Strict mode

[Patashu]

To counteract complaints that TS's engine lets you 'cheat' in a myriad of ways, this would be a mode you could turn on. The only tricky part would be leaderboards, since having a whole extra set of leaderboards seems redundant - maybe it would go easy, medium, hard, strict hard or something. It will change a lot about the way TS is played, and will make people who are used to the crutches that are taken away play badly on it for a while, which is why it needs to be bundled into a separate mode.

Here's all the things it would do:

-Life difficulty is substantially increased. Boos/misses/dropped holds hurt 2x as much while perfects/greats/goods/holds recover 10x as little.

-Chord cohesion is turned OFF. The notes of a chord are hit and judged individually, and you can't cheat by hitting extra notes before chords and making sure to time correctly only the last tap.

-Hold repickup is turned OFF. If you drop a hold you can't put your finger back on it.
-Forced release holds are turned ON. You must release your finger from a hold within (e.g. 90ms) of its ending) or be given a dropped hold judgement. The threshold should be wide enough to make it tolerable to play files with minifreezes and unpredictably varying length freezes - some experimentation may be required. It should also be comfortable to release a hold right before a note on the end of the hold and still get the hold.
(optional, credit to Jonny) -When a hold and non-hold notes come in the same chord, the non-hold notes must be staccatoed (with some threshold).

-Poors are turned ON. Poors should work like in IIDX - as in, if you press a note and it doesn't trigger any other judgements, then if it's within (e.g. 180ms) of any note on the chart that used to be there, then you receive a poor. A poor does not break combo, but takes away as much life as a boo/miss.
The purpose of poors is to prevent you from continuing to mash for a bit after a section ends just to be safe, prevent you from accidentally hitting notes where there are actually holes, and so on. However, poors should NOT penalize 'doodling on the keys', and should only trigger in parts of the chart where notes exist or once existed.

(optional) -Hastys are turned ON. Hastys are another judgement you get for hitting notes out of sequence, or as jumps when they shouldn't be - if you recall the 64th gallops in good evening, london, you could hit those as jumps and not get penalized, or hit 32nd rolls as jumptrills - things like that is what hasty would catch. Hasties don't appear during play (or if they do are displayed auxillary to the actual judgement for that note), but are another way of keeping track of how much of a chart is 'cheated'.

(optional) -Allow mines into charts, but they only appear in strict mode. (Note that mines aren't the same as poors. Poors trigger when you tap, mines trigger when you're holding the keys down.)

-Marvelous timing is turned ON. A reward for using strict mode.

[Flashpantss]

Awesome. I wonder what else other people will come up with. But these are awesome adds. Great Job!!

[DrTran]

this is a pretty ballin idea and would play excellent with achievements

[ddrmaniacaaa]

Having a seperate chart for like strict hard sounds good, sorta like pro charts on RB3.

I know it would be a hassle to add mines as you said, but i would favor any sort of boo/poor system, especaily songs with hands and tricky holds

Hastys would seem to make the chart really difficult, but its true, i do find myself treating left hand trills as jumps and usually get away with it

Everything looks good and will be an excitment for veteran ffr or SM players. It would be nice to see a demo/beta chart on one song so we can comment on it more specifically.

[Patashu]

The thing is that I don't want it to be a separate chart, I want it to be a modifier that you can play any chart on. I envision that way in the future there'll be separate charts designed to be harder - things like x-mod gimmick charts, charts that abuse strict mode's sources of difficulty (holdfests, jump/jack fests that could be abused with chord cohesion before, etc) that would be made as the demand comes up. It shouldn't be mandatory since four charts is enough for a heck of a lot of songs in TS.

[Tasselfoot]

Where are people saying that TS engine let's you cheat? And in what ways?

[Jonny]

sounds like fun, will also add alot more potential for achievements :)

and ye, shud be played on any chart (hard, med ect.) and should also have a seporate leaderboard, it can be done, just takes a bit more work from the staff, more leaderboards is always a good thing. ;)

[ddrmaniacaaa]

Where are people saying that TS engine let's you cheat? And in what ways?

I thought it was kinda cheating in Sleet hard when the hands come up. There are several notes in a row that can be hit as quads straight through. Not exactly cheating but it feels like cheating

[Patashu]

Where are people saying that TS engine let's you cheat? And in what ways?

I outline them in the post, but I'll relist them:
-Chord cohesion allows you to hit extra notes, so long as the last note of any chord is also accurate. To demonstrate this, try opening up monotone hard - whenever there's a set of chords in a row and they all have a note in common, you can safely hit them as quads with no boos.
-Hold repickup allows you to cheat holds. Imagine something like under 18 hard's hold 1, alternate 2 and [34] - if I was bad at holds I could hit 1 as a constant 4th or 8th jack and because I keep picking it back up it counts as held.

You can't get mad scores in TS without skills, of course, but things like these let you no-effort parts with a bit of analysis as to what's possible. Stream can't be cheated at all, notably.

Also notably is that all of this stuff is identical to how it works in stepmania, so if you changed it in the base engine it would actually feel wrong rather than right. This is why I'm going for changing it in an alternate mode.

[Aristocrat]

Hum, not strict enough. Needs to get rid of greats and good, you either hit it perfect or miss.

[Patashu]

Hum, not strict enough. Needs to get rid of greats and good, you either hit it perfect or miss.

Wrong kind of strict.

[DrTran]

Where are people saying that TS engine let's you cheat? And in what ways?

jumptrilling rolls, lifting holds, jumping one hand trills, spliting jumps just enough to have it be a perfect anyway etc would be considered cheating

[Patashu]

actually you can split a jump so much that the first note is a boo and the second is a perfect if you want

[Tasselfoot]

i don't really see these as problems.

[ddrmaniacaaa]

i don't really see these as problems.

There not really problems for the engine, but it would be nice to add a challenge for those players that are able to AAA hard charts already... :(

[Loyal2Death]

i don't really see these as problems.

I agree with this. However, another thing to note is that if you don't allow hold re-picking, then you severely limit some players who don't have keyboards that allow for multiple keypresses. Not cool :p

[DrTran]

i don't really see these as problems.

there is no problem with it. people have been doing these things for years now but for an added challenge not being able to do those things would make it harder and more fun

[Dobby]

However, another thing to note is that if you don't allow hold re-picking, then you severely limit some players who don't have keyboards that allow for multiple keypresses. Not cool :p

I have to play TS on my laptop because my desktop keyboard doesn't recognize multiple keypresses.

[Patashu]

I agree with this. However, another thing to note is that if you don't allow hold re-picking, then you severely limit some players who don't have keyboards that allow for multiple keypresses. Not cool :p

Yeah, I actually noticed this. Non strict mode lets you (theoretically) AAA anything even if you can't register multiple keypresses, strict mode will ensure you have to. That's okay though, it's meant to be stern and unforgiving.

As I've said, it's not to counter that TS's engine has no challenge - it has plenty of challenge, see ultimate diss freestyle. What it's meant to counter is that certain aspects of it can be cheated, as in not done the way you'd intuitively expect would have to be required.

[SirRhythm]

Wouldn't the easiest way to work Forced release holds would be to put on arrow at the end of the hold, and you have to release the key, and it works similar to hitting a key.

I was kinda suprised not seeing force release holds in the game first time i played

[Patashu]

Anything that requires stepcharters to manually edit their charts is not the easiest way soz

[SirRhythm]

Yeah, i guess adding a note on the end of each long note would be a pain. Maybe if the note wasn't there and the game just does it as if there was it was, and it gave you a perfect/great/cool/boo rating depending on when you released the note. Sorry if i sound noob. xD

[DrTran]

Here's a great comparison. Strict mode would be like having to play every guitar hero game using the guitar hero 1 timing

[ddrmaniacaaa]

Was just wondering if it would be possible to add in indications of being early or late on notes that were not marvelous/perfect. I have seen this on certain revision/mods of ITG, and really like this feature. This would be key if replays were eventually added, because one could critique their game on any individual song.

[Patashu]

early/late is a KOOL idea

[ddrmaniacaaa]

thanks pat, but this would only really work for those that record, unless replays were added. It would be kinda hard to tell mid song if you are 2ms early/late

[Patashu]

Here's something worth discussing: if strict mode gets marvelous timing, how tight should it be?
For reference, sm3.9 j4 is 22.5, 45, 90, 135, 180. You can achieve attacks of 90 (perf+marv), 45 (marv) and 22.5 (perf only).
TS is 40, 65, 90, 180. You can achieve attacks of 80 (perf), 50 (great+good only) and 25 (great only).

There are three places that are worth putting it in in my mind: 20, 22.5, 25.
20 will make an attack window of 40 (marv), 20 (perf only), 45 (perf+great only) and 70 (perf+great+good only). It is tighter than stepmania's marvelouses.
22.5 will make an attack window of 45 (marv), 17.5 (perf only), 42.5 (perf+great only) and 67.5 (perf+great+good only). It is equal to stepmania's marvelouses.
25 will make an attack window of 50 (marv but already had it), 15 (perf only), 40 (perf+great only) and 65 (perf+great+good only). It is looser than stepmania's marvelouses.

Personally, I want to see 20 or 22.5. 40 is already tighter than the perfect window, no? Maybe even add both marvelouses AND ridiculouses, since it'll be an alternate game mode anyway.

[TheSilentRapture]

Maybe even add both marvelouses AND ridiculouses, since it'll be an alternate game mode anyway.

I like this idea--it'll make AAA-ing songs nearly impossible, so when people are competing for high scores, they aren't just shooting for the obvious score cap that everyone else already has.

[SirRhythm]

What about an open mode where all these are all optional, you can select any you want, turning them on will give you more score, meaning people can practice alot more freely, and the better you do the higher score you get, so better players feel like they have earned something, instead of aiming for a score cap.

[Patashu]

It's worth noting that osu lets you do that - if you're so pro that you can SS a chart then you can turn on up to all of the following mods, SS it and get a higher score:

Hard Rock
Named after the hardest difficulty of the DS game Elite Beat Agents, this is a mode which increases the difficulty of the beatmap by decreasing hit circle size, increasing the drain rate, and increasing the required accuracy. This applies a 106% (1.06) multiplier to your score. Inverse of Easy mode.
Double Time
A mode which increases difficulty by speeding up the song and beatmap significantly (but not literally double). This applies a 112% (1.12) multiplier to your score. Inverse of Half Time mode.
Hidden
A mode which debuted in the second Japanese DS Game. In osu!, it increases difficulty by eliminating the approach circles and causing the hit circles to vanish shortly after appearing, forcing players to more or less memorize the timing and placement. Sliders do not vanish, but they too lack approach circles. This applies a 106% (1.06) multiplier to your score.
Flashlight
A mode which increases difficulty by shrinking down the visible area of the beatmap to a small "light" around the cursor. The light is becoming smaller the bigger the achieved combo is. This applies a 112% (1.12) multiplier to your score.

Personally, I think strict mode should be an all or nothing deal - otherwise it'd feel too scummy to see which mods you can get away with on every single chart.

[SirRhythm]

Well if you get rid of certain mods in certain song, your not going to get the highscore are you...i's just for practice...they could even put a practice mode in where you can freely choose these options, but it doesn't effect your highscore.

[SirRhythm]

Found out with Confused medium, even if you do sometimes release the hold too late, your gonna break your combo anyway.

this will sound weird option but this could be added. When you've got 2 or more arrows at the same point in chart, at least one hold, and a normal arrow, if you treat the normal arrow as a hold you get a miss. (i do this sometimes until i see the next arrow, lol.)

[Patashu]

this will sound weird option but this could be added. When you've got 2 or more arrows at the same point in chart, at least one hold, and a normal arrow, if you treat the normal arrow as a hold you get a miss. (i do this sometimes until i see the next arrow, lol.)

Hmm !_! This is a good idea, I'll add it