Re: 2nd Official FFR StepCon!
I think I spent at least five to six hours the first night the songs were released coming up with a layering scheme and patterning it to be playable. Over the week, every day I spent several more hours either playtesting and tweaking this one file or working on my batch judgements. Ironing out awkward patterns, testing some different layering, trying different minijack locations to make sure they were all relevant, revising the PR, making sure the vocal rhythms play properly (referencing the lyrics and seeing where extra notes to repeated vowels do and don't work, shifting notes when the rhythm isn't straight and keeping them looking nice) and testing over and over, over many days until everything was where I wanted to be, feeling fluid in playtesting. And I made some color gimmicks to the pitch/instrumentation of those two sections to help make the file unique and made all the minijacks 150 BPM to prevent them from converting as two-framers (with the correct BPMs to keep everything in place, of course, but the conversion messed it up by making the beat drift somehow.)
Anyway ... it hurts to see someone laugh at the effort they put into their file when it gets the most positive reception, better than something I tired over the whole week. I knew I had to work hard because of all the competition and was worried I wouldn't make it. And when, in two rounds, the first and only comment I receive is "weird intro, quit out early," I was very disheartened. (Yeah, mine was E2.) But I passed, and my file was actually acceptable this time, so that helps bring some confidence back.
Nothing to do now except keep working at it ... It shouldn't have taken until the last round for everyone to give it their all, and I hope that's not too much to ask for this time.
I agree with Carlos here. The files being judged together isn't the problem, it's the way song choice is made to be a factor here. If you give choices of tracks to step, that should mean that what people choose will somehow affect their scores; it wouldn't be a part of the competition otherwise. (Compare this to not giving out a synced .sm file: one's score will be affected depending on if they can sync the file to the music, which is a necessary part of stepping.) Yes, song choice is a part of stepping, too. Long and repetitive stepfiles aren't very fun. But these three tracks are in totally different genres, making them hard to compare.
To make song choice a gradeable factor in this competition, it would have made more sense to pick tracks in the same genre with different levels of maturity and stepability. One really could judge based on song choice that way. But now you have to be even more careful that a judge's musical tastes don't get in the way of fair judgements.
I'm going to be disappointed if "This track feels like it would be harder to step to me, so I'll give more points to the best files for this track, because their risk paid off more" is going to be a thing. One who has stepped a lot of a particular genre will find that genre easier to step, and what's easy for someone else might be challenging for the other person. People might avoid trying to step the more challenging tracks just because they don't like that genre of music, not because they don't have the ability to step it well.
It might be nice to have one more round with the top ten and only one track. Actually, what might be more worthwhile is, for this round, make everyone step all three tracks and average their scores. Test everyone's ability to step different genres and in doing so eliminate the song choice factor. That'd be something. (And the deadline should be extended to give some more time for each file. I wouldn't want to be rushed to send in something that's not my best. I try to be my best.)
I think I spent at least five to six hours the first night the songs were released coming up with a layering scheme and patterning it to be playable. Over the week, every day I spent several more hours either playtesting and tweaking this one file or working on my batch judgements. Ironing out awkward patterns, testing some different layering, trying different minijack locations to make sure they were all relevant, revising the PR, making sure the vocal rhythms play properly (referencing the lyrics and seeing where extra notes to repeated vowels do and don't work, shifting notes when the rhythm isn't straight and keeping them looking nice) and testing over and over, over many days until everything was where I wanted to be, feeling fluid in playtesting. And I made some color gimmicks to the pitch/instrumentation of those two sections to help make the file unique and made all the minijacks 150 BPM to prevent them from converting as two-framers (with the correct BPMs to keep everything in place, of course, but the conversion messed it up by making the beat drift somehow.)
Anyway ... it hurts to see someone laugh at the effort they put into their file when it gets the most positive reception, better than something I tired over the whole week. I knew I had to work hard because of all the competition and was worried I wouldn't make it. And when, in two rounds, the first and only comment I receive is "weird intro, quit out early," I was very disheartened. (Yeah, mine was E2.) But I passed, and my file was actually acceptable this time, so that helps bring some confidence back.
Nothing to do now except keep working at it ... It shouldn't have taken until the last round for everyone to give it their all, and I hope that's not too much to ask for this time.
I agree with Carlos here. The files being judged together isn't the problem, it's the way song choice is made to be a factor here. If you give choices of tracks to step, that should mean that what people choose will somehow affect their scores; it wouldn't be a part of the competition otherwise. (Compare this to not giving out a synced .sm file: one's score will be affected depending on if they can sync the file to the music, which is a necessary part of stepping.) Yes, song choice is a part of stepping, too. Long and repetitive stepfiles aren't very fun. But these three tracks are in totally different genres, making them hard to compare.
To make song choice a gradeable factor in this competition, it would have made more sense to pick tracks in the same genre with different levels of maturity and stepability. One really could judge based on song choice that way. But now you have to be even more careful that a judge's musical tastes don't get in the way of fair judgements.
I'm going to be disappointed if "This track feels like it would be harder to step to me, so I'll give more points to the best files for this track, because their risk paid off more" is going to be a thing. One who has stepped a lot of a particular genre will find that genre easier to step, and what's easy for someone else might be challenging for the other person. People might avoid trying to step the more challenging tracks just because they don't like that genre of music, not because they don't have the ability to step it well.
It might be nice to have one more round with the top ten and only one track. Actually, what might be more worthwhile is, for this round, make everyone step all three tracks and average their scores. Test everyone's ability to step different genres and in doing so eliminate the song choice factor. That'd be something. (And the deadline should be extended to give some more time for each file. I wouldn't want to be rushed to send in something that's not my best. I try to be my best.)
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