My PARANOiA Hades 12-Foot edit.

This is why DDR Should add up to 12 foot ratings.  I made this edit to prove that even though some DDR stepcharts are really hard, some songs have way more potential.  This edit brings out the most of PARANOiA Hades I feel, and even though I don't expect charts like this to be in DDR, I think some songs deserve hard charts like this.

Listen to the music carefully and pay attention to details, and then play this edit with hand clap on, you will see this edit makes perfect sense and goes with the music.  Well, minus the Jump-Step-Jump-Step stream at the end.  But still, the jumps are the beats and the eights are the fill-ins.

Discuss, leave feedback, share your opinions.  Try not to flame, please.

The main problem I think is that konami is simply not using the challenge difficulty enough. The way I view it is that konami is doing its job difficulty wise and such for heavy mode, but does not provide enough challenge charts, bringing out the difficulty of the song.

I'd place myself at the upper end where DDR seems boring in comparison to other machine-dancing games because If I want to challenge myself I have an extremely limited selection. So, being in my position, adding more challenging charts outside of boss songs would definitely get me to play more DDR.

I posted this elsewhere in the SN2 discussion and have been saying this for years. 
You are 100% correct. We need harder step charts in DDR.  IIDX, Pop'n, DM and GF have all progressed in difficulty appropriately with each mix, however, DDR still remains at the same level. The charts of course, are very well written, but not difficult enough. 

 From the operator standpoint, the only challenge for most players in SN2 is the extra stage. Then after about a month, the challenge is gone. With that other dance game out in the arcades, the serious dance game players have raised the bar in terms of difficulty. The problem is that as all of the harder charts are user created, there is a lot of spammed garbage out there, so Konami has a golden opportunity here to seize and win back the expert players.

 I and numerous other people would much rather play an official Konami difficult chart and player's edited stepcharts for DDR, than someone's home brew keyboard steps for custom songs that have no business being on a dance machine in the first place.

That's not to say that there aren't good charts and custom songs out there, because there are. People like MdxMaxx above who are taking the time and effort in writing hard steps for official songs, should be encouraged. This is a good example that there's a way to use the talent out there to better the series. So..

I think a way to interface edits with the arcade from the CS versions, like the old days, and a way to submit steps to Konami for community download would do much to breathe life back into DDR for the disgruntled expert players. 

I agree with the poster above, DDR needs to start progessing in it's difficulty. There's not a whole bunch of difference between an 8 in, say, DDR 5th Mix and an 8 in the current-gen DDRs. But the answer is NOT to make a bunch of retarted Keyboard-Like steps. ITG has hard charts, but a lot of them are just freaking retarted and don't make sense at all.

Konami needs to start expanding on what certain difficulties are. In SuperNOVA2, CaptivAte ~Chikai~, votum stellarum -Forest #25 DDR RMX-, and Blind Justice are all rated 8s. This is good because they all fall into the "High 8" category at the LEAST. They also need to phase out 6s on Expert, as there is really no song that is danceable that deserves a six IMO.

 I understand that Konami is worried about progressing the difficulty of DDR because a large part of DDR's base is casual players who play on Basic or Difficult. This is why they need to start using oni charts more (NOT to the point of where it's becoming ITG...More like Extreme 2/ DDR STR!KE use). For example, Bloody Tears (IIDX Edition) Expert is a really fun song to play IMO, but it's not very challenging for more advanced players like me. Add a 9 oni chart, and suddenly I have a chart to play when I just want to have a nice relaxing game of DDR, and a chart to play when I'm feeling like I want a challenge. Sort of like Colors and A do for me. Of course, there's TONS of songs that don't even need oni charts. The three songs I mentioned earlier certainly don't, and other songs like Angelus, volcano, Arrabbiata, and MARS WAR 3 are already hard enough to warrant just an Expert chart.

One other thing I'd like to see is old songs getting new charts (AND NOT like the Groove Radar specials, those were cute and all...but I'd like some good charts that aren't trying to do some gimmick) There are COUNTLESS old songs that could get new charts. Cutie Chaser (Morning Mix), Higher, Destiny, Can't Stop Fallin in Love, 5.1.1., A Stupid Barber, and Kind Lady just to name a few! Adding about 5-10 new charts a game  to songs like these would be great imo. 

How about letting Fans send in their edits to songs using the online capabilities of the various systems that DDR is on, and picking some of those to be in the next game. You could make a whole contest out of it, really. 

There are over 300 songs that can cater to beginners going into Heavy. Why can't this be changed up a bit if Konami decides not to use the Challenge difficulty?

"They also need to phase out 6s on Expert, as there is really no song that is danceable that deserves a six IMO."

Let's Groove? =)
5's and 6's help give a confidence boost to those Standard players afraid of Heavy.

But yes, I'd love to see an edit contest. The 5th Mix Data Bank had a lot of fun charts, like a bassline-oriented .59 and an MSL with a really tricky run. There already are a lot of good alternate charts out there (and let's not forget Love Shine Oni, EXUS Mission Mode's Maximizer and the Ultramix songpacks), so why not add on more content if you already have it? Why doesn't KOJ treat the X-Box games as one of their own? =p

Let's Groove was a Seven IIRC >_>

Also, think about it like this:

The main player base that does casual Beg/Light/Standard has tons of charts to choose from, THREE TIMES MORE THAN WHAT HEAVY/CHA PLAYERS DO.

So, let's add Challenge charts to every song in the game.

Seriously.

I'm not joking.

And about ITG keyboard ****: Same as Andy, I'd MUCH rather play a hard DDR chart than quasar on ITG.

Not to say ITG sucks, but still.

AND YES HOLY CHRIST PLEASE UTILIZE ULTRAMIX 2/3/4/Uni/2 AND THE SONGPACKS. THEY HAD LIGHT MOTION FFS

I CANNOT EMPASIZE THAT ENOUGH.

Fanboy alert Fanboy alert.

If a higher-up at Konami who has control over this issue somehow encounters this post and has no time to read it, all I have to say is: watch this and compare what he can do to what your hardest songs demand.

There's not a good argument against having difficult songs. The timing on DDR is already extremely hard compared to more popular music games such as Guitar Hero, and timing affects every player, while hard songs only affect those that somehow manage to venture to that difficulty. Yes, IIDX's timing is harder, but Stepmania on judge 7 is harder than IIDX and that doesn't make DDR's timing any less difficult comparatively. Arguments such as "well, if you put hard songs on the game, it will ____" are really just guesses because conclusions such as those have no R&D/statistical data to back them up.

Additionally, DDR is being promoted as a fitness tool across hundreds of gyms nationwide, and it currently fails at that goal. I have mild asthma (I don't need an inhaler, but my lungs feel like they're crushed if I exercise too hard) and I've gotten to the point where 10 footers don't exhaust me anymore. In my opinion, DDR is a very efficient exercise tool because you know exactly how many steps are in a given song, whereas if you run or do any other form of exercise, the amount of exertion is more dependent on how you're feeling at the time. DDR not only places a psychological demand on the player to finish the song, but it also requires a given amount of exertion.

Part of the reason they probably don't have many harder songs is because 1) they follow a pyramid structure, 2) each boss song is really not that hard, so they have to force it to be hard with gimmicks and excess arrows. 

Regarding 1), the "pyramid structure" is opposed to "natural distribution"--with a pyramid, you have one really hard song at the top and the easier songs get more common as you go lower on the pyramid. This is extremely inefficient and unnecessarily grandiose, because with natural distribution the charts of a given song are just stepped as appropriately as possible and the difficulty is distributed accordingly. The end result tends to be an equal distribution of difficulty--that is, 10% 8-footers, 10% 9-footers, 10% 10-footers, etc.

Regarding 2), Dead End would be one of the hardest songs on DDR if they used the full potential of it, but it's a 9, while songs that are comparatively easy such as Pluto Relinquish or Legend of Max are forced into the 10-footer mold just because they sound dramatic. The people that make these "boss songs" aren't exactly changing their musical style very much, so as they continue to make music and the stepchart makers continue to best each past "boss song" the songs have to get more gimmicky with more excess arrows.

Finally, I don't see anything based on BPM or note reading as a legitimate form of difficulty. At best I think it's a distraction, because it's just an intellectual exercise, and at worse I think it worsens the game by putting focus on elements it shouldn't put focus on. The reason for this is because it's entirely mental and does not translate into anything physically--you can have bag display at 60bpm or 600bpm, but regardless your body would be doing the exact same movements. Every song should really be on C400 or C500, such as in this video where there are obviously BPM changes yet the scroll rate remains the same. I think this anti-physical mentality from the higher ups is a problem that hampers the game's development.

@neoMAXCML: Fanboy?  If you're talking about ITG then all I have to say is wow.

@Arch0wl:  I don't really see where you went with that post.  It started off with "someone can probebly AA your edit easy" then it went into fitness and then "BPM and notes are gimmicks" at th end.  May I ask what your point was? 

I agree that rapid tempo changes and freezes are gimmicky, but I also believe that tempo changes and freezes add a sense of difficulty and fun to the game, in a good way.  It's good that DDR plays with your eyes, think about it, if every song scrolled at 200BPM without freezes or anything, would you think that's better?  I don't think it would be better.

And the point I'm trying to make is that songs have potential for much harder steps.  You mentioned that, but it sounded like you were saying musical style shouldn't be a factor in selecting boss songs.  I think it should.  I'd rather have Fascination MAXX and Pluto as boss songs than Butterfly and Cartoon Heroes.  I'm saying the songs that feel "bossy" should be maxed out to their full potential.

Okay, I'm done. 

QUOTE: piepiepie75

it's not very challenging for more advanced players like me. Add a 9 oni chart

END QUOTE

I'm sorry, what are you doing in this thread?  This is about making harder charts.  Not 9's.  9's are not hard.  Don't pretend to be an "advanced player" and then talk about 9's being challenging.

Like arch0wl said, the focus definitely needs to stray away from gimmicky BPM changes, and get back to physically demanding charts.  Chaos was cool and all, but that sort of stuff gets old really fast, not to mention that it hardly requires any energy, merely repetition and memorization of BPM changes. 

And AceJay, maybe one day you'll get to the point where you'd rather be playing Quasar on a pad.  Then what? Are you saying that the multitude of serious players who already do these things should be excluded from content that challenges their abilities?

EDIT: board does not have quote feature. 

 EDIT #2: He was talking about DDR Fanboyism, just so you know. 

quasar and oml fancharts on DDR would be awesome! *_*

I don't really see where you went with that post.  It started off with "someone can probebly AA your edit easy" then it went into fitness and then "BPM and notes are gimmicks" at th end.  May I ask what your point was? 

 It was somewhat straightforward. The game needs harder songs, which I define as physically hard songs, and it's hypocritical to leave out hard songs when the game has hard timing. After that I outlined why the game needs physically hard songs opposed to visually hard ones. I then closed by addressing again why I think visual difficulty is illegitimate. Yes, it's not your standard five paragraph essay format, but I didn't think that was expected of me here.

I also believe that tempo changes and freezes add a sense of difficulty and fun to the game, . . . think about it, if every song scrolled at 200BPM without freezes or anything, would you think that's better?  I don't think it would be better.

I do. Tremendously, and I've authored stepcharts that have hundreds of BPM changes in them. But not 200BPM, preferably somewhere around 300-400BPM by default with the ability to change it to your ideal reading speed. That would be a monumental improvement over DDR's current system, in my opinion.

I'm sorry, I didn't know that you had to pass some stupid keyboard file of quasar on pad to be called an advanced player. "Advanced player" in the sense I was using it does not mean "ZOMG I CAN AAA LIEK EVERYTHING." It means that I play on Expert/Challenge and that I get decent scores on those songs. Sorry if you think otherwise, darling.

The problem is that players who can do those  kinds of charts are not in the majority, no matter how many people you know who can do it. And yes, 9s are challenging for me, and for MOST players.. Now, challenging doesn't mean I can barely pass it, or that I even can't FC or AA it. It simply means that it makes me break a sweat or requires me test my stamina. The last thing I, or I think the majority of the community wants, is more Konami to start taking IIDX crossovers and copying the another chart into a stepchart.

tokyogameaction is 100% right in saying that DDR needs to be progressive in its difficulty, just like all the other bemani games are. The only thing DDR is really progressing on is 10s, which is fine, but it's a shame that Dynamite Rave today is still considered a solid 9. Now, you can make the argument that SN2 started to progress with songs like CaptivAte and Arrabbiata, but because of songs like Ain't no Mountain High Enough and Venus...It's hard to imagine what exactly Konami considers a 7 or 8 or 9 or whatever.  

 Oh right, and one thing I've noticed with SN2 is that the song lengths have gone up by a considerable amount. This is great, as one of the things you can do to make songs harder is to make them longer. IT also fairs well for crossovers, which were cut rather well this game compared to SN1.

The last thing I, or I think the majority of the community wants, is more Konami to start taking IIDX crossovers and copying the another chart into a stepchart.

 
1) Why do you not want that? You wouldn't play them anyway. They wouldn't affect you and you could easily ignore them.

2) "IIDX crossovers" constitute an extremely small percentage of hard charts, and very few charts are made with the same techniques with which IIDX charts are made.

3) You can't speak for the majority of the community--you're guessing.

Oops, that shouldn't have been "more" that should have been "for". Konami's never really copied the another chart from a IIDX song to make a stepchart...Though I have seen some that are close to the L7/7 Keys charts from the song.

Anyways, my main point here is that IIDX charts are, and should be, developed differently from DDR charts.  And yeah, I'm pretty sure most people don't want to see the KBMP dumped into DDR.

Well, OK, but those are keyboard/hand charts. No one's arguing for making feet charts like hand charts.

There is some good debate going on in this thread about the potential for more difficult songs, but just be careful it doesn't turn in to a flame.  It is a good topic of discussion and I want to see more thoughts on it but please try to be respectful of others as you make your points.

Just to let everyone know - I read practically every post on these forums and I also relay information to Konami, so do not worry:  your opinions are heard. 

Well for what it's worth, Archowl and Dokurider are two names that are very well respected in the step chart community. I've seen plenty of stepcharts from both that translate very, very well to pad. They are examples  that hard charts CAN be well written, challenging and not spammed keyboard crap. I've personally played them and I like them. They have both been around for years, so I can attest that Archowl knows his stuff. Hopefully if there is ever a chance for user submitted files for AC mixes, I hope that you both submit steps. Just thought I would throw that in there. 

@Agora

 It would be really nice if we could get a response back. We've gotten our word relayed to Konami before but nothing has ever happened doing so.

I agree with the harder steps/use challenge for every song.
I also would much rather play offical hard steps than some random keyboard smash that some one was like "Lolz, no one will ever beat this!!!!"

Don't get me wrong though, I do love the true dance songs that make it in with a smooth 7 difficulty that is just a blast to play.  Makes me feel like I'm really dancing, even though I'm sure I still look like a complete idiot. :P

I think better player intergration is the key here.  They finally did it in Japan, and just barely did it too, with SN2.  e-amuse allows for player data to be saved, thus allowing stats and achievements(look at the XBOX360, it's like crack... :P) to be tracked.  THEN, unlockable challenge steps for classic songs.  Seriously, this is a freaking awesome touch that I wish there was just so much more of.  I know e-amuse has been around for a while, and in other Bemani it means way more than tracking scores.  You get to unlock songs, charts and other items, totally cool.
SN had e-amuse but just to track scores, it's neat to see that it's a step up in SN2.  I still think they could do more though.

Imagine having more unlockable challenge steps for every song.  Like AA the heavy chart, unlock the challenge chart for that song.  AA every song in a series(any difficulty for all players)(DDR Max, DDR 4th Mix etc.), unlock a special awesome remixed song from that mix.  The remixed songs in DDRMAX2 were awesome. And I thought it was even cooler that they were ONLY accessable in Oni mode.  Made me feel hardcore when I was playing them, when others couldn't even reach those songs.  Then having all of these stats tracked online and accessable to the players gives that intergration I was talking about.  Making the player more involved.

 I do think Marvelous intergration to normal mode will improve the challenge here too.  Now maximum scores are no longer a dime a dozen for every player.  Puts it on the level of IIDX where very, very few people have the max score on very few songs.  

And on a final note, Extra Stages are the bomb diggity. :P  They just feel like that secret boss in a game.  And I mean "true" extra stages, not the select a song extra stages.  I think extra stage should always be locked.  I'm just a jerk though. :P

For the TL:DR crowd, my points are bolded. Thank you for reading. 

Someone said: "There's not a whole bunch of difference between an 8 in, say, DDR 5th Mix and an 8 in the current-gen DDRs."

And I think that's a REALLY GOOD THING. They're keeping a degree of consistency here. It doesn't make sense to have an 8 in an older mix really be a 5 in a newer mix because of rediculous songs like Pluto Relinquished. 10 medium? For real, come on!

What they really need to do to make things more relevant and up to date is to let go of the metric system and start marking things at 11, 12, 13, etc. PSMO is no 10. Especially not when compared to things like Max300, Bag, Sakura, or pretty much anything that came out before Supernova. Does that mean that the 10 standard as hardest hard should be kept at 10 and everything else readjusted like in drummania? Everything would get SO skewed and nothing would make sense! Plus, then you'd have people who are happy to finally play 8s or whatever be disappointed that all their 8s in a new mix are now 6s.

hehe. one more lovely :P

Ok, lots of songs are arguably equal to 11s and 12s in ITG as it is, a few even bordering on a hard 12/easy 13.

We don't need more difficult charts (yours was horrible, btw) we need a new grading system.

When like 80% of IIDX songs were rated a 7* because there was nothing higher, they changed its grading system to accommodate ratings up to 12. Why can't they do that with DDR?

As new mixes come out, charts get harder, it's a natural progression. There are probably well over 20-30 songs that now surpass stuff like MAX300 in terms of difficulty....so why are they all rated the same?

Change the grading system. Go AAA all the SN/SN2 boss songs on foot and come back here and then maybe we can talk about harder steps.

Maybe it's not so much we need a higher foot rating, but a new way to distinguish 10 and 10+.

Like, we know right now 10 is the max, but perhaps if there was a color wheel placed somewhere along side the foot rating that notes if it's an easy 10 or a hard 10, or hell even songs under 10 (example: 9, 8, 7, etc), and it can be changed for the songs in every mix if needed. I don't think the BPM wheel thing should note how hard a song is, and I don't think it should ever (though in reality the higher BPM stuff for some reason tends to be harder). 

Just a thought. 

Also @TGLMaxX, not eveyone so much wants to have perfect timing; they just want to play harder charts. I don't see the problem with adding harder charts to the mixes.

The problem with adding harder charts is that they have nowhere to go on the grading scale except to be coupled along with all the other songs that are 10s now. I explained this already.

The natural progression of difficulty will eventually lead this current grading system into a state like IIDX 8th style had, where practically half of the new library was rated a 7*, which was then the highest possible difficulty, not because they were just as hard as all the other 7*s, because they weren't at all, they were just rated 7* because there was no other way to show how hard they were.

Then it becomes an issue where player 1 plays 7*A, and 7*B, and there's such a vast difference in difficulty between the two that it becomes nonsensical and confusing for everyone, not to mention unfair to the player because if he/she can pass 7*A, but can't come anywhere near passing 7*B, how is he/she going to be able to know which songs he/she can pass?

That system was changed because Konami realized this, and gradings now go from 1-12, and all the songs were re-rated to be properly bracketed for players, and for the mostpart, they're all bang-on and very helpful. When I progressed to 9s or 10s on IIDX, if I could pass one easily, I could pass them all, that's how it should be.

You should be able to accurately progress through the game based on the difficulty ratings. If you can pass a 9 with ease, you should be able to pass ALL 9s with ease, likewise for 10s.

We can now easily pass songs like MAX300, but many are still failing to even come close to AAing songs like FaxX or Felm, yet they're both rated the same thing.

The time to change this old grading system has come. It changed when "catas" were the hardest thing available, and it needs to change again now like IIDX and PnM have recently.

Why are people talking as if DDR doesn't have any hard songs? PSMO, which was created a looooong time ago, is still harder than most 11s on ITG, and alot of the new boss songs are probably well within their right to be considered 12s. Every mix they've upped the bar on difficulty, I don't know what you people expect except for nonsensical keyboard charts that are just stupid and not fun to play.

Like, you guys are being so vague, what's "hard"? Seriously.