DDR X difficulty-rating guide

Nightime · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jan 2002 Location: anywhere else

For those just getting into DDRX, or awaiting the arcade release; here's a quick little guide to help you get to the right "stepchart rating" for you.

1-5: Pretty much identical to past 10-foot scale releases, such as EXTREME/SuperNOVA. However, since older games were rated on a 1-8 or 1-9 scale, you may see some levels make marginal, but fair jumps. The ratings of the X-edits are a good example of this, such as HERO (once 4/8, is now a 6).

*If you liked "3-footers" with long, continual stepping patterns to them, you'll want to play the new 4's, now.

6-7: This is about where the old "4-5 jump" in difficulty takes place; perpindicular jumps begin appearing (

, for example) more often, and half-beats begin appearing in 3-7 step spurts.

8-9: This is that third tier of stepcharts where everything that used to be "7" seems to squish into. The new "9" seems to be where crossovers are introduced, and possibly the "skipping/galloping" margin as well.

10-13: These are where the usually more deeply involved heavy charts (technical 8's and 9's) fall into, as there tends to be some grey area where that's considered. Both the stepchart count and the tempo are taken into account as well, elminating some inconsistencies (like HYPN0TIC CRISIS = DEAD END = CARTOON HEROES, for example).

13-14: The easier side of former 10-footers, and the harder side of 9-footers find their way here. This (should) include stages such as Unreal, PARANOiA Survivor, and Healing-D-Vision (Heavy).

15-16: Typical "MAX" range of stages, 15 = MAX 300 is pretty much the effective standard, though some average tempo/high-density charts fit here as well, like Xepher (Challenge) and possibly MAD BLAST.

17-18: These are typically the "there's no way you'll ever get through the last 20-40 seconds of this song" charts. PARANOiA Survivor MAX (Oni), Pluto Relinquish, Fascination anything generally fits here.

So far as I can tell, this new system only appears to be a 1-18 level system. Even the new DDRX stages so far only go that high.
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littlekev0 · Trick Member Joined: 19 Mar 2008 Location: Bronx, NY

Yeah, it seems like it does go only up to 18, for now. They will probably eventually introduce 19's and 20's with whatever future releases they decide to put out. The same like when they introduced 10's with Max2. I have a feeling that DDR may have a X2 or something like that (in the near future)! Just like Max, Max2, Extreme, Extreme2, Supernova, Supernova2, now X, and hopefully an X2! I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself, huh? As for stepcharts, I still think a couple of songs were rated wrong, Pluto, for example, is not THAT hard, and neither is Sunkiss Drop! (Btw, how DID Sunkiss Drop go from a 7 to, what is it, a 12 I believe?).

Nightime · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jan 2002 Location: anywhere else

littlekev0 · Trick Member Joined: 19 Mar 2008 Location: Bronx, NY

Lol!
Yeah, I guess you're right about that one! I can only imagine what exotic ethnic would be rated if it WAS on X, although, once crossovers are learned and mastered, neither one is THAT bad! But, I do believe exotic ethnic was a 9, which would probably translate to maybe a 12 if it were on X? But Sunkiss was only a 7, so maybe at the most it should have been a 10, but then again, alot of people were complaining that Sunkiss was misrated when it was on Supernova 2, because it was over 400 combos! As for Pluto, yeah, the stop-and-go sections does throw me off, I did surprise myself when I did pass it!

jobber123rd · Basic Member Joined: 24 Aug 2007 Location: Chester, VA

yukihime · Trick Member Joined: 12 May 2008 Location: Philly, PA

Nightime · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jan 2002 Location: anywhere else

Playing stuff like Master Modes will do that! It was a month or two after EX2 was released, when suddenly all of the pro players were AAA-mania on arcade Extreme. There were a few months after that where I got about 33 of them! It IS shocking!

FreshApple300 · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:33 am Post subject: Hard to explain...

Actually, songs like Votum Stellarum contain perpindicular (corner) jumps and still earns a 4.

So, you can't always directly convert difficulty ratings.

Yes, Sunkiss Drop's a crossover-turning galore.

Here are some of the songs that were rated incorrectly (i think

):
Shades Of Grey (Expert rating: 8) New rating: 9 (7)
Stealth (Expert rating: 8) New Rating: 10 (7)*
Poseidon (Expert rating: 8) New Rating: 10 (7)*
Trust -DanceDanceRevolution Mix- (Expert rating: 8) New rating: 9 (7)

*Ok, these songs are equivalent to 8 footers, but it's as simple as you can think. Poseidon isn't a big deal in the slow section because they follow the rhythm with the slow tempo. [/i]

SEXY BEAST · Trick Member Joined: 30 Apr 2004

I just divide the DDRX rating by 1.5 to get the approximate old foot rating.

16-20=Flashing 10 footers
15=10 footers
13-14=9 footers or tough 8's
12=8 footers
10-11=7 footers
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