October 2016 Site Updates Discussion Thread
Greetings keysmashers! This month brings with it a particularly large flurry of changes, so we have decided to create a thread for better discussion!
The many teams comprising FFR Staff have come together this month to bring you, the community, a wide variety of exciting new features and updates. This was an awesome site update for us to put together, so we would love to hear your comments and feedback in this updates discussion thread, or on our front page post. Thank you everyone for your ongoing suggestions and support!
Table of Contents:
• 1-99 difficulty scale expanded to 1-120
• Achievement Tokens replace Normal Tokens with new requirements
• Skill rating formula improved
• Division 7 cutoff raised
• Support Tokens unlock automatically
• New R^3 game modifiers
• Bug fixes
What's New:
• The 1-99 difficulty scale has been expanded to the 1-120 difficulty scale. This update will create additional breathing space for the increasing number files becoming more technically difficult, as the skill of our general population of players increases. The highest rated songs are currently Undici and Reluctantly Accepting Temporary Overexhaustion, clocking in at Difficulty 110. The difficulties of all 2,039 songs have been re-evaluated by the Simfile Difficulty Consultants team, to ensure normal distribution of difficulties.
• Normal Tokens have been replaced by Achievement Tokens, with all new unlock requirements and graphics. Normal tokens were unlocked by solving clues for hidden locations around the site. Since the last Normal Token release in 2008, many hints and locations have become nonsensical or impossible to find. Achievement Tokens can be unlocked by satisfying long-term requirements in-game. Players will keep any tokens they own, regardless of the updated requirements.
• The Skill Rating formula has been updated to reflect the new difficulty scale. The increased difficulty scale will significantly improve the accuracy of leaderboard standings, especially among upper-division players. Levels, ranks, and division boundaries have been recalculated for all players.
• The skill rating cutoff for Division 7 has been increased by two levels. Over the past three years, this requirement has relaxed significantly, resulting in a massive skill disparity between the low/high players of our most competitive skill bracket. The cutoff has been adjusted to reflect the skill level of the first D7 competitors during the 8th Official Tournament in order to maintain the initial intention of this division.
• Skill tokens with difficulty-range AAA unlock requirements have had their requirements adjusted appropriately. Otaku Speedvibe [Heavy] and St. Scarhand [Standard] have had their requirements relaxed by a few difficulty points to fit the new difficulty ranges.
• Support Token unlock requirements are now automated. Vertex BETA vrofl, Dendrite v2, Tell v3 (Extended Mix), and Coactive [Over My Shoulder Mix] will now be unlocked without the need to post proof of completion on the forums. These will unlock if the conditions are met upon visiting your levelranks.
• Reactive Tapping has been added as a new visual modifier to the R^3 engine. As a fun throwback to OMGWTFT0k3N, this visual modifier will make the receptors move in reaction to keys pressed. Force New Judge Mode is another new R^3 engine setting, that will force millisecond timing instead of frame based timing while playing on 30 FPS. In addition, a slider has been added for volume control in the R^3 options.
• Fixed a bug where judge accuracy would be hidden, and restarting a song would cause a crash. Fixed another bug where a framerate above 255 would crash older versions of Flash Player.
Closing Remarks:
In addition to everyone on the Development team, I would like to personally thank the following people in particular for their massive efforts collaborating on these updates. Thank you One Winged Angel, and _Zenith_ for overseeing the entire difficulty rework. Thanks to rushyrulz for coordinating the Normal token overhaul, and thank you noname219, goldstinger, and Nullifidian for helping design the new token graphics.
– PrawnSkunk, Velocity, Trumpet63, RenegadeLucien, Hakulyte, DossarLX ODI
FFR Development & Design
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