Getting Better

[AceOfSpades13]

I have steadily getting better ever since I signed up to FFR, but in the past few weeks, my skills have reached a sort-of plateau. I can pass any song, and FC everything up to Difficult, save a few.

Can anyone recommend a few songs to practice with to improve my arrow reading and/or finger speed?

[ToshX]

(Haha, and you thought YOU were good. This happened to me like 2 months ago). Anyway, you cant get better by playing FFR, or it will take a LONG time. Try playing stepmania for like a month doing the really hard songs you cant even pass. Eventually you'll get better and pass them.

[emccky]

practice cia rave over and over.. thats what i did. i practiced that song until i could fc it.. and then it seemed like i broke my "skill barrier" and now i can do uber leet sauce. not really. i still suck..

[AceOfSpades13]

Tosh, I never said I was great or anything, I just mentioned that I beat you a while ago. You're probably better than me now, since you've played an extra 2ooo games or so. I was already pissed at ddrking in that thread, he was the one acting like a loser and calling me a cheater.

[Dronak]

I think practicing really hard songs works only if you're close enough to that level to be able to do OK on them to begin with. I don't think forcing yourself on a song way above your level will help a whole lot. When you're near enough to that level though, forcing may be just what you need to make yourself learn to do those songs.

I just tried doing almost all of the songs in Chardish's 4th difficulty level; I had done two of them before because the game ranks them at less than Difficult. Well, it didn't go so well. Some songs I did OK on the slower parts, but then they nailed me with these fast runs, faster than what I was used to and I basically ended up mashing because I just couldn't read the streams at that speed. I'm going to have to pull back a bit and stick to the songs at Chardish's 3rd level and work through them first. Some of those are still tough enough for me. If you've got suggestions around that level that would help me, I'll consider them. I expect Secret Zombie Room and Breaking the Common to be suggested; they're both in that grouping and I have been working on them. SZR I'm doing better at, while I can basically read BtC, but not keep up the whole time because my fingers and/or arm muscles get tired after trying to keep up that quick pace for such an extended length of time. Still playing one handed probably isn't exactly doing me any favors either, but using two hands always feels worse. If I'm going to stick with one hand, I'm eventually going to have to learn how to make my fingers do some specific arrow patterns at high speed. Because some I can read easily enough, like <v^>^v<v^> etc, but just can't make my fingers do them at the speed required.

Anyway, the amusing thing is it looks like I can tell which songs people like and which ones they don't. On some lower level songs, I've been struggling to get my song rank better than 10000, but on some of these I did that well on the first try. And with some miserable scores, too, like 8715th place on Green Twilight FFR Edit with only 8710 points. 53670 points on Synesthetic FFR Edit got me 4712th place. But 415950 points on FF7 Battle only got 17122th place. So people must not like the first two songs as much as the third. I just thought it was amusing because I certainly didn't expect to get a song rank that high with such low scores. I didn't mean to sidetrack too much, but I did want to comment about this since it was interesting and my first time playing most of those songs.

[AceOfSpades13]

Thats kinda what I've been doing, I can get 15 or lower misses on songs like Stalled out and Sushi Bars and I hope I'll be close to near-FC's soon.

[Tasselfoot]

what has honestly worked for me and the majority of people.... play good stepmania simfiles...

this was my progression:
summer 03 - discovered FFR, failed mario (timing was much harder at the time, but still...)
late summer 03 - discovered SM; downloaded all DDR Original simfiles... worked on AAing every song on Standard.
fall 03 - discovered that playing on faster scroll speeds made it easier to play (went from about 150bpm to c400)
winter 03 - was able to AA all standard ddr originals, started on heavy. also got a few originals.
spring 03 - went back to playing FFR... started AAAing songs... switched between FFR and SM, constantly getting better at both... went to alot of SM at faster speeds, more originals by reach, arch, and the other top simfile makers...
summer 03 - me is leet

something like that... mostly played SM to get good around december... went back to FFR every once in a while...

thats what i'd suggest doing... took me a full year of playing to be as good as i am.. prolly top30 or top25...

[Dronak]

Speeding up the songs actually makes them easier to play? A bit strange, but I can sort of see that with what I've played so far. Sometimes I am more accurate and get more perfects on faster runs while slower parts are sometimes harder to time just right. So what is it about StepMania that helps so many people improve? Just having more and different songs to practice? The speed mods? They're better synchronized? (Probably true since I've seen a number of various complaints about things being off here and I think some probably are a bit off.) Going for marvelous which is above perfect makes you aim for truly perfect timing? It's the same game as here, just with a different interface and software. So why does practicing with SM make you better faster than just practicing with FFR? I know lots of people say it does, but I'm having trouble seeing *why* it does.

P.S. -- The last few '03 entries should be '04.

[Tasselfoot]

because... think about this analogy... in sports, athletes cross train to improve their talents. same here. its a very similar activity, but SM has speed mods.... which allow you to read the notes better. plus its open to more songs, more variety of challenges to conquer... and is most definately more on-sync.

i guarentee you practice with 50-60 well accredited SM simfiles for 2-3 months, and you'll show huge improvements...

[AceOfSpades13]

What site is good to download a bunch of originals from good simfile makers?

[Moogy]

https://www.bemanistyle.com

[zajac]

The songs I suggest playing if you don't want anything too impossibly hard, but still somewhat challenging, is AFTER ME and PARTY 4 U and NEOMAX... Any others?

Those songs are just my favorite... Can't think of anymore at the moment...

[User6773]

How to get better at FFR:

1) Download Stepmania from www.stepmania.com and the Extreme (8th mix) bumper pack from www.ddruk.com
2) Pass Paranoia Survivor Max on Oni difficulty.
3) Come back to FFR and you should be doing awesome.

[AceOfSpades13]

Thanks, all of this helps a lot.

Edit ~ I downloaded the Extreme Mix, but its not a folder, and when I try to open it, it tells me to "select a file from which to view this". I put it in with the rest of the stepmania songs too, should I have put it in its own folder labeled "DDR Extreme Mix" or what?

[Tasselfoot]

it should look like this....... StepManis CVS/Songs/Extreme Mix/.... then within the Extreme Mix folder should be a folder for each one of the songs, and within each of those folders should be the .dwi, the .mp3, the .bg, etc...

that help?