Seeking advice for a new player...

[mnloa201]

Greetings everyone,

as the title states, I'm relatively new to SM and I am looking for some advice. I've been playing for roughly a month or so. I started one handed but have since switched to spread. At this point, I've just gotten my first AA on Vertex Beta, so that will give you an idea of where I'm at. So on to my questions...

The things I have the most problems with are:
1) Accuracy - my MA is pretty awful...any tips on ways to improve this would be nice
2) Stamina - Can barely last through Vertex Beta, have to push through it. Should improve with time though I imagine
3) Jacks - I can't do jacks at all really...I'm using a crappy keyboard that came with someone's Dell computer. I'm thinking, or hoping, this has something to do with. Some searching said I should practice vibrating to improve jack speed. Is that just what it sounds like? Some clarification on this would be nice too.
4) trills - my timing is just rediculously bad when it comes to trills. No idea why, when it comes to streams I do fine, but even with relatively slow trills I'll end up getting a "Good" here and there. Very frustrating.
5) Fast consecutive jumps - can't handle this well either...Vertex Beta has a few short sections like this, and I've only recently been able to get through it the majority of the time. Does this just take practice?

Those are my main issues. This seemed like the best community for SM, so any advice is appreciated. thanks

[trumaestro]

1) Practice, patience
2) Practice, patience
3) Practice, patience
4) Practice, patience
5) Practice, patience

[moches]

1) What trumaestro said.
2) What trumaestro said.
3) Keyboards have different capabilities for dealing with jacks. Personally, I LOVE laptop keyboards, but I'd advise against it since it just ruins the laptop. :sneaks a look to make sure nobody's watching:
4) I have this problem too. Try to split the trill up into two separate columns of slow jacks, then hit both. Seems to help with me.
5) What trumaestro said.

[Patashu]

Originally Posted by mnloa201

Greetings everyone,

as the title states, I'm relatively new to SM and I am looking for some advice. I've been playing for roughly a month or so. I started one handed but have since switched to spread. At this point, I've just gotten my first AA on Vertex Beta, so that will give you an idea of where I'm at. So on to my questions...

The things I have the most problems with are:
1) Accuracy - my MA is pretty awful...any tips on ways to improve this would be nice

find the highest c-mod you can comfortably read
screw with resolution, screen size, different monitors and keyboards, etc. if you have a crappy keyboard or lag then MA will be difficult

2) Stamina - Can barely last through Vertex Beta, have to push through it. Should improve with time though I imagine

play lots of stepmania and possibly do arm/wrist strength exercises additionally

3) Jacks - I can't do jacks at all really...I'm using a crappy keyboard that came with someone's Dell computer. I'm thinking, or hoping, this has something to do with. Some searching said I should practice vibrating to improve jack speed. Is that just what it sounds like? Some clarification on this would be nice too.

your ability to jack will be meaningless if you don't have a keyboard that is good for it
again: practice, play files with jacks often, +/- rates, try going for a highscore on this game. for long jacks at 160 bpm or less the best motion is a consistent wristjacking, but at 180ish and above you have to vibrate to keep up pretty much

4) trills - my timing is just rediculously bad when it comes to trills. No idea why, when it comes to streams I do fine, but even with relatively slow trills I'll end up getting a "Good" here and there. Very frustrating.

possibly practice tapping out trills to a song, admonish yourself if you go offbeat, or possibly this game this game again

5) Fast consecutive jumps - can't handle this well either...Vertex Beta has a few short sections like this, and I've only recently been able to get through it the majority of the time. Does this just take practice?

probably just practice. try turning the rate down until you can read it then turn it up bit by bit. also it helps to know that, in stepmania, a jump does not register until all of its notes register, which means that if you have patterns like this: LR LD LU LR LU LD LR LU then you can constantly hit with your entire left wrist or even both wrists and as long as your left hits don't come ahead or lag behind you'll get no cbs because the other hits can't register without their L hit. OTOH this is a bad habit to get into if you play on ffr which doesn't treat jumps as cohesive units and instead as their individual notes

[SkySeal]

play solo

[Patashu]

Originally Posted by SkySeal

play solo

this?

can i have some testimonials

[SkySeal]

masamursha

[NekoGon]

playing 6 keys makes you cool 8)

[moches]

Yes

**** yes

[Synexi-XI]

Originally Posted by Patashu

this?

can i have some testimonials

i'm witness =D solo makes any pattern easy and turns jump jack patterns into butter

[iCeCuBEz v2]

solo files look cooler

but yeah what patashu said wow what an indepth analysis of smashing arrows

also AAing vertex beta after only a month is very good imo; it took me a lot longer than that to start AAing ~200 bpm stream stuff.

One bit of advice I could offer though is try your hardest to NOT mash. If you see a really fast jack, trill, or pattern that is simply really awkward to read, just try your best to actually hit it and not take shortcuts. (like turning a fast 16th trill into 8th jumps, or spazzing your wrist to vibrate when you see a fast jack instead of trying to nail it with your wrist) Developing these habits early on will stick in the long run, I'm still coping with them. When you take shorcuts like these, it will take longer to improve your speed because you aren't really "training" in a sense the muscles required to hit those difficult passages.

[mnloa201]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm currently playing at C650. I've been slowly increasing the speed as I get used to it, but I have been lazily sticking on C650 for a while. I might try 700/750 and see if my MA improves at all with that. And I was afraid my crappy keyboard might limit me somewhat I'll keep practicing though, might decide to get a good keyboard someday.

@icecubez
lol I know what you mean. The first time I saw a long jack at a high bpm I just went all over trying to smash my keys. I even bound a second key near it to the same arrow to try and use two hands to get it lol. But yeah, I figured that wasn't the best thing to do so I've just tried to do things normally now.

I was actually thinking of trying Solo. A friend of mine insists that Guitar Hero is harder because it has 5 keys to hit while SM only has 4. I really don't think so, and I wouldn't mind playing hard songs with 6 keys to prove him wrong

Anyway, appreciate all the advice. I'll keep practicing

EDIT: Found what I was looking for. Will probably end up practicing Solo a lot now

[roundbox]

Adjust your CMods slowly. Try going in 25s rather than a jump by 50.