StepCon 2024 - Page 2

**gold stinger** · 08-23-2024, 10:40 AM

I know that I put out the Song Preference form only 4 days ago, but there is now a week left to sign up for StepCon 2024!

I've gotten plenty of preferences from all of you this week, and I can definitely see where some songs missed the mark, some very loved, and others very divisive!
If you haven't already, consider filling out the Song Preference form, your choice may be a tiebreaker on whether a particular song is used or not.

Currently at 45 sign-ups so it is very likely we will see either 5 or 6 songs used, can always sign-up for StepCon 2024 if you haven't to maybe increase that number, but I've only got just a little over 30 Song Preferences submitted so get them in while you can!

**gold stinger** · 08-25-2024, 11:36 PM

We've hit 50 sign-ups!

There will now be 6 songs this StepCon instead of 5.

Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to sign up and submit their song preferences! Hoping that everyone enjoys their placements a lot more this year.

**gold stinger** · 08-30-2024, 12:30 AM

The First Stepping Period has Begun!

During this time, all participants will have received a Direct Message from me containing their Class, Song for Round 1, and their Pre-built .sm File to begin Charting, and links to all songs currently active in this round. For the public, that list is available below in the spoiler.

All participants will have until the end of Thursday, September 12th Server Time to complete their submissions and submit it to the StepCon 2024 Batch located here.

If you need the other song's files or folders / can't get them from whom you are trading with, please contact gold stinger either on the FFR Official Discord, or in DM's here.

PLEASE NOTE, that unlike the previous StepCon, there is NO CHANGING SONGS.

Best of luck to all those involved in StepCon 2024! Looking forward to some of the patterns and choices that go into these submissions, and may the best StepMan win!

**gold stinger** · 09-13-2024, 01:05 AM

The First Public Voting Period has Begun!

During this time, all participants (including and especially people not participating in the event), can vote for songs submitted for Round 1 of StepCon 2024. No further submissions for the event will be accepted at this time. You can re-visit the Google Form link in the future to change your votes (until the end of the Public Voting period), and you can vote for multiple options across all Classes (Pick any & all that you like!).

You may fill out the form at https://forms.gle/pxTp5Bk8xP2TMA9w6 to submit your votes.

Please be advised, participants CANNOT vote for their own Class. Votes for that class will not count for said participants.

Everyone will have until the end of Thursday, September 19th 11:59PM SERVER TIME to complete voting and submit their forms at the above google link.

Furthermore, discussion is allowed in-thread during voting. But please do not deliberately attempt to sway votes/vote brigade particular submissions, and treat your fellow Stepauthors with respect. People of all skill levels participate within this event, and there is going to be good/bad matchups for people's skills and preferred genres. Keep it civil and respectful. There's also the #events channel in FFR's Official Discord for discussing the event as well!

**EppuJoloZ** · 09-13-2024, 01:09 AM

Good luck everyone!

**Lights** · 09-13-2024, 02:31 PM

I'll go first! My initial thoughts on the submissions.

Mantle 1 - Right off the bat theres some layering consistency issues that jump out here. Wasn't a big fan of the dumped 16ths for the wubs, comes off as a little lazy- theres a lot more you could be doing here. The ending felt a little underwhelming overall. Is a respectable attempt, but it slightly misses the mark in a lot of places for me and that kinda adds up over the file.

Mantle 2 - Hand and Jump usage felt a bit off in terms of where emphasis was placed for portions of this file and it probably could have used a little more polishing. The Wubby section was handled really well in this file though, I quite like it. Kinda torn on where I land on this file, though I'd say overall its got a good thing going.

Mantle 3 - This file has some problem with the approach to layering and consistency. Wub section didnt really land for me- feels like emphasis was poorly placed and a lot of the (dumped?) streams ended up feeling more like ghost notes than genuine abstraction of the music, unless theres some really subtle backing rhythm im not hearing here.

Mantle 4 - Simpler approach to the song. Feels relativelty well put together. Doesn't really jump out to me in terms of doing anything particularly special, but does most things right. solid file overall

Mantle 5 - This has some problems. quite a lot of errors that would really need to be addressed that I'm guessing come from a place of inexperience. Nice use of color on the vocals though, I like where your head is at there.

Mantle 6 - Second favorite take on the wubby section so far. fairly solid execution on most of the file as a whole. This is good.

Mantle 7 - Like, I'm all for dumping wubs. But you're really drowning out the rest of the song with how overbearing the 24ths are in the first half. the dumped 16ths in the back half really make you lose a lot of impact of the drum fills and really steals the spotlight away from what made this section of the music cool. In a song like this, less is more when it comes to abstraction.

Vote: Mantle 6

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 1 - lol. nice color theory. honestly i think theres a good deal of merit to the approach here. some parts of this feel kinda similar to how i'd want approach it. Theres an underlying layer of jank here im worried about in some of the bursts and transitions that might wanna see some touching up, honestly i like it overall.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 2 - I respect some of the ideas here but good lord this file packs some HEAT. Some of the file feels pretty overdumped, even relative to the intensity you're going for. im genuinely struggling to figure out what sort of angle youre taking on some of the dumpy streams here towards the middle in particular. overall its fairly well put together if we look past how heavy handed the approach to dumping is, but thats a pretty difficult thing to look past. I think you'll have better luck sending this into an OT batch tho.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 3 - This is a very strong submission. does a great job focusing on what grabs attention, the approach to abstraction is overall pretty clean and does what the song wants with as much minimalism as you could really expect from a song like this. really pretty in its overall presentation.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 4 - kinda reminds me of 1. some solid ideas, the approach to the abstraction generally works. It sometimes feels like the file is doing too much and things like the lead melody kinda fall into the background a bit too much. with some improvement in how this file chooses to focus on elements of the song, i could see this being on par with 1.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 5 - this is another solid entry. the layering choices feel a little unintuitive to me sometimes. does a decent job with keying in on what the song wants. acts as a fairly nice middleground between something like 1 and 3 imo. respectable entry, i like it.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 6 - this is so fuggin clean too. best use of color theory i've seen. a bit more literal in its approach than 3, but i'd consider this to be roughly on par with 3. this is really good imo.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 7 - thems some spicy minijacks, honestly they kind work well with the level of intensity you're going for here. i've got some playfeel concerns with some of the chart, but this is overall pretty good. A lot of the ideas on the abstraction land pretty well and the emphasis feels well placed for most of the file.

Votes: 3, 5, 6

**xXOpkillerXx** · 09-13-2024, 03:39 PM

I'll go second! My initial thoughts on the submissions.

1. Really solid. This chart is very friendly and intuitive, and most patterns are coherent with a great balance in difficulty relative to the song's intensity. It takes an approach that imo is a bit too safe in the first half using just regular 16ths js for sections around 400-800 combo.

2. This chart has a pretty good sense of what interesting elements the song has to showcase, and represents them well. Most of it is quite friendly, although some of the spikiness might not be ideal. Couple of objective layering mistakes but nothing too major. Good stuff.

3. Now this one I feel has a lovely focus on playability and pattern flow. It's quite tame in general, although those 24ths spikes are too hard for this chart. One concern I have is that at times the layering focuses on song elements that are very background-like, sacrificing the representation of the more prominent instruments. Cute stuff.

4. Ohh this is pretty polished. I would say the first half is very strong; the only more notable thing I'd note there is the 24ths triplet roll, that's a bit awkward to play at that speed because it doesn't jumptrill as easily as the 32nds rolls. The second half however is a bit tricky, because the song's intensity increases a significant amount, yet the charting doesn't reflect it too much due to the layering decisions made. Overall great chart.

5. I will assume this is a less experienced stepartist. There is a great balance of difficulty and nothing egregiously spiky which is nice. The concerns to note here are primarily about mistakes in quantization (using 16ths where the song is playing 12ths and viceversa), and layering consistency in the jumps usage. Aside from that the song's intensity was followed nicely and patterns are fun.

6. Hmmm, now this one is definitely really well put together and feels polished, however some things jump out imo. For example, while the wubs in the first half are pretty nice and friendly, they're most definitely the hardest part of that whole half, but in the song they're quite minor elements relative to the loud drums and its various rhythms and intensities for example. Bit of quantization issues in the second half too. Overall though, this is nicely done.

7. This chart gives me a strong impression of someone who has their style of charting and wanted to apply it to the song. The general intensity of the chart is up there and feels nice given how hard the song goes. There are notable concerns regarding the accuracy of the notes (missing/ghosts) and quantizations, which I feel come from this person not being used to chart a song with that many varied rhythms and prominent elements. Solid attempt.

Notes: One funny thing that clearly stands out is this group's struggle with the quantizations of the 12ths vs the 8ths in the second half. That being said, the overall quality is good and the competition is not easy there. I have a relatively solid idea of which chart(s) I will vote for.

1. Pretty interesting stuff in this one. There's a bit of a conflict in difficulty balance between some sections to a point where it makes too much of the chart trivial relative to the hard parts; the song doesn't warrant that much of a discrepancy. That aside, everything is pretty coherent and the intentions are clear on the abstractions. Solid charting.

2. Cute easy chart. While there are slight inconsistencies here and there in the 8ths usage, the general approach of an easy difficulty was executed quite well. The midsection piano roll spike is definitely egregious, but in terms of spikes that's about it. Although the motifs are well done, the more intense wubby midsection does lack a bit of oomph in terms of representation, making it feel a bit underwhelming even at that difficulty range. Really neat chart.

3. This chart is super techy with really fun abstractions. I honestly do feel like the minijacks transitions weren't the ideal choice there as some of them are essentially minijacks into a jump on the respective hand, which is significantly trickier than when the first note is the jump. That spikes the abstractions a fair bit and would need some smoothing out. Not too sure about the 2-notes 16ths minijacks in the wubby sections but they do keep rhythm. Pretty solid and feels polished.

4. Well, this is something. You probably think "what kind of something is it", but it's just it. Seriously though, really clean patterns, interesting abstractions (albeit a bit spiky of a midsection, but nothing egregious), careful PR. Maybe not a big fan of using the same color theory for the whistle and the other sound in the following section, that blends weirdly. Not much else to say about this. Impressive.

5. Hmmm, unsure what to think about the cuts here. Musically, they seem to hinder the progression of the song a bit too much for the time gained. The chart itself is pretty nice and has some cool patterning in the wubby section. Bit of inconsistencies in the flams usage in the first part and the patterning there isn't the most friendly. All in all a good chart.

6. Here again the cuts (and fade out) might not be ideal/necessary. The abstractions in the midsection were nice, but felt a bit too streamy given the swingy nature of the song there (some matched that rhythm properly). The intro whistles are definitely a more unique approach here, although they're not Too spiky, just a bit unexpected. A fun and challenging chart.

Notes: This group has some really nice takes here and there on various parts of the song. This is one of those cases imo where a frankenchart would be lovely, taking the best parts of each submission. I don't have a strong idea of which chart(s) I'm voting for here, but I have contenders to double check.

Dash- · 09-16-2024, 06:14 PM

Alrighty, here's my thoughts on the submissions. Keep in mind I have little experience as a charter, but it was fun playing through everyone's files ^^

Not posting stuff for GET OVER IT! (yet? maybe at the end of the voting period)

**M0nkeyz** · 09-17-2024, 06:57 PM

Let me preface this by saying I'm not judging the files as a judge per se, I'm just giving out my opinion on these files as a player, there will be personal bias.

Atohs:
What an absolutely insane song this is, I think it lends itself to higher level charts and alot of entries were far above my skill level, I played them all, but I watched the replay of them quite a few times and mainly looked at structural consistency.

Mantle in the Dark:
Great song, I think this song is so good in fact that pretty much all the charts here were really fun to play, I think alot of them did suffer from inconsistencies though.

Mantle in the Dark 1: File seemed decently well made, but the structure felt really overlayered, it kinda detracted alot from the experience for me. It felt like I was playing a dump file that didn't really capture the intensity of the song much.

Mantle in the Dark 2: Really fun file, I think it's a bit spiky and it would definitely need a few touchups before being acceptable for FFR, but I think this file shows alot of potential and definitely has a coherent structure. Second half is way harder than the first tho lol.

Mantle in the Dark 3: Easier approach to the song, I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the file or if you uploaded the wrong version, but alot of the jumps seem misplaced? It seemed like a decent file, but I didn't really get to play the intended version it felt like.

Mantle in the Dark 4: Almost incomprehensible structure in this one, there are parts that felt understepped and there are parts that felt grossly overstepped. It's quite unique gameplay wise, but I think this needs alot of polish in alot of areas, the intensity of the song wasn't captured very well imo.

Mantle in the Dark 5: File suffers from noticeable misrhythms, I think the use of jumps is a bit hard to follow, definitely needs alot of polish. The staircase pattern in the middle was fun tho

.

Mantle in the Dark 6: I kinda feel ambivalent about this one, on the one hand it has a nice structure, it's easy to follow what the notes are going to and it's definitely the cleanest entry thus far, but on the other hand it seems to have noticeable missing notes and it kinda fails to capture the music in its execution, the ideas are easy to follow, but as an example there's this speed up into a snare roll where you go from 24ths into 32nds that just doesn't feel right to play, it's hard to explain why but I feel this just needed a bit more polish and iteration and it would've been a great file.

Mantle in the Dark 7: Dump approach doesn't really work for me here, the wubs are too soft and quiet for the 24ths to actually feel accurate. Rest of the file also seems overlayered.

Memories in the Blue:
Another very cool song, man the picks this year have been absolute bangers, the charts were also pretty cool, all 3 had a very different approach.

EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE:
This song is ridiculous lol, another absolute banger, I'm kinda sad that most people took a dump approach, would've liked to see some other ways to tackle this song, I wasn't the biggest fan of this group, but I think that's due to personal bias, take my opinion with a grain of salt.

GET OVER IT!:
Definitely some beginner charters in this group, don't be discouraged by my notes, they're just my opinion. Banger song, again wasn't a huge fan of this group because the majority of the entries took a dump approach.

**jh05013** · 09-18-2024, 12:17 PM

**Zoobin4** · 09-18-2024, 03:46 PM

My thoughts on charts!!!

Things You Should Know About My Thoughts:
- Chart order shows my overall ranking for the group, ordered from most favourite to least favourite chart. Numbers in bold are ones that I voted for.
- "[...]" denotes my reviewed thoughts after a second playthrough of the chart.
- I also didn't give all charts a second playthrough, so it's extremely likely that my opinions could have differed greatly from my initial feedback for some charts.
- Don't take my "ratings" too seriously (the "x/10" stuff), they're just my way of having fun while summing up each chart.
- I don't know why, but I was surprisingly harsh in a lot of my reviews. Try not to take it to heart if I was harsh to you, I have quite a unique viewpoint after all.
- Above all else I prioritise how much fun I had while playing a chart, which inevitably means that charts on the easier side of things will be to my distaste.

**Tru** · 09-19-2024, 08:29 PM

Played classes in this order: F, C, D, A, B. Sorry for the weird order, too lazy to change this now lol

Every chart seemed solid. It was definitely difficult to vote for some of these classes. If I had to give some general feedback, I would very heavily advocate for more playtesting. Balance issues, overly rough patterns, even ghost/missing notes sometimes - they can often be discovered with a playtest. It’s understandable to miss this with the time limit and no sharing limit, but some of these charts would have been helped with playtests.

I’m hoping my notes don’t come across too negatively. It’s hard to give specific feedback when you only have half the tools available (playtest/preview only, no editor). If you want more feedback than offered here, feel free to DM me your file and your questions after the voting period!

Well done y’all!~

Class F: GET OVER IT !

Class C: Second Strike

Class D: Memories in the Blue

Class A: Atohs

Class B: Mantle in the Dark

**gold stinger** · 09-20-2024, 12:03 AM

The First Public Voting Period has Ended!

Here's the results for the First Round:

1st - Snupeh [4]
2nd - mikatheidiot [3]
3rd - E-B-E [1]

1st - Velocity [6]
2nd - TheTrueXFish [1]
3rd - WirryWoo [2]

1st - M0nkeyz [4]
2nd - Wind0ze [2]
3rd - TIE! Hakulyte [1] & DSMLMD [3]

1st - jh05013 [1]
2nd - jacobvl39 [3]
3rd - Durvin [2]

1st - xXOpkillerXx [3]
2nd - Tru [6]
3rd - RakuAvali [5]

1st - Lights [4]
2nd - Dash- [3]
3rd - Ultimate Mike7 [6]

A huge congratulations to everyone that participated, played and voted for their favorites! It was quite a riveting battle over the week from every Class for the coveted 1st Place to participate in the Final StepOff, especially so for Class E and Class F! Very forward and back with many 1st place swaps. So much so, that we saw last-minute tiebreakers be resolved in the last couple hours of voting for some in 2nd & 3rd! I will be getting prizes (credits, badges and the such) out shortly while juggling the rest of the swap-over period as we transition into the Final StepOff.

Participants and voters are now open & free to talk about which file is theirs in-order on the StepCon 2024 engine (if they prefer), and talk about which specific songs they voted for (again, if they prefer).

As for the tie in 3rd on Class C, you will both be receiving the same badge & rewards.

Stay tuned for the Final StepOff announcement.

**gold stinger** · 09-20-2024, 12:20 AM

The Second Stepping Period has Begun!

During this time, all participants will have received a Direct Message from me containing the Final StepOff song, and their Pre-built .sm File to begin Charting.

All participants will have until the end of Thursday, October 3rd 11:59PM SERVER TIME to complete their submissions and submit it to the StepCon 2024 Batch located here.

Class Exam: t+pazolite / †††Chaos Time the DARK†††

Snupeh
Velocity
M0nkeyz
jh05013
xXOpkillerXx
Lights

Once upon a time, a collaboration effort born between Taiko no Tatsujin and t+pazolite gave birth to a song so devilish, so diabolical, so.. April Fools-ish (specifically this year), that they published this monstrosity to bear to the world on April 1st of 2024, to ruin some fair drum-players internationally in this BPM Powerhouse of a song. Will finalists be swallowed into a pit of despair over multiple genre changes and BPM/notation changes that demand notations that don't even exist in most rhythm game editors, or will they persevere in the onslaught that is 360bpm swing to the bpm slide ending? Time will only tell in this year's Final StepOff!

3 participants will be walking away with an extra-special StepOff profile badge (plus a hefty bonus of credits), and the winner will also have this song released to FFR.

Best of luck to the Finalists! To other participants, I will be sending out 2nd & 3rd place prizes, and participation prizes in a bit. The Second Judging Period will begin on October 4th.

**gold stinger** · 09-20-2024, 01:20 AM

Prizes, Event Tokens, and Badges have been awarded out!

If you'd like to spend your Event Tokens, head on over to https://www.flashflashrevolution.com.../tokenshop.php and cash them out.

If you happened to get 1st place and would like to spend one of your unlocks on vROFL or STRANGEPROGRAM v0, say so in this forum thread or get in-touch with me on Discord, and I can get that done for you.

**gold stinger** · 10-4-2024, 12:12 AM

The Second Public Voting Period has Begun!

During this time, the community can vote for the Final round of StepCon 2024. No further submissions for the event will be accepted at this time. You can re-visit the Google Form link in the future to change your votes (until the end of the Public Voting period), and you can vote for multiple options across this Final StepOff (Pick any & all that you like!).

You may fill out the form at https://forms.gle/oYdYExS9gbN5XgeY8 to submit your votes.

Please be advised, participants CANNOT vote for their own Class. Votes for that class will not count for said participants.

Everyone will have until the end of Thursday, October 10th 11:59PM SERVER TIME to complete voting and submit their forms at the above google link.

Furthermore, discussion is allowed in-thread during voting. But please do not deliberately attempt to sway votes/vote brigade particular submissions, and treat your fellow Stepauthors with respect. People of all skill levels participate within this event, and there is going to be good/bad matchups for people's skills and preferred genres. Keep it civil and respectful. There's also the #events channel in FFR's Official Discord for discussing the event as well!

**Tru** · 10-10-2024, 03:05 PM

Congrats to all entrants. This was a tough song to chart, and it'd be even harder to chart well.

I have to preface this by saying I had to play all these on 0.8x or lower rate. The song demands a fairly hard chart.

1 - Noticed a few scattered rhythm/consistency errors. I'm expecting this will be the among the easiest entries but with some touch ups this could work better.

2 - More of a maximalist approach but some of these pattern choices seem to be a bit rude. Would probably need some specific nerfs/pattern tweaks.

3 - Contrasts a lot with 2, almost minimalist approach. The song isn't quite allowing this chart to really work for me. It feels somewhat unbalanced overall with the speed and jack sections contrasting with other simplified sections.

4 - 3 but with better balance. Felt very clean.

5 - Felt fairly balanced. Not a huge fan of the representation of the airhorn(?) Might need minor touch ups.

6 - phew. Not sure about some colours. I think a bit more colour work could have been done in the fancy rhythm section to further improve readability but this also works better than other submissions. I suspect some playtests would have revealed how overly intense some of the chordjack-y parts and The Trill (tm) are.

**gold stinger** · 10-11-2024, 12:04 AM

The Second Public Voting Period has Ended!

Here's the Final StepOff results!

1st - M0nkeyz [4]
2nd - Lights [3]
3rd - xXOpkillerXx [5]

A final huge congratulations to M0nkeyz for placing 1st in the Final StepOff, as well as everyone whom played and voted for their favorites! I legitimately got home from work the other day, checked voting, and nearly everyone in Final StepOff was tied at one point or another within the last 48 hours of voting. I will be getting prizes (credits, badges and the such) out momentarily to our finalists to reflect their position!

Participants and voters are now open & free to talk about which file is theirs in-order on the StepCon 2024 engine (if they prefer), and talk about which specific songs they voted for (again, if they prefer).

And of course, to M0nkeyz, you will have an extra week in-batch to submit any fixes or changes related to feedback or discussion on your file. Then it be moved to Difficulty Consultants for another week to rate the difficulty of the file and then released.

Thank you all once again for participating in another year of StepCon! Still not entirely sure if we need to retire the event for a year or not, or reproach engagement or song selection, but we'll have to see whether that all falls in-line or not for next year!

**Lights** · 10-11-2024, 03:00 AM

oof i lost. GG m0nkeyz

09-13-2024, 02:31 PM	#26
Lights Spooky Password: Demon6 Commuwunity Manager Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 439	Re: StepCon 2024 I'll go first! My initial thoughts on the submissions. Atohs 1 - hard file. i found some of the decision making to be a little questionable but its also got some nice ideas. not a whole ton to say here Atohs 2 - I liked this one for the most part. the file is pretty reserved but the difficulty spike towards the end is kinda spooky and its also got some issues with consistency. pretty good overall tho Atohs 3 - thats uh... spicy. kinda like one, its got some ideas that i can appreciate, but in this case the file is so hard that im kinda at a loss from there. you do get a nod for your usage of color, though the limited PR on it during the little guitar riffs falls kinda flat. overall the file seems relatively well constructed, but i cant comment on how this would really feel to play. Atohs 4 - really common trend with these files doing some stuff well and kinda lacking in other areas. i think theres a lot to like about the overall approach here, but it has some undeniably mean patterning. that being said, it does enough things right that this will be getting my vote Vote: Atohs 4 Mantle 1 - Right off the bat theres some layering consistency issues that jump out here. Wasn't a big fan of the dumped 16ths for the wubs, comes off as a little lazy- theres a lot more you could be doing here. The ending felt a little underwhelming overall. Is a respectable attempt, but it slightly misses the mark in a lot of places for me and that kinda adds up over the file. Mantle 2 - Hand and Jump usage felt a bit off in terms of where emphasis was placed for portions of this file and it probably could have used a little more polishing. The Wubby section was handled really well in this file though, I quite like it. Kinda torn on where I land on this file, though I'd say overall its got a good thing going. Mantle 3 - This file has some problem with the approach to layering and consistency. Wub section didnt really land for me- feels like emphasis was poorly placed and a lot of the (dumped?) streams ended up feeling more like ghost notes than genuine abstraction of the music, unless theres some really subtle backing rhythm im not hearing here. Mantle 4 - Simpler approach to the song. Feels relativelty well put together. Doesn't really jump out to me in terms of doing anything particularly special, but does most things right. solid file overall Mantle 5 - This has some problems. quite a lot of errors that would really need to be addressed that I'm guessing come from a place of inexperience. Nice use of color on the vocals though, I like where your head is at there. Mantle 6 - Second favorite take on the wubby section so far. fairly solid execution on most of the file as a whole. This is good. Mantle 7 - Like, I'm all for dumping wubs. But you're really drowning out the rest of the song with how overbearing the 24ths are in the first half. the dumped 16ths in the back half really make you lose a lot of impact of the drum fills and really steals the spotlight away from what made this section of the music cool. In a song like this, less is more when it comes to abstraction. Vote: Mantle 6 Second Strike 1 - Now thats a bold approach. I respect it. But it does not work. this file has a lot of problems ranging from PR, layering, and consistency that can't really be overlooked. this file would need a considerable overhaul. Second Strike 2 - Now thats a bold approach. For an entirely different reason than the last file. The shoehorned color theory in the back half of the file doesn't really add anything. the color gimmick would land a bit better if the file was cut imo. was a little disappointed to see the streamy part ignored in favor of the same old jumpstreamy patterning. Second Strike 3 - Now thats a bold approach. This time for not really doing the whole "layering" thing. cuz honestly who needs it, am i right? But if you're going to focus in on one thing at a time, you really gotta nail the representation of that thing. Not following the lead melody for most of the file didn't exactly leave a good impression with me and the PR kinda felt like it was an afterthought, if present at all in some parts of the file. Second Strike 4 - Sensible approach to the song and it thankfully cuts the song. nothing further to say here, good file. this will be getting my vote. Vote: Second Strike 4 Memories in the Blue 1 - I love this. Not really much to note here, I genuinely wouldn't change a thing. Spicy trills at the start tho. Memories in the Blue 2 - Honestly, I like this too. It focuses in on whats important quite well for most of the file. the misrhythms on some of the bursts are kind of a knock against the file (If they are actually misrhythms, hard to really verify through a preview). You have a good thing going here overall though. Memories in the Blue 3 - In contrast to the first two, this feels a lot less focused. the lack of hands emphasizing the more powerful parts of the music is unfortunate and the overall approach to layering kinda felt off sometimes- namely when it wasnt being used to place emphasis on that lead melody. excellent use of color in the mid section though. overall this is still a respectable entry, but it doesnt quite do it for me. Vote: Memories in the Blue 1 EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 1 - lol. nice color theory. honestly i think theres a good deal of merit to the approach here. some parts of this feel kinda similar to how i'd want approach it. Theres an underlying layer of jank here im worried about in some of the bursts and transitions that might wanna see some touching up, honestly i like it overall. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 2 - I respect some of the ideas here but good lord this file packs some HEAT. Some of the file feels pretty overdumped, even relative to the intensity you're going for. im genuinely struggling to figure out what sort of angle youre taking on some of the dumpy streams here towards the middle in particular. overall its fairly well put together if we look past how heavy handed the approach to dumping is, but thats a pretty difficult thing to look past. I think you'll have better luck sending this into an OT batch tho. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 3 - This is a very strong submission. does a great job focusing on what grabs attention, the approach to abstraction is overall pretty clean and does what the song wants with as much minimalism as you could really expect from a song like this. really pretty in its overall presentation. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 4 - kinda reminds me of 1. some solid ideas, the approach to the abstraction generally works. It sometimes feels like the file is doing too much and things like the lead melody kinda fall into the background a bit too much. with some improvement in how this file chooses to focus on elements of the song, i could see this being on par with 1. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 5 - this is another solid entry. the layering choices feel a little unintuitive to me sometimes. does a decent job with keying in on what the song wants. acts as a fairly nice middleground between something like 1 and 3 imo. respectable entry, i like it. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 6 - this is so fuggin clean too. best use of color theory i've seen. a bit more literal in its approach than 3, but i'd consider this to be roughly on par with 3. this is really good imo. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 7 - thems some spicy minijacks, honestly they kind work well with the level of intensity you're going for here. i've got some playfeel concerns with some of the chart, but this is overall pretty good. A lot of the ideas on the abstraction land pretty well and the emphasis feels well placed for most of the file. Votes: 3, 5, 6 Will post these after voting is finished, since this is my group. __________________

09-13-2024, 03:39 PM	#27
xXOpkillerXx ✘ Forever OP✘ Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Canada,Quebec Age: 30 Posts: 4,207	Re: StepCon 2024 I'll go second! My initial thoughts on the submissions. 1. Intense stuff here. I will assume that this person is either a relatively new stepartist or not yet used to higher difficulties. That being said, the chart matches the song's intensity really well and is a solid tech stam test at that level. There are quite a few concerns however regarding the layering, missing notes and pattern fluidity (see 48ths minitrills on one hand for example). Great attempt. 2. This chart is a bit puzzling; it's as if it isn't sure if it wants to be a 100+ difficulty or a 80. There are neat patterns that showcase the instruments' progression well. Again, I will have to assume this person is relatively new (at least to this level of difficulty). Some quantization errors here and there. 3. Wow. Ok. Sir (or Ma'am) this is a Wendys. No but seriously this is pretty damn difficult lol. I hate you a little bit for this because you're possibly proving me wrong that such a difficult chart cannot win in a stepcon. On a more serious note, the 24ths minijacks are a bit overkill given how dense of a section they're in already. There's polishing that needs to be done on this for sure but I wont go into details here. Impressive despite the technical issues. 4. Cool chart overall. This is a bit similar to #2 in terms of difficulty balance; there are spikes that are quite far off the rest of the chart despite the song being intense in many places. There are nice choices of patterns to accent the song such as the triplet 16ths jacks and the colored bursts later on. Notes: This group had quite the task, as this song has a Lot going on. Kudos to everyone who submitted because very few would feel comfortable charting at that difficulty. That being said, there's definitely a fair amount of space for improvement in terms of consistency and balance especially. Keep up the good work guys. 1. Really solid. This chart is very friendly and intuitive, and most patterns are coherent with a great balance in difficulty relative to the song's intensity. It takes an approach that imo is a bit too safe in the first half using just regular 16ths js for sections around 400-800 combo. 2. This chart has a pretty good sense of what interesting elements the song has to showcase, and represents them well. Most of it is quite friendly, although some of the spikiness might not be ideal. Couple of objective layering mistakes but nothing too major. Good stuff. 3. Now this one I feel has a lovely focus on playability and pattern flow. It's quite tame in general, although those 24ths spikes are too hard for this chart. One concern I have is that at times the layering focuses on song elements that are very background-like, sacrificing the representation of the more prominent instruments. Cute stuff. 4. Ohh this is pretty polished. I would say the first half is very strong; the only more notable thing I'd note there is the 24ths triplet roll, that's a bit awkward to play at that speed because it doesn't jumptrill as easily as the 32nds rolls. The second half however is a bit tricky, because the song's intensity increases a significant amount, yet the charting doesn't reflect it too much due to the layering decisions made. Overall great chart. 5. I will assume this is a less experienced stepartist. There is a great balance of difficulty and nothing egregiously spiky which is nice. The concerns to note here are primarily about mistakes in quantization (using 16ths where the song is playing 12ths and viceversa), and layering consistency in the jumps usage. Aside from that the song's intensity was followed nicely and patterns are fun. 6. Hmmm, now this one is definitely really well put together and feels polished, however some things jump out imo. For example, while the wubs in the first half are pretty nice and friendly, they're most definitely the hardest part of that whole half, but in the song they're quite minor elements relative to the loud drums and its various rhythms and intensities for example. Bit of quantization issues in the second half too. Overall though, this is nicely done. 7. This chart gives me a strong impression of someone who has their style of charting and wanted to apply it to the song. The general intensity of the chart is up there and feels nice given how hard the song goes. There are notable concerns regarding the accuracy of the notes (missing/ghosts) and quantizations, which I feel come from this person not being used to chart a song with that many varied rhythms and prominent elements. Solid attempt. Notes: One funny thing that clearly stands out is this group's struggle with the quantizations of the 12ths vs the 8ths in the second half. That being said, the overall quality is good and the competition is not easy there. I have a relatively solid idea of which chart(s) I will vote for. 1. Will assume a newer stepartist here. Now hear me out, this chart's pros are also its cons. The 32nds in this are really friendly and flow well, which is nice to have at that speed. However, those same 32nds are very inconsistent in how they're used, which affects the overall coherence of the chart. One way to address that is to have clear motifs and stick to those tightly unless there's a very intuitive song element to highlight that should take priority. Nice attempt. 2. Hmm. I'll say it right away, the color theory doesn't help this chart. That being said, the layering and motifs here are super clear and straight to the point, which is great. The ending position makes for a really weird cut. Mixed bag, strong charting and strange (imo) decisions. 3. This has a super fun easy layering, which is a great approach to this song given the repetitions. That being said, the PR is quite all over the place which makes many 16ths feel a bit arbitrary despite the fun rhythms. While it's always fun to hit notes at the correct rhythm in a way that feels friendly on the hands, there needs to be some motifs that tie everything together and highlight the song's notable elements and progressions. Good low difficulty attempt there. 4. Again, the color theory here is not needed. It's more confusing than it helps the chart. That aside, this chart has very clean sections that give a unique representation to each part of the song. There are neat accents and the general patterning is friendly yet a bit challenging. Really fun chart good job. Notes: This group has a relatively high variance of stepartist experience I believe, which makes for interesting comparisons. This song poses a challenge that's a bit further from the other groups' songs in the sense that it doesn't have a ton of rhythm changes and clear unique elements. That requires the motifs to be a bit more clear and consistent to maintain coherence throughout. I know which chart(s) I'm voting for here. 1. Really fun chart, pretty smooth patterns overall and intuitive. Some 32nds flams felt missing. The double 4-notes 32nds trills is a bit overkill given the rest of the chart, could've omitted the 4th note of each of those to make 32nds triplets without sacrificing the motif or difficulty increase. 2. Interesting; this one has very friendly sections where #1 had the spiky 32nds, but trades that for spiky 48ths on the piano rolls. This felt a little more balanced and varied, but those 48ths aren't my cup of tea. 3. This chart played it a bit more safe. It flows nicely and doesn't spike as much. However it's not quite as memorable. Few missed drums here and there in the layering. The slow section color theory was nice. Notes: Very solid submissions for this group, it's not an easy choice for me personally so good job y'all. There's most likely gonna be a fair bit of preference based voting on this one, although there are a few objective things to pick on in each chart. Again, well done. 1. Pretty interesting stuff in this one. There's a bit of a conflict in difficulty balance between some sections to a point where it makes too much of the chart trivial relative to the hard parts; the song doesn't warrant that much of a discrepancy. That aside, everything is pretty coherent and the intentions are clear on the abstractions. Solid charting. 2. Cute easy chart. While there are slight inconsistencies here and there in the 8ths usage, the general approach of an easy difficulty was executed quite well. The midsection piano roll spike is definitely egregious, but in terms of spikes that's about it. Although the motifs are well done, the more intense wubby midsection does lack a bit of oomph in terms of representation, making it feel a bit underwhelming even at that difficulty range. Really neat chart. 3. This chart is super techy with really fun abstractions. I honestly do feel like the minijacks transitions weren't the ideal choice there as some of them are essentially minijacks into a jump on the respective hand, which is significantly trickier than when the first note is the jump. That spikes the abstractions a fair bit and would need some smoothing out. Not too sure about the 2-notes 16ths minijacks in the wubby sections but they do keep rhythm. Pretty solid and feels polished. 4. Well, this is something. You probably think "what kind of something is it", but it's just it. Seriously though, really clean patterns, interesting abstractions (albeit a bit spiky of a midsection, but nothing egregious), careful PR. Maybe not a big fan of using the same color theory for the whistle and the other sound in the following section, that blends weirdly. Not much else to say about this. Impressive. 5. Hmmm, unsure what to think about the cuts here. Musically, they seem to hinder the progression of the song a bit too much for the time gained. The chart itself is pretty nice and has some cool patterning in the wubby section. Bit of inconsistencies in the flams usage in the first part and the patterning there isn't the most friendly. All in all a good chart. 6. Here again the cuts (and fade out) might not be ideal/necessary. The abstractions in the midsection were nice, but felt a bit too streamy given the swingy nature of the song there (some matched that rhythm properly). The intro whistles are definitely a more unique approach here, although they're not Too spiky, just a bit unexpected. A fun and challenging chart. Notes: This group has some really nice takes here and there on various parts of the song. This is one of those cases imo where a frankenchart would be lovely, taking the best parts of each submission. I don't have a strong idea of which chart(s) I'm voting for here, but I have contenders to double check.

09-16-2024, 06:14 PM	#28
Dash- FFR Player Join Date: May 2023 Location: Brazil Posts: 2	Re: StepCon 2024 Alrighty, here's my thoughts on the submissions. Keep in mind I have little experience as a charter, but it was fun playing through everyone's files ^^ 1: somewhat spicy, maybe too spicy on those 16th jacks near the very end cool dumped 12ths in the middle it seems okay overall 2: feel like this one's going a little too overboard at times? considering most of it is straightforward jumpstream i'm also not a fan of the 32nd trills being the first indicator of the difficulty of the file, it's a bit jarring also, i've only noticed now how the song does those bursts represented by the 48ths in this file, i would bet that'd be the most annoying part of the song to work around while charting and i guess this file represents that struggle well 3: this is a lot to take in, but i loved the color theory present right off the bat only thing i would really poke at is the ending 24ths' patterning where it changes while the song does not 4: by far the one with the most interesting patterns in isolation (those 3 note 16ths... epic...) 1: straightforward, nice, very chill, although maybe a little underwhelming in the first half of the last chorus at around 1000 notes? i get the progression that goes on to the second half but it really felt like the chart suddenly toned down a notch just to accommodate for that and it's a bit weird 2: this is what i conceive to be a difficulty spike ^what the hell was i smoking? did i mean the last 12th jacks? or the 16th ones before before the chorus? this is fine 3: definitively the most abstract rhythmic choices went into this one it seems 4: also feeling like the chorus is underrepresented compared to some bits in the middle but it could just be me 5: it is kind of funny to step the background birds chirping lel somewhat feel like there were some sections that were just, purely there for filler purposes and it didn't sit well w me 6: pretty cool! definitively the one with the most appealing pattern/rhythm choices and is probably my favorite 7: seeing as this is the only dump in the pool for this song it brought another vision into the mix this one needed a cut, desperately 1: this is.. as freestyle as one can get before people get scared (no scorepost, i forgot) 2: woa why my notes blu generally had a good time, strong structure 3: its simplicity ends up hurting potential for more sounds being represented, which is a weird choice considering the usage of 32nds to a veeeery faint sound in the song 4: VERY nice, all i can say 1: no objections. like, i have nothing to say as this is just good 2: also good, it feels like the style is more loose with the patterning (no scorepost, i forgot) 3: also good!! and this one feels more rigid than the others (no scorepost, i forgot) 1: The Egg-Jack Pattern i honestly think this is a mess at first glance density-wise according to the intensity of the song never trust the first scores of your session, folks looking in preview it's pretty fine 2: absolutely too much for me, this is really up there in the high-level dump chart department which i don't comprehend a whole lot liked the colors in the intro, at least seeing it in preview There Are A Lot Of Dumped Wubs and alongside the rest of the chart makes for very odd, almost monotonous density 3: THE TRUE egg pattern very well paced, good ideas, nice execution of them.. wait did the yoshi hatching sound get stepped!? this is my favorite so far (no scorepost, i forgot) 4: it played relatively okay, the first minijacks were a good indicator of the difficulty of the rest of the chart as an avid Flam Hater i do dislike the 32nd flams at around 1030 notes -- not (just) because i suck at them but because their variation doesn't reflect any other type of variation in the song itself (no scorepost, i forgot) 5: wonderfully structured, but i feel like that's the biggest and almost only thing that the chart achieved 6: The MINI-Egg Pattern pretty good, pretty good, don't think i have a lot to say as the patterning wasn't anything jawdropping but it is fine (no scorepost, i forgot) 7: i think i like this. it's fairly rigid in ways that compliment the song Not posting stuff for GET OVER IT! (yet? maybe at the end of the voting period)

09-17-2024, 06:57 PM	#29
M0nkeyz Simfile Judge Join Date: May 2013 Posts: 482	Re: StepCon 2024 Let me preface this by saying I'm not judging the files as a judge per se, I'm just giving out my opinion on these files as a player, there will be personal bias. *Atohs:* What an absolutely insane song this is, I think it lends itself to higher level charts and alot of entries were far above my skill level, I played them all, but I watched the replay of them quite a few times and mainly looked at structural consistency. Atohs 1: Chart captures the energy of the song quite well, I don't entirely agree with the way the song is layered/structured and some of the transitions are quite weak as a result. There were also quite a few notes missing at the start. Definitely think this chart needs some polish. Atohs 2: I'm almost certain on who this is, the way traditional rolls are being avoided is too noticeable lol and as a result there are some really nasty patterns in this, I don't like the overly long anchors, I think the second half is significantly better than the first half. Atohs 3: This seems overstepped, I like some of the ideas in this, the white notes at the start to highlight the guitar are quite a nice touch. This feels overlayered though, the quiet piano at the start being stepped as jumps for example doesn't really carry the essence of the song much, there is also an overabundance of jacks everywhere that don't really feel accurate to me. Atohs 4: Cleanest entry on the list, chart is a bit trill-y, but all in all this is pretty similar to how I would've stepped it, some of the 32nd bursts are a bit spiky though. Mantle in the Dark: Great song, I think this song is so good in fact that pretty much all the charts here were really fun to play, I think alot of them did suffer from inconsistencies though. Mantle in the Dark 1: File seemed decently well made, but the structure felt really overlayered, it kinda detracted alot from the experience for me. It felt like I was playing a dump file that didn't really capture the intensity of the song much. Mantle in the Dark 2: Really fun file, I think it's a bit spiky and it would definitely need a few touchups before being acceptable for FFR, but I think this file shows alot of potential and definitely has a coherent structure. Second half is way harder than the first tho lol. Mantle in the Dark 3: Easier approach to the song, I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the file or if you uploaded the wrong version, but alot of the jumps seem misplaced? It seemed like a decent file, but I didn't really get to play the intended version it felt like. Mantle in the Dark 4: Almost incomprehensible structure in this one, there are parts that felt understepped and there are parts that felt grossly overstepped. It's quite unique gameplay wise, but I think this needs alot of polish in alot of areas, the intensity of the song wasn't captured very well imo. Mantle in the Dark 5: File suffers from noticeable misrhythms, I think the use of jumps is a bit hard to follow, definitely needs alot of polish. The staircase pattern in the middle was fun tho . Mantle in the Dark 6: I kinda feel ambivalent about this one, on the one hand it has a nice structure, it's easy to follow what the notes are going to and it's definitely the cleanest entry thus far, but on the other hand it seems to have noticeable missing notes and it kinda fails to capture the music in its execution, the ideas are easy to follow, but as an example there's this speed up into a snare roll where you go from 24ths into 32nds that just doesn't feel right to play, it's hard to explain why but I feel this just needed a bit more polish and iteration and it would've been a great file. Mantle in the Dark 7: Dump approach doesn't really work for me here, the wubs are too soft and quiet for the 24ths to actually feel accurate. Rest of the file also seems overlayered. *Memories in the Blue:* Another very cool song, man the picks this year have been absolute bangers, the charts were also pretty cool, all 3 had a very different approach. Memories in the Blue 1: That was really fun, I noticed some missing grace notes and missing notes in general, but the overall structure made sense, the patterns were unique and well layered and I could generally follow what you were doing. I want to open this up in an editor to better scrutinize certain areas, but on the surface this seems really solid. Memories in the Blue 2: Really FUN, this would never be accepted into FFR in its current state, it lacks structure and some of the bursts/dump sections felt a little off at times, but man, this was fun to play. I'd hate to judge this file though, don't think it's that suitable for FFR. Memories in the Blue 3: File felt a bit too jump heavy for my taste, the file is pretty good, but it suffers from a pretty bland structure, humdrum jumps. I liked the white notes though, they gave the file some unique flavor. *EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE:* This song is ridiculous lol, another absolute banger, I'm kinda sad that most people took a dump approach, would've liked to see some other ways to tackle this song, I wasn't the biggest fan of this group, but I think that's due to personal bias, take my opinion with a grain of salt. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 1: The non-dumped parts were good, but the dumped parts felt too continuous and not very accurate. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 2: Don't know if I can give a fair opinion on this, watching it from the replay it looked decent. It captured the song well in alot of ways, but it's so over the top dumpy that it probably won't be my personal favorite. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 3: Some parts in this were FANTASTIC, but some parts in this were very hard to follow, especially in jump structure. I really liked the quad sections and the different colors towards the end, but I think this file needs some polish, certain parts really didn't feel right to me. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 4: Bit incoherent, didn't really follow the music, felt overlayered and too continuous/streamy. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 5: Very similar to the previous file, a wall of notes and jumps that didn't really go to the music all too well, felt like a slightly more polished version of the previous entry. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 6: File kinda lost me halfway through, this was alot cleaner in structure, but I feel it was missing quite a few notes and some of the bursts felt inaccurate. Definitely the cleanest entry so far, but this needs polish as well. EGG OBLITERATION MACHINE 7: Very anchor-y, very dumpy, pretty much all the things I don't like. The non-dumped parts also felt incomplete, you missed a couple of grace notes at the start for example. *GET OVER IT!:* Definitely some beginner charters in this group, don't be discouraged by my notes, they're just my opinion. Banger song, again wasn't a huge fan of this group because the majority of the entries took a dump approach. GET OVER IT! 1: Patterning didn't make alot of sense to me at the start and then the over the top dumping came in, meh, not my cup of tea. GET OVER IT! 2: This file has charm, yeah it's good. I think you absolutely nailed certain parts of the file, but I do think it has a bit of an identity crisis, some parts felt really underlayered. I know you took an easier approach to the song, but it still felt like the song was imbalanced in terms of structure. In the beginning I was kinda begging for there to be more notes, I chalked it up to you trying to maintain an easier difficulty level, but then there were alot of harder parts towards the middle like that one-handed trill. I dno, I think this file could use a few brush-ups, but it's really really solid. GET OVER IT! 3: Felt unnecessarily dumpy, the beginning was kind of a headscratcher too with the jacks. Structure was a bit all over the place. GET OVER IT! 4: This file had a very clear structure, it felt like the person stepping this actually had a plan in mind when tackling this song. I'm not sure if I like the approach, but it has a very clear and consistent structure. I think the file needs some polish in certain areas, but it's the cleanest entry thus far. GET OVER IT! 5: That was pretty fun, but the approach felt really random, like 4 different people stepped it lol. This file had some really fun patterns and I thought the beginning was actually really solid in terms of layering, but it kinda lost me towards the middle/end. GET OVER IT! 6: Not sure I like the trills at the start, it also feels a bit incoherent in terms of structure and how it tries to capture the essence of the music. Last edited by M0nkeyz; 09-17-2024 at 06:58 PM..

09-18-2024, 12:17 PM	#30
jh05013 oh hi Event Judge Join Date: Nov 2013 Posts: 290	Re: StepCon 2024 This is an insane song to step; great job on finishing it. That said, I think the difficulty spike is too jarring for 3 of them, namely: 1 would've been low-mid 90s, if not for 1:40-1:56 which is near-impossible to follow at that level. 2 early on goes relatively empty a few times even though it's musically still intense, and then rampages during 1:40-1:56 and even more during 2:20-2:48. 4 is quite a strong entry, but 2:45-2:48 feels too much. After playing 3 at 0.8x rate, I feel like this is the most balanced, though I'd also be glad with 4 winning as long as the ending is nerfed. 1 - Clean and intuitive chart. Not a fan of 16th dumps; In general, I think they are hard to stand out relatively to non-dump elements. The chordjack starting at 2:11 is a bit spiky. 2 - Clean and intuitive chart, no major issues. Maybe a bit spiky? But it matches the intensity well overall. 3 - Layering is confusing sometimes; it's hard to see what some of the jumps and 16ths are going for. I can still see some ideas here and there; it needs some work in general to really shine. 4 - Clean and intuitive chart again. Some of the layering and patterns are not my cup of tea, but I think they still work regardless. 5 - Nice easier approach. Has some glaring quantization errors, 16ths and 24ths not matching the music in some places for example, but the difficulty seems well-balanced. 6 - Wow, this is very similar to how I would chart it, especially the first half. Apart from small quantization issues during the climax it's kind of the chart that I envisioned. 7 - A bold approach. It's pretty fun actually. The climax is less intriguing than it could have been though, being 16th handstreams all the way while the actual melody is more dynamic. 1 - The chart is more simplistic than it needs to be. For example, while the idea of 32nd dumps are not bad by itself, they lack some characteristics in terms of how they are charted. Jump patterns are predominantly jumptrills despite the more complex melody. 2 - A sweet chart with fun patterns, though the color theory is lost on me, and the cut is abrupt. 3 - The 16th streams feel strange. It's not just that they don't follow PR; they somewhat feel disconnected to the music. Also, 24th and 32nd streams are too spiky. 4 - A great one. Intuitive layering, good pattern diversity, and an apt cut to not overstay its welcome. (nice quads too) I'm probably biased towards this kind of song, but every submission was fantastic. I ended up voting for 4 of them and could imagine any one of 7 winning. 2 - Nice easier approach. May need some tweaking in terms of consistency and difficulty balance, but has a potential to be a solid under-stepped chart. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 - There definitely was some talk about this song being dump charters' choice, but I didn't expect all but one to be dumps. Nice dumps out there anyway, and I think each submission has its merits, though 1 is too spiky. 3 was the most memorable one in the end, as its dumps are quite unique and direct about what they want to represent. Last edited by jh05013; 09-18-2024 at 01:08 PM..

09-18-2024, 03:46 PM	#31
Zoobin4 FFR Veteran Join Date: Jun 2017 Age: 20 Posts: 46	Re: StepCon 2024 My thoughts on charts!!! Things You Should Know About My Thoughts: - Chart order shows my overall ranking for the group, ordered from most favourite to least favourite chart. Numbers in bold are ones that I voted for. - "[...]" denotes my reviewed thoughts after a second playthrough of the chart. - I also didn't give all charts a second playthrough, so it's extremely likely that my opinions could have differed greatly from my initial feedback for some charts. - Don't take my "ratings" too seriously (the "x/10" stuff), they're just my way of having fun while summing up each chart. - I don't know why, but I was surprisingly harsh in a lot of my reviews. Try not to take it to heart if I was harsh to you, I have quite a unique viewpoint after all. - Above all else I prioritise how much fun I had while playing a chart, which inevitably means that charts on the easier side of things will be to my distaste. Chart Order: 3, 4, 2, 1 Atohs 1: Some parts of this chart feel truly immaculate, with incredibly satisfying layering, PR and difficulty balance. Then other parts have 2 bjillion bpm chordjacks and minijacks that appear out of nowhere with little to no consistency. Not quite sure what to make of that. Yin & Yang/10 Atohs 2: Starts off with some pretty normal patterns, good layering, good melody representation. Then it goes into a section that closely follows the melody, basically ignoring percussion- which is then immediately followed by a section that closely follows the percussion, ignoring the melody (which was very strange because the focus of these two sections should have been swapped in my opinion, and on top of that they both could have easily incorporated both melody and percussion anyway). After this point, the chart progressively gets harder and harder, making any difficulty the previous half of the chart posed completely irrelevant. [f(difficulty) = 2t] / 10 Atohs 3: Creative and tasteful usage of colour theory throughout the chart. Overall I think this is a very good interpretation of a high level chart for this song, it's certainly not what I expected but I think it works surprisingly well. The difficulty is balanced well, with a small difficulty spike near the end (and that ending trill being incredibly rude, but I can trill each side of it so I’ll let it slide). There was one hard section where I really could not see what was being represented there (I think it was meant to be the strings, but I really didn’t understand it). Other than that, everything was both creative and had good flow- on top of having very consistent usage of patterning/layering. [2nd playthrough: I noticed that some of the melody seemed a bit lacking representation in one section, and I think that there could be some better layering choices in the intro- but it was still a very fun and creative chart. A little less polished than my first impression led me to believe but still good.] D8 chart/10 Atohs 4: Can’t fault much of the patterning here, everything makes sense, flows well, and is consistent throughout the chart- apart from difficulty. This chart is very, very spiky. The vast majority of it is simple jumpstream, and then you get jumpscared by minijacks, crazy fast streams, and trills. [On 2nd playthrough, I kinda disagree with what I said about it being very spiky. It’s true that the majority of the chart is simple jumpstream, but the hard minijacks, fast streams, and trills, are all interspersed throughout the chart commonly enough that they don't feel out of place. There is still a bit of a diffspike at the end though. But genuinely no idea what I was on about with it being “very, very spiky”.] Mohawk?/10 Chart Order: 1, 6, 5, 4, 3, 7, 2 Group Notes: I am Going To Cry if I have to play another group with so many minimalist charts in a row, dear God help me. Mantle In The Dark 1: Very well balanced, simple but consistent and very effective layering scheme/pattern choice, overall just felt really good to play. A chart that perfectly met all my expectations of the song. Great job. It’s not a masterpiece, simply because it doesn’t exceed my expectations, but rather meets all of them and offers nothing more. I feel that there's more one could do with the song, but I haven’t yet seen what those things could be. 10/11 Mantle In The Dark 2: Not much to say about this, very similar to MITD 1 but with considerably worse and less consistent patterning/layering choices- with the added bonus of huge diffspikes in the end because of the jacks. Literally jumpscared me/10 Mantle In The Dark 3: Minimalist chart. I don’t entirely agree with a lot of the patterning choices made here, and for such a minimalist chart some of the 24th streams are pretty nasty. Minimalist/10 Mantle In The Dark 4: Solid chart, overall great pattern choices, consistent layering, and good flow- even if a little boring in the first half. Main issues are the two 32nd roll walls (because diffspike) and the 1(one) single instance of minijack in the chart (because minor diffspike and it feels out of place). Minijack In The Dark/10 Mantle In The Dark 5: Another solid chart. I felt that at points (particularly in the first half) the PR was very off (likely due to the abstractions of charting only singles when there was a lot more than one sound going on), but despite that the patterns flowed very well, and the layering consistency was great too. Definitely another chart like MITD 4 where the second half was more fun than the first half, but unlike 4, this one doesn’t have strange diff spikes, and generally flows much nicer. [Now that I’ved played it again, this chart is very strange. It really feels like a lot of the patterning is quite arbitrary, while for the most part the rhythms are quite well structured. And I really do dislike the extreme minimalism here, feels like a bit of a waste, even if it was executed well(?)] Nice Flow/10 Mantle In The Dark 6: Not a fan of the triplejack 12ths, but definitely a huge fan of the 20th streams. Overall very solid file again- much like MITD 5, but with a more conventional layering and PR approach. [The triplejacks aren’t actually that bad.] Nice Streams/10 Mantle In The Dark 7: I am lost for words. I genuinely do not understand almost anything that is going on here. Maybe I should take a look at this another time when it's not so late. I don’t think 1am is the best time to try understanding this one. Unhealthy Obsession with 24th Streams/10 Chart Order: 2 & 4, 3, 1 Group Notes: Why are there not one, but two whole ass ITG Stamina charts??? Second Strike 1: Not actually too fond of unnecessary index streams in my FFR files. ITG Stamina/10 Second Strike 2: Why Is Your Audio So Quiet??? Anyway ignoring that, actually an incredibly solid chart, flows great, very sound layering choices form a coherent experience with a consistent difficulty. Really fun to play. Interesting colour theory(?) I am not big brain enough to understand it so you do you I guess. A little bit of a rough cut to the audio at the end, but there's not much you could do with this type of song. Far In The Blue Sky colour scheme/10 Second Strike 3: Hello ITG Stamina 2. I see you’ve brought with you a couple 24th streams, and even some 32nd bursts, how daring. ITG Stamina v2/10 Second Strike 4: Another very solid chart, much like SS 2, but a bit more conservative on the minijack usage- both are perfectly valid approaches in my opinion. Basically exactly what I would expect from this song. Great job. Oh My Goodness Gracious An Actually Normal Chart Holy Shit/10 Chart Order: 1, 2, 3 Group Notes: What an absolute banger of a class my goodness. Smallest class, but by far the best too. Memories in the Blue 1: THANK YOU GOD FINALLY. Congratulations on being the first chart so far that I have actually thoroughly enjoyed the entire way through oh my goodness gracious. Excellent layering and pattern choice, consistency is on point, difficulty is moderately high but focuses more on short bursts or approachable patterns- making the entire chart quite approachable. But most importantly, it's fun! Really fun actually! The charter masterfully incorporates the bounciness of the song into the chart itself, and easily had me swaying side to side along with the music while playing. Incredible work. [Honestly a masterpiece of a chart. Hands down the best work in the entire stepcon.] So Fun!!!/10 Memories in the Blue 2: Another absolutely incredible chart. This one focuses more on slightly longer bursts and sustained streams, which is a valid approach, however I do find shorter bursts to be slightly better suited to the punchiness of this song. That said, this chart absolutely would have won my pick in any of the previous classes. Absolute banger here. Great job. So Fun!!/10 Memories in the Blue 3: My goodness, yet another absolutely incredible chart. In the first about 1/3 of the chart, there does seem to be just a little bit missing, feels like the chart isn’t quite as punchy as it should be- but it turns into near perfection for the other 2/3 of the chart, just like 1 and 2. Unfortunately because of that lacking in the first third, I will place it ever-so-slightly lower than the other two, but again, this would have certainly won my pick in any other class. Another amazing job. Well done. [I definitely think this is the weakest of the three, much more so than on my initial playthrough. Still pretty good though] Fun/10 Chart Order: 1, 6, 5, 4, 2, 3 Group Notes: Actually some really cool charts in this group, weird cuts though. GET OVER IT ! 1: Excellent usage of repeating patterns throughout the entire chart, as well as excellent layering choices, abstraction choices, and PR. Very, very fun to play. My only nitpick is that one of the repeating burst patterns was a tad too fast for my taste, considering that it was quite an uncomfortable pattern. Other than that, this chart is very near perfection. [This really is an extraordinary chart with how it so cleanly directs your focus to certain parts of the song. The weak part of this chart is definitely the dump section, which was pretty unclear with some of the abstraction choices, and certainly too hard compared to the rest of the chart. If the stepartists of this and 6 combined forces, they would surely produce a truly perfect chart.] FUN !/10 GET OVER IT ! 2: An excellently put together minimalist chart, unfortunately I’m not going to vote for it when there’s a non-minimalist chart of the same quality available. Minimalist (but actually quite good)/10 GET OVER IT ! 3: Great chart, very fun to play, it's just that… It has a peculiar obsession with minijacks. Usage of repeating patterns is once again excellent, however some abstraction choices and patterning choices (particularly with the dubstep-y section) was slightly strange to me, and didn’t flow as well as it could have. MWC Map/10 GET OVER IT ! 4: Yet another great chart. Only slightly on the easier side this time, with great layering and usage of repeating patterns- even a sprinkling of tasteful and natural colour theory. Importantly though, it lacks the punchyness and bursty fun of 1. 9/10 GET OVER IT ! 5: Interesting choice to cut it. Overall this is definitely my second favourite chart so far, it’s incredibly well put together and has just a bit more punchyness than 4, which makes it a strong contender indeed. I am actually slightly saddened by the cut, I would have liked to play the rest of the song too. [The cut is certainly less rough than I remember. I think in general this chart tried to do a little too much at once, I think that a less wholesome and more focused layering scheme would have been a slightly better choice. That’s not to say that this wasn’t executed well at all- in fact I very likely would have made an extremely similar style of chart, had I got this as my song.] Cut Ver :( /10 GET OVER IT ! 6: Interesting choice to do a fade-out. I think it works a little better than the previous cut at least. Very strong chart overall, excellent use of repeating patterns, layering is sound, and it has the vitally important quality of punchyness. My only issue is that a few (indeed, a very small amount) of the abstractions are somewhere between ‘slightly unclear’ and ‘unclear’. Still, I think in general the abstract dump parts are ever-so-slightly cleaner than in GOI 1, which puts it on roughly the same level. Very well done. (Why did you have to fade it though I don’t get it). [Rather than the abstractions being ‘unclear’, I think that there were actually a couple spots where there should have been some kind of dumpy thing. The parts that were dumped were exquisitely done, much better than GOI 1. Other than those tiny parts, it's basically a flawless chart. My main issue is that it's cut! I want to play more of the chart why did you cut it!!!] Alan Walker - Faded/10

09-19-2024, 08:29 PM	#32
Tru e Join Date: Jun 2022 Posts: 111	Re: StepCon 2024 Played classes in this order: F, C, D, A, B. Sorry for the weird order, too lazy to change this now lol Every chart seemed solid. It was definitely difficult to vote for some of these classes. If I had to give some general feedback, I would very heavily advocate for more playtesting. Balance issues, overly rough patterns, even ghost/missing notes sometimes - they can often be discovered with a playtest. It’s understandable to miss this with the time limit and no sharing limit, but some of these charts would have been helped with playtests. I’m hoping my notes don’t come across too negatively. It’s hard to give specific feedback when you only have half the tools available (playtest/preview only, no editor). If you want more feedback than offered here, feel free to DM me your file and your questions after the voting period! Well done y’all!~ Class F: GET OVER IT ! Song: - Making something balanced for this song would be a challenge. The wub section kind of overpowers the rest of the song. 1: Wub section is very unbalanced compared to the rest of the chart. Felt rushed in the second half, noted some missing piano which would have helped balance considering how maximalist the wub section was done. 2: This one would need some judge notes to help consistency. The low difficulty approach was somewhat effective, but that one section kind of threw that away lol. 3: Better difficulty balance than 1. The jacks in the wub section were pretty odd - have to be careful with jacks, they can break flow. Otherwise seems fairly decent. 4: This one has my favourite wub section so far. But the intro section and it’s repeat later in the chart feel very confusing. Feels like it’s trying to capture too many elements and ends up as more continuous/jumpstream-y than the choppy nature of the song in that section. 5: A cut! I think that was a solid decision and the file feels more focused and slightly more balanced as a result. I think this still needs some pattern tweaks and a consistency once-over wouldn’t hurt. Last 24th patterns are confusing, would probably need to look in editor to see why they aren’t completely a trill 6: A cut! 5’s cut was better imo. Whistle trills were cute. Not sure how to feel on this one. I can kind of see what it’s going for in the wub section, it just didn’t really land for me. Not sure whether it’s the 32nds being too continuous or some awkward patterning, I’d probably need an AV look. Class C: Second Strike Song: I think this was my third choice..? Managing repetition will be key, hoping for cuts. 1: I understand this approach, it just didn’t seem very effective. Probably needed to limit 32nds to just the bursts and choose a different stream snap like 24ths or maybe 28ths for better variety. Noticed a couple missing notes. Very stamina draining with no cut. 2: That is certainly one way to manage repetition… Anyone playing eg. monocolour just gets what seems to be the same chart twice. Anyone with standard colours gets something very hard to read in the second half. The blue/cyan/white colour scheme completely lacks the contrast that standard noteskin players rely on - it all kind of blends together creating a massive reading challenge. Cut the second half and this would be solid - the chart was fun and flowed very well despite the glut-y nature. 3: Going to guess this is a novice stepartist - and it’s a decent start. The stream patterns don’t really make much sense for any kind of pitch relevant approach - seem mostly just random. And the 32nd transitions are very unbalanced in the broader difficulty of the chart. It’d be good for this person to compare to the other charts in this group for some ideas. 4: I’m a bit conflicted on this one. It’s fairly solid overall, I’m mostly just annoyed by how the climax of the song was so comparatively underwhelming. It almost feels unfinished. Very glad to have a cut. Class D: Memories in the Blue Song: There may have never been a song more BOF-core than this. 1: Pretty much exactly what I would have expected from this song. This needs a once-over for missing melody notes, noticed a handful and not sure if that’s just because the intro trills spooked me to playing on .8 lol 2: Solid. Might need a pattern tweak here and there, but I have very little to complain about here. 3: While this is a simpler approach, I think this did the best job in the group of reflecting the song’s energy in the difficulty. Similar to 1 needs a once-over for missing melody. I like this one. Class A: Atohs Song: Something in this group had better be at least mid-high 90s difficulty. 1: Somewhat understandable to have some missing notes here. This is the kind of chart where it’s good on the surface but needs a fair bit of detail work. There’s some solid ideas but this would need judge notes. 2: This chart seems to have some difficulty deciding what to follow, and how difficult it actually wants to be. Noticed some rough patterns and scattered rhythm errors. 3: Good lord. Props for having the stones to send something so hard. I can’t properly evaluate this, I’m dying in a 0.7x playtest lmao. Uhhhhh… seems good???? If this wins I’d probably want one of our D7+ judges to give this a detailed look, maybe some notes. 4: Wow this one ramps up. Seemed relatively clean in execution. Difficulty balance …makes sense? I really like that aspect of this chart. This definitely needs some smoothing out in some spots, a few yikes spikes here. Class B: Mantle in the Dark Song: This one seemed to me relatively straightforward to step, and as a result would be difficult for any one chart to stand out. 1: Relatively inoffensive/straightforward way to keep interest in lower energy parts with the jumpstream. It kind of works but felt like way too safe an approach to me. 2: Spiky. Those handjacks were surprising jumpscare (handscare??) lmao. Pretty solid overall. Probably want to nerf the end jack, it’s pretty rude 3: I’m not entirely sure what this was going for. Some of these 16ths seem very arbitrary, might be to a quieter sound than is obvious in a playtest. Might have been going for something similar to 1? 4: Straightforward, maybe unsurprising approach. Noticed a few missing graces in the intro. Nothing major to fault, but nothing outstanding. 5: Some rhythm errors. Was somewhat difficult to follow at times - most notably in the easy middle, too continuous. This slightly easier approach could be effective with some clean up. 6: Fairly well polished, still some minor things to clean up. 7: Pretty hard to follow what this was aiming for. A lot of these 24ths seem very arbitrary and the second half’s layering seems uncertain on whether it wants to commit to pure handstream

10-10-2024, 03:05 PM	#37
Tru e Join Date: Jun 2022 Posts: 111	Re: StepCon 2024 Congrats to all entrants. This was a tough song to chart, and it'd be even harder to chart well. I have to preface this by saying I had to play all these on 0.8x or lower rate. The song demands a fairly hard chart. 1 - Noticed a few scattered rhythm/consistency errors. I'm expecting this will be the among the easiest entries but with some touch ups this could work better. 2 - More of a maximalist approach but some of these pattern choices seem to be a bit rude. Would probably need some specific nerfs/pattern tweaks. 3 - Contrasts a lot with 2, almost minimalist approach. The song isn't quite allowing this chart to really work for me. It feels somewhat unbalanced overall with the speed and jack sections contrasting with other simplified sections. 4 - 3 but with better balance. Felt very clean. 5 - Felt fairly balanced. Not a huge fan of the representation of the airhorn(?) Might need minor touch ups. 6 - phew. Not sure about some colours. I think a bit more colour work could have been done in the fancy rhythm section to further improve readability but this also works better than other submissions. I suspect some playtests would have revealed how overly intense some of the chordjack-y parts and The Trill (tm) are.

10-11-2024, 03:00 AM	#39
Lights Spooky Password: Demon6 Commuwunity Manager Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 439	Re: StepCon 2024 oof i lost. GG m0nkeyz __________________

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