[Concluded] 2nd Official FFR StepCon!

[choof]

HAHA MY LOVE IS A BULLDOZER ARE YOU KIDDING ME

that album was awful and vsnares has a huge discography, you couldn't pick anything actually interesting?

[M0nkeyz]

well Group H is imo the best song, very similar to group E song

[lurker]

fuck 2 hard 2 choose i can't go on rippu :<<<<<

[trumaestro]

so

cool beans?

yeah

[Wayward Vagabond]

Palms read is the best choice at first glance. Kinda stupid that they'll all be judged together though. Song preference is going to play a huge part in it when it shouldn't play as big a role

[PrawnSkunk]

Originally Posted by Wayward Vagabond

Palms read is the best choice at first glance. Kinda stupid that they'll all be judged together though. Song preference is going to play a huge part in it when it shouldn't play as big a role

There is an element of risk in picking songs that are harder to score on than others. I was an advocate for selecting the best 3 charts from each group to represent the Top 9, but then people will get shafted if they happen to be in an especially large group.

[PrawnSkunk]

PMs sent out, with a feature-length cd-quality version of Palms Read (all posts updated too), with the guitar intro to Limb From Limb at the end. Shoutouts to T-Force!

[Wayward Vagabond]

W/e. song choice for a last round is underwhelming to say the least.

[XelNya]

I was not expecting to get to the finals. That feels kinda good even if my scores are mediocre.

[Wayward Vagabond]

can we say what song we are stepping or is that a no

[Silvuh]

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.

Originally Posted by Wayward Vagabond

Kinda stupid that they'll all be judged together though. Song preference is going to play a huge part in it when it shouldn't play as big a role

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.

Originally Posted by PrawnSkunk

There is an element of risk in picking songs that are harder to score on than others.

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.)

[hi19hi19]

I know one comment in that post was directed at me so I want to clarify, I don't mean to insult anyone by being surprised at my rating.
If anything, I echo your sentiment because I dont think I had the best file. I expected to be second or third in this group at best.

A sense of perspective is important. Judging can be fickle and subjective; be proud of your own work. I always feel this way and I will say it whether I win or place dead last.

[hi19hi19]

Also to be clear I did put several hours into my file as well. I definitely didn't put the same effort into some parts I did into others (lol) but don't mistake me joking about the JS sections I admittedly rushed on as me being completely dismissive of the competition and the effort it takes.

[hi19hi19]

Lastly I just want to agree that I would love to step all three of these songs.

For example, would I be allowed to make a 6 minute "course" for FFR of these three songs?
Like a 2 minute part of song F, 2 minutes of song G, 2 minutes of song H all in one audio file, then submit that 6 minute file as my one submission? It's technically not against the rules as far as I can tell (just a really creative interpretation of "being able to cut the songs as you see fit"), but I want to ask before I go and put that much effort into something that won't be accepted.

I know which I will step if we can only choose one, of course.


Sorry for triple post, edit feature doesn't work right on my phone.
EDIT- wtf now it does

[dashoe93]

There's too many varying factors that come into play for something like this. It's all heavily based on opinion. I thought I did much better on E than C, but it's discouraging to find out it's just one point above my previous piece of garbage. I mean, I guess I should spend more time on it, but I wouldn't know what to do differently. As horrible or as good as I may think it will be is completely irrelevant.

I'll stick to Stepmania stepping. Not even sure if I want to pick any of those at the moment.

[YoshL]

nice tourney

[xXOpkillerXx]

Originally Posted by YoshL

nice tourney

+1

[t-rogdor]

Originally Posted by Silvuh

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.

worse, I'm pretty sure early on in the tournament hi19 asked about this being done since, yknow, being able to sync yourself is a pretty goddamn important part of making a file, and one of the higher ups said that it was gonna be done in later rounds
oops

Originally Posted by Silvuh

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.

c̶o̶s̶i̶g̶n̶e̶d̶
e: nevermind, listened to track H, don't wanna +1 anything that would make me have to step that bullshit

[t-rogdor]

yo also if you guys were gonna pick a vsnares song off my love is a bulldozer why the hell wasn't it Amazon
at least that track would've offered some kinda challenge in terms of stepping, not to mention, it's actually uhhhhhhhhhhh interesting lmao

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by YoshL

nice tourney

Originally Posted by xXOpkillerXx

+1

knock it off, guys.