How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

[Phynx]

Like seriously. I'd like to start the grind again but with so many new engines to figure out, and those options though. As a guy who quit playing when you could still use the cheat codes in the old engine to play afroman songs, I'm at a loss as to what people are doing to play this game proper.

Which engine is recommended and is there a particular set of settings for timing and such that I should know?

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

I'm gonna double tap this thread here to continue asking questions. Does anyone use custom offsets globally or for individual songs? Also, does turning on the "Amazing" judge score help with training accuracy or is it just an annoying "goal" to achieve to be able to AAAA a song? Do you full screen the R3 engine or are you like me and keep it stock size? Does one way benefit more over the other? What is a good keyboard for FFR anymore? I've always used a Lycosa, I'm prone to the laptop style keys. Anything like that, that's better than the lycosa?

[Hakulyte]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Like seriously. I'd like to start the grind again but with so many new engines to figure out, and those options though. As a guy who quit playing when you could still use the cheat codes in the old engine to play afroman songs, I'm at a loss as to what people are doing to play this game proper.

Which engine is recommended and is there a particular set of settings for timing and such that I should know ?

I'm gonna double tap this thread here to continue asking questions. Does anyone use custom offsets globally or for individual songs? Also, does turning on the "Amazing" judge score help with training accuracy or is it just an annoying "goal" to achieve to be able to AAAA a song? Do you full screen the R3 engine or are you like me and keep it stock size? Does one way benefit more over the other? What is a good keyboard for FFR anymore? I've always used a Lycosa, I'm prone to the laptop style keys. Anything like that, that's better than the lycosa?

Oh, it's been a while Phynx. Not that we talked much, but we're from a similar era I think.
It's fun to see familiar names coming back.
I feel like throwing some random info, but I'm sure others know better / have different preferences so, yeah.

Go to download section.

Download rCubed first. This is the Engine with the most features.
If your game run smoothly then you're all good. (try to play songs fully at multiple difficulty levels to check that)
If you're having issues, consider trying the Hybrid Edition that's more performance related despite having less features.

I do recommend experimenting a bit with 50, 60, 144/250 framerate. You might notice a slight difference in timing from the Engine.
Note that unlike the Velocity and older engines, the perfect timing is a little more late.
Amazing is interesting because there's 3 perfect frames and the center one is the amazing so, if you hit a lot of them you know you're dead center.
This can save your AAA run on more difficult songs, but eventually you'll just have a feel for what works either way.
The game still has strangely converted songs and AAAAing specific patterns at a certain speed is near humanly impossible e.g: 32nd notes with poor conversion.
Some songs with round number bpm like 90, 180 etc. seems to be AAAAble surprisingly. e.g: Yoshi's Cookie / Dancing On Blades.

I'll share my settings just for the sake of having an example. It's mostly preferences past a certain point. It depends what you need to play at best.

This is what my options look like. I kept PA counter/Amazings because I actually try to quad the first 20-50 notes of a song to get a feel of the timing and then I just try to play normally.
Halved notes is more a preference thing. I feel like the less different colors to interpret, the faster to read, but im not comfortable going full 1 color. (noteskin colors can be edited)

Under "Editor" I moved the receptors up and removed nearly everything that could distract me while playing. Screencut feels less visually tiring, but sometimes it just doesn't help enough if the song is too fast.

About custom offsets:

There's currently no official chart of what's the perfect custom offset for each song afaik.
There's no reason to use a global offset for everything in the main engine, but some alternate engines used to have songs that were all converted the same way. It's often +5.4 or -5.4. I don't remember exactly.
When it comes to FFR Main, I usually leave it at 0 unless a specific song feels off.
Judge Offset is more for input stability. Some keyboards register more late/early, but I wouldn't touch this unless I played a song and I'm constantly late or early the very same exact way the entire song.
It's usually no more than -0.1~-0.4 for me, but I've seen people use up to -1 at very high speedmod.
In a perfect world, you want to leave this at 0 if you can and adjust your speedmod first to naturally hit perfects.

The main rCubed Engine has a Song Option in the menu if you right click a song where you can adjust custom offsets. The Hybrid version doesn't have this.
Since Flash shutdown, you can also preview songs there now.

In the Engine, F1 still works as "help" and F2 is still showing replays. This is a little more relevant now since flash no longer work.
You can still copy/paste the "Replay Import Code" from your or others replays to watch them.

I think playing full screen would be ideal, but I haven't quite fixed the habit of playing windowed. It seems to depend a bit on how far you sit from your monitor and how comfortably you can read.
I think long term full screen is better if you can make it work.

Red switches are good for farming AAAs.
Brown switches are a bit better for speed/jacks.
Romer G switches feels like an hybrid of Red/Brown, but it was also registering like a tiny bit faster than red. (made songs with fast mini-jacks easier)
I haven't tried other switches, but heard blue was good for vibrating.

As for the Lycosa, I'm tempted to mention that we're approaching the point where Topre switches kb are getting more affordable than before, but I honestly lack feedback on them.
They're some kind of hybrid between rubberdome / mech which might feel similar. (?)
The safe bet is probably to buy a similar kb as a top player. Whatever AnmaO/Myuka/Sillyfangirl has been using.

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Holy Grail of Informative Texts!

Damn Haku, way to set a guy up with needed information! Yeah we were from the same era, I in-fact have a few memories of us dueling in multi-player on several occasions. Ahh nostalgia.

I just got into this thread after a busy day so I'm gonna digest this wall and make adjustments as necessary.

Thank you!

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

So I went through this all, made a few changes and did in-fact notice a playable difference in-song. One thing I did have to do, I play on speed 2 and whether this is a result or not, every song I played felt off timing with the notes so I did the auto-calibrate it gave me a .291 judge offset and maybe I'm inaccurately perceiving it but the notes feel much more in time with that offset after playing about 20 songs with it. I find running 144 FPS seems to run smoothest.

Now as for the whole keyboard thing, I definitely need to figure out something new. This keyboard will randomly drop an input when I'm hitting doubles, triples, or quads. It's rather infuriating. If anyone else is on this thread, throw me some recommendations please.

Edit - For nostalgia's sake, is there a way to still play the legacy engine?

[rushyrulz]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

phynx!!!

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

phynx!!!

RUSHY! <3

Edit - What keyboard do you use?!

[rushyrulz]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Logitech G710+

[SputnikOwns]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

I make it so that if I get a perfect or amazing, nothing shows up on screen to distract me.
However, I can see in my peripheral vision whether the amazing or perfect count went up. Given my personal standard of accuracy, if I'm getting <4x more amazings than perfects I know something is off.

Global offset is in regards to the auditory timing of notes. There's a global offset that will work for the majority of songs that only occasionally needs to be adjusted.

Judge offset is for visual timing. You can calibrate this by muting your game and you'll almost never need to recalibrate in the future.

[Hakulyte]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Now as for the whole keyboard thing, I definitely need to figure out something new. This keyboard will randomly drop an input when I'm hitting doubles, triples, or quads. It's rather infuriating. If anyone else is on this thread, throw me some recommendations please.

You might want to look up anti-ghosting and try different keys first.

Edit - For nostalgia's sake, is there a way to still play the legacy engine?

If you find an old standalone version of flash, you can still load the engine with the links from the in-browser page.
It works if you add back the "https://www.flashflashrevolution.com" part before the line.
I'm assuming it's written as it is because the root part of FFR could change with server changes etc.

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Logitech G710+

Interesting choice... I myself am not a huge fan of full size mechanical keyboards. I prefer the more laptop-style keys myself. I'm wondering how nice the G815 would be for FFR... It's about the best, low-profile, n-key rollover keyboard I can find online ATM.

I make it so that if I get a perfect or amazing, nothing shows up on screen to distract me.
However, I can see in my peripheral vision whether the amazing or perfect count went up. Given my personal standard of accuracy, if I'm getting <4x more amazings than perfects I know something is off.

Global offset is in regards to the auditory timing of notes. There's a global offset that will work for the majority of songs that only occasionally needs to be adjusted.

Judge offset is for visual timing. You can calibrate this by muting your game and you'll almost never need to recalibrate in the future.

What's weird is I always used the judge as a visual queue for when to time the arrows, ever since I first played FFR. So now, I adjusted the judge to just above the arrows(I play downscroll) and even a decade on, it still works for me to have that perfect flashing to assist in the keystroke timing. I've never personally been distracted by all the elements on screen, in-game so that particular part doesn't apply to me.

I also notice with a great deal of song that there is in fact a global offset issue. I'm gonna have to experiment with that to find a good balance for the auditory queues.

You might want to look up anti-ghosting and try different keys first.



If you find an old standalone version of flash, you can still load the engine with the links from the in-browser page.
It works if you add back the "https://www.flashflashrevolution.com" part before the line.
I'm assuming it's written as it is because the root part of FFR could change with server changes etc.

I'll experiment with different keys. I like to play split handed. I've done AS;' and QW[]. I'll go to something a little tighter like DFJK and just see if positions like that change the ghosting.

Yeah I have a standalone flash client somewhere on my pHDD, I'll try it out to see if it all still works. I loved that old client for memories sake but that R^3 is fuckin' sick.

[Sworn]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

hi

[Frank Munoz]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

I feel ya as I am trying to return as well.
I've nothing add though since HAKU said it all!
Rather, I will give personal experience

I am heavily in love with the legacy engine but sadly, it can't run rates, and.. looks like a legacy engine.
First thing I did was make R3 match legacy.
Changed the judge accuracy colour scheme, and placement. Screen cut to match the shortened window, narrowed the receptors, ya know.
For the "Amazing" accuracy.. I didn't use it at first, but making the colour the same as the "perfect" really stopped it from distracting me, and helped realize when I needed to change my offsets.
Speaking of.. I change offsets every chart.
I also use an older version of R3 since the newest has a different font and it throws me way off.
I've always used some $10 keyboard from walmart.
Got me a AAA on "-+" after my first hiatus.(if you're interested, I saved every replay to log my journey on my profile. Took about a month to regain and surpass my old skill)
Now, after my second hiatus, I don't have the time to really grind so it may take longer 😞


Anyways, I say just play play play and have fun!
Goodluck to ya'

[irionman]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

Haven't seen you in a hot minute Phynx.

[Phynx]

Re: How Does One Get Back Into FFR?

I feel ya as I am trying to return as well.
I've nothing add though since HAKU said it all!
Rather, I will give personal experience

I am heavily in love with the legacy engine but sadly, it can't run rates, and.. looks like a legacy engine.
First thing I did was make R3 match legacy.
Changed the judge accuracy colour scheme, and placement. Screen cut to match the shortened window, narrowed the receptors, ya know.
For the "Amazing" accuracy.. I didn't use it at first, but making the colour the same as the "perfect" really stopped it from distracting me, and helped realize when I needed to change my offsets.
Speaking of.. I change offsets every chart.
I also use an older version of R3 since the newest has a different font and it throws me way off.
I've always used some $10 keyboard from walmart.
Got me a AAA on "-+" after my first hiatus.(if you're interested, I saved every replay to log my journey on my profile. Took about a month to regain and surpass my old skill)
Now, after my second hiatus, I don't have the time to really grind so it may take longer 😞


Anyways, I say just play play play and have fun!
Goodluck to ya'

Good call on those changes. Especially with the amazing judge. It was hella distracting so I'm gonna change it to the perfect color and try it among a few of the other things you did.

Haven't seen you in a hot minute Phynx.

Hell yeah irion. Been a decade+ or so. Went through a big personal change in my life and decided it might be good for my mental health to re-connect with old communities I was once a part of.