Make Stepmania Great Again

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

It also has something to do with people being closed-minded in general, as well...

[choof]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

It also has something to do with people being closed-minded in general, as well...

welcome to stepmania

[Dinglesberry]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Every game fills its own niche, stepmania for practicing since it runs the best and has the best options (judge, rates etc) most customizable, FFR when you actually want your scores to "matter" since it has the best leaderboards, and osu if you want to weeb out since every ranked map is anime Kappa

Its not like this is some melee vs brawl tier shit, all the vsrg are basically the same gameplay wise..

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

So hold on someone stop me if I sound fucking crazy but here's what I think

- We don't need to give a shit about new player retention rates of our game

This community is never going to outdo osu at convincing a bunch of 12 year olds that playing 3 star maps to anime ops all day is the singular focus of their lives. Sure stepmania has a lot of draw to new players it's just masked by the incredible barrier to entry the game currently possesses. I have frequently talked about the concept of specifically creating a pack that mimics ffr's 1-10 difficulty level designed to handhold new players through the introductory elements of the game and I've wanted to see this done for years now but while everyone agrees that it's a good idea nobody has once stepped up and said to me hey why don't we get rolling on this. And before you ask me why I don't just do it myself I want to be 100% honest about something. I really, really don't give a shit how large this community is. I'm going to keep playing until I don't think the game is fun anymore and then I'm going to go do something else. As much as there are people here who I like and respect and have forged friendships with, the nameless faceless concept of a massive community full of dawdling fawning preteens does not appeal to me. It seems from my perspective that very little gets done unless I do it myself (with respect to the 4k kb community) and I've honestly been doing a lot of that and the natural consequence of this is that I only end up doing what I want to see done, and an effective introductory experience to new players is just not a priority. It would be nice sure, but so would a lot of things in life. So let's talk about why we shouldn't give a shit about new player retention rates.

- Stepmania is one of if not the most matured kb community in the world.

This is inarguable at this point. We have a disturbingly long lineage of high quality playable (read: not stupid fuck promotional videos that exist to disguise the absence of playable) content. We have fostered the growth of dozens of the best kb charters in the world many of whom are still active and producing wonderful content to this very day. Despite constant declarations of death the charting community is as or more active than it was in 2007, and on top of this is exerting a large influence on the charting meta within communities such as osu. Charting aside the sm kb community also has the greatest wealth and concentration of player knowledge in existence. I'm talking about real knowledge, not the whole fucking "hahhaha osu makes u better at league of legends because both game involve using ur mouse!!!! hahahaha 430xxxsniperwindowwipersz" bullshit. I'm talking the kind of knowledge that is the result of more than a decade of players breaking down and analyzing the game and how it's played and putting it back together from the ground up.

These are our advantages as a community, this is what we should embrace, and if we want the community to grow (and by we I mean you guys) you need to target the right demographic. And that demographic is the players in other games that have grown enough to realize that their respective communities just don't cut it outside of drawing players in. That's where stepmania excels, everywhere else we don't. We have the capacity to retain those players and once you get the ball rolling there they'll go back and tell their buddies "hey you know osu is actually kind of a total fucking dud in terms of literally everything outside weaboox factor I'm gonna go play stepmania you guys should too".

Sadly the stepmania transitional experience here is also total dogshit. Sadly stepmania visibility is also pretty terrible, though admittedly not as bad as the transitional experience. People aren't going to realize how bad their game is unless they can see a better alternative and importantly that alternative is easily accessible. Stepmania also lacks a couple of key features that really add gravity to the draw. We're talking online rankings and leaderboards, a centralized nexus site where players can track their improvement over time and compete against other players. Centralized resources for newer players transitioning from other games to help get them started. Centralized resources on how to improve, discussions on different methods of approach to the game. Wow deja vu this is really starting to feel familiar, like I already tried doing this for everyone already. Anyway, for some people online play is a huge part of the draw. Smo isn't great but it's not bad and with a little work it could be much better.

The reality here is this is the best shot stepmania has right now of expanding at any rate beyond what it is now (if it is indeed even expanding), if we can't do this. If we can't fucking convince the people just playing
osumania 4k
osumania 4k
osumania 4k
that they should be playing Stepmania instead, then we have no goddamn hope in the first place.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Stupid idea incoming:

Just speaking for myself here, but I think it would be fun to experiment with having performance tied to something in some way other than mere self-improvement, and one obvious approach is to make Stepmania a sub-mechanic in some larger game.

For example, an RPG where battling is done via DDR -- short little songs for enemies (which also allows for repetition / practice of simple step patterns) or for groups of enemies, longer songs for harder enemies, really long songs for bosses, harder bosses that start slamming you with modifiers, courses, etc.

Or if you really want to get tricky, maybe in some cases you have to play Doubles, or 5-panel, or whatever. Sky's the limit.

This sort of approach can also provide a clear path for newcomers while also incrementally building on their skill levels (you could also adjust the initial difficulty mode if you want to start on a more appropriate level, though). And since everyone would be starting this anew, it would help foster a community feel.

Of course, developing something like this would probably be resource-intensive to do right, but it would be an interesting way to play the game if you've become bored with the usual "ehhh flip through song wheel, find something interesting, play it, and repeat these steps for 10+ years" mode of operation.

I simply don't believe that relying on Stepmania alone is going to be enough if the plan is to someone expand the community... that's an exercise in futility, IMO.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

don't think any of your points are crazy in the slightest - disagree with a few (perhaps because of misunderstandings); will respond after eating some pizza, etc.

[ferrarizzzz]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

if SMO was improved a little bit, idk maybe update the interface and add new features (i'm no designer/programmer, i do some VBA/SQL and thats about it) it could be competitive to osumania 4k and start taking players over. one idea would be to write network code to connect single files or entire packs to SMO online with a "shop" interface so files can be downloaded right in the SMO client instead of externally (lol ripped from osu i think?). it'd just sap HTML from a specific page, grab .zip files from one URL (ie SMO's pack page) and compile it into a shop... not sure if this is possible. that way when packs come out (zips are added to the page) anyone in SMO could see that in the "shop."

[sunn0glasses]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Not an unpopular opinion at all, especially with the way that you brought your point across. self-improvement is a huge part of the game, and yes, is a huge part of this niche community. However, that alone, for me, doesn't make the game competitive (and there's no argument back and forth for this: we both will have to agree to disagree because it's very much black or white in my eyes). Anyone can improve at a hobby because they aspire to be better, but that doesn't mean you're being competitive with yourself as much as it is a desire become more proficient (proficiency vs. competition are two different roads imo). Take playing an instrument for example: certainly, you could aspire to perform better than someone else, but if you're using simply playing to get better without benchmarking against someone else, then I feel like the competitive element is null. I certainly respect your opinion, though being that regardless of that minor point: self-improvement is huge.

i guess we can all agree that stepmania is a highly subjective game

like playing an instrument, it's really up to the player to set their own goals and intentions. seems like most of us have our own ideas as to what the point of stepmania is as a whole, in terms of relating to a grander community

i've kind of lost track of who wants what here

i think i'm agreeing with some contributors to this conversation in that we're better off catering the small community as it is. but there are others here who want more universally friendly content for the game.

subjectivemania 2016?

[Dinglesberry]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

For example, an RPG where battling is done via DDR -- short little songs for enemies (which also allows for repetition / practice of simple step patterns) or for groups of enemies, longer songs for harder enemies, really long songs for bosses, harder bosses that start slamming you with modifiers, courses, etc.

bro thats the best idea ive ever heard yo make it like an xp system n shit, like yo imagine a huge boss battle to get to a new division

too bad no one can make it, and whoever has the ability to actually make a game like this ends up creating l0lanotherpadgame http://store.steampowered.com/app/340960/

[Flossy97]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

That game exists, and I think it just came outt: "The Metronomicon"

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

bro thats the best idea ive ever heard yo make it like an xp system n shit, like yo imagine a huge boss battle to get to a new division

too bad no one can make it, and whoever has the ability to actually make a game like this ends up creating l0lanotherpadgame http://store.steampowered.com/app/340960/

holy shit will you shut up and actually contribute rather than spewing bullshit

[Reincarnate]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

That game exists, and I think it just came outt: "The Metronomicon"

Wait what? That just came out yesterday.

I've been rattling this DDR + RPG idea around in my head for years, finally say it out loud, and I'm one day late?



In all seriousness it's a lot different from what I had in mind, but still, looks interesting!

[SKG_Scintill]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

gud thred

[sunn0glasses]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

mina summed up my sentiment waaaay better than i did.

and like, yo, i do not want to play an rpg.

there's a point to it all being the way it is. stepmania is, in my opinion, amazing in its simplicity. that's why simfiles and keyboard play have developed so much over the years.

gimmicks won't make stepmania better

edit: furthermore, it's not the community's fault that not many people took interest and stuck with it. it's that the vast majority of people just don't see the appeal in getting into the game - the people that do get into stepmania, though, get into it real heavy, and that level of play and commitment isn't worth sacrificing for lower standards or more gimmicks. so like, if the masses don't get it, fuck em :/

sorry if this all sounds pretentious

love u guys

[Walrusizer]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

mina summed up my sentiment waaaay better than i did.

and like, yo, i do not want to play an rpg.

there's a point to it all being the way it is. stepmania is, in my opinion, amazing in its simplicity. that's why simfiles and keyboard play have developed so much over the years.

gimmicks won't make stepmania better

gimmicks wont make stepmania better, but apparently they will make more 12 year olds play it, as displayed by the undertale mod charts.