As I said in the thread about difficulty, I play dancing games for the exercise benefits and the physical challenge.  That alone is more than enough reason to make it both worthwhile and fun for me.  Granted, I have a few other motivations as well (such as the competitive and social aspects), but I think that if I could not meet the first two requirements, I would not play very much, if at all.

This is why I'm crossing my fingers for the next release of DDR.

On a side-note, since everybody else is talking about music, I enjoyed much of the "older" DDR music.  Some of it was incredibly catchy.  I still listen to it actually.  I don't have any problem with the music from more recent mixes, but it doesn't quite strike me in the same way.  I don't think that's a real problem though, because in my opinion, the gameplay is far more important than the music selection.

"The more I think about it, the more I think the next DDR arcade version should have one chart that NOBODY can pass, and I think that Konami should offer a monetary prize to whoever passes it first.  The point of all this would of course be publicity.  It goes without saying that everyone who plays DDR would be interested to see who will be the first to pass it, but I think it would even be interesting to the general public who never even played before.  "Did you hear that that dancing game with the arrows has a song that nobody in the WORLD can pass, and they're offering *amount of money* to whoever passes it first."  You might even get a few starry eyed dreamers who start playing the game in hopes that they'll be 'the one'. 

The mathematical community did a similar thing in 2000 by offering a million dollars to whoever solved any of the seven most important unsolved math problems at the time.  They knew that the million dollars was hardly necessary to motivate the math researchers, because anyone who had any shot of solving them was working on them already, but the goal was to raise public interest in mathematics.  It worked.  And that's math."

Brilliant idea.  Great analogy too.  I like the way you think. 

"Almost every other music game uses a pyramid system, and I don't hear IIDX, ITG, or most other music game players complaining about it."

Heh, you must be talking to the wrong players.  I often complain about the lack of official 12s in the newer ITG2 songs and the fact that there are only three 13s in ITG singles.  As I said before, I play dancing games for the exercise and because I like a good challenge, so most of the songs I play are pretty tough.  This is why I play a lot of custom songs.

I also strongly agree that the rating system should not be capped at 10.  By using the same difficulty progression (i.e., the jump between a 9 and a 10 is the same as the jump between a 10 and an 11, or n and n+1), they wouldn't have to worry about re-rating already existing charts, save for the 10s, a few of which could reasonably be labeled as 11s.  This drops the idea of a "maximum difficulty," which the 10 is currently being used as, but I think this is better because it allows for potential expansion and prevents the stepchart writers from re-rating difficulties from any point after the next mix.  This is also nice because it would also encourage the stepchart writers to "fill in the gap" so to speak and write more difficult charts.

But moving back to the main topic, I still haven't seen any opposition to my argument regarding fitness, so can I assume that is an acceptable reason to produce harder stepcharts in addition to those within the usual difficulty range?

I don't think anybody ever responded to my comment, so I'm going to make it more clear:

DDR is a <u>fitness game</u>.  That is exactly how it's advertised.  Why do you think they brought DDR into schools?  For what other reason would it be accepted into local YMCAs?  What about all these weight-loss stories?  The point is to get kids physically active and get some exercise.

The problem is, anybody who isn't absolutely terrible at DDR won't ever break a sweat on even the hardest songs.  I'm sorry to be blunt, but DDR is not a physical game to people who know how to play correctly.  Sure, I could bring my knees up to my chest for every step and waste that much more energy when I play Cowgirl Heavy but then my score would suffer.  You can't PA when you're prancing around like an idiot, and to anybody who takes the game seriously, score is a very important issue.

The obvious solution is to make harder charts so that the advanced players can also reap the physical benefits of this so-called fitness game.  I honestly don't understand why people are arguing against this.  You don't have to play the charts if you don't like them.  They could even be on a separate, new difficulty for all I care.  But the better players need something to keep them playing the game, and quite frankly, the difficulties we have going right now aren't even close to doing it.

Oh, and please don't act like playing no bar will fix anything; that hardly makes a difference for the better players.  I still don't break a sweat on the 10s from playing them no bar.

Guys, this is the reason Konami loses so much popularity among the advanced players to ITG and PIU.  It'd be a really easy fix.  Just make some new hard charts that are actually tiring.  That's it.  All the people who are whining about how they don't like difficult charts would still play the 7 and 8 footers that they like, so I don't see how they have nothing to complain about.  No matter what, they can still enjoy the game since it still caters to their skill level, so this isn't even relevant to them.

Short version: If you actually care about the fitness aspect of DDR, then please provide a means of exercise to those who aren't ridiculously overweight, out of shape, new to the game, etc.

I honestly can't understand why people are opposed to the idea of adding new chart difficulties.  I've only skimmed this thread but here's what I keep seeing over and over:

"Harder charts are not fun"

I think the exact opposite. 

Maybe you don't think they're fun, but the one of the major reasons I don't play DDR is because I find the charts incredibly boring.  I play 15s and 16s on ITG because I enjoy having to put effort into passing a song.  Stuff like that to me is really fun, and it's actually challenging.  And I'm definitely not the only one who thinks this way either.

Look, DDR is advertised as a game that allows people to get exercise and lose weight.  I play dancing games with the exact same goal in mind; in fact, dancing games are my primary form of exercise.  I think it's great that people can pick up the game and start losing weight, but people who are more "in shape" are going to need an incredibly more difficult range of charts for the game to become a valid form of exercise to them.  I'm not just talking about songs with a ridiculous amount of stops and BPM shifts; I mean something that actually takes some physical effort.

Another thing... I understand that a lot of people reading this don't like the idea of harder charts for whatever reason, but that still doesn't mean they shouldn't be added to the game.  What's wrong with creating a new difficulty level (or adding to the Oni level) for exceptionally difficult charts?  If you don't like them, you shouldn't feel obligated to play them.  The purpose of this would be to make <i>everybody</i> happy by appealing to a wider demographic.  It's not like anybody is asking the 7-8 footer charts that you like so much to be replaced; we're requesting an addition to the game.  That way, we can all play songs that we enjoy.

As for the specific details of exactly how hard I think the charts should be, I'd honestly like to see stuff as hard as One More Lovely (like Arch0wl suggested), or even harder.  I know a lot of DDR fans despise 16th note runs, but often times they go with the music perfectly.  Plus, I think they're fun.  Don't be afraid to use them.  The only other specific thing I wanted to suggest about the harder difficulties is that I think there should be [i]multiple[/i] harder charts so that the more advanced players don't get bored by playing the only hard chart over and over.

If these ideas could be implemented in the next mix, I might actually start playing DDR regularly, and I know plenty of others would too.  Please take these thoughts into consideration.