Music Gaming Accomplishments

[Spectere]

Heh, last time I tried SM I ran into a similar issue. I was still able to pass a lot of the same stuff, but if you looked at my current scores you'd scoff at my claims of being able to get extremely high AAAs on things like Shind Bad and One More Lovely.

[Bobbias]

I think for me it's that I've spent the last ~2 years playing osu!mania with an o2jam style skin where the notes are small bars. While it didn't take long to feel comfortable reading arrows, I've noticed that denser stuff just overwhelms me really easily. I'm not exactly sure why I seem to have more trouble with speed though.

I swear I should be able to AA this, but for whatever reason (possibly just the reading issue) this is the best I manage:

It's only 130 bpm 24th bursts, it's not all that fast, and the patterns are easy too. EDIT: 32nds, not 24ths. Still, 260 bpm 16ths isn't THAT fast for short bursts for me. I actually passed unorthodox red in o!m and that's 220 bpm 16th jumpstreams for almost 4 minutes (it does have a slowdown, but still). It was a bad pass, but i can always burst much faster than I can hold streams on stamina stuff.

[Spectere]

Have you ever considered making a noteskin for SM that replicates that general look? It might make things feel a bit more familiar and easy to read. Arrows are kinda crap when it comes to keyboard play, as you implied.

[Bobbias]

Part of why I switched to SM was to make a big change. I tried using a bar noteskin that came with SM, but it just felt wrong. I figure if staiain can be that good at SM, I can at least get back to how I was. Plus, I'm way too lazy to try to mangle SM into looking like o2jam.

I'm not sure how long I plan on actually playing SM. There's always a chance I'll end up going back to o!m sometime soon before I even reach my peak skill in SM again.

EDIT: So I played some o!m earlier. I actually seem to have had some level of improvement in o!m on some songs. But my stamina is really bad now. I've got some sort of RSI type shit going on with my right wrist that causes it to lock up on me sometimes.

[Spectere]

Got a decent one-handed AAA on--what else?--Zenius -I- Vanisher [L7]. I also passed it on [L14]. Fun doubles chart!

Speaking of doubles, I passed Vanessa [L14], which is supposedly a 7. Like 5.1.1. [14H] I have absolutely no idea why it's a 7 because I can't pass most 14-key 6's, but hey, I'll take it. On another doubles-related note, playing on an ASC with your left hand and a KOC with your right feels and sounds really weird.

[Spectere]

I just "figured out" Mei [7H], specifically the crazy piano streams before the slowdown. My score instantly went up to a B as a result and my lifebar stayed mostly in the red during almost the entire song. Woo!

[Bobbias]

Congrats. I recently managed this insane score:

[Spectere]

Very nice!

I managed to clear ƒƒƒƒƒ [7H] last night. It's a really, really fun 10! I managed to get 2 Ex points shy of a B, but my aching wrists wouldn't let me quite get over that hump. I started off with a very low C on my first clear and worked up to a very high C in one night, so that wasn't too bad.

I need to work on my ambidexterity training again. The only problem with it is that it sort of forces me to go back to using a KOC because I don't want to go through the trouble of swapping the keys on my Dao. That being said, I am at the point where I can do more 6's and 7's in doubles, so maybe it's time to get another FP7. Hmm.

Edit: I really need to fix the database collation or something. This post almost got wrecked because I actually used the forte symbol in the song title. :\

Edit²: Finally fixed the glitch. All I had to do was install the UTF-8 language pack. Go me for making a mountain out of a molehill!

[Bobbias]

Doubles just breaks my head when I see it. I get insane tunnel vision when I play rhythm games and I have no idea how I would ever read that if I tried.

[Spectere]

The way I play IIDX lately involves me focusing intently on the chart. It's kind of surprising that I don't droll when I play, honestly. I'm really not sure how I manage to focus on the entire chart. I'm not up to anything insanely complex (though I can do 5.1.1. [14H], which is fairly impressive for my skill level I suppose), but I'm slipping into it far faster than I expected to.

[Spectere]

I just full comboed era (nostalmix) [7H]. I believe that's the first time I FC'd an 8.

[Bobbias]

Oh nice, I remember that one driving me mad. It's damn fun though.

[Spectere]

I played the fuck out of StepMania earlier. Turns out, I can still pass Energizer hard with no bar on a Cobalt Flux...with an A, no less. Sure, I was sweating profusely afterwards (it doesn't help that it was kinda hot in my basement), but hot damn.

I think I played for about 90 minutes today. Turns out, my stamina isn't too shabby right now.

[Bobbias]

First time passing this. It's I think the 4th file in Dump Parade I've even passed lol.

[Spectere]

Nice one!

I managed to play on a real DDR machine and got a few pretty surprising scores:



Freeway Shuffle Challenge was a sightread, so I'm really, really surprised to have SDG'd it, especially seeing as it's a 12 (it would have likely been a hard 8 or easy 9 on the old scale).

La Señorita Virtual was surprising. I never really played that all that much (I basically just played it once on Extreme just to say that I AA'd it and called it at that), so getting 7 on that out of freaking nowhere was pretty exciting. I did manage to nearly FEC it on pad (with one miss...grr) on StepMania with ITG timing fairly recently, but DDR's marvelous and perfect timing are still quite strict (marvelous timing is equal to IIDX's Just Great timing, and Perfects are in many cases stricter than IIDX's Great timing). This one was also a 12 (8 in the old scale).

The MAX 300 one definitely made my day. My previous best on 300 was 24 greats. I really wish I could have pushed it into the teens, but considering how long it's been since I played religiously, I'm very happy with 21. Also, in the new DDR grading system, I was fairly close to a AAA on it (you no longer need to full perfect combo the song to AAA it--you just need to get 990,000 points. So yes, I was extremely close to a AAA on La Señorita Virtual).

I also had a pretty good run on IIDX in the same day, but I didn't really get any noteworthy scores there. I am starting to "get" the IIDX AC timing, so yay for that. Also, that day did mark my first pass of