little too late. When you get this good you usually know you moved a little too quickly or not fast enough while doing a pattern. You can adjust your judge offset if it's slightly wrong by playing the specific song for a while, going to the score result screen, right clicking where it says Speed: Mirror: etc. and checking which value the game is giving you and then using this value. Keep in mind that you probably want to stay fairly close to judge offset 0 if you're playing a song with patterns that you want to manipulate. Jumptrilling rolls with a high or low judge offset could be a little more difficult than intended. Practicing AAA-holding on songs or patterns you have trouble to keep AAA on will help as well.

You can train Consistency by:
- Playing files that are slightly too easy for you and focus on your accuracy as much as possible. (makes you create a buffer of accuracy that absorb all your potential small mistakes that aren't bad enough yet to turn your perfects into goods)
- Playing files that are slightly too hard (!) for you to focus on your ability to hold combo as much as possible. (this practice stamina distribution and the goal is usually to try to maintain a clean looking score @ X-0-0-0 or as close as possible to this.)
- Adjusting your Judge offset as needed. (You should only care about this if you get more perfects than amazings when you play)

---

Keyboard setup
- What keys you're using will affect greatly what kind of scores you will get and even what kind of patterns you're good and bad at! What I'm going to explain is valid for spread players only.

What are the main problems with Keyboard Setup?

6. My keyboard don't work when there's 3-4 keys at same time!
You probably want to go on this site:
https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsci...explained.mspx
..and make sure that the 4 keys you're using are all triggered properly at same time. If you can't find anything that works, you may have to find another keyboard.

7. I have no clue what keys to use on my keyboard, what should I do? I think it matters.
- Far away keys are known for helping players to hit stream more easily. (QW and some numpad keys like 89/ZX,. etc.)
- Close keys are known for hitting jump/jacks more easily. DFJK, CVNM (only 1-2 keys in-between)
- Mid-range are fairly hybrid and should do decently such as QWOP, ASKL etc. (4-6 keys in-between)
^ This is only half-true. The only reason why this would be true is that your hands would naturally be inclined in a different way by using these styles. Close styles usually keeps your fingers inclined at 45 degree. Far away style is close to 90 degree and hybrid is like 60 degree or so.

If you're bad at doing streams or jacks. It's probably because you've been using one of the two wrong settings to play. Having your fingers too much inclined will make you slip more often and make you get random boos. Playing with fingers at near 90 degree will make jacks feel really awkward to hit and your fingers will receive a lot more pressure from the keys as they directly throw the pressure back at the tip of your fingers.
You can google about how to use a proper "piano posture" and adapt this directly to FFR. tl;dr: You want to have your hands mid-air falling at like 60 degree which is a good compensation. You can rest one hand for additional stability.

As for where exactly to place your hands, you can simply try to close your eyes and let your hands fall on your keyboard naturally and then you use whatever is close to these keys.

A fun thing to keep in mind is that if you're really good at jacks but weak at stream you can raise your hand a little more to like 70-80 degree and you should get control for stream, rolls and all these accurate patterns. The opposite is also true. You can also change your hand posture slightly for specific patterns.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Laptop Keyboards, Mech Keyboards and Keyboards in general all feel fairly different when you play them. Mech keyboards feels like an ideal mix of laptop keys while keeping normal solid keys, but may cost a bit more for the advantage. If you own a laptop there's good chances you have a good keyboard for accuracy, just make sure you don't pound keys too hard. If you only have a normal rubberdome keyboard, depending on the brand it can do the job as well. *I personally prefer mech keyboard because to me it feels like they're pretty versatile no matter how you play with them.

You also probably want to avoid wireless keyboards for input delays etc. this is not the best game for them.

---

Summary of ~[The Flow]~

So, basically by having concentration, you should be to constantly identify and start patterns correctly. You can then move on to distributing your stamina properly in case there's tricky patterns. Being able to maintain your consistency will make you avoid losing speed and hopefully hold that AAA if the song is within your physical limits. Of course, this is all assuming you're placing yourself properly while playing and you feel comfortable hitting every patterns as accurately as possible.

Last few indicators that your flow could be improved;

1. You did multiple patterns and started losing almost enough stamina to lose control except that none of them were jacks or anchors jumps. (stream and jumpstream in general can be practiced enough to not burn your stamina much unless the pattern repeat itself indefinitely)
2. You hit keys really quickly at a not constant pace in a very erratic way like "fast galops" or "quick bursts", but no continuity. (this can happen if you're using a low speedmod and hit what you see instead of feeling the speed and using the space adequately.)
3. You're mashing. (please don't bother anymore unless you're playing some dump file in FFRMania, not only combo-scoring no longer matter, but you're probably wasting more stamina mashing than if you hit the notes properly.)
4. You have a lot of trouble doing transitions from one pattern to another. (You may want to do a bit of planning on this as you can take a break in the middle of certain patterns or even do clever things like hitting patterns with multiple purposes at same time.)

---

~ [Self-Benchmark] ~

I'll continue this if there's some kind of interest. This guide is probably more useful for myself than the other players because I can easily explain what's going on and why. I don't expect the average player to read this and become illuminated suddenly and fix all their weaknesses magically. I also realize I should simplify this post.

learn 2 smash arrows like haku's waifu

[mrpreggers]

this game is playing on your own/with a friend for a few weeks
stumbling into mp and seeing the regulars AAAing FMO+ files
learning that changing your speed and setup will make you better from those regulars
playing for a few months getting better slowly
being forced to play a dump by rapta and seeing how fun it can be
being dedicated enough to buy a new keyboard and play dumps to get good

[Gundam-Dude]

Originally Posted by _Zenith_

- Osu! and Sound Voltex default scroll direction is Down
- Cabinet Rhythm Games (ITG, PiU, DDR, etc.) default scroll direction is Up

actually, every rhythm game that isn't based off the concept of pad play (using your feet) scrolls downward by default and can't be changed. you shouldn't really be using the term "cabinet rhythm games" strictly for those because that applies to basically every single rhythm game, except for consoles and mobile apps.

games that scroll downward: osumania, o2jam, djmax trilogy, beatmania iidx, pop'n music, reflec beat, sound voltex, guitar hero, rock band, deemo, kshootmania, and yeah basically every other rhythm game ever. that's not to say that there aren't exceptions, like djmax technika and taiko no tatsujin which scroll sideways, and other games like jubeat, rerave, groove coaster, osu, and cytus that don't have a defined scroll direction.

the only arcade games to ever have a default scroll direction being up are literally those three games you named (itg, piu, and ddr).

[Tyson ultima]

ways to get good:
Play the game
Play everything
Use speedmods

There saved paragraphs of reading.