Design your own unlock system for console DDR games.  What features from previous systems did you enjoy?

To be honest, I actually like the mission modes and things, but I like what SN2 CS did allowing players to unlock things through regular play as well. But if you ask me, EX2 had the best mission mode, simply because of the layout and the secret missions and stuff. I thought it was sweet~

I think the community gets tired of the mission mode because for a large portion of it, the player has to songs on beginner and light and gradually make it toward heavy. And once you finally get the heavy, the missions start getting a little bit dumb (Get in between 5,600,000 and 5,700,000, forced doubles, etc) that people get frustrated. And it can't be much joy for beginners to only be able to unlock a few songs and then be forced to play through a small list of songs to unlock the rest of the songs.

Why not make different "levels" for the mission modes? You could have like easy, medium, hard.

Easy: Songs start out on beginner and work their way up to 5s and 6s. Although all the songs could be unlocked on this mode, not much else could.

 Medium: Songs start out on light 4s and work their way up to heavy 7s and 8s. All songs and a few extra things (Some costumes, mods, etc. and the courses) could be unlocked on this mode.

 Hard: Songs start out on standard 6s and work their way up to 10s. All the game's content could be unlocked through this mode.

And of course, all the stuff could be unlocked through freeplay if the player chooses not to do the mission mode. 

Anyways, that's just something I whipped up in my head just now, but I think it would make all players happy. The beginners who played Easy could care less about unlocking things like courses and mods, they just want the songs. But the experts who would be playing the higher difficulty missions would care about mods and courses and content like that.

 Also: Put more unlockable content.I think IIDX really gets a lot with it's custom options, and I'd like to see similiar things done with DDR.

I personally like it when the unlock rewards are related to the unlock method.

For Example 

• Unlock New Courses by Playing and Passing Courses 
• Unlock New Songs by Playing Songs
• Etc.

I get frustrated with the mission modes about halfway or so through becaue they become less and less about doing well at the game and more and more about dealing with crazy mods etc.  I am not an expert player I just like to play for fun and the only mod I use and that is only for some songs is speed 1.5.  So my goal is to unlock as many songs as fast as possible and get the Nonstop mode unlocked.

 I dont mind if most of the mods and dancers and stuff like that are only unlocked by the mission modes but I do like the idea of having different levels that would allow me to see all of the missions and still unlock that content as well.

I agree that the old unlock system is simple, but it can get boring sometimes.  Like "Ugh I have to play 50 more songs to unlock Max 300..."  With the mission mode it's more than just playing songs.

I would do a simple mission mode.  There are 100 total missions.  At the start, there are two missions available.  Clearing either one of the missions opens up the next two missions, then clearing one of those two opens the next two, and so on, until missions 99 and 100 are unlocked.  Every 2 missions you complete, a song is unlocked.  There are a total of 50 song unlocks.  So you only have to complete 50 missions to beat mission mode, but you have to complete all 100 to unlock all 50 hidden songs.  Of course, the last mission wouldn't be "OMG AAA FELM Oni" or anything like that.

There could be three difficulty levels for mission mode:

Newbie - For beginner players, the beginning missions are on beginner difficulty, and the ending missions are on light/standard difficulty.

Trainee - For casual moderate-difficulty players, the beginning missions are on standard difficulty, and the ending missions are on heavy difficulty (up to 8s)

Dancer - For expert players, the beginning missions are on heavy (7s-8s), and ending missions are on heavy/oni (hard-10s and 11s)(that is, if DDR ever goes past 10, which it needs to)

Completing any one of the three mission mode difficulties will unlock all the songs.  Each difficulty level would have DIFFERENT mission objectives, so if you get better and want to play the harder mission mode, you won't be playing the same missions over again.

Sorry for my lack of creativity, but here's some things I did/did not like from previous unlock systems.

*  I don't like being forced to play very many songs on beginner/light.  I'm looking at you Extreme 2.

* I like when I can work on unlocking most of the songs at whatever difficulty I feel comfortable with, and i like being able to use speed mods.

* I don't like *gimmicky* challenges.  By gimmicky, I mean having little or nothing to do with your ddr skill.  The first example of this that comes to mind is getting a score that ends in a 70 on Supernova.

* I like knowing what I'm trying to accomplish.  I guess what I mean by this is that if an unlock system is complicated, there should be a descr iptive section of the manual explaining it.  The only reason I ever figured out how to play quest mode in Universe 1 was somebody made a thread about it at the xbox forums.

* An unlock system should be no more complicated than necessary (i.e. It was a good idea to get rid of backup dancers).

 Finally, and this one isn't as important as the others, but it would be cool if an unlock mode were fun enough that people would play it even after they unlocked the songs.  I think there is huge unrealized potential for creative game modes in DDR, and I think it's conceivable that an unlock mode could serve more of a purpose than just unlocking the songs. Of all the unlock modes, the one in Universe 2 was the most fun (although it fell short in the challenge department), but not fun enough that I wanted to play it again after I unlocked all the songs. With all this said, I'll finish by saying that a well developed unlock system is FAR LESS important than well designed step charts and good danceable songs.

I really appreciate you asking our feedback, Konami.

I liked EXTREME2's unlock system a lot, just because there was secret stuff, courses mixed in, it was very entertaining overall. It was the biggest, and best of the Master Modes. That being said, I realize players like speed unlocks and like to be challenged. So, here's how I would change the EXTREME2 unlock system to meet these demands:

The route to an area's Boss Song has 3 distinct paths: Basic, Difficult, and Expert.

Basic path takes 10 songs to reach the Boss Song, but they are all missions that could be completed by relative beginners, even near the end.

Difficult path takes 6 songs to reach the Boss Song. Again, these are aimed at an intermediate level.

Expert path takes 3 songs to reach the Boss Song. These are all aimed at the more advanced crowd.

If you do well on an Expert path, you can unlock a 1 song Challenge path to the next area's Boss. :P

Finally, finishing a Boss Song will unlock all songs, even if you didn't play them. For example, say the Basic path has new songs A, B, and C, which will be unlocked as they are played. However, the Expert path only has song B. Upon finishing the Boss Song, A and C will also unlock, despite having never played them in the Master Mode.

Perhaps some of the song "slots" could be courses as well. I also liked the idea of the secret X missions in EXTREME2, though I'm not sure how I'd fit them in with this system.

Anyways, just my thoughts.

Keep SN2's general unlock method. That is, having a single player mode in which to unlock songs as well as being able to unlock songs in regular play.

As for what the single player mode should be, it should be very similar to Extreme 2's Dance Master Mode. Supernova's Stellar Master Mode was too complicated and long, while SN2's Hyper Mission Mode was a bit too straightforward. The mods and requirements for the missions in SN2 weren't nearly as ridiculous as those in SN1, so they should be kept at around that level. Even though I do not like the gimmicky challenges, I feel that they are necessary to keep it from being ridiculously easy.

Also, there should be more than one difficulty level in the single-player mode. Progressing from ridiculously easy to really hard is kinda annoying to me, especially since SN2's HMM stays at a level that isn't anywhere near a challenge to me (or many of the people here) for half of it. Perhaps a mode could be unlocked after beating the Extra Stage or AAAing a song on Heavy where all of the songs are either on Heavy or have harder extra charts, most of the requirements involve scoring really high, and features, songs, and/or charts otherwise unavailable are unlocked through it. Or you could use Arctic's idea.

Combine a point unlock system (DDRMAX2) with an EX2 style mission mode WITHOUT having all the easy challenges that take way too long than they're worth.

I liked EX2s a good amount, SNs was not fun for me, and SN2s was okay... I also liked the pass 5 songs, get a new one a lot also, it was simple, fun, and easy. Though, if it is going to be a master mode, please do something like EX2's, it was actually really fun :D

I like specific things you need to do to unlock songs. Like, Play all 2mb songs to unlock the new 2mb song, or AA Healing Vision to unlock HVAM, things like that were always awesome. I also think that there should ALWAYS be a "Play ____# of songs, and ______ Unlocks" for people who just want to play the regular mode and not mess around with adventure modes and who just cant get a good enough score to unlock certain songs.

 I dont like Hyper Master Mode or anything like it personally. However, maybe that is needed to appeal to other crowds of people. I just wish there was a simple way for me to just play the songs I wanna play and be able to unlock new songs. I get the games to play new songs that I might enjoy, not to be forced to play songs I dont want to with stupid conditions for beating them.

I think when you boot the game up for the first time after you create system data there should be a screen that says:

Choose Unlock System

MISSION         STAGES

And you can reset it by deleting the DanceDanceRevolution X system data from the PS2 Memory Card. 

I don't know if this is in the US versions, or new versions in particular, but I would like an all unlock option in the options mode for the previous game in the series, kind of like what they used to do in the Japanese versions.  That way, if theres one song, or course, or whatever, that you never got, it would be cool to finally be able to play it.  I think this option should be added to Universe 3 and Hottest Party 2.

mission modes were cool, except for when the missions were "Get a perfect" at 900 bpm or "hit the invisible arrow".

I guess my only suggestion would be a little more oldschool. Put all the missions and systems and whatever in that you want for most people, but for those who just wanna cheat their way through and play the new boss songs right away, include a master cheat code. Old games used to have 'em and I miss that feature. Honestly, trying to unlock stuff when I don't like the unlock system just makes me wanna shelve it and not buy the next version.

Time unlock.

Or how IIDX does it by having to play a certain set of songs/DJ points/3+ levels adding up to a certain amount. Anything but missions to unlock. Missions should be on the side for something else.

Methinks sane missions that don't have a special mode. Clear a 10-footer, get an AAA, clear *INSERT RANDOM ONI COURSE HERE*, play Endless for 30 minutes on Heavy, get an extra stage, clear a song on Standard, etc.

Personally, I like the unlock system in the arcades. Play some stages, unlock some songs. I stopped playing the console games because the things you need to do to unlock all the good songs was ridiculous. I like some of the missions, don't get me wrong. Some of them are really fun. But after 5 DDRs you just wanna be able to play the missions as a side thing, not have to keep playing it over and over to unlock the songs. It gets really annoying, then you end up looking to cheat devices or Stepmania to get all the songs you want to play. I agree with Cali, having to play all the stupid US license songs to unlock the good songs is just plain annoying. Hence the Stepmania thing, I don't have to play them through some dumb "SUPER SAYAN AWESOME DANCER REMIX FREESTYLE MODE!!!!!!!!!" thing. As moose said, it makes me wanna put it away and never look at the console games again. sadface

[superlongpost] About Extreme 2's unlock system, why does everyone prefer it so much over the SN Mission Modes? 

I did like EX2's Dance Master Mode, but for me it was way too long and huge.  It was to the point where I was afraid of my data getting corrupted.  The SN Mission Modes only took a few days, while Dance Master Mode took WEEKS.

Another thing is that section E on DMM was so hard for me back when I got it.  I couldn't do half the missions in that area.  After a while I could do some more, but I still couldn't do the final mission, which was getting a B on PSMO.  I only unlocked it because of that "failing a lot of missions unlocks stuff" thing that was in the game.  I feel DMM was very unfriendly in that respect.

The secret X-missions.  Even looking it up online, I couldn't figure out for a while exactly how to get Paranoia Survivor.  It was something with mission D-28 and it just wasn't clear.  I forgot how I did it but some of these secret things got really annoying sometimes.

I prefer Stellar Master Mode over Dance Master Mode for a few reasons.  I liked the planets thing, and the freedom to pick whatever song you wanted to do the missions was cool.  And the showdowns were better than the DMM "Boss Missions" in my opinion.

I prefer Hyper Master Mode over Dance Master Mode mainly because of its straightforwardness.  Also, HMM really isn't long, and it's pretty easy to unlock everything.  It's like a reduced EX2 DMM.  Custom Modules were VERY helpful too.

All in all, I don't know about you guys, but I like the SuperNOVAs' Mission Modes much better than the EX2 Dance Master Mode. [/superlongpost]

-WARNING LONG POST-

Let's take a little stroll through unlock systems in the DDR's that I have played.

MAX: Simple, but annoying.  Sometimes, I'd like to play some of the more interesting songs before I play 300 others.

MAX2: Better!  The dance point idea was genius, and let you know A) How many things you could unlock and B) how long until you unlocked it.

Extreme: More gameplay unlock.  Not working KONAMI (though mission mode was amazing)

Extreme2: Dance Master Mode was fun, it was just annoying to have to play two whole sections on beginner and light before things got difficult.  But, step in the right direction.

SuperNOVA: Well, some of the missions were a little annoying, but it wasn't terrible.  The trials were fun to complete.

SuperNOVA2: It was a little too straightforward, and I have yet to figure out how to get to the last Hidden Zone.  It was like hitting a brick wall.

Hottest Party: Why has no one brought this up yet?  There were only a few flaws in Groove Circuit Mode.  I don't remember difficulty limits being a problem and you could use any song you had unlocked to complete the request.  The Dance Battles were a little annoying until I realized that the hand/feet missiles could be turned off.  This was lots of fun to play and could have stuff unlocked quickly.  Also, since you could use any currently unlocked song for most of the requests (unless it specified songs for you) it was just like playing free play mode.  My personal favorite.  Oh, the only flaws I saw were NO SPEED MODS and that the only way to get tokyoEVOLVED appears to be a AAA.  On that pad?  I don't think so.

The ideal system would be one that had the dance point system of MAX2 with a mission mode like Hottest Party.  That way, it satisfies both crowds.

Dance Master Mode was really stupid.  I'll have to agree the secret X-missions were stupid as well.  HMM was straight forward, but that's one reason why I didn't like it that much; it was straight-forward.

Well, basics first:

1) It's most important that there should be a way how both beginner people and the highest skilled people can unlock all content. Nothing was so frustrating to use SN2 for finally getting FELM in SN (I usually import Japanese versions)

2) The unlock system should be able to let people decide what they want to unlock. I liked the e'mall feature in pop'n Music 14 Fever with the points to buy e'mall songs. Those you want to have first.

Well, my idea:

You get points for the song you play. For each song you clear you get its foot rating in points, but for each difficulty seperated. Whenever you fail a song you get one point of the chosen difficulty. That way beginners can mostly fail their songs and still get points. You play Eternus Expert? You get 9 Expert/Oni Points. You play CSFILSM Basic? You get 4 Basic Points. That way you can collect points and then go into a shop with trees. You start with a song for buying for 5 Beginner Points or 12 Basic Points or 20 Difficult points or 33 Expert Points. Then that bought song opens branches where you can direct your unlocks. Like in pop'n Music 12 Iroha with the different scrolls.

I'd love to see what the others think of that as well. And those who like missions, they can play with mods who give extra points. Like Boost on gives 3 extra Points.

I like Quest Mode in the Universe Games for Unlocking songs. The only bad things about either were in Universe 1, but they seemed to have fixed them for Universe 2. (The store was a GREAT addition! Also, it wasn't so hard to get a certain offer to unlock a song). The reason I like the Quest mode versions are that almost any skill level can complete them! (I completed Universe 1 quest mode on a BASIC level!!!) and therefore EVERYONE can enjoy ALL the songs!

In short, don't get too fancy Konami....  I would suggest adding more things that you can unlock though! Songs, characters, new outfits for Emi and Rage, etc. (all things you could use in ANY mode you play!!)

A good unlock system is following the DDR Ultramix and DDR Universe series.

I really HATED Supernova's Mission Modes! Its like Challenge Mode.

I don't want to kill myself trying to unlock songs! 

Having songs unlock while playing Game Mode, and playing Quest Mode is great. Don't make it too difficult. We want as many songs as we can get. 

If you were to do it as DDR Max, than have a song unlock every 5-10 songs you play, instead of play 300 songs.. the more constant unlockables, the more we are hooked to the game.

When I got DDR Universe and Ultramix series on the first day, I would play non-stop, maybe 8-9 hours. When I got DDR Max and Supernova 2, I did not play as much. I got bored within 30 minutes.

 Follow the Ultramix/Universe system. It is much better!! PLEASE!

And if the PS2 fans disagree, let them have their unlockables on their Playstation DDR's. I like the Xbox's unlock systems so much better!

DDR Universe 2 really did a good job. The shop was an awesome addition. Bring it back :)

Thank you<(*-*<) 

Keep it the same as SN2.

 By the way, what the heck was KONAMI thinking when they used the EXTRA STAGE system on DDR SN2 PS2 for the US? That's not cool at all.

Why not, all the games except EX2 had extra stage...

 post 573 in ths forum!!!

I really like mission mode in all of its different forms. It gives me something to do besides start AAAing heavy songs right off the bat. I also like how you guys make a new one every year. EX2 was also my favorite, and SN2 is a close second. SN2 gets bonus points for having DP challenges, even though I hardly played them.

DON'T copy this suggestion literally, but Brawl had a nice Challenge Board. They gave you a mostly unknown "To Do" list that grew larger as you completed tasks. And each time you did whatever the developers wanted you to do, they gave you a little reward. (Frequently songs!) What was nice about it was that you didn't have to do these things in a separate challenge mode. You just played the game normally and stuff happened if you made it happen. DDR's missions have always been more like Brawl's Event Mode or Subspace Emissary Mode. I think those are better, but there are nice things about the Challenge Board too.