Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

[krunkykai22]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

Okay I wanted to put a little input into this conversation :)

Let's look at the other level 73's there are:

Aim Burst
Bloodmeat (Heavy)
Caprice
Chaosmaid
Final Fantasy Last Battle Festival
Jasmine (Camelrape remix)
Mahou no Oshigoto
Otaku Speedvibe (ONI)
Overdrive
Piano Etude (Demon Fire)
Pitch Black (FFR Edit)
Runny Mornings (SGX Mix)
Since 1983
Spoils

With that list being said I have color coordinated in my PERSONAL opinion which ones are harder and easy and are comparable to Brandish Headless.

Green = Equivalent
Red = Harder
Blue = Easier


Pitch Black and Mahou I haven't colored because I don't remember them too much. But I have to say that Brandish really does fit in pretty well with the 73's. If you think about it Caprice is the easiest of the 73's if you can look passed the BNS. Bloodmeat's BPM is all the makes it hard along with the trills. Since 1983 is harder yes, BUT it's not entirely THAT much harder other then the fact 24th streaming is open to random goods being acquired.

IF anything, I would put Brandish as a 72 MERELY because it would fit in with songs like Gaussian Blur/Famicom Selecta/Sonata Qui. If you think about Brandish the length along with those repeated 32nd roll/jumps does make for a more difficult outro which in turn would boost the difficulty slightly. I think with this style of difficulty it's directly comparable to PANTS for that matter. IF it wasn't for that constant repetitiveness at the ending jumpstream patterns in PANTS it would merely be a high 11. (hate to say it but it's not THAT hard. Of course you need and need...ME is all around harder IMO then PATNS.)

I can see it though as a beginning 73 OR beginning 72 it fits around those 2 in both ways. So mainly whatever is voted would be fine, but definitely not lowered to a 71 imo.

[One Winged Angel]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

Alex brings up an interesting point. Although it's difficult to rate a file while taking into account how easily the player can be prone to mindblocking certain patterns, I think it's worth looking at.

Looking at krunky's list, I do have to say I associate BH's difficulty more so with that group of songs over the 72s, even though the file's so slow. I guess I just find the patterns 'ickier' than others do? I don't want that to be my argument for keeping it there though. Personally would be fine with either 72 or 73 at this point, but I think Alex feels very strongly about keeping it at 73.

If there's an overwhelming response for 72, we'll bump it down. But if most of you are indiffered to either 72 or 73, BH will probably stay where it is, as Alex is pretty set on 73. As of now, I think there's an almost equal mix between 'bump down to 72', '72 or 73', and 'keep it at 73'. We'll see what others have to say over the next few days before deciding what to do.

[dragonmegaXX]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

73 is good.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

I still feel it's clearly a cut above 72's. Don't tell me it's slow, it's not like the other files like Famicom where the 16ths are practically bursts because they are only 3-4 notes. Brandish the 32nds are short stream for most parts with horrible patterns that lead to mind block. It's 220 BPM stream with uncomfortable patterns, and it switches hands too so it tests both right and left. The file is also 3 minutes long with plenty of parts to mess up, Aim Burst has maybe 4 jump gluts in the whole file, that's not too many and they are nearly the exact same, the 32nds are easy jumptrills, and the mini jacks shouldn't even be taken into account, there easy, short, and there are very, very few of them. Brandish the whole file just doesn't stop being brutal. It has jacks, it has anchors, it has uncomfortable 220BPM jumpstream (the 32nds at 110BPM). The only 72 that might be around the same difficulty is Obscene amount of Steam, other than that I can't think of a 72 that compares. Brandish is also a file known to give mindblocks, it's given me mindblocks, Rob mindblocks, and plenty of other people I know. That's still something to consider.

I don't like the "don't tell me it's slow" attitude, as it's overly brash over a difference of two points.

As far as what you say about Aim Burst, you're intentionally neglecting the jacks in difficulty when they actually force two-frame intervals occasionally. Consider the speed that you have to hit those jacks to hit those as two amazings, just for reference. There might not be many, but they are relatively fast at 191 BPM.

Second off, you're sitting there saying that there's "not many jump-gluts" in Aim Burst (and being that there's none at all), I'm going to just assume really dense areas. First off -- Brandish's longest jumpstream (jumpstream being a sequence of notes that has at least one set of 8th note jumps over two beats since we're comparing normal quarter note jumpstreams from Aim Burst) is 13 notes (plus the larger but relatively smooth 32nd stream that follows the guitar riff, so 13+47 = 60 notes for longest stream). Granted, this is 220 BPM, but Aim Burst has a much rougher feel because it has huge stream with jumps actually coming in the MIDDLE of the stream. Because the jumps are in the middle of the stream, you are much more likely to split the jumps trying to hold the constant pace -- also, the first stream in Aim Burst is 256 consecutive notes, and that's counting jumps as singles just to give you an idea how much long the stream is. That stream also tails into 32nds, two notes after a [13], which can cause massive splitting. There's also a bit of one-handed galloping in Aim Burst, which requires a lot of control too. EDIT: also, at 191 BPM, there are a TON of frame discrepancies in the 16th streams.

The most that Brandish has in terms of split-heavy patterns are the five note [24]321[24] [24]321[24] -- yes, they are split heavy, but unlike most split heavy patterns, you're actually guided into and out of them with a basic backward scale/roll.

The likelihood of a file giving you bad habits really shouldn't be taken into account for difficulty in my opinion, but whatever. I have mindblocks on Xanthystramua and I can't beat 3-0-0-0 on it when it's an 85, but I have AAAs up to 90 in difficulty. I'm not complaining about the difficulty of that file, though.

EDIT: also, I'll make it clear that I've thrown away the initial 71, and I'm also willing to level with 73 if people can actually provide information (or until the thread gets locked) but until then, I'm going to fight for this to be lowered.

[krunkykai22]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

I understand my post wasn't necessarily beneficial as it was merely opinionated, however I do believe that Brandish Headless DOES have the potential to be where it is at. If I had access to do what you did for the screenshots in your OP, AJ I would more then gladly compare most parts in BH to those in the green highlighted areas, but seeing as I don't unless I go and play the songs and hopefully get a good SS of them, I have to suffice with that.

But, the only thing I will say is I will be convinced to lower it to a 72 but that's about it. Otherwise, leave it where it is.

[stavie33]

Re: Brandish Headless [73 or 71]

I agree that taking how easy it is to mind block a song into consideration shouldn't really be done cause it doesn't mean much, but I was just putting that out there that it's common. I don't know why we are comparing what some people find a hard 73 anyways to a song we're trying to bump down but after talking to Rob I'm just not going to talk about Aim Burst because it seems I'm bias to finding it's patterns overall extremely extremely easy. I find the file so easy in fact that after the 2nd playthrough BF I've neglected the AAA because I can probably do it on demand and would rather practice/whore other files with my limited playing time than spend 9 minutes or so netting that free AAA. So yeah I'm not gonna talk about Aim Burst cause for me it's too ez. So to focus on brandish alone I really think what keeps it a 73 is the one handed pressure. Instead of comparing it to 73's since we all seem to agree that it's on par with most of them, how about we try and show that it's on par or fits better with the 72's then or take a vote and call it. So far it seems like we'll leave it at 73 since most don't care or say leave it, but I'd say a stronger argument at this point would be to try and show me that it fits better with the 72's, something I don't see. I'm not trying to be harsh this is just a song I don't particularly see moving at all if ever. It feels perfect as a low-mid 73 to me on the scale, like a near perfect placement.