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Old 05-28-2011, 01:16 PM   #1
SocoNhydro420
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Default How to get (really) good at FFR

Okay so, i know the only way to get "good" at ffr is to practice and play harder songs, but this thread is meant to go a little deeper. Theres a difference between good at ffr and really good. I know alot of people that get very decent at the game but get stuck at a certain skill level and never improve. I want to talk about the methods the pros have used to excell. What i want to adress is, what method of practice is best for improving on FGOs? And what setups work best as far as speed mod? Should i use faster mod to spread out bursts more to read them? Or a slower one so that the bursts stays on the screen longer for my eyes? Also, does playing stepmania help your ffr skills? I know alot of pros play stepmania as well, or used to play it in the past. In general, what are the secrets of going from "good" (like me) to extremely good (like TC_Halogen/Dossar/samurai/etc)? Please, dont say silly things like "just practice" as this is a given, what i want to talk about here is methods of practice and what gives the best results. Any feedback from very talented players is greatly appreciated!
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:19 PM   #2
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Not every person can be god tier, you have to be made for it.
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So Sexy Robotnik (SKG_Scintill) {.0001/10} [--]
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:26 PM   #3
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

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Originally Posted by SKG_Scintill View Post
Not every person can be god tier, you have to be made for it.
I was a pretty weak player before I had my TC_Halogen account. I just practiced a lot on SM.

See for yourself: http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...hp?sub=debit13

I'm highly driven to win in competitions. When I was placed in D5 of the 4th FFR Official Tournament on my TC_ account, I was shocked. Looking at everyone else around me, I was fairly certain that I'd be a contender in D4.

Round 2 nearly got me eliminated, if I remember correctly. Suddenly, I started wanting to progress in the tournament, really badly. I AAA'd from round 2 up to round 6, and got second in the FGO tiebreaker of that round (4-0-0-1 on Holy Orders, at the time).

Hardkore Atomic got the best of me, though. It just goes to show that you can improve (very quickly, at that), if you're willing to put forth the effort necessary.

EDIT: Soco - you have the makings of a good player already. Now, you need to optimize by stepping slightly out of your comfort zone in an effort to force improvement. My first FGO AAA was a shock to me and I remember it very clearly.

I was frustrated with BB Revenge because of a flag at the very end of the song. I started to wonder if my speed mod (1.5x) was slightly inappropriate for the level of songs I was doing. I pushed upward to 1.75x, and tried Reality...

...and boom. FGO #1.

Little changes go a long way.

Last edited by TC_Halogen; 05-28-2011 at 01:30 PM..
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:30 PM   #4
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

The skill that I have now, I would say that im pretty good at ffr, and I have heard of playing SM to better accuracy on ffr. But from what I can see in myself, I have improved a lot since January... I wasn't using spread until this year, and I only had 3 skill tokens before then lol. Now I have 41, and mind you I thought that I wasn't going to improve any more than where my skills stood at the beginning of this year. Since the year hasn't ended yet, I think I still have room to improve... maybe not as much as AAAing an FGO. FMOs, yeah.

Overall, I enjoy the game plenty, and will keep playing regardless of whether or not I improve so much I can FC or AAA an FGO with a godly PA... well, until I retire... Nah, that ain't happenin'.
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:38 PM   #5
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

My old account here was MrRubix, and I was the top-ranked FFR player before I retired from keyboard rhythm-gaming entirely for good.

Most people get to a certain skill level and plateau because there are usually limitations to the way you interpret patterns and the ways in which you hit the keys. An obvious example of this with respect to DDR (playing on foot) is the bar vs. no bar. Your skill will plateau because there are limits to how well you can do using your body alone, but once you reduce a lot of the balance/weight/force issues by leveraging the bar, you can improve again. The same concept exists for keyboard play as well.

Largely, learning how to *read* the notes is a matter of practice in itself. That I have no useful tricks for. The more you play, the more second-nature the patterns will become. Eventually it gets to the point where you don't even have to think about it; the mapping between your finger and the corresponding note will just be automatic. From there, you can optimize.

One thing I noticed when I plateaued was the way I attacked certain patterns. For instance, jacks and trills are often the "difficulty banes" of higher-end songs. It's worth taping yourself when you play so you can get a better feel for what exactly your hands are doing when you're having difficulty in certain areas. You'll oftentimes be surprised at what you find. It's helped me figure out how, for example, I should angle my hands and fingers, how I should sit, which angles let me vibrate with the highest TPS, etc.

Another big factor is key layout. A lot of people play ASKL or DFJK (spread) because it's logically consistent with the arrows LDUR. This was the mass-shift in playstyle compared to before, when everyone used fourfinger (the arrow keys) because DWI/Stepmania didn't have much support for remapping at the time, iirc. Once people found out that finger-bunching became a plateau factor, they moved to spread.

From there, you'll eventually find that even spread is suboptimal because of the way your fingers bend. If you rest on DFJK, for instance, you'll notice that your longer middle fingers have to bend at odd angles compared to your index fingers. Using a setup like QSLP will help you elongate your fingers naturally when you play, but you have to remap your muscle memory to the arrows you're hitting.

In general, the best piece of advice I can give you is to experiment with every metric that you can. Sitting position, hand angles, finger comfort, elevation, noteskins, speeds, different ways of handling patterns, looking into new ways of reading difficult patterns, etc. Simply practicing over and over and over again will only do so much. It's vital to practice and have experience, but the marginal returns are upperbound by the way in which you play, and a LOT of people don't really put as much effort into the latter as they should.
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:49 PM   #6
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Marcus has a lot of great tips for optimizing. Hell, I wouldn't have nearly as many FGO AAAs if it weren't for the method of isolation.
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:59 PM   #7
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Ah yeah that's another thing I forgot to mention! It's a bit more advanced (and I don't know if anyone has automated the process yet) but there are ways to play specific sections of FFR songs that give you trouble. It makes practicing a whole lot easier.

For instance, there's a really difficult trill in Crowdpleaser. To even get the chance to practice it, you have to play through the first half of the song first. It can be pretty time-consuming. Same goes for the ending jumpgluts of Death Piano, or the wall in Strawberry Sweetz (or whatever it's called), or the wall in Eclipse, or the tough sections near the end of Revolutionary Etude, or Kidney Stone, and so on and so forth.

You don't exactly see people practicing these files over and over and over again because it's hard to practice something that you can't study in greater detail -- it'd take hours that most of us just don't have. You pretty much get thrown into difficulty and you either sink or swim.

It can be really useful to play separate files that "isolate" tough sections. So you might practice on a 10 second long file that has nothing but the part that's giving you hell in that particular song. Then as you master your errors, you can then move on to playing the original file again -- only now you'll be better prepared to handle the difficulty.
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Old 05-28-2011, 01:59 PM   #8
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

I read about isolation before, i think the only reason i havent tried it was because i couldn't find a flash decompiler (or figure out how to work it lol). I know theres alot of great isolation files out there already but i would like to make ones for my own troubles ya know haha. Im going to go check out that thread again on it and see if i can figure it out, sounds like a spectacular way to practice.

Also, thanks for the insight on playing setups and such, im going to play around a bit to see what feels best, and find out what my fingers are doing when i goof up on certain patterns. So far i been using AS 56, where the 56 is on the keypad. This helped me spread my arms out a little bit more from ASKL so they arent as angled inward.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:03 PM   #9
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

The one thing that surprised me most in this thread, isn't the amount of amazing new information I gained.. it was that Reincarnate is Mr.Rubix. o.o
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:05 PM   #10
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

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The one thing that surprised me most in this thread, isn't the amount of amazing new information I gained.. it was that Reincarnate is Mr.Rubix. o.o
...
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:05 PM   #11
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

In some sense I actually think spread is suboptimal in general. One great advantage of fourfinger play back in the day was that you could be a lot more dynamic. For instance, if you had a fast LD trill, you could shift your index fingers over and use both hands on that trill when using the arrow keys because they were right next to each other. With spread, you're limited -- one hand per two keys.

If you play fourfinger style, you run into trouble because of the angle issue and the finger-bunching issue (just put your fingers on the keys -- you'll see how bunched up and messy it is with all the finger-overlapping orgies going on).

So the question becomes whether or not we can have the advantage of close-keys so we can be dynamic but without the bunching.

I think the answer is yes. Something like, say, HNMK would make for a good compromise. Of course, this doesn't help much if you're a weaker player with inward-angling, and most people aren't used to remapping their muscle memory. But it's an example of something to take into account when you play, especially if you're weak when it comes to handling heavier arrowloads with one hand.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:07 PM   #12
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

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The one thing that surprised me most in this thread, isn't the amount of amazing new information I gained.. it was that Reincarnate is Mr.Rubix. o.o
ur a Shitty poster
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:07 PM   #13
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

I actually had to use a four finger setup to AAA One Minute Waltz; I found the left handed trilling a bit too harsh for just one hand (at the time).

It would be an optimal strategy for Molto Vivace...if there was a decent point of entry.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:10 PM   #14
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

I like practicing with a close setup, it's much easier for me to do jacks and some trills, as well as fast streaming.

All I can say is if you want speed, midare's dumps and hsmps all the way
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:11 PM   #15
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Quote:
Originally Posted by TC_Halogen View Post
...
I never knew it before! D: I guess I'm just out of the loop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TC_Halogen View Post
I was frustrated with BB Revenge because of a flag at the very end of the song. I started to wonder if my speed mod (1.5x) was slightly inappropriate for the level of songs I was doing. I pushed upward to 1.75x, and tried Reality...

...and boom. FGO #1.

Little changes go a long way.
That's what happened to me when I switch from 1.25x to 1.5x.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:12 PM   #16
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Quote:
Originally Posted by ScarletSky View Post
The one thing that surprised me most in this thread, isn't the amount of amazing new information I gained.. it was that Reincarnate is Mr.Rubix. o.o
hahahahaha

xD

Edit: You could also switch styles temporarily. Play Index, or one handed on your weakest hand. If you can improve your ability in more styles then you'll get all around better at reading and 'interpreting patterns'. Hybrid styles can be a good thing some times.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:13 PM   #17
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

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ur a Shitty poster
Thanks for you input. I'll take that into account when I post this reply to your reply to my post.
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:14 PM   #18
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Yeah I think 1.75 is about optimal for most files -- fast enough to differentiate timing intricacies and arrow spacings, but not so fast that you get choppiness that comes with the territory at the 2.0 mark
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:14 PM   #19
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

I actually don't use isolation and I do fine..

I think it's all about practice. And you have to dedicated - you have to ENJOY the game.

If you don't enjoy rhythm games, and if AAAing songs feel like a chore to you, then.. well. That sucks.

You have to enjoy it to AAA it!
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Old 05-28-2011, 02:15 PM   #20
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Default Re: How to get (really) good at FFR

Lets try to avoid rambling about issues people have with others posts hahaha. Lets try to stay on topic, im seeing some great feedback here
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