YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

[Oni-Paranoia]

Marathons/Courses have been around for quite some time. Most players seem to have a lack of interest in them though. If anything, a lot of players label them as interesting or cool when they see them, but that's it. I admit it's time consuming to create a script for a single song but it's not that difficult, especially for players that understand SM. Similar to stepping, you're creating a flow that goes with the music or even just emphasizing sounds with modifiers.

Question is...
What is it about seeing modded/scripted files that gathers your interest? If not, why doesn't it gather your interest?

For those who don't know click here for an example of an original ITG2 marathon.

As a small (top of my head) description, a Marathon/Course contains 4-5 songs typically with modifiers that activate and deactivate throughout the songs making the song more difficult, or fun to play.

I'd appreciate it if we can keep this thread semi-serious.

[EtienneSM]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

You actually reminded me to download the WinDEU Hates You courses, considering I never got around to playing them on pad.

Anyways, for me, I love courses, they're unique, extremely fun to play through and could potentially help your reading skills. The only downside to courses is that they're usually only fun to play for the first or second time, because yoi don't know what's coming and it makes it extremely fun. Shame that there aren't many courses anymore. WinDEU essentially made every good course so maybe that's why people lost interest as well, haha.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

I'd appreciate it if we can keep this thread semi-serious.

i feel like this is directed at me

[Oni-Paranoia]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

You actually reminded me to download the WinDEU Hates You courses, considering I never got around to playing them on pad.

Anyways, for me, I love courses, they're unique, extremely fun to play through and could potentially help your reading skills. The only downside to courses is that they're usually only fun to play for the first or second time, because yoi don't know what's coming and it makes it extremely fun. Shame that there aren't many courses anymore. WinDEU essentially made every good course so maybe that's why people lost interest as well, haha.

I have a handful of goodies and so do some of his friends from back then. I guess advertisement to some extent would have been good years ago.

What about SM courses though? Or just single scripted songs for KB files since SM5 has this feature?

i feel like this is directed at me

If the shoe fits but no, you don't come to mind as someone who has any animosity toward me.

[stargroup100]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

This drives back an idea about fairness in game design which relates to xmod charts as well. It comes down to "Is this chart/course sightreadable?" If you can't react to a note as you see it coming, then how is that fair?

Humans can theoretically only react as fast as about 130 milliseconds, and average reaction speed is about 230 milliseconds. The note that appears on the screen must not only appear for at least that long before hitting the receptor, but it must also travel in such a way that it is clear which receptor it will hit and when. If it should change trajectory for any reason, the player must have at least that much time to then reassess the note's trajectory.

People didn't know this many years ago, and despite some of the effects being really cool to watch, the charts were unplayable without pure memorization (like Glitchcraft). Nowadays, I think people seem to be more aware of this.

So I don't have a problem with these modifiers as long as they're fair, with a few exceptions, but those I probably hate for different reasons.

[BilliumMoto]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

The UKSRT courses, especially the newer ones, are really fcking awesome and cool. Don't play pad tho.

[Oni-Paranoia]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

So I don't have a problem with these modifiers as long as they're fair, with a few exceptions, but those I probably hate for different reasons.

I agree with this. I believe a song should be passable or in rare cases contain a trick to understanding (WinDEU's Sugarkill X does this well.)

On top of passable, most notes should be noticeable. Basically, a solid trick to most custom courses are to look at certain areas of the screen depending on the modifiers. If you look low toward the bottom of the screen or below the combo count, naturally you can read almost every modifier (this is how the mod boomerang is readable.)

The UKSRT courses, especially the newer ones, are really fcking awesome and cool. Don't play pad tho.

Link?

[BilliumMoto]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

my favorites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6AwTVozORQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6aAwpaEi3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHz2BVaowXs

http://youtu.be/Jhwanxb4yOg?list=UUg...mQULiflvzO51eA <- best one

WinDEU essentially made every good course so maybe that's why people lost interest as well, haha.

nobody gives taro4012 any credit

pretty much everything on this guy's channel is cool

[Oni-Paranoia]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

my favorites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6AwTVozORQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6aAwpaEi3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHz2BVaowXs

http://youtu.be/Jhwanxb4yOg?list=UUg...mQULiflvzO51eA <- best one


nobody gives taro4012 any credit

pretty much everything on this guy's channel is cool

These are interesting but these are also custom scripts which requires knowledge of Lua. Creating regular marathons don't require anything more than knowing the games modifiers. Nonetheless those are awesome.

Third link, around two minutes has some extremely difficult sections to read. No way some of those sections were sight-readable.

[Jousway]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

nobody gives taro4012 any credit
l

he's da best

[Mollocephalus]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

Taro courses are sex

also when it comes to ITG i only use M-mods, screw cmods

[lurker]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

i haven't seen anything by taro other than the mawaru series
anyway, i have to agree with stargroup and say that modifiers are perfectly fine so long as they don't make charts impossible to sightread
as far as kb xmod files go this means lowering the nps as the difference between the current scroll speed and the median scroll speed increases

in case you needed another reason to get out of the stone age, sm5 brings PIU-style speed changes to the game which change the scrolling speed without changing the bpm of the chart
these make it a lot easier to make speed mod charts, eliminates the discrete speed changes which were forced by using bpm multiplication, and makes reading charts slightly easier by making the color of notes 100% dependable to determine timing

[AD4M-V]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

I remember the first one I saw (around seven years ago) was Windeu's first Insomnia course played on an SM program. Something was wrong with my head, since I couldn't stop re-watching it over and over again.

I love it when mods correspond to the music! The game has a chance to dance while you struggle to sightread your song. These days, I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see something new on someone's dedicab that manages not to crash the game. (It was fun hearing peoples' reactions even when LUA was in its early stages.)

I know there are quite a few people that do these things, but I only seem to check up on Windeu, Taro4012, and Puurokulho. I guess I should look out for more!

[TC_Halogen]

Re: YOUR opinion on modifiers, Marathons/Courses.

I guess this would be an appropriate time to show something I was working on, haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s20S2sgLvPA

p.s. this is for ITG, triples are intentional, I am a PIU player, etc.