ranks

[Arch0wl]

I've been playing FFR again recently, and I've noticed this oddity: the harder the song, the more people seem to come out of nowhere to occupy its higher ranks.

For example, on Revolutionary Etude 130,000 people played it and I'm in the top 250. Yet for Death Piano, which not only has harder jacks but longer jacks, I'm barely in the top 700, and Death Piano by comparison has only been played by 39,000 people. There are other instances like this, but the DP-Revo comparison really drives home the point because they require similar skills. You'd think that this would be the opposite -- obviously if you play Death Piano you're the kind of person who would play songs in similar difficulty ranges, and Revolutionary Rtude should have come to your attention at some point.

Does anyone know what could account for this disparity? I've been making a few spread files recently, and I like to know where I stand relative to everyone else just in case my files are too easy or too hard. If these ranks really are reflective of everyone else's skill that's fine to me, but it doesn't seem like it.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: ranks

Well, one of the biggest differences in play counts can be the release date. You have to figure that DP was released MUCH later down the line than Revolutionary Etude was (when there were more users). Death Piano has a tendency to be in the top 10 daily played songs. However, when comparing the top ranks of the songs, you'll have a lot of newer players (and newer elites/pros) who care about playing/scoring well on a file that is genuinely hard (Death Piano), in comparison to one that contains artificial difficulty (in Revo's case, background, all blue note, etc.). If you want the best comparison of difficulties, you might want to compare two files that have near the same release date and have the near the same difficulty level.

Alternatively, there might be people on alternate accounts tearing up the ranks of newer songs as well.

There could be other factors though - I'm not sure. Great topic, it's definitely something that I wonder now.

[Arch0wl]

Re: ranks

I had considered that the blue arrow factor might be an issue, but it doesn't seem like it. I mean, no one seems to have trouble with the more clogged parts of Death Piano, which seem equally difficult to read. The daily song thing I never considered, partly because I didn't know there was a daily song -- it's worth thinking about.

The alt thing I considered too. I don't know if FFR logs anonymous plays into the ranks. If it doesn't, there's one other possibility: people who play at school may be playing on other people's accounts. Still, you'd think that if you're good enough at the game to get into the top 500 on Death Piano that you'd want to be good on other songs like Revolutionary. If the same people who played DP played Revo presumably my score on Revo should be in the top 700 as well, not in the top 250.

[jimerax]

Re: ranks

As for those 2 songs, almost only combo matters on DP (aka mash combo skill), yet PA is also important on Revo.

Also still most of Revo scores are done when FFR had ave-miss, it was really hard to get 620+ combo.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: ranks

I mean, no one seems to have trouble with the more clogged parts of Death Piano, which seem equally difficult to read.

While Death Piano as a whole is a bit more congested as a chart, as JX said - mashing can get you through certain sections and you'll do relatively fine. Another thing to think about when comparing Revolutionary Etude with any other song is it demands more speed and stamina when it comes to jacks. Even though the song is short, the moment the jack sections start, the song becomes painfully difficult to combo. Timing your way out of the jacks is also difficult because of the previously mentioned artificial difficulty as well.

It's also considerably harder to mash through Revo because of the amount of jacks in the song - if you want to full combo the song while mashing, you can't exactly be slow with the process. Those in the top 200 can FC it with relatively decent PA, or just barely miss the FC (or mash). DP's mashing difficulty is considerably lower.

[Coolboyrulez0]

Re: ranks

Talking about inflating ranks via alt account AAAing, can we put a system in place where only one AAA per IP is counted? There are many alts who AAA high-level (and low-level) files which then artificially increase the AAA count and one's average rank.

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: ranks

Revolutionary's jack patterns are much more intense than Death Piano themself - DP's patterns are specifically made so they're somewhat fluent to do. Revo has really bad jack patterns such as [34][14][34][14] for example, which is ultimately worse than any other jack pattern in Death Piano.

IMO, Revo is much harder than DP especially with that damn background making me hallucinate. I have to lower my speedmod whenever I play it.

One more note to add: Death Piano is mainy 12th jacks. That is, if they're at 170 bpm then that translates to 127.5 bpm 16ths, MUCH slower than the 148 bpm 16th long jacks in Revo. The only "fast" jack in DP is the one at the end which is a 32nd trill at 170 bpm, but most of the file has jacks slower than Revo which is why Revo is actually more intense than DP overall

[Arch0wl]

Re: ranks

Okay, here's another example: I played Vertex BETA and intentionally messed up at around 650 combo but finished the song anyway. My rank was 3,700. Then I played it again, making sure to get at least 1000 combo. My rank was 2,500.

Not that I'm doubting FFR's userbase or anything, but I find it kind of hard to believe that there are roughly 4000 people who can get at least a 650 combo on BETA and 2500 people who can get a 1000 combo. Hell, I'm not sure that many people have even posted on the brag board; that's double the amount of people on KBO. Plus, it seems like if you can get a 650 combo on BETA (which mostly regurgitates the same stream) you're probably capable of getting a 1000 combo, so I don't know what's up with the 1500 people who can't crank out another 400 arrows. If you've advanced your skill to that point, it's not like you lack persistence.

I mean, there could be a huge silent majority of pros I'm unaware of. But it seems like if FFR logs anonymous plays, I could definitely be responsible for at least 100 of those "ranks", because I rampaged Vertex BETA at the end of finals week one semester when my girlfriend and I re-discovered FFR.

[Izzy]

Re: ranks

I believe it is due to the lack of combo breakers in ffr. There are so many people that just mash every song and get the full combo. There are also a lot of really good people. You can get 1 good on a difficulty 10 and have rank 350.

[HoneyMelonCalibrator]

Re: ranks

Songs like Vertex Beta and Death Piano have tons of players due to their high popularity. Not to mention, DP is easier to combo via mashing as opposed to Revo. Maybe if ranks were based on raw scores rather than combo scores, we wouldn't see this problem

[Izzy]

Re: ranks

Yea, my 2 mises and 20 goods on minute waltz would actually be a really good score instead of rank 3000 or something.

[Arch0wl]

Re: ranks

Sure, Vertex is popular, but I don't think that accounts for all of it. I mean, if there were 4000 people capable of getting between a 650 and 1000 combo on Vertex I'm sure you'd see that reflected in the forums somehow. I think most of us would agree that if you can get between that combo count, you're most likely a "regular" -- except that 4000 people is more than double the amount of threads we have on numerous forums on this website.

[Hakulyte]

Re: ranks

This may not seem much but if you take all my AAAs in every account it's a good -1000 rank for everyone and I don't think I'm the only one with alts. /duh



More seriously songs like DP got and still have tons of cheated scores that are not only within the top 10 ranks but also a little lower as well. I mean if we only look at the top 200:

2 d4azzor
4 d4azzor21
5 $peedKills
6 cheztheguy
27 brynpttrsn /unlikely compared to scores on other songs.
32 lolearal /same as above
40 lolol i win /same as above
72 AnOptimusPrime /used to cheat on other stuff.
73 DEATH_PIANO_FC /alt
76 megadeath141 /lol 2-0-1-0 yeah right.
80 pie4thewin /unlikely
96 IonzFTW /unlikely
165 iAmnOtaMaC! /unlikely
/lol alt oh wait-

Let's ignore the 50+ potential DSers that got 1200+ boos on this and you can pretty much tell why your rank is so bad.

[Zageron]

Re: ranks

On vertex BETA I can only get an 850 combo. There are sections that just mess me up.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: ranks

Talking about inflating ranks via alt account AAAing, can we put a system in place where only one AAA per IP is counted? There are many alts who AAA high-level (and low-level) files which then artificially increase the AAA count and one's average rank.

What about people who live together and play the game within the same house?