The "physiology" of the stepcharts

[MadTaco]

I've recently unlocked Pandemonium on my ITG home version, and figured "Bah, I can make it at least 15 seconds into that oh-so-dreaded 13 block song, it can't be as hellish as everyone makes it out to be". So I gave it a shot, and promptly failed within less than five seconds. Out of curiosity, I let it keep running just so I could watch the thing, which left me wondering something....

How exactly do the makers of these charts actually know when they simply reach the pinnacle of human ability and they cut down on the difficulty? Other examples are (only looked at the charts, have not seen in play) VerTex^2 (insane) and Bloodrush, which I find incredible. I'm very interested in finding out the kinds of studies that are done in the making of the steps, and knowing when it may even become hazardous to make something so difficult.

Then again, I'm not that great of a DDR/ITG player. I passed my first 10s tonight, Do U Love Me and Anubis, which kind of felt like hard 9s
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[Thomas Hobbes]

They're play tested by the staff. The staff is well knowledgable and can do quite a lot, so I'm sure they test it. They also let the public test it too, which is why Bloodrush is bumped down to a 12 cause LilQ said it was too easy to be a 13.

My friend, Hoodie, has passed Bloodrush and Pandemonium as well as Summer and all that. I'm sure with practice, he'll get down VerTex^2 as will other people as well.
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[MadTaco]

That would be pretty cool to be paid to test out stepcharts. I had thought about that earlier, it would require a lot of practice to get up to 12 to 13 level though, so they all must be DDRers too
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[DJ C0m37]

paid to test? HAH.

More like you pay them by paying to play on the beta machine to test it.
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[Thomas Hobbes]

[MadTaco]

I think it would be pretty neat to see some statistics on the amount of effort needed for the average person to tackle a 12 or 13. Like, amount of energy expended, average heartrate immediately after play, amount of sweat lost. I'm ate up
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[cousinoer5]

I've seen Pandamonium expert and concluded this: The only way I could even survive this thing is if I mutated 2 more legs. I tried on the controller and I even failed that.

[MiiChan]

I can't even pass Pandamonium using the keyboard on stepmania...much less would I be able to pass it with my body. Then again, I just started playing ITG, so it'll probably take me a little time to get adjusted from playing Pump. I wish there was a ITG/2 machine here in Tally. I wouldn't mind wasting tokens on trying to pass Pandamonium if I had a bar to rape. I don't think I'm going to try that on my flux....I would probably loose my balance, fall, and break something. ;

[MadTaco]

I feel like I'm abusing my Flux and my feet whenever I "attempt" it
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[MJEmirzian]

The limits of endurance are based on density and time. Just like there are two kinds of running, sprint and marathon, there can be challenges in both areas. Interestingly, human legs vary in the type of muscle fibers advantageous for either sprint-speed or long term endurance. I don't think there's really been a good time based challenge, which would be something like a 3 minute long version of Pandemonium. ;) Determinator expert is high on density, but we haven't nearly hit the wall of 'impossible' yet.

Edit: Yes, there's Marathon Mode, of course.

We are careful about making our expert charts challenging while still humanly possible to combo and even get a good score on. For doubles I often go to my local ITG machine and test out whether a move is possible or not, or at what speed it's possible. This is different from a game like Pump that has loose timing windows and charts that aren't necessarily meant to be fully comboed. If you want to see truly 'pushing the limits', watch any PIU nightmare vid rated at 19-20 - these charts make Pandemonium blush.

[Ryyudo -YHB-]

[Rancidfish]

[MadTaco]

Thanks for the info MJEmirzian. I'll have to look into some PIU videos and see how it compares
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[cj iwakura]

Meh, coming from someone who's passed a Level 19 Nightmare, I think Level 12 Expert doubles are much much scarier. At least I can count on not having stage break on to help me scrap a pass by on the first example; to survive a L12 EX; I'd need to keep it up allll the way.
(The one I passed was X-Treme Nightmare, which is like three times worse than the Crazy counterpart. Every freeze rest period the Crazy has = death run on the Nightmare.)

And on top of that, we get a break on the sadistic tempo shifts/usage of mines, too. (No Pump track's ever broken 230; 300's like an accepted standard when it comes to the DDR/ITG crowd. [Though I shiver to think what Andamiro would pull with high BPMs like that.])
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[myu]

^^ I also agree with this. Some 10bar songs in ITG really take it's toll on me, as opposed to Lv14 or even a couple Lv15 nightmares in PIU. And after seeing mini-spike FGC Solitary 2 nm, it would be great to see a full combo on something like Pandemonium Ex double or Energizer Ex double.

Anyway, on topic. It seems to me that if it's passable with fingers on a keyboard, it is possible with feet.
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[IamMe]

['Ivan]

[Soda]

Rofl, hey Myu, if you beat DanTheMan's Fury Of The Storm on feet, I will give you everything I own.

[myu]

Oh ok then Many of the edit songs in my Stepmania are easier than Summer ~Speedy Mix~, so I just based it off that.
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[Char]

What you said mostly holds true providing you discount what Arch0wl considers to be a sensible keyboard difficulty.