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#81 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: nima
Posts: 4,281
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and with regards to the charting community maybe you're right and I'm wrong about activity, shit I don't remember specifics honestly I'm just going off my intuition there
but if people in osumania are specifically avoiding charting the same way as stepmania charters then that is by definition having an influence but i think the real problem, which has been referenced or skirted around multiple times now, is that there are basically just a bunch of people with different ideas of what should or shouldn't be done to go forward and different concepts of what "stepmania being great" is and zero centralized authority to guide anyone or anything Last edited by MinaciousGrace; 09-30-2016 at 07:47 PM.. |
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#82 |
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Rhythm game specialist.
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the problem then comes down to the fact that setting a person or group of people as "experts" with regards to charting brings the nasty word around: "elitism"
Catch-22. I'd say so. |
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#83 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: nima
Posts: 4,281
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you know i really don't get the stigma around that word, not necessarily just within the context of stepmania or even inside of the general concept of the term within gaming society
i just don't get what's wrong with leaving decisions up to people who know what they're talking about where does the negative connotation come from Last edited by MinaciousGrace; 09-30-2016 at 07:55 PM.. |
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#84 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: nima
Posts: 4,281
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ok well I take it back I know where the negative connotation comes from, shitbads get butthurt when they're told they're clueless which is understandable
but i mean conceptually there's nothing wrong with elitism as long as it's functional and employed properly and the "elites" are actually people who know what they're talking about anyway im getting off on a pretty hefty tangent there i think this thread drives home pretty much all the reasons why nothing really happens when you think about it stepmania is in many ways in the same boat as ffr only with less incentive to do anything and fewer people with the capacity to do so Last edited by MinaciousGrace; 09-30-2016 at 07:58 PM.. |
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#85 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 136
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There were quite a few things I was going to say here, but Mina already covered most of them in a way that echoes my stance on this very well. However, I can't help but feel a lack of perspective in regards to the targeted demographic, as well as the (mis)perceived direction towards which the game should evolve as a consequence of that... so let's attempt to clear that out shall we?
Before asking yourself, "How can we make this game more appealing to newcomers?", I very firmly believe that it is definitely worth asking "What do newcomers specifically expect from this game in the first place?" before undertaking any sort of hilariously overzealous endeavor through blindly assuming that every single newcomer to the game automatically and invariably wants to become the next 30+ KPS button-mashing twitch superstar. Which leads me to the main thing I want people to realize: perhaps people simply don't fucking know exactly in which direction they want to take their gameplay experience for now, and just want time to discover things on their own before making a decision of sorts? In a multifaceted game such as this one, your experience is literally what you make of it - so given that fact it should only make sense to allow new players to develop and cultivate a sense of self-discovery as they progressively decide for themselves which aspects of the game they are drawn to as players. And then provided that they stick around for long enough they'll eventually come to a realization. Maybe they just want to play anime OPs all day. Maybe they just want to play Undertale xmod charts all day. Maybe they are actually angling for speed, but refuse to play anything other than index/pad patterns. Maybe they crave self-improvement and strive to aggressively push the game to its absolute physical limits as far as optimal pattern execution goes. Maybe they want to experience moderately-challenging yet flavorful charts, and want to become just good enough to appreciate the nuances in their patterning. To my personal understanding and experiences, the content-based elements quintessential to Stepmania are the following - this is obviously coupled with the undeniable fact that the game itself allows you to fine-tune your playfield to a far greater extent than just about every rhythm game out there that I personally know of (scroll speeds, noteskin size, receptor positioning/spacing etc). - Older keyboard packs/charts (FFRCP, Red Fraction etc) On top of having generally-engaging music, patterning tends to fit well and can even get challenging at times due to fun trilly/anchory stuff among other things. The level of nuance expressed in such patterning is simply not something I can find in any other rhythm game at all. FFR Community Packs, Piano Minipack of Elegance, Red Fraction Pack, and Untitled Stepmania Pack are excellent examples of this. - High-level spread gameplay Essentially an extension of the former, but with more content such as dump charts being more prevalent here. Again, the kind of patterning present in certain instances of the latter just cannot be experienced to anywhere near the same extent in other rhythm games. - Xmod courses/gimmicks Straightforward, not much else to say here. - Index/pad content Straightforward, not much else to say here. So now that we have established what makes Stepmania unique, it is worth bringing up that overall I do feel that it is ultimately pointless to aspire to cover aspects outside of the quintessential zone for the most part. If people just want a music game to play on their keyboards and a bunch of social features to play with friends, they're almost bound to favor osumania over anything else. There is simply little to no point in trying to cater to that demographic when osumania fulfills that purpose better, and the developer team absolutely lacks the initiative to implement something of the sort to this game. Furthermore it goes without saying that the community has been suffering from a general lack of direction in regards to how a progressive yet realistically feasible future for this game would go (not saying that absolutely no effort has been made, just stating that it has sadly not amounted to much really). And it's not like someone here is going to magically come up with a solution out of thin air either, let alone one viable enough that would convince enough people to contribute to it as to grant it the momentum required for it to actually work. I'm aware that I'm certainly not helping here aside from restating facts, therefore you are more than welcome to prove me wrong. Therefore ultimately, as mentioned previously - the solution lies in making sure that the Stepmania experience is a rewarding enough one for the players that are already committed to it, in addition to any disgruntled players from other rhythm games that are willing to transition towards a better world. Of course, I do realize there are probably quality-of-life improvements that can be made to the game itself in order to make things more convenient for players almost regardless of the stepmanian walk of life they choose to follow. However when taking that factor into consideration there are only two major improvements to be made as far as I can tell. Maybe someone out there is better than me at figuring those out without resulting in compromising the self-discovery factor, I dunno. - Cmods on by default, set at a reasonable initial value of 400-500 or so. - Making important resources such as this thread even more visible and easier to access (also e.g. things like telling new 4k players that noteskins go in the dance subfolder). - There is also a guide aimed at new players that is currently in the works, hopefully that works out well. People that desire very optimized self-improvement driven gameplay will eventually end up looking up xwidghet's build + Mina's theme anyway. They're already out there, and if people really angle for that level of optimized gameplay they'll almost surely have the determination to find those in the first place. TL;DR: The main benefit of playing a multifaceted game such as this one is that your gameplay experience is literally what you make of it. If you're going to carry out any sort of effort into improving this game, make sure that it will actually benefit people almost regardless of the aspects of the game that they are drawn to. Also, pretty much everything Mina said. |
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#86 |
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Rhythm game specialist.
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just worth noting (and i'm not ignoring your post DeadSignal as much as I currently lack the capacity to respond because i'm exhausted from earlier today):
the gameplay experience -and- community experience are what we all make of it. the game is also very much open source and can be modified to our heart's content, granted that we require people who know how to make the game even more of what they want |
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#87 | |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 136
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Quote:
there it is, still very much a work in progress so there's more to come Last edited by DeadSignal; 09-30-2016 at 08:23 PM.. |
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#88 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Atlanta, GA
Age: 24
Posts: 100
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shout out to halogen for joining the server for working on that doc then leaving when he sees me and toby :^)
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Pixl's minipack 2 is cancelled |
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#89 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: May 2016
Age: 26
Posts: 62
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cool doc dude
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fucker Last edited by Toby1018; 09-30-2016 at 08:38 PM.. |
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#90 |
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The Dominator
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: North Bay, ON
Age: 31
Posts: 8,875
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itt brainstorming ways to grow a community centered around something as niche as pen-spinning
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#91 | |
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FFR Player
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Read through everything you said, agree with a lot of what you said Mina. One thing specifically caught my eye, I've been thinking of the same:
Quote:
If there's actually interest in a community pack like this, I'd be totally down to oversee it and such, maybe throw in some things here and there if others would be down as well. Let me know if anyone would be willing to do something like that.
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,, ,_, -ー'"{ ゛ヌ ノノノノハヾ ノ li.゚ ヮ゚ノi 彡と} 猫.{つ |
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#92 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: nima
Posts: 4,281
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my idea was something more handholdy tbh, probably capping around ffr's 20s
and it would afford a tacit introduction to the various skillsets and file types present within the game insofar as that's achievable in a beginner pack and yes a proper rating system is paramount and it would have to be customized to account for how difficult the introduction of different types of patterns are to players And yes again it requires a different mindset and concept of approach from traditional packs. Very much an absolute beginner tier pack, and it's ok if half the files in the pack are just salvaged from random pad packs and shit. The important thing is that it's distributed with the game itself and instantly accessible by any prospective players. So basically like the stepmania 5 default songs pack if there weren't 2 files and shit. @dyanmo dude you dont even know pen spinning is a big fucking deal e: like realistically the amount of effort wouldn't be insignificant but of all the things that can or should be done this is the easiest and it would go a long fucking way Last edited by MinaciousGrace; 09-30-2016 at 10:38 PM.. |
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#93 | |
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Rhythm game specialist.
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Quote:
it was mostly because of toby that and i honestly don't feel like this is a well-enough conceived effort worth being a part of, as honest as i can be unless you're finding an almost intrusive way to hold people's hands and get them into doing things, it's likely not effective (an offsite doc isn't gonna do it imo) |
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#94 | |
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FFR Player
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Quote:
- making google doc with some good stuff - making a default SM .zip with a theme and a couple noteskins included (likely SCWH for the theme, and dividebyzero and wafles for noteskins), as well as more starter songs - currently in the works of writing up a thread over to >>simulator files for a pack that fulfills the criteria I mentioned in an earlier post Honestly, I don't know if this will work, but at least this way I can say I tried. I was actually going to message you asking for your input, because you seem like you'd know what would be good and what wouldn't be in this matter. Though if anyone else wants to help too, that'd be super.
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,, ,_, -ー'"{ ゛ヌ ノノノノハヾ ノ li.゚ ヮ゚ノi 彡と} 猫.{つ |
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#95 | |
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Very Grave Indeed
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#96 |
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Forum User
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I can help, if you want. It's nice to see people interested in helping out newcomers/beginners again
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Twitch | Stepping Stones 2! | Stepping Stones 3! | Stepping Stones 4! Submit to this -
Last edited by Kraezymann; 10-1-2016 at 02:09 PM.. |
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#97 |
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魔法少女
Join Date: Jan 2006
Age: 30
Posts: 2,044
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No offense, but do you really like attention or something? Take that comment with a grain of salt please.
I think the Stepmania community has been doing a great job and doesn't really need improvements in catching the attention of new players. They will come regardles how much you advertise. Hell, I think the size of the community has exceeded my expectations considering the year we are in. In 2015, I was almost convinced only about 20 players were playing. It's very nice seeing all these new faces in the discord and on the website. Maybe I'm just stupid but I'm not sure what the overall goal is here...to prove this game is superior to others or to just get more players? Players will come over time - they always come and go. And regardless if you have more players, the game won't change lol. To whom this game matters to, make what you can from it. After all, that's the only reason I can see why people have stuck around - the company of other existing members and the fun/challenge you get from the game. |
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#98 | |
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FFR Player
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Quote:
The goal here isn't to prove the game is superior; rather, its to help make it better than it is currently in various ways. Sure the game isn't bad right now, I'd argue it's pretty good, but there's still things that can be done to it on various fronts. And if things can be improved, why not improve them? Stagnation is deterioration.
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,, ,_, -ー'"{ ゛ヌ ノノノノハヾ ノ li.゚ ヮ゚ノi 彡と} 猫.{つ |
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#99 | ||
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魔法少女
Join Date: Jan 2006
Age: 30
Posts: 2,044
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Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by Mahou; 10-1-2016 at 04:43 PM.. |
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#100 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Jul 2016
Age: 21
Posts: 257
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Stepmania was a hell to setup at first if i didn't go around and asking top SM players from osumania pm's, while i left stepmania for a while because of how i got frustrated at not knowing the difficulties, i went back to osumania and played animu songs that has a (bad but works) difficulty system, i would have probably stayed at stepmania if i knew what packs are the type of difficulty i'm catered towards to, i would probably
stayed there before i returned to the game a year later, but if i haven't played osumania and didn't get tempted to play the game again and had tons of peoples help setting it up again, and i was a completely new player, i would have probably not come back to stepmania This wouldn't be the case for many other players but i'm basing this off of my experience with finding this game. |
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