The Simfile Quality Debate

[Yesssss]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

care to explain how people whims are objective metrics? people whims fit the definition of subjective so perfectly. i suggest you look up the words "whim" and "subjective" in a dictionary.

edit: whim: http://dictionary.reference.com/brow...src=ref&ch=dic
subjective: http://dictionary.reference.com/brow...src=ref&ch=dic

oh... I thought that similarities within the biological responses of the human population constitutes as objectiveness whereas the differences were the subjective elements.

Apparently they're both subjective? Is there no word for "similarities within the biological responses of the human population?"

[kaiten123]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

Is there no word for "similarities within the biological responses of the human population?"

the closest thing i can think of would be something like "popular opinion" or "consensus" but one is a 2 word phase and neither is really the same thing.

[kommisar]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

debit has it. the pump example goes well actually. they use video/lyric relevancy to accentuate parts of the song.

First thing that comes to mind is i'll give you all my love cz/nm, the end stream goes on while she's running, kinda to simulate the video etc.

since there are no keynotes in stepmania, it's nice to have the feeling you're actually playing the songs with different accentuations.

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

I'm going to first just outright summarize my view: I don't think you can make an "objective metric." An objective metric is something that is a true indicator of something, independent of preferences. I don't think this applies here.

How can we possibly say "this file is objectively better than this file"? No matter what metric you choose to compare across two files, that metric will boil down to a user-preference which is inherently subjective. Even "structure" is pretty subjective.

I don't think we can treat opinion and quality as completely independent concepts. We usually define a high-quality apple as high-quality because it's healthy, tastes better, looks better, and doesn't make us sick. These all tie into things that give us utility.

The question then becomes "Could we recognize a stepfile as being high quality even if we hate it?" Even if I find Gone With The Wind to be utterly boring, can I still admit it's a quality movie?

I think that's what we're really looking for here -- something that we can acknowledge as being a widely-accepted metric of utility regardless of our own particular preferences. But whatever that answer is, it's not going to be objective. It's going to be "subjective but widely agreed upon."

[stargroup100]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

even though i did enjoy the second one more (not by much since the first was funny for a bit), that's still my opinion. even if the vast majority of people like it more its still just their opinions. large groups of people agreeing on something do not make it objectively true. jk, it does, the earth was flat for a long time (when that was the general concensus) and then magically became round later

I provided an extreme example. There is absolutely no way in which that first song is better than the second. I don't care what anyone's opinion is. It's not about large groups of people agreeing on it, it's about objective standards that define what makes certain sounds pleasing to the ears.

The simple fact is that the earth is round no matter what. The fact of the matter is that second song is more pleasing to the ear than the first song. No general consensus or opinion changes that idea.

aka you're wrong

[Kraezymann]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

So I am confused, please help me out.

Pertaining to the songs stargroup and kaiten123 are talking about; I haven't listened to either song, so no one can say that one song is better than another, right?. Because there is no proof that its true?

Its the same when I see posts about files. Until I play a certain file, no one is right, correct? Because at that point all I am reading are opinions about it. And so, the file becomes completely subjective (unless there is something mathematically wrong with it, like offset or the song is of poor audio quality), right?

I think that having something that doesn't have anything special about it (sg provided Planet Karma as an example) still wouldn't appeal to everyone, because of the fact that it doesn't have anything special about it:

==Planet KARMA== is almost universally liked because it doesn't contain strong features that the community is unfamiliar with

Wouldn't someone find that boring? Unoriginal?

Since it is impossible to please everyone at any given time, there can be no basis for something to be factually better than something else.

Or did I completely miss the point? Remember, I don't quite understand everything within the debate, so I probably screwed up somewhere.

[kaiten123]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

There is absolutely no way in which that first song is better than the second.

its funnier and more original, but of course that is my subjective opinion. in your subjective opinion that may not be the case.

it's about objective standards that define what makes certain sounds pleasing to the ears.

different people ears find different sounds pleasing. actually its not even your ears that decide what sounds are pleasing, its your brain and:

sub·jec·tive:
existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.

Resulting from or pertaining to personal mindsets or experience

so yea, by definition, whether a sound is "pleasing" is subjective. it takes place entirely in your mind. someone who's mind is different enough will find different sounds pleasing and you have no objective claim of your pleasing sounds being better than his.

any criteria for quality you make based on something being "pleasing" will inevitably be subjective since pleasure is a subjective experience.

I think that having something that doesn't have anything special about it (sg provided Planet Karma as an example) still wouldn't appeal to everyone, because of the fact that it doesn't have anything special about it: Wouldn't someone find that boring? Unoriginal?

i actually quit out of planet karma both the times i tried to play it since it wasn't interesting

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

oh... I thought that similarities within the biological responses of the human population constitutes as objectiveness whereas the differences were the subjective elements.

Apparently they're both subjective? Is there no word for "similarities within the biological responses of the human population?"

There is no reason to believe that a particular style of stepping is more biologically appealing than another style of stepping. If anything, people are conditioned to favor the charts they've become accustomed to playing most frequently.

[Yesssss]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

There is no reason to believe that a particular style of stepping is more biologically appealing than another style of stepping. If anything, people are conditioned to favor the charts they've become accustomed to playing most frequently.

Uh... actually having the bpm right is a "style" of stepping that is universally more appealing...

[stargroup100]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

In the case of Planet Karma, I did say that there wasn't any strong features, but there were some aspects that made it a little bit different from other charts. For starters, rather than being one really long song, it's more like 5 smaller completely different movements, which is easier to keep the player engaged. In addition, there are small details that add significant appeal, such as changing backgrounds and panning effects. In this sense, the chart is a little bit more than just "a boring chart with nothing special about it."

My point however, is that if there were strong features, there would be no way it could be a popular chart. Pop songs are the same way. It could be an unoriginal song with nothing special about it, but the fact that it doesn't have strong features is what makes it popular.


Let's take another comparison. A chart can be "objectively wrong" if it's off-sync, as in the BPM and rhythms are wrong. Now the question is, why is this considered objectively wrong? It's not because it's impossible to enjoy. It's because it's a standard that we have set. Why is this a standard? We understand that lining up notes with the amplitude peaks makes a chart inherently more fun. Likewise, finding other patterns can also make a chart inherently more fun. Positioning the notes on the columns in relation to specific frequencies (pitch relevance) is an example. Does that mean a chart that does not follow pitch relevance isn't fun? No. However, doing so does help make your chart inherently more fun. In this way, "objective" qualities of a chart are really no different from "subjective" qualities. Art is subjective in many ways, but without objective rules and standards, you just have a chaotic subject of absolutely nothing that can be taken seriously and studied.


Another reason why a lot people think a lot of things art-related are more subjective than they actually are, is because of the psychological inclination to be more open-minded and liberal. People think that by saying everything is subjective and there are positive qualities to everything, they will become more open-minded and seem more intelligent. A bad song could have a positive quality to it, but it doesn't make the whole song overall any good. However, this inclination to subjectivity is flawed because it lacks common sense. The ability to logically and emotionally interpret a piece of work is obstructed by the need to appear open-minded. You can verbally express that you dislike a song and still recognize its positive qualities, but it doesn't change the fact that you hate the song. But the fact that you can recognize this means you already can tell the difference between quality and preference. In such a way, the distinction does exist.

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

Since bufang and Yesssss made the same point re: bpm, I'll just save time and address Yesssss's:

actually having the bpm right is a "style" of stepping that is universally more appealing

Even BPM isn't totally consistent across games, since some people like doubled/halved BPMs depending on the way the song "sounds" -- MAX300, for example -- and fancy BPM effects a la O2Jam. Still, most people wouldn't consider sufficient syncing a stepping style because that comes before any notes are placed. And even if they did, the variation in preference after you have sufficient syncing is enormous.

Also, this brings up an interesting point:

Let's take another comparison. A chart can be "objectively wrong" if it's off-sync, as in the BPM and rhythms are wrong.

While I can't think of anyone who likes a 150 BPM song stepped at 145 BPM, there are countless examples across music games where people have liked charts with "wrong" rhythms.

[ScylaX]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

It tends to be objective when you get to be used to the technical parameters involved in the game, such as the rythmic tropes in the music. Anybody that plays DDR on pad for instance will not naturally be concerned about that because the chart is directly focused in the vibes and not on "musical details". The difference with KB chart is the fact that, with the time, it became more and more centralized over the "actual" sounds of the music stepped and thus, founding a "technical" aspect of the game.

So yeah it's really just a matter of experience but the community tends to have a few opinions (such as the technical accuracy of stepfiles) that became canonical for whatever reason. When I get back to playing some files I used to love when I began to play the game, I just feel like they're not of my taste anymore since I conditioned myself to play "correct/modern packs" for a while.

[Arch0wl]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

Even communities go through preference changes when the charting authority changes and they're expected to get used to a different style. The methodology for determining what was a "good" 8-foot chart in the Tournamix era of DDR is now very, very different. Back then you were expected to be inventive with rhythms, and going to the song's main melody (what they called "karaoke") was frowned upon. They would even welcome double steps, which are something of a sin to some stepping styles now. Largely due to ITG and the influence of charters like Chris Foy/DukAmok/Omid, the DDR community's ideal 8-footer now would be, at best, a 3/5 in the Tournamix view due to being too "karaoke" among other things.

It's attractive to always imagine that our current state of doing something is an improvement on some previously worse state, but you have to establish that there's actually some form of progress happening. The food world can be an enormous victim to this false-progress mentality; the fashion world is at least honest about it.

[Patashu]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

sorry but the only objective measure of simfile quality is how many people play it

by my Objective (tm) measure:

Legend of Zelda Remix is the best ffr file
A Kidney Stone is the best ts song (but An Exaggerated Simulation of Plasma Particle Trajectories hard is the best chart)
星の器～STAR OF ANDROMEDA (ANOTHER) is the best bms
Bad Apple!! is the best osu beatmap
MAX 300 is the best stepmania online file

[FFR4EVA_00]

Re: The Simfile Quality Debate

it is impossible to make a file that everyone will love
it is only possible to make a file that everyone will hate because there are in fact very, very basic standards to be met in making a file
there is no place for objectivity in creative processes and continuing to make discussions such as this will only promote the idea that there is via reverse psychology or some similar means