Optimize Gameplay For FFR (Slightly Outdated)
Posted on: June 5, 2011, at 05:24:53pm

Hey everyone. I want to use this random thought to help people optimize their gameplay on FFR. Any questions? Leave me a message.

**By all means, post comments and other tips for other people to see!

#1. Whore songs on Stepmania until your hands bleed to death. Why? It has a more stricter timing (and can tweaked to a further extent) than FFR. Therefore, after a couple of SM sessions and a bit of time to once again get accustomed to FFR's timing, you will be much more accurate with hitting arrows. The difficulty of the songs, depending on which packs you get, are also significantly harder than the ones on FFR which enhances you to skill boost even more. Give it a try! Find all your pack needs here: http://stepmaniaonline.net/index.php?page=downloads

Song pack recommendations?:
beatmaniaIIDX 17 SIRIUS Megapack (1, 2, 3)
Hard Songs Megapacks: (1 & 2)
hard shit: (1 & 2)
Rebound Dump Collection Megapack
Rebound Vibrajacking Packs: (1, 2, 3, & Finale)
Midare's Packs: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Nuclear Blast: (1, 2, 3, 4)
Mina's Mini Mega Packs: (1 & 2)
These files / dumps will improve all your speed, jacking, and accuracy needs. Put fail off if you're having trouble passing those files legitimately!

Too hard? Okay. A bunch of other members recommended these packs to me as well (better for MA / accuracy purposes until you can handle the packs above!):
Community Keyboard Pack 4
Dark Chanchellors Pack
FFR Community Packs: (1, 2, 3, SU '11, AU '11, WI '11, SP '12)
Keyboard Collaboration Packs (2 & 3)
Light Chancellors Packs: (1, 2, 3)
Melon Collaboration Packs: (1 & 2)
Mystery Packs: (1, 2)
ODI Packs: (1, 2)
Piano Minipack Of Elegance
Puritanical Penis Packs (1 & 2)
Red Fraction Pack
SMGpacks: (1 & 2)
Xoon 4: (Red, Blue)
Xoon 5

Still too tough for you to handle / Are you a newcomer? Just start out by playing easy songs on FFR.

#2. Quality. Turn quality to low and turn off Aero effects if using Windows 7 or Vista as your OS.
#3. Switch to spread as your dominant style (Index and middle fingers on both hands).
#4. Decision time for spread players. Play with keys closer together or farther apart? I personally play farther apart (`1*- setup) which covers the whole keyboard. Some players love playing close together to hit patterns with other fingers. Everyone has their sweet spot.
#5. Play in MP. It's a good way to meet new people and strive to be better than the others.
#6. Sit in a proper position, seriously. I usually play better in an upright position than opposed to sitting on my legs.
#7. Up your speed from time to time. I've gone from screen cutting, to 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 1.8, 1.875, and now 1.9 over 7 years. Arrows starting to get clustered? Follow this tip.
#8. Mask your combo when playing on either the Legacy or Velocity engine. It really helps for Legacy since you can see the arrows rise or fall much clearer. As for Velocity, without masking combo may pose as a mere distraction when looking at it with your peripheral vision.
#9. Upscroll or downscroll? Or perhaps a sidescroll? You decide which is most comfortable for you to read.
#10. Standalone player. Reduce the lag. Get it. Now. See which version suits you best.

Flash Player 8: http://www.mediafire.com/?yhay5pin2b2wdo2
Flash Player 9: http://www.mediafire.com/?51ck1fczckk7tlm
.swf engines (Copy & Paste to standalone engine):
Legacy Engine - http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/ffrndanotherway.swf
Velocity Engine - http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/~velocity/ffr_Wide.swf
How to login / get your stats on a Standalone: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UB2Eqt9YvA

#11. Whore every single day, even if for a couple games. You will definitely see improvement in your reading and hand-eye coordination as time passes. Also prevents skill drops.
#12. Play in a lighted area. I don't know about you guys, but as long as there's no glare, I'm able to concentrate better on the arrows.
#13. Headphones vs. Speakers & Key Taps vs. Louder Sound. Experiment whether you like listening to your key taps to better find the beat of the music, or listening to the music so that the key taps won't screw you over.
#14. Nails or no nails? For example, I play better with longer nails as to my friend, LJRoX, plays better without them. Your call.
#15. Blinking. Only blink during breaks of the song. Train your eyes to do so!
#16. Tap lightly on your keyboard when hitting arrows. Smashing hard on the keyboard depletes your stamina quickly, so try to find a sweet spot in-between hard and light taps.
#17. Have a mind block or two on a song? Mirror it in settings to freshen your game.
#18. Are songs offbeat to you? Use the offset function wisely! Play around with offsets between -2 and 2 to find that right fit.
#19. Replays. A HUGE help to getting rid of mind blocks. Play the blocked song, save the replay, pause the area of your mind block, study, replay, profit. Helped with my EHHS AAA.
#20. Don't get discouraged. Build confidence in yourself and don't say that you'll never be the best or that it's impossible. Be the competition.
#21. Learn to play songs with only sight without sound. Your hand-eye coordination will greatly increase. It's a great skill to have for clearing Synth songs (blue arrowed charts) and songs you just can't bear to listen to.
#22. Set goals for yourself. Without goals to achieve, this game will become very boring and stale in the long run.
#23. Challenge yourself to harder songs. If you keep in your comfort zone, there will be no improvement.
#24. Keyboards. Flat, mechanical, or rubber? You choose. As for me, the switch from a bulky keyboard to a flat rubber one allowed me to tap lighter on my keys and helped my stamina overall.
#25. Felt like you've played too much? If you're starting to develop mind blocks on songs, take a break.
#26. Play for fun, not for scores. You'll eventually have more fun not stressing about a certain blackflag or what could've been an FC of some sort.
#27. Concentrate on PA more than mashing. Anyone can mash but not everyone is accurate. Also, due to the recent MP fix, raw score is now worth more than total score which means PA is more important than combo when in a match.
#28. Join tournaments. Same logic applies along with playing in MP.
#29. Search for rivalries on the forum. Same logic as above.
#30. Isolation / Dump Engines. Need help with certain, messed up files? Too lazy to download StepMania? Warmup with these FFR engines (Courtesy of Justin_ator):

Hakulyte's Isolation Engine - Legacy | Velocity
Dossar's Engine - Legacy | Velocity
Community Engine - Legacy | Velocity
Dragon's Fury Engine - Legacy | Velocity
Tarrik's Engine - Legacy | Velocity
Indeed Engine

#*. Have friggin fun.

1. 1: Soul.
   Posted at 8:25pm on June 5th, 2011

   1.)Check
   2.)Check
   3.)Check
   4.)Check
   5.)Not Check
   6.)Check
   7.)Check
   8.)Check (Down)
   9.)Check
   10.)Check
2. 2: BethanyBangs
   Posted at 9:05pm on June 5th, 2011

   #3,5,6,8,9 is checked off for me. Sitting in a proper position is most important though!
3. 3: Soul.
   Posted at 9:09pm on June 5th, 2011

   Reason why I didn't check 5 is because I have a crappy chair to sit in. :/
4. 4: LJRoX
   Posted at 1:21am on June 7th, 2011

   ty for the tip i hope i get better!!
5. 5: LJRoX
   Posted at 11:15am on June 7th, 2011

   whoa i just aaa'd halcyon omg ur so right
   HALCYON
6. 6: jprox445
   Posted at 1:02pm on June 19th, 2011

   i always challenge myself :P helps to clear eaisier songs. btw synth songs are done at 6 right?
7. 7: jprox445
   Posted at 1:03pm on June 19th, 2011

   i also play with headphones so i cant hear my tapping, its not cause i dont like my tapping on the keys, it's just im in a library 0.0 soo... i dont wanna here what people are hearing :P, more relaxed that way.
8. 8: Elite Ninja
   Posted at 4:09pm on August 20th, 2011

   A way I have found to get rid of mindblocks is by not playing the song that I have mindblocks on for a long period of time.
9. 9: coolrun
   Posted at 5:03am on August 22nd, 2011

   Yeah, that holds true for me as well. That's why I usually take long breaks from the game and come back thinking each song is my first sightread.
10. 10: Whitelist
    Posted at 9:48pm on November 14th, 2011

    I got a question. What does PA Stands for? Also, would it actually matter if you were to strive for FC only and not AAA, despite that you can AAA a particular song, but you choose not to? Lastly, I know this question isn't on your tip/advice, but is it possible to AAA on all FGO(For Guru Only) songs with more than 4 years of practice, experience, and some or all tips that were listed here? Of course, that includes "For Stepman Only".
    I know I said last question, but I actually curious about this more. Couldn't some people just use "Macro" on their keyboard and legally bot? Basically, all they need is the timing of the arrow when to hit and sit it up and it automatically hit's the arrow for them legally, not illegal bot program.
11. 11: coolrun
    Posted at 10:03pm on November 14th, 2011

    - PA stands for "perfect attack". It depends on the ratio of perfects on a score compared to the rest of the judgments. Pretty much any score with as limited goods/averages is considered good PA.
    - FCs do go for better ranks. But going for AAAs improves your accuracy. So, in the long run, you'll be able to get FCs as well as AAAs. People just love going for FCs to boost rank, but there really isn't anything wrong with going for them. We're just stuck in a community where mashing is frowned upon.
    - Sometimes time isn't a factor for some. You can find a person like me who's been here for nearly 8 years with only one FGO AAA, and others who've had previous stepmania experience to nab nearly all the FGOs. So yes, it's definitely possible. Just take a look at Dossar and MrRubix.
    - Accounts with bots are actually quite easy to spot. The staff can easily take a look at stats and ban those who use these bots.
12. 12: dvaskate
    Posted at 8:51pm on November 15th, 2011

    Thank you for this, it is a really good guide. And for blinking I either do it on a break or right when I hit an arrow.
13. 13: dvaskate
    Posted at 9:03pm on November 15th, 2011

    And how do you put clickable links on there?
14. 14: dvaskate
    Posted at 9:39pm on November 15th, 2011

    nvm i figured it out.
15. 15: Jerry DB
    Posted at 2:05am on March 30th, 2012

    Everything you post is so true great guide :D
    The only rule I don't follow is rule number 1