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Danceatron
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Joined: 13 Mar 2002
Location: Opinions expressed by ads in this avatar do not represent the views of Danceatron or his affiliates.

40.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:58 pm Post subject:

Mr. Wendell wrote:

On the freestyle side, Supernova has SO much potential for freestylers to have tournaments for, but the long time veterans are either growing old and not as strong as we used to be (DON'T LOOK AT ME!!!

), are seeking new interests, or are yearning for some larger scale tournaments or event to make it worth spending time creating new performances. Then again some long time veterans work for Konami now, too.

Nail on the head here.
I'd love to be competing in FS tournaments, but they simply don't exist around here anymore.
This is one of many things (proliferation of ITG fanboyism is another) that makes me think that the DDR fanbase has evolved quite a bit.

EDIT:
I just read bob's mini novel. I have 2 minor objections.
1: Konami isn't trying to stick it to the fans or ignore the hardcore players. They've just failed to do so at the moment.
2: Using solo doesn't make you hardcore. Being able to read arrows is part of your skill level.

Otherwise, good insights, but I wouldn't be so doomy gloomy about it. The series will live on; hopefully Konami will do a better job at catering to challenge-seeking players in the future.
In the mean time, you could always play some doubles mode.
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Last edited by Danceatron on Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:18 pm, edited 2 times in total

iGalaxy
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Joined: 11 May 2006

41.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:59 pm Post subject:

AA Bob wrote:

Well, here are my thoughts on the future of DDR (and 4-panel games in general)...

4-panel dancing game players can generally be divided into the following categories:
1) Beginners who play every now and then. They don't really care about the difference between a Perfect and a Great; they just like the music or try DDR because it looks like fun.
2) People who play more often than group 1, but still don't care too much about their scores. They often buy console versions and cheap soft pads so they can play at home.
3) The hardcore PA/FA crowd. These players usually use score tracking sites, and work hard to improve their technique. Some of them buy home versions and metal pads, although they usually buy them just for practice since they often feel that arcade scores are much more important. People in this category are not necessarily experts, but all of the experts do belong to this category.
4) Freestylers, but I'll ignore them since they have greatly decreased in number over the years.

When Extreme came out, players were not nearly as skilled as they are now. While groups 1 and 2 probably spent way more money on DDR than group 3 (because of the sheer size of groups 1 and 2), there was a lot of stuff in Extreme to appease group 3.

A while later, along came ITG. Much of group 3 loved it. Extreme was starting to become stale, and ITG's new charts, new songs, new mods, etc. were very popular with many members of group 3. Many of the people who liked Extreme's 10s really liked ITG for its difficulty. Groups 1 and 2 played ITG too, of course, but ITG was more of a "by hardcore fans, for hardcore fans" game than DDR. ITG generated an enormous amount of interest among avid dancing game players, and created a higher standard of difficulty for 4-panel arcade dancing games.

Then came ITG2. It picked up where ITG had left off, with tons of new songs, charts, and features. Novice mode made it more accessible to beginners. By now, there were a lot of extremely good players looking for a challenge, and ITG2 catered to that.

During this time, Konami had not released an arcade game to replace Extreme. Groups 1 and 2 continued to pour money into DDR machines, and continued to buy home versions. Meanwhile, some members of group 3 were losing interest in DDR. Unfortunately, DDR and ITG are so different in terms of music and chart difficulty that many people became "loyal" to one game or the other. Even group 3 was split by this, with Konami losing some of its hardcore fans to Roxor.

Then we heard about Supernova. This was Konami's chance to continue where they had left off a few years ago. Would they go the extra mile and fix the problems hardcore players had with DDR, or would they take the easy route, knowing that groups 1 and 2 provided more than enough money? As it turned out, they chose the latter option. Triplets were not fixed, the arrows were still sprites that blended easily into the background, the modifier list was not changed much, and most of the charts they made were 7s and 8s. They made a half-assed attempt at acknowledging the ITG fans in group 3, and failed hard. Instead of taking notice of the fact that many hardcore players liked difficult steps, they made a lot of their hard songs difficult to read. They whored out tempo changes and stops and made Rainbow and Note useless. They did ridiculous things with the charts (HDV freaking needs TRIPLETS), and some of the charts whose steps were actually hard were still plagued with gimmicky difficulty and lack of creativity (seriously, I think I could get a monkey with a lobotomy to make something better than HDVO). I'd go into more detail about the 10s, but I think Tyrgannus's thread from a few months ago already explained everything that needs to be said.

So now what had DDR become? Something for groups 1 and 2. It hadn't completely lost its popularity among group 3, but many people in group 3 (myself included) were severely disappointed by Supernova. In the end, Supernova wasn't really anything new and exciting.

Well, there was still ITG, right?

Nope. Konami squashed it, killing the future of the dancing game that many hardcore fans liked most. Sure, there's R21, but it's just not the same. The ITG2 machine near me doesn't even get updated.

I was playing Faxx slowed down in Training Mode the other day, trying to step to silence and remember where the speed changes were while looking at all-green arrows, when I realized something: I wasn't having fun at all. In fact, I realized that SN PS2 really wasn't anything special to me. Something that was present in the older home versions was conspicuously absent in SN, yet I couldn't put my finger on it.

I thought about the recent ITG2 PS2 beta, and what a difference there was between it and SN PS2. Playing ITG2, it was obvious that it was made by a company that took great pains to listen to its fans. SN was made by a company that knew that it could get away with being mediocre. Most of the people who play DDR, both at home and at the arcade, don't notice that the triplets are screwed up. They don't use Solo. They don't look at their Great count when they finish a song. Konami knew that. That's what's different about SN. When I play SN, I feel like I'm playing something for the masses by a company that knows it can get away with mediocrity. And that company had just killed ITG.

So what does this all come down to? Well, at this point, the future of 4-panel dancing games doesn't look good. Konami has a monopoly, and we all know what the absence of competition does to product quality. Tournaments are becoming rarer. Home version quality is (IMO) going downhill. Konami has no reason not to let DDR become easy and bland. There's no guarantee that they'll even make another arcade release. There isn't much hope that a new 4-panel game will emerge, since Konami would promptly destroy it. All we can do is live with R21, and hope for some kind of miracle.

Sucks to be in group 3.

Amen!
God, why don't we all send this Konami?
This oughta smack them in their faces.

AA Bob
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Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Alllll right!

42.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:53 pm Post subject:

Danceatron wrote:

2: Using solo doesn't make you hardcore. Being able to read arrows is part of your skill level.

Oh, I didn't mean it like that. By "they don't use Solo" I meant that they don't know what it does or why it would be useful.

Danceatron wrote:

hopefully Konami will do a better job at catering to challenge-seeking players in the future.

Yes, let's hope so.
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Emptyeye wrote:

So um, is it bad that awhile ago I was watching Family Guy, and when Quagmire came on, I thought something to the effect of "Whoa, It's AA Bob!" (I don't remember if the exact thought was "It's AA Bob" or "It's AA Bob's avatar", but I don't think it matters in this case)?

RBCF retunes
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Location: 2P side

43.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:09 pm Post subject:

Danceatron wrote:

In the mean time, you could always play some doubles mode.

Sure, but most Doubles charts are weak in comparison to their Singles counterparts. If people are bored with Singles, Doubles wouldn't be much better.
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Danceatron
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Joined: 13 Mar 2002
Location: Opinions expressed by ads in this avatar do not represent the views of Danceatron or his affiliates.

44.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:24 pm Post subject:

RBCF retunes wrote:

Sure, but most Doubles charts are weak in comparison to their Singles counterparts. If people are bored with Singles, Doubles wouldn't be much better.

I suspect you need to play more doubles because that's simply not true.

It varies a lot from song to song to song, of course, but the doubles charts tend to actually go better with the music. Most of them are notably harder too.
Personally, I found doubles to be exactly what I was looking for when I started to get tired of singles mode.
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RBCF retunes
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Location: 2P side

45.

Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:35 am Post subject:

Danceatron wrote:

It varies a lot from song to song to song, of course, but the doubles charts tend to actually go better with the music.

The majority of Doubles stepcharts lack innovation, either copying the Singles steps or being just 8th notes. We lack a good amount of Doubles charts that are unique.
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FerociousChair
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Joined: 25 Jan 2007

46. Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:59 am Post subject:

Also it's kinda rare but it's kindof my biggest turn off to ddr. When a tiny 13 year old kid can pass The Legend of Max and Max300 but then can barely pass sakura and can't pass A or Firefly. and can't even start the easiest paranoia. I sometimes feel like you can just take a sort of metaphorical steriod to improve your game. the point is if people can do that then the competitive aspect is kindof blotched like an unbiased report on turtle behavior from a guy who was traumatized by the ninja turtles.

Apoc
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Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Location: Toms River NJ

47.

Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:02 am Post subject:

FerociousChair wrote:

Also it's kinda rare but it's kindof my biggest turn off to ddr. When a tiny 13 year old kid can pass The Legend of Max and Max300 but then can barely pass sakura and can't pass A or Firefly. and can't even start the easiest paranoia. I sometimes feel like you can just take a sort of metaphorical steriod to improve your game. the point is if people can do that then the competitive aspect is kindof blotched like an unbiased report on turtle behavior from a guy who was traumatized by the ninja turtles.

..
what?
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RBCF retunes
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Location: 2P side

48.

Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject:

FerociousChair wrote:

When a tiny 13 year old kid can pass The Legend of Max and Max300 but then can barely pass sakura and can't pass A or Firefly. and can't even start the easiest paranoia.

If you mean right after, you can't blame them for being tired. Otherwise, it makes no sense.
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FerociousChair
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Joined: 25 Jan 2007

49.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:39 pm Post subject:

RBCF retunes wrote:

FerociousChair wrote:

When a tiny 13 year old kid can pass The Legend of Max and Max300 but then can barely pass sakura and can't pass A or Firefly. and can't even start the easiest paranoia.

If you mean right after, you can't blame them for being tired. Otherwise, it makes no sense.

that does make perfect sense but heres the kicker. he did The Legend of Max AGAIN afterwards. no bar by the way.

FerociousChair
Trick Member

Joined: 25 Jan 2007

50. Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject:

sorry to double post but this dumb internet quota thing at my school is messn with me. I guess I should say something. What is konami's address and what are the chances they'll answer to a letter in english or translator japanese

Da-Risin-Smoke
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Location: Spokane, WA area

51.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject:

RBCF retunes wrote:

Danceatron wrote:

It varies a lot from song to song to song, of course, but the doubles charts tend to actually go better with the music.

The majority of Doubles stepcharts lack innovation, either copying the Singles steps or being just 8th notes. We lack a good amount of Doubles charts that are unique.

Thank ITG for good doubles steps.

Either stepchart before 6th mix sucks anyways, with exception of CSFIL speed mix and Rhythm and Police. There's so many good songs, yet boring steps.

I been making some doubles charts for DDR songs. I can give you guys the files. I just don't know how to send out compressed zip files like the people do.
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RBCF retunes
Trick Member

Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Location: 2P side

52.

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:08 pm Post subject:

Da-RiSiN-sMoKe wrote:

Thank ITG for good doubles steps.

That is true. In fact, I actually like most ITG songs' Doubles steps better. Singles often sacrifices quality for distinctiveness, and I'd rather have the former.

Quote:

Either stepchart before 6th mix sucks anyways.

Actually, I'd say 4th Plus-Max 2 was the era of good stepcharts.
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kaosskratchet
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Joined: 01 Nov 2005
Location: Durham, North Carolina

53.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:24 pm Post subject:

RBCF retunes wrote:

zoupzuop2 wrote:

RBCF retunes wrote:

I agree. Even though former veterans have "moved on", they've mostly moved on to ITG, which kept dance games alive in the US when everyone thought DDR was dead.

That's not quite what I meant. I meant "moved on in life", meaning, "progressed from the dance game scene", if they so choose, or whatever their excuse.

But there will always be new players Konami has recently been attracting to the game. They just need to keep up their marketing strategy (sort of).

My main concern on all of this would be the tournaments. I haven't even beat Max 300 yet, but I'm getting tired of the constant practice at home on my DDR Ion pad. It isn't the same as the arcade, and with more and more arcades losing DDR while console DDR gets bigger and bigger, I wish I knew what would happen to tournaments.

I hope that tournaments become common with the new crowd, and that arcades don't lose their faith in DDR as a money-maker and crowd-pleaser.
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RBCF retunes
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Location: 2P side

54. Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject:

Even if they keep up the tournaments, payouts may seem meager compared to other tournaments. _________________ QWERTYkid911: If someone posts porn, then this thread will perfectly represent the internet. Slowpoke: Ah, so that's how He created the universe so quickly... He was hopped up on caffeine. Thanks for clearing up that philosophical mystery... PooingCavy: (About difficulty levels) If I could make it up, it would be: Water, Soda, Coffee, Red Bull, ADHD

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