What do you prefer in a file

[i love you]

I basically think the same way as ilikexd.

Although I will say that for special events such as tournaments or cases when I make dumpfiles, I will have no problem breaking some rules in terms of a files difficulty.

[gameboy42690]

Of the following, which do you prefer most in regards to the difficulty curve:
- Completely consistent difficulty throughout
- Patches of areas that are roughly the same difficulty, with breaks in between
- One or two very clear "hard parts" that define the difficulty of the file

I can't say I really have a preference towards total consistency or breaks in between. Having one mind-boggling hard part come out of nowhere is really the only thing that really bothers me here. Although in Pandora's case, the song's climax wouldn't make much sense without that extreme difficulty spike.

In files with clear hard parts do you prefer:
- Difficult parts near the start of the file
- Difficult parts near the end of the file

Having the hardest part at the beginning of the file makes the rest of the file feel really anticlimactic. If a file starts intense, I expect it to stay intense for most of the song (with breaks when needed of course), not drop down to something much easier after the first 20 seconds and stay easy for the rest of the file. It's like watching a movie where the most exciting part is at the very beginning. You get really excited and think "Wow, this is gonna be awesome!" and you spend the rest of the movie waiting for things to get exciting again, only to find you just wasted two hours on a movie that was only exciting for the first 5 minutes.

Of the following, which do you prefer most in regards to song length:
- Short files (sub-1:30 long)
- DDR/ITG-length files (1:30 to 2:30 min)
- Long play files (2:30-5 minutes)
- Marathons (5 min+)

If you're going to step anything longer than 4 minutes it better be amazing and diverse. Nanairopanda (32-bit Full Color MIX) and Staring at my Spaceship do a great job at keeping me interested the entire time. I avoid stuff like World End's Yama Xanadu at all costs.

How much does the genre of the music influence how much you like the file?
(i.e. how much do you "hear" the song vs just treating the song as a rhythmic basis for hitting the arrows)

If I really like the song but it has a really bad stepchart to go with it, it actually makes the file even worse (Undiscovered Colors vJae comes to mind instantly). There's nothing more irritating in rhythm games than an awesome song that's been horribly butchered by bad steps.

Most pony songs piss me off and I usually avoid playing them. Other than that I usually like playing songs that pack a lot of energy or a lot of emotion. Genre isn't really something I'm picky about.

What makes a file fun for you? (intentionally a very open-ended question)

I'm a sucker for songs with 24th notes (particularly stuff like Twister), jumpstreams and hands. Obviously the file shouldn't be too repetitive and should flow as well as possible, even if it sometimes means giving up pitch relevancy.

[TC_Halogen]

Serious questions:

Of the following, which do you prefer most in regards to the difficulty curve:
- Completely consistent difficulty throughout
- Patches of areas that are roughly the same difficulty, with breaks in between
- One or two very clear "hard parts" that define the difficulty of the file

For me, I value hard sections of a file, but I don't value hard parts that are ridiculously beyond the difficulty scope of the rest of the file (System Doctor is a huge example of a hard file that I absolutely hate because the first 1700 notes of the file are barely FGO difficulty, but the ending will completely butcher your score due to a lack of ergonomic patterning).

Files that are completely consistent in terms of difficulty are perfectly alright, but they need to be highly representative of the song for me, and need to have some variation in patterning/structure to be worth while. The same thing is true for charts with peaks/valleys -- there's nothing wrong with a file cooling down.

In files with clear hard parts do you prefer:
- Difficult parts near the start of the file
- Difficult parts near the end of the file

As a player, I obviously prefer difficult parts near the start of the file. It is easier to play a song repeatedly when the hardest parts of a song are in the beginning. However, I also feel like files that have their hardest parts near the middle/ending are the most memorable, and most nerve-instilling -- as a player, I enjoy the feeling of nerves and intimidation. It's hard to make a fair choice...

Of the following, which do you prefer most in regards to song length:
- Short files (sub-1:30 long)
- DDR/ITG-length files (1:30 to 2:30 min)
- Long play files (2:30-5 minutes)
- Marathons (5 min+)

Out of the four groups, the ones that I enjoy the least are the sub-1:30 long files, but more specifically, those that are sub-1:00. There's not enough playable content for me, and it's just hard to have a memorable experience with that short of a length.

How much does the genre of the music influence how much you like the file?
(i.e. how much do you "hear" the song vs just treating the song as a rhythmic basis for hitting the arrows)

Genre of music is a strange way to say it, but as a simfile artist, I definitely operate on musical intensity for certain files. Transcribing the music isn't the most important to me.

What makes a file fun for you? (intentionally a very open-ended question)

Oddly enough, I have a really good time playing a simfile when I can interpret what the simfile artist intended, and I have an even better time when I see that the interpretation coincides with how I feel the song should be charted. I like when the chart fits very well with the song in terms of intensity/relevance.

(meh, this was less descriptive than I wanted, but I can elaborate another time)

[SKG_Scintill]

yay, two of my files used as examples by gameboy42690

[hi19hi19]

Thanks for the in-depth answers guys. Keep 'em coming!

Actually very interesting for me to know what people think

[SKG_Scintill]

jinx

[Gundam-Dude]

consistent difficulty throughout. harder/dense areas of the file shouldn't be a huge "fuck you" to the face to screw everyone's scores, like having some dumbass 64th burst wall somewhere in a file that's mostly 16th jumpstream.

difficult parts spread evenly throughout, although given those two choices probably at the beginning would be better to do retries on.

length of the song doesn't matter to me.

I'm cool with any song choice as long as it's not:

• · vocaloid
  
  · high pitched aNiMe kawaii uguu shit vocals
  
  · 95% of touhou arranges with vocalists. instrumental arranges are okay
  
  · iosys (as ironic as it sounds, I actually don't like the songs I stepped, rofl. I only did them to make files that I felt best represented the songs)

factors that keep me coming back to play files personally:

• · files that should be quad bait but have tricky sections that tell me "fuck you try again."
  
  · experimental layering that isn't very common. the more technical layering conventions being broken, the better, but there should still be a very defined structure to it.
  
  · good file flow with a very minimal amount of break sections. for example, if straight 16th jumpstream fits the song's climax, I don't want to be playing some broken up layering shit because it's "technically correct". I personally endorse the usage of ghost notes to further improve file flow as long as it's used very conservatively and consistently throughout with reason—I do it all the time in my files.
  
  · mines used sparsely, not some stepmania dodgeball shit.
  
  · if there are a lot of holds in the file, they better be short, sweet, and layered to prominent sounds only. holdstreaming dumps belong in o2jam, not stepmania (re: inverse files).
  
  · keep expressive rainbow layering shit to a minimal or else it becomes dumb to play through (re: old NTM and baq files). there are only so many rainbow guitar solos I can play through before everything looks the exact same and becomes stupid to hit accurately.
  
  · similar to the above, if you're using colour theory (aka you mother fuckers abusing 192nds in your files present day) then use it conservatively as well. use it only for prominent sounds and not for tiny, subtle noise changes. I'm guilty of abusing this in the past, but rarely do I ever use them nowadays because I realized how awkward it is.
  
  · most subjective reason would be, "does the chart best represent the various compositional elements of the song itself?" if a song is epic and climactic, the chart best be the same as well or I'm going to be upset.

[L.B.D.D]

Originally Posted by SKG_Scintill

jinx

high pitched aNiMe kawaii uguu shit vocals

[Doug31]

1. I don't care all that much about difficulty consistency as long as it isn't a really hard song that has piles of easy parts or an easy song with a small number of way too hard parts. For example, Crowdpleaser is just horrible for the second reason, although it'd probably be horrible anyway lol.

2. Near the start. That way I can keep restarting.

3. 1:30 - 2:30 or anything shorter is good, too.

4. Don't care. I don't pay attention to genres much and any genre can have good and bad songs and I only care about how good I perceive the song.

5. Stairs, streams, jumpstreams, hard to pass, insanely difficult, hard but with no jacks or trills, or any combination of the above.