Advice on Stepfiles

[poe15]

I'm making some stepfiles(and hopefully eventually making a pack, touhou based) for stepmania. I would like some advice on my current songs that I have made(or half made)if you fellows would be so kind as to give it. Gpop pointed me in your direction as a viable KB chart source so the idea seemed appealing. Would y'all be kind enough to give advice, criticism on my charts? Attachment included.

Addendum: Beyond the Core is more or less complete, as is Judgement Star. Jeux Interdits has hard complete and a tad of expert complete, and Hardstyle Colony has normal complete with some of hard complete. Naki Oujo no Tame no SEPTETTE has medium complete. All difficulties are done from the ground up(easy onwards).

Since these are keyboard charts, one of my main worries by this point is whether or not I have hard enough difficulties for the more advanced players. I would like advice to this end if possible. if so, I may add a Lunatic difficulty to some of my songs.

You can consider this an introduction to my pack, if you like. It shall be poe's touhou keyboard pack, most likely.

[poe15]

Whoops, I forgot my file, and it looks like uploading it now is not working. What's going on here? Says a security token was missing.

[Jonlovesddr]

I'd love to (rate them), and I might also dump my simfiles in here to when they're finished.

[.Rarity]

Use mediafire and link instead of attachments?

[Wayward Vagabond]

use mediafire or dropbox for attatchments since the site filesize limit for attatchments is well below the typical filesize for files.

[poe15]

Roger, uploading them to MF now.

[poe15]

gosh darn it, MF is being a pain. I'll upload them to depositfiles instead.

[poe15]

http://depositfiles.com/files/mwcejfr71 Upload complete. I hope you guys enjoy the little I've done so far. It seems fairly decent so far.

[poe15]

I may or may not mind if you did. If they were touhou songs you're certainly welcome to. But if they're not, don't you think it'd be better if you made your own thread for it?

Edit: that was in response to JonlovesDDR.

[Wayward Vagabond]

you should see about getting a dropbox lol. definitely better than depositfiles and its 10 hour wait time.

[poe15]

Mm, I have a dropbox, actually, but I never use it. I'm too lazy and I also prefer to not use any solo source.

Edit: I like depositfiles because even if it takes longer, my files more rarely get deleted. And that's considering that I don't have an account.

[poe15]

Hmm... are any of you lurkers I'm seeing interested in giving me advice? I spy three of ya, and ya may as well help me. Helping me will help me make these maps better, and in turn you will enjoy better maps in the future, eh? No pain no gain, eh?

[.Rarity]

Originally Posted by poe15

Hmm... are any of you lurkers I'm seeing interested in giving me advice? I spy three of ya, and ya may as well help me. Helping me will help me make these maps better, and in turn you will enjoy better maps in the future, eh? No pain no gain, eh?

I can relate for you trying to get feedback for a chart you made so you can get better, but I just want to say that such will take time. Reviews can't be shitted out in 5 mins unless it's just a simple opinion like "oh, I like it." If you want a more instant response, I suggest a chat room centered around simfile critique.

[poe15]

I can understand, that Rarity. I suppose I'm just impatient because I've put a good amount of effort into these as so far and I suppose I've let my desire for instant gratification become too great. I apologize if I'm too demanding. I suppose another part of it as well is that so far I am very satisfied with my files and I'm itching to get some opinions.

[Wayward Vagabond]

patience is key. the more you bug the less inclined people will be to play your files and critique them.

[ddr_f4n]

First and foremost, try not to double/triple/quad post, use the edit button on your last response if no one posted after you :V

And yeah, use dropbox. I really don't like Mediafire now especially since they recently enforced download limits for free users only =/

[stargroup100]

seems like you're new to forums

you made the thread like a couple of hours ago be patient

[icontrolyourworld]

let me be the one to introduce you to the edit button! at the bottom right of all your posts is an edit button, if you see that you're about to double post edit your previous one and add whatever information you wish to it. everyone else follows this rule, so i thought i would just help out. cheers!

[TheSilentLord]

I'll play them later today and try to say something about them. Though I'm also a beginner myself so the veterans might disagree.

[stargroup100]

k i skimmed through the charts and as i suspected these dont look very promising compared to modern chart standards

to summarize, your charts all have the same issue that a lot of amateur/inexperienced notecharters have: you don't really understand what you're doing

i dont mean it like "oh you're dumb you have no clue", i say it like that because if i were to go into the chart and ask you why you put this here, or why you chose this particular pattern, the answers you give me will pretty much be the same: either you don't know or you did it arbitrarily. any other answer would pretty much be wrong

when you're making a chart, there are core fundamentals to keep in mind:
1. does it follow the music accurately
2. how does it flow, does the file feel smooth to play
3. is it consistent and fitting to the song

there are countless things in these charts that dont follow the music or follow it poorly, and a lot of your charts have really awkward patterns that dont flow well. remember that whenever you make a chart, you need to constantly be playtesting everything

-----------------------------

we'll look at the very beginning of beyond the core. i dont wanna go through all of the difficulties so im only gonna look at the challenge chart

m1-4
you seem to understand the accenting of the intro section up to measure 5. however, note the following: the first 2 measures repeat at measure 3, at least the beginning of it anyways. however, in measure 1 you have 2 single notes, where in measure 3 you have a double hold, and there's no justification for this, so it's inconsistent.
secondly, there's no justification to the holds either. at the end of measure 4 there's a fill, so that double hold can be justified, but the others are held for no particular reason, and if there was, it wouldn't be consistent
thirdly, these patterns aren't particularly fitting for the piece either. while your accenting is right, given the difficulty of the chart, it would be very appropriate to follow the pulsing 8ths you hear in the background

m5-12
clearly you didn't playtest this, or your judgment regarding it is poor, because that pattern is extremely annoying to hit, especially repeating for 8 whole measures.
in addition, it's extremely bland because it doesn't follow anything but the drums, and even then it ignores a lot of patterns that would add rich variation, like the 16th fill at the end of measure 8.
also note that at m11-12, the drum pattern completely changes, but your patterns don't, and it feels awkward to play

the following section gets trickier since there is a melody line, so i'd have much more to say if i were going into detail, but you get the basic idea behind my points. just make sure you're paying attention to why you're placing each note. for example, in these following sections, sometimes you have 8th notes that repeat on columns, and other times you don't, but there's no consistent rule for this. remember that repeating notes on columns and changing columns result in very different feeling, so there should be justification when going between the two



so in summary, if you want your pack to be even remotely successful and have a lot of plays, you're gonna have to do some serious overhauls of most, if not all, of your charts, which i can imagine might be disheartening to hear, considering how much work you've already done. however, being honest i can tell you that if these charts were released as such, none of them would be getting more than 1 or 2 plays when major packs chock full of quality charts exist. so if you really want your pack to get some attention, you're gonna have work to do. whether or not it compares to the modern packs is one thing, but having charts at least be playable or fun at a basic level is another

my recommendation is that you find and download smg2, odi, and odi2 packs, play them, and look to those as examples to emulate. i picked these packs because they are somewhat oldschool in style, which you might be able to follow and enjoy more, but at the same time they are good quality charts to reference and learn from