Make Stepmania Great Again

[lofty rhino]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

make stepmania bake again

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

serious question - could stepmania be elevated to an e-sport? mina and halogen brought up 'elitism' earlier in the thread. imo, i don't see the problem in having the most experienced members of the community setting the bar for high-tier competitive play. i think one of the problems we've addressed here is that there is no centralized authority, nothing to set standards for current players, not much incentive to progress other than self-directed goals.

it seems like esports these days are backed by shitloads of $$$, so obviously stepmania isn't going to get any major boost without some financing. but money does make the world go round n shit. if there were to be a centralized competition with prize money, that'd probably get some hype.

imo, it helps keep the fire burning if there's a "best player". back in the late 2000s, thaor was a pretty big deal, and seeing videos of him made me want to keep playing, even though i knew i wouldn't get on his level.

we've talked about introducing new players to sm, but what about retaining the existing community? wouldn't having an "official" tournament (or similar competitive outlet) make things a lot more interesting?

There are some FFR tournaments, and they work as well as they do due to having a currency up for grabs, in the form of FFR credits. I think as you mentioned there isn't much of a gain to host that kind of thing, unless the host is just in it to lose their hard-earned (begging on the streets is hard ok??) money. It's all well and good to hold a tournament as well, but with how spread out a lot of the playerbase, making it good would be difficult.

Sure, there are a group of top 4-ish players, and there are division ranks, but the issues with that is:
1) the same 4 people commonly being in the tournament would get dull, and I'm semi-confident that the ranking results would be the same each tournament
2) There's no real "formalized" divisions; unlike in FFR, people saying they're D_ is mostly up to their own interpretation. It's easy for someone who's D7 claim they're actually only D6, which effectively ruins the tournament for others.

That being said, if there were to be a tournament, rewards aside, I think a decent way to go about such an ordeal would be to:
-Have everyone interested enter the tournament
-Start the tournament with a low-ranked song (like D1 or so)
-Everyone who AA's moves on, everyone s)
-Rounds get harder and harder (eg. round 2 is a D2 file, round 3 is D3, etc)
-Once the round where nobody can AA comes, whoever has the highest score wins or something

This way, there's overall tournament winners, and pseudo-division winners as well, so average joe schmo can say "Well I didn't come first overall, but I won out of the fourth round contestants!" or something.

Again though FFR already does this.. Guess it could work out with SM.

[icontrolyourworld]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Me and celirra were chatting, just gonna post some of the ideas we talked about here:

In order to make Stepmania great again let's look at successful other games that have something SM doesn't but can have.
1) Overall 1 already good-to-go download of stepmania already set up with everything you need to just start playing right away. Stepmanias biggest gate to new players is definitely the set up.
-Songs/themes/noteskins installed
-Speedmods good to go (if we use 3.9/3.95 as a standardized dl we'd have to already make sure speedmods are already in, SM5 is good to go)
-Decide on 1 standard game to be downloaded, possibly include multiple version of stepmania in 1 download and have it load songs from the additionalsongsfolder= line to avoid doubling the size of download. But overall make sure that important things are already preset like having xwidghet, portable.ini, sounddrivers=waveout and vsync off, etc.

2) Implement an unlock system and achievement system. This would optimally be on the main screen of stepmania under an Achievements menu. Ease of navagation is key here, look at how achievements are divided in WoW based on expansions.
-Progression in stepmania while being a personal endeavor can be hard to gauge how good you are. Achievements along the lines of:
A/AA/AAA certain file in certain pack
play every file in certain pack (or x%)
division based achievement: aka yay you AA'ed zaghurims Another Planet ONI now you are D4 for example and put a bunch of achievements under a division so you can complete goals near your skill level
Play for X amount of time
Hit X amount of arrows
Hit X amount of arrows in X amount of time
-The unlock system can be tied to the achievement system.
-Have some sort of boss achievements
-a default stepmania download with preset songs we could implement a AAA/AA/FC bar similar to how ffr has one.
-Even rates can have achievements, we can literally come up with 1000's of achievements and give players who want to complete stepmania 100% (even though it's not really) a reason to play for a long time
-We can even have achievements for achieving so many achievements, why not?

Now here's the main meat of having an unlock system.
Most other games make you work for more content. We can give new players a large stepmania download like 15-20 gigs and present it to them over time with an unlock system. We can also fine tune it so that more experienced players can unlock harder content quickly while newer players can enjoy their time in packs near their skill level.
-For example in order to unlock Puritanical Penis Pack 1 and 2 you must either AAA X file in other pack, or play other easier pack for 1 hour or over 80% of the pack etc.
-Chain/expand on the last idea and boom you have players who can unlock Nuclear Blasts, Hard Songs, Yolo, Midares, in 30min-1hr of playing a default stepmania download. OR you'll have players still playing and enjoying ckmp, ppp, odi, smg, dcp for hours to come.
-In combination of an unlock system and an achievement system you give ALL players incentive to play more content. people LOVE achievements and unlocking stuff.

3) Stepmania should take notes from Osumania a more successful game. Mostly due to to their MP set up and how scores are recorded and players playback viewing. I'm not going to point out everything they do, but we should be doing what they do too. If they can, why can't we? If the goal is to bring in new players we should most definitely look at what is currently working.

4) Endgame content/having a hardest song/pack in the game.
-This might sound silly but if we objectively have a stepmania download with songs already preloaded into it, we can obviously have a hardest pack be the final unlock.
-People like to say I can do the hardest thing in x game.
-Gives a player a sense of beating a game.

With endgame content in mind, we have to consider how long your average new player might be interested in the game, we can't make them stay longer than that, but give them a reason to keep stepmania in mind. There's still a harder pack to play, you never beat the game kind of deal. But we can give players an objective end of game, I think we should be generous and give new players the benefit of the doubt, let's say achieving a D6 skill level or D5 is pretty reasonable end game and have packs push just a little bit further than that. Afterall this game is all about pushing yourself further.

Overall we should include probably the following packs in a download with this all in mind:
-DDR/ITG for starters and anything else we've mustered up over the years for introductory level packs, maybe otakus dream, or some pad packs
-amc, ckmp, dcp, f5, ffrcp, kbc, kbmp, Lcp, odi, ppp, smg, rf, vgmp, xoon (this is the main meat of stepmania imo, very successful pack series, proven fun, hours of content)
-bunch of files you probably don't have, hi19, nb, fullerene, hsmp, xaylmao, xeo, yolo
-midare, german dump, mina, attang, yolo dump

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Me and celirra were chatting, just gonna post some of the ideas we talked about here:

In order to make Stepmania great again let's look at successful other games that have something SM doesn't but can have.
1) Overall 1 already good-to-go download of stepmania already set up with everything you need to just start playing right away. Stepmanias biggest gate to new players is definitely the set up.
-Songs/themes/noteskins installed
-Speedmods good to go (if we use 3.9/3.95 as a standardized dl we'd have to already make sure speedmods are already in, SM5 is good to go)
-Decide on 1 standard game to be downloaded, possibly include multiple version of stepmania in 1 download and have it load songs from the additionalsongsfolder= line to avoid doubling the size of download. But overall make sure that important things are already preset like having xwidghet, portable.ini, sounddrivers=waveout and vsync off, etc.

2) Implement an unlock system and achievement system. This would optimally be on the main screen of stepmania under an Achievements menu. Ease of navagation is key here, look at how achievements are divided in WoW based on expansions.
-Progression in stepmania while being a personal endeavor can be hard to gauge how good you are. Achievements along the lines of:
A/AA/AAA certain file in certain pack
play every file in certain pack (or x%)
division based achievement: aka yay you AA'ed zaghurims Another Planet ONI now you are D4 for example and put a bunch of achievements under a division so you can complete goals near your skill level
Play for X amount of time
Hit X amount of arrows
Hit X amount of arrows in X amount of time
-The unlock system can be tied to the achievement system.
-Have some sort of boss achievements
-a default stepmania download with preset songs we could implement a AAA/AA/FC bar similar to how ffr has one.
-Even rates can have achievements, we can literally come up with 1000's of achievements and give players who want to complete stepmania 100% (even though it's not really) a reason to play for a long time
-We can even have achievements for achieving so many achievements, why not?

Now here's the main meat of having an unlock system.
Most other games make you work for more content. We can give new players a large stepmania download like 15-20 gigs and present it to them over time with an unlock system. We can also fine tune it so that more experienced players can unlock harder content quickly while newer players can enjoy their time in packs near their skill level.
-For example in order to unlock Puritanical Penis Pack 1 and 2 you must either AAA X file in other pack, or play other easier pack for 1 hour or over 80% of the pack etc.
-Chain/expand on the last idea and boom you have players who can unlock Nuclear Blasts, Hard Songs, Yolo, Midares, in 30min-1hr of playing a default stepmania download. OR you'll have players still playing and enjoying ckmp, ppp, odi, smg, dcp for hours to come.
-In combination of an unlock system and an achievement system you give ALL players incentive to play more content. people LOVE achievements and unlocking stuff.

3) Stepmania should take notes from Osumania a more successful game. Mostly due to to their MP set up and how scores are recorded and players playback viewing. I'm not going to point out everything they do, but we should be doing what they do too. If they can, why can't we? If the goal is to bring in new players we should most definitely look at what is currently working.

4) Endgame content/having a hardest song/pack in the game.
-This might sound silly but if we objectively have a stepmania download with songs already preloaded into it, we can obviously have a hardest pack be the final unlock.
-People like to say I can do the hardest thing in x game.
-Gives a player a sense of beating a game.

With endgame content in mind, we have to consider how long your average new player might be interested in the game, we can't make them stay longer than that, but give them a reason to keep stepmania in mind. There's still a harder pack to play, you never beat the game kind of deal. But we can give players an objective end of game, I think we should be generous and give new players the benefit of the doubt, let's say achieving a D6 skill level or D5 is pretty reasonable end game and have packs push just a little bit further than that. Afterall this game is all about pushing yourself further.

Overall we should include probably the following packs in a download with this all in mind:
-DDR/ITG for starters and anything else we've mustered up over the years for introductory level packs, maybe otakus dream, or some pad packs
-amc, ckmp, dcp, f5, ffrcp, kbc, kbmp, Lcp, odi, ppp, smg, rf, vgmp, xoon (this is the main meat of stepmania imo, very successful pack series, proven fun, hours of content)
-bunch of files you probably don't have, hi19, nb, fullerene, hsmp, xaylmao, xeo, yolo
-midare, german dump, mina, attang, yolo dump

As a condensed version of a lot of this, much of the framework for what is required here can be achieved via well-functioning online play. Looking at stepmaniaonline.net right now for example, there is a highscore-esque system set up, and I know smleaderboards does as well though that isn't automated and such. If there can be an automated leaderboard system via online connection (think even what FFR has for leaderboards on specific files) then more can be done in the way of achievements, unlocks, etc. A lot of it seems unreachable currently sadly but it's definitely a goal.

[MSB Khelly]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but I'm bored at night and this is my experience with getting "into" SM.

I've been playing vsrg for a little over 5 months now and I started from Osu mania (which is still my preferred game) after quitting standard. About a month into it Hinpoopo told me that I should really just play stepmania with the types of maps I preferred, which were all 90% SM converts anyways. I didn't want to; I tried it and the client was confusing to navigate so I just gave up.

He gave me links to noteskins and a theme (From staiain.net?) and told me to download packs from Stepmania online and left me at that. So I did that and I played stepmania a little but I didn't prefer the engine or the client at all. Why would I play on stepmania when all the maps that I prefer play better to me on Osu?

Without him at least pratically handing me the way to setup the client or where to download anything, I wouldn't have found it. Three weeks ago Barry told me to do something regarding SMLeaderboards and I basically play half and half since then. Right now with my osu mapset, all the maps are either too easy or too hard when I'm in need of more refined rates other than .75. .8,.9, 1.1,1.2, and sometimes 1.3 are exactly what I need and that's why I'm playing Stepmania more now.

I'd probably be interested in playing it more if there were something unofficially "official" that nearly cloned .ppy.sh.(Rigid Divisions instead of pp I guess, ability to see leaderboards, one-stop-shop for dl'ing packs and individual files. SMO just rubs me the wrong way in regards to this) I didn't even know where an SM community was. On the ffr forums? I didn't expect that. Maybe I'm just blind, but where do all the people that play SM congregate? Here? It's harder to get into if it feels like I'm playing a singleplayer game in the middle of nowhere.

Another problem I have is that I don't know what the hell any map is supposed to be if I haven't already played it before or know its name; I have to go look at a "Stepmania guidelines" spreadsheet or on SML to be able to find the adequate difficulty and map type I want to play or even just to search one for a song that sounds cool. Besides that, the difficulty numbers in most songs are just arbitrarily picked most of the times it seems. Oh wow, Beginner 40! I know that's just going to be a mid d7 dump because it says beginner ahaha funny.

What if I wasn't given those resources to check what I want to play? Kind of a negative mark for getting people to play imo.

[Celirra]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but I'm bored at night and this is my experience with getting "into" SM.

I've been playing vsrg for a little over 5 months now and I started from Osu mania (which is still my preferred game) after quitting standard. About a month into it Hinpoopo told me that I should really just play stepmania with the types of maps I preferred, which were all 90% SM converts anyways. I didn't want to; I tried it and the client was confusing to navigate so I just gave up.

He gave me links to noteskins and a theme (From staiain.net?) and told me to download packs from Stepmania online and left me at that. So I did that and I played stepmania a little but I didn't prefer the engine or the client at all. Why would I play on stepmania when all the maps that I prefer play better to me on Osu?

Without him at least pratically handing me the way to setup the client or where to download anything, I wouldn't have found it. Three weeks ago Barry told me to do something regarding SMLeaderboards and I basically play half and half since then. Right now with my osu mapset, all the maps are either too easy or too hard when I'm in need of more refined rates other than .75. .8,.9, 1.1,1.2, and sometimes 1.3 are exactly what I need and that's why I'm playing Stepmania more now.

I'd probably be interested in playing it more if there were something unofficially "official" that nearly cloned .ppy.sh.(Rigid Divisions instead of pp I guess, ability to see leaderboards, one-stop-shop for dl'ing packs and individual files. SMO just rubs me the wrong way in regards to this) I didn't even know where an SM community was. On the ffr forums? I didn't expect that. Maybe I'm just blind, but where do all the people that play SM congregate? Here? It's harder to get into if it feels like I'm playing a singleplayer game in the middle of nowhere.

Another problem I have is that I don't know what the hell any map is supposed to be if I haven't already played it before or know its name; I have to go look at a "Stepmania guidelines" spreadsheet or on SML to be able to find the adequate difficulty and map type I want to play or even just to search one for a song that sounds cool. Besides that, the difficulty numbers in most songs are just arbitrarily picked most of the times it seems. Oh wow, Beginner 40! I know that's just going to be a mid d7 dump because it says beginner ahaha funny.

What if I wasn't given those resources to check what I want to play? Kind of a negative mark for getting people to play imo.

This is exactly the kind of thing I expected and such, some issues are currently working on being addressed (setup/startup guide, potentially also better default files/theme/etc), but others like the levels and knowing the map ahead of time is pretty difficult and divisive within the community. There have been efforts made, be it through sites like SML or the spreadsheet, or things like MSD, or even referring to what Dingleberries was working on with having a program automatically adjust difficulties, all of which shot down due to subjectivity with what deserves what level.

It's sad to me how if I want to get anyone into SM, I instead say "Yeah go to flashflashrevolution.com and play that to start out".

[mwes]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

can we use something like LR2 where the client just auto send the score to the leaderboard which can be coded separately? you know, like the osu botnet thingy but with play-data. At the current pace integrating a new feature(real time updating ranking for songs) would take decades to develop.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

make stepmania bake again

stepmania bakery hero

[Spenner]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

A lot of platform games nearly fall into this concept and I could see many 4 key SM style games that feel the same rush but accomplish different goals.

[Dynam0]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

A centralized authority for an open source game where it's incredibly easy to cheat yeah okay

[Azpb Djbread]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Enslave an entire population of a 3rd world country and lock them in a rythem room

(just full of rythem games, yah kno m8)

[Skelif]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Well, I have been playing Stepmania for 3 months, so the memories of starting out are still fresh.

I already played some music games (Audiosurf, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Beat Hazard), and I saw someone mention Stepmania on a forum, so I thought I'd check it out. I search it on youtube and click on the AGDQ showcase. I was truly amazed and it convinced me to try the game.

I download Stepmania, start it up, and the default theme welcomes me, which looks like something out of the 90s, but it's not that big of a deal. I load up the first song: Goin' Under. I press the arrows as they come up the screen, looks like fun. I finish the chart, now let's move on to the next one! I press the down arrow, nothing's happening. I press again, still nothing. I press it repeatedly... I hear a click: instead of changing the song, it changed the difficulty! Cool, now I know how to do that. So I guess to change the song, I have to press the left and right arrows...? Yes! Alright, now I know that too. At this point I remember that Staiain and Etienne played with 4 fingers, so I head to the options menu and change the keybindings to DFJK. While I'm there, I quickly glance over the rest of the settings to get more familiar with the game. I play another song with the new settings, it works great.

The game is still a little overwhelming, so I go to Google and search for "stepmania getting started". I find a guide, it explains some of the terminology and that you have to download packs to get more songs. Alright, I google for "stepmania recommended packs", and I quickly find some packs recommended for beginners: DDR, ITG for absolute newbies, and Stepping Stones 1-3 for beginner keyboard players. I also download a theme that is more pleasant to look at.

After playing ITG packs for a week I thought I would give Stepping Stones a try (I'm a keyboard player after all, right?), and... I got absolutely destroyed. This pack is way too hard for beginners. After this traumatic experience I went back to playing pad packs. I also switched from mmod to cmod because I got fed up by all the unexpected bpm changes and stops.

Around 2 weeks ago I thought I had enough experience for keyboard charts, so I went back to the Stepping Stones packs. Well, it was still hard... but I said "Fuck it!" and just continued playing them anyway. At least I could get some Bs and As this time. The problem was that I was playing pad charts only, so my technique developed for pad files and I had trouble hitting certain patterns. For example, when there is a jump in a 16th stream, I completely trip over. I also started looking into the Otaku's Dream packs since they have some easier keyboard charts. Another problem was that I kept mindlessly increasing the scroll speed and as a consequence I had trouble reading new patterns, so I set my cmod back to 600.

Playing through the Stepping Stones packs I constantly thought to myself that if I get good enough, I will make beginner charts for spread, but reading this thread motivated me to start stepping right away, maybe I can even send some files for the Introductory Pack.

Personally, I didn't have problem googling around for stuff, you can find everything with ease, though I admit, it will help to have one huge doc that explains everything and has links to important resources. My biggest complaint is that there are no real beginner packs for spread players.

[sunn0glasses]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

Well, I have been playing Stepmania for 3 months, so the memories of starting out are still fresh.

I already played some music games (Audiosurf, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Beat Hazard), and I saw someone mention Stepmania on a forum, so I thought I'd check it out. I search it on youtube and click on the AGDQ showcase. I was truly amazed and it convinced me to try the game.

I download Stepmania, start it up, and the default theme welcomes me, which looks like something out of the 90s, but it's not that big of a deal. I load up the first song: Goin' Under. I press the arrows as they come up the screen, looks like fun. I finish the chart, now let's move on to the next one! I press the down arrow, nothing's happening. I press again, still nothing. I press it repeatedly... I hear a click: instead of changing the song, it changed the difficulty! Cool, now I know how to do that. So I guess to change the song, I have to press the left and right arrows...? Yes! Alright, now I know that too. At this point I remember that Staiain and Etienne played with 4 fingers, so I head to the options menu and change the keybindings to DFJK. While I'm there, I quickly glance over the rest of the settings to get more familiar with the game. I play another song with the new settings, it works great.

The game is still a little overwhelming, so I go to Google and search for "stepmania getting started". I find a guide, it explains some of the terminology and that you have to download packs to get more songs. Alright, I google for "stepmania recommended packs", and I quickly find some packs recommended for beginners: DDR, ITG for absolute newbies, and Stepping Stones 1-3 for beginner keyboard players. I also download a theme that is more pleasant to look at.

After playing ITG packs for a week I thought I would give Stepping Stones a try (I'm a keyboard player after all, right?), and... I got absolutely destroyed. This pack is way too hard for beginners. After this traumatic experience I went back to playing pad packs. I also switched from mmod to cmod because I got fed up by all the unexpected bpm changes and stops.

Around 2 weeks ago I thought I had enough experience for keyboard charts, so I went back to the Stepping Stones packs. Well, it was still hard... but I said "Fuck it!" and just continued playing them anyway. At least I could get some Bs and As this time. The problem was that I was playing pad charts only, so my technique developed for pad files and I had trouble hitting certain patterns. For example, when there is a jump in a 16th stream, I completely trip over. I also started looking into the Otaku's Dream packs since they have some easier keyboard charts. Another problem was that I kept mindlessly increasing the scroll speed and as a consequence I had trouble reading new patterns, so I set my cmod back to 600.

Playing through the Stepping Stones packs I constantly thought to myself that if I get good enough, I will make beginner charts for spread, but reading this thread motivated me to start stepping right away, maybe I can even send some files for the Introductory Pack.

Personally, I didn't have problem googling around for stuff, you can find everything with ease, though I admit, it will help to have one huge doc that explains everything and has links to important resources. My biggest complaint is that there are no real beginner packs for spread players.

hey dude, much respect for stickin with it! if you have the urge to make charts, go for it. you'd be surprised how much chart-making can help you improve your own skills as a player.

[Skelif]

Re: Make Stepmania Great Again

hey dude, much respect for stickin with it! if you have the urge to make charts, go for it. you'd be surprised how much chart-making can help you improve your own skills as a player.

Yeah, I'm trying my best to improve.
Stepmania is truly an amazing game, the better I get the more I like it. I just wish more people would play it.