Need tips for improving

[Jamballino]

I've hit my personal skill ceiling at around difficulty 26. I'm having two really big problems where single note red/blue switches are no longer reactable and the sheer density of information in such a short burst of time is overwhelming. Things like tricky left/right spin patterns paired with bass beats being extremely condensed. It's to the point now where it's not that it's just a tricky pattern, I can't even see the pattern at all.

This has always been the point in rhythm games where I usually stop because I start getting diminishing returns on playing for longer periods of time. The more I play, the worse I perform, ect. I'm only playing for maybe 30-1hr a day now, which I think is probably still fine for slowly improving, but I'm not really sure what I can do other than start to slow things down in practice mode and grind, which can get boring fast.

Sometimes I like to take breaks from the main set list and play the custom songs, but most of them are made by psychopaths that just want to make expert songs that are harder than XD difficulty for some reason. I'm not sure if attempting to play way above your skill level is actually useful in rhythm games like it sometimes is in other genres.

[fe_]

What helped me was exactly slowing down the sections I had problems with in practice. Since you can select which section of a song you want to practice, slowing it down to understand it and then gradually increasing its speed can be really effective.

[Edge]

Besides abusing practice mode, there's the usual advice of upping your track speed if you find charts to be too dense, though with base game I find you shouldn't increase it TOO much. You don't want it to become a reaction time challenge either. Just spacing out notes a bit helps.

That said, absolutely don't grind charts you don't enjoy. That's the fastest way to start hating the game. Playing stuff that's above your comfort level does help, but only if it's juuuust above it. Bashing you head against something obviously out of reach for you won't do much, though it is worth noting that ratings, especially in customs, are just never right. I would recommend to just ignore them and try anything that's +/- 10 within your comfort range, and if you fail out just think of it as a challenge to come back to later on, rather than just "I can't".

Anyone can with a lot of time, but as you said you already played the game a lot, taking longer breaks can help too. Been there done that.

Lastly, No-Fail mode. But I would recommend just using that as a 100% speed practice mode at best. It's not great for actually improving in my opinion.

[Jamballino]

Yeah, after thinking about it some more, I probably just need to focus on the specific segments that actually give me trouble and slow things down until I understand the pattern.

I wouldn't exact say I've played a ton, only about 25 hours so far, just that my session were like 2 or 3 hours in the beginning because I was in that beginner phase where you are constantly improving very quickly as you adjust to the new mechanics.

Definitely agree on not grinding tracks I dislike. I'm more partial to the Jazz and Piano songs, but their aren't as many as the dubstep adjacent stuff that understandably dominates the main set list in a game like this. The custom songs are somewhat useful to that end, unfortunately most of them are like 30~ difficulty on Expert for some reason. I'm not sure if the difficulties are just set by the charter and it's just their opinion on difficulty or if the game actually determines it based on how many musical whatsits are on the chart.

I've started forcing XD difficulty trackspeed so I can maintain that speed on the custom Expert songs, which end up basically making them like a true XD difficulty.

[Edge]

Originally posted by Haxdelesriot:

Yeah, after thinking about it some more, I probably just need to focus on the specific segments that actually give me trouble and slow things down until I understand the pattern.

I wouldn't exact say I've played a ton, only about 25 hours so far, just that my session were like 2 or 3 hours in the beginning because I was in that beginner phase where you are constantly improving very quickly as you adjust to the new mechanics.

Definitely agree on not grinding tracks I dislike. I'm more partial to the Jazz and Piano songs, but their aren't as many as the dubstep adjacent stuff that understandably dominates the main set list in a game like this. The custom songs are somewhat useful to that end, unfortunately most of them are like 30~ difficulty on Expert for some reason. I'm not sure if the difficulties are just set by the charter and it's just their opinion on difficulty or if the game actually determines it based on how many musical whatsits are on the chart.

I've started forcing XD difficulty trackspeed so I can maintain that speed on the custom Expert songs, which end up basically making them like a true XD difficulty.

Difficulty is set by the charter, which is why I think it's safe to ignore them most of the time as your skillset might be different from that of the charter, which influences the rating. Though it's always better overrating that underrating I guess. Steven does that a lot, which I'm guessing is where you got that impression haha.

[Jamballino]

Originally posted by Edge:

Originally posted by Haxdelesriot:

Yeah, after thinking about it some more, I probably just need to focus on the specific segments that actually give me trouble and slow things down until I understand the pattern.

I wouldn't exact say I've played a ton, only about 25 hours so far, just that my session were like 2 or 3 hours in the beginning because I was in that beginner phase where you are constantly improving very quickly as you adjust to the new mechanics.

Definitely agree on not grinding tracks I dislike. I'm more partial to the Jazz and Piano songs, but their aren't as many as the dubstep adjacent stuff that understandably dominates the main set list in a game like this. The custom songs are somewhat useful to that end, unfortunately most of them are like 30~ difficulty on Expert for some reason. I'm not sure if the difficulties are just set by the charter and it's just their opinion on difficulty or if the game actually determines it based on how many musical whatsits are on the chart.

I've started forcing XD difficulty trackspeed so I can maintain that speed on the custom Expert songs, which end up basically making them like a true XD difficulty.

Difficulty is set by the charter, which is why I think it's safe to ignore them most of the time as your skillset might be different from that of the charter, which influences the rating. Though it's always better overrating that underrating I guess. Steven does that a lot, which I'm guessing is where you got that impression haha.

Ah ok, that explains why some of them have really strange ratings like 0 or 85. I don't mean to disparage any of the charters since it clearly takes a good bit of effort to make the custom songs and I've really only encountered a few that genuinely feel a bit off. The rating being somewhat opinion based makes sense considering even the official songs will sometimes be rated in a way I don't fully agree with, mostly because they have some pattern type that I find challenging when it might not be as hard for someone else. There have definitely been a few times where I struggled less with a slightly higher difficulty song just because it didn't have many of my personal pain points.

[Gex]

If I were you, I would set my track speed to at least the 30-40 range, even for Experts, it doesn't matter. I never change mine even if playing lower difficulties.

Another thing is to really explore the custom library more. There are thousands and thousands of charts of all levels of difficulty.
You just have to manually search them: use the filter and look for XD in the range 20-25. (At this range all tracks are mostly easy, apart from some under rating especially in charts from more than a year ago)

As in all rhythm games, what keeps you going is music that you enjoy. Sometimes you find a tune that you really like, and that helps you play it many times and improve a lot.

And before you say that there is no genre that you enjoy in the selection, I tell you it's almost impossible with maybe 5000 customs (I'm not sure at this moment) that you don't find music that you like.

Finally, joining the official discord and the custom community discord really helps in general, as you'll find other people that have similar struggles every day

[Jamballino]

Originally posted by Gex:

If I were you, I would set my track speed to at least the 30-40 range, even for Experts, it doesn't matter. I never change mine even if playing lower difficulties.

Another thing is to really explore the custom library more. There are thousands and thousands of charts of all levels of difficulty.
You just have to manually search them: use the filter and look for XD in the range 20-25. (At this range all tracks are mostly easy, apart from some under rating especially in charts from more than a year ago)

As in all rhythm games, what keeps you going is music that you enjoy. Sometimes you find a tune that you really like, and that helps you play it many times and improve a lot.

And before you say that there is no genre that you enjoy in the selection, I tell you it's almost impossible with maybe 5000 customs (I'm not sure at this moment) that you don't find music that you like.

Finally, joining the official discord and the custom community discord really helps in general, as you'll find other people that have similar struggles every day

I had my track speed set to 28 to match XD difficulty, but I could see how going much higher would be a good way to train beyond my skill level in at least one area.

I actually just realized today that I could search for custom songs by difficulty. Before I was just rolling the dice on expert/XD customs because I didn't notice the difficulty indicator. The custom song creator and community is actually a big reason why this it's my new favorite Rhythm game. I love that Muse Dash has a billion official songs, some of which I really enjoy playing, but the understandable issues they face with allowing custom songs ultimately made me bounce off that game after I hit this same skill wall. Ironically, the custom songs imported from Muse Dash that were my favorites are all way harder in Spin Rhythm lol.

This game is just so perfect as a rhythm game that I want to actually finish this one. There is usually one really big design issue with rhythm games that ultimately turn me off eventually. Like Guitar Hero requiring you to learn a completely different way of playing in order to master tapping, or Muse Dash having abysmal visual clarity on the notes depending on the stage and difficulty. This is the first Rhythm game I've played where everything feels completely fair and doable with enough practice. The tactile experience of playing a song is so much more interesting and enjoyable. I've just been playing with kb/m and it's so much fun even without one of those fancy turntable things.

[Gex]

Originally posted by Haxdelesriot:

Originally posted by Gex:

If I were you, I would set my track speed to at least the 30-40 range, even for Experts, it doesn't matter. I never change mine even if playing lower difficulties.

Another thing is to really explore the custom library more. There are thousands and thousands of charts of all levels of difficulty.
You just have to manually search them: use the filter and look for XD in the range 20-25. (At this range all tracks are mostly easy, apart from some under rating especially in charts from more than a year ago)

As in all rhythm games, what keeps you going is music that you enjoy. Sometimes you find a tune that you really like, and that helps you play it many times and improve a lot.

And before you say that there is no genre that you enjoy in the selection, I tell you it's almost impossible with maybe 5000 customs (I'm not sure at this moment) that you don't find music that you like.

Finally, joining the official discord and the custom community discord really helps in general, as you'll find other people that have similar struggles every day

I had my track speed set to 28 to match XD difficulty, but I could see how going much higher would be a good way to train beyond my skill level in at least one area.

I actually just realized today that I could search for custom songs by difficulty. Before I was just rolling the dice on expert/XD customs because I didn't notice the difficulty indicator. The custom song creator and community is actually a big reason why this it's my new favorite Rhythm game. I love that Muse Dash has a billion official songs, some of which I really enjoy playing, but the understandable issues they face with allowing custom songs ultimately made me bounce off that game after I hit this same skill wall. Ironically, the custom songs imported from Muse Dash that were my favorites are all way harder in Spin Rhythm lol.

This game is just so perfect as a rhythm game that I want to actually finish this one. There is usually one really big design issue with rhythm games that ultimately turn me off eventually. Like Guitar Hero requiring you to learn a completely different way of playing in order to master tapping, or Muse Dash having abysmal visual clarity on the notes depending on the stage and difficulty. This is the first Rhythm game I've played where everything feels completely fair and doable with enough practice. The tactile experience of playing a song is so much more interesting and enjoyable. I've just been playing with kb/m and it's so much fun even without one of those fancy turntable things.

Nice, glad to hear you found a rhythm game you like (I've been playing kb/m for a 1300 hours and I never felt the need to try other control schemes).

About the track speed override: it really isn't about challenging yourself. The game actually becomes easier by increasing your track speed.
The default for XD (28) is usually too low to play comfortably: the notes are too close together and they scroll down a bit too slowly making it harder to be accurate. (this effect is amplified by the tilted perspective of the track)
Also, by seeing more notes at a time (lower track speed) can make it harder to play, whereas by increasing speed, you will need to react to less stuff (this gets more relevant the higher the difficulty).

Of course there is a point where the track speed becomes too high and it becomes very hard to react in time and that limit is probably in the 45-50 range.
From what I've seen the great majority of XD players sit in the range 40-50 .

PS: Keep in mind that modifying track speed doesn't alter the chart speed, it just stretches the play field.

[Jamballino]

Originally posted by Gex:

Originally posted by Haxdelesriot:

I had my track speed set to 28 to match XD difficulty, but I could see how going much higher would be a good way to train beyond my skill level in at least one area.

I actually just realized today that I could search for custom songs by difficulty. Before I was just rolling the dice on expert/XD customs because I didn't notice the difficulty indicator. The custom song creator and community is actually a big reason why this it's my new favorite Rhythm game. I love that Muse Dash has a billion official songs, some of which I really enjoy playing, but the understandable issues they face with allowing custom songs ultimately made me bounce off that game after I hit this same skill wall. Ironically, the custom songs imported from Muse Dash that were my favorites are all way harder in Spin Rhythm lol.

This game is just so perfect as a rhythm game that I want to actually finish this one. There is usually one really big design issue with rhythm games that ultimately turn me off eventually. Like Guitar Hero requiring you to learn a completely different way of playing in order to master tapping, or Muse Dash having abysmal visual clarity on the notes depending on the stage and difficulty. This is the first Rhythm game I've played where everything feels completely fair and doable with enough practice. The tactile experience of playing a song is so much more interesting and enjoyable. I've just been playing with kb/m and it's so much fun even without one of those fancy turntable things.

Nice, glad to hear you found a rhythm game you like (I've been playing kb/m for a 1300 hours and I never felt the need to try other control schemes).

About the track speed override: it really isn't about challenging yourself. The game actually becomes easier by increasing your track speed.
The default for XD (28) is usually too low to play comfortably: the notes are too close together and they scroll down a bit too slowly making it harder to be accurate. (this effect is amplified by the tilted perspective of the track)
Also, by seeing more notes at a time (lower track speed) can make it harder to play, whereas by increasing speed, you will need to react to less stuff (this gets more relevant the higher the difficulty).

Of course there is a point where the track speed becomes too high and it becomes very hard to react in time and that limit is probably in the 45-50 range.
From what I've seen the great majority of XD players sit in the range 40-50 .

PS: Keep in mind that modifying track speed doesn't alter the chart speed, it just stretches the play field.

Yeah, it's the same thing that happens with the track speed in Guitar Hero, I just wasn't sure where that breakpoint is where reacting to normal stuff becomes a problem. I bumped it to TS40 and it's a double edged sword of stuff being harder to react to, but the visual clarity is much better, so I just have to get used to it now. Got a couple PBs on a few songs I like after switching to TS40 which was nice. There are still some really condensed spots where it's just as hard to see what the pattern is, but that's just the way it goes. Practice mode is going to be unvoidable for stuff like that so it's fine. There were already a few segments that were noticeably easier to parse out with the notes being spaced further apart, so it was definitely a good tip.

[Steel]

Track speed is about comfort not challenge, but it can reduce challenge if you find a good spot. I've been at 42 for a long time, I think since 70 hours of play time (I'm at 180 now)

[Fluffy Chops]

• To learn more play the songs you love/like the most.
  - i find myself getting much more better after replaying and re beating my old scores from the songs i enjoy to vibe to more, like i don't really like dubstep so i for sure do worse in them as i struggle to get to the rythem of the song.
  
  
• Stepping back to take breaks.
  - idk about others but after about 8-15 songs my fingers start to ache with all this holding the button down and clicking so much that sure i wanna keep going as i'm having fun, but i can see in my performance that i clearly need to rest. There shouldn't be anything wrong with stepping back and coming back when your more refreshed.
  
  
• Playing when your more alert.
  - playing at times when your more awake and alert in terms of your brain is key, getting a nice sleep and well just healthiness should do the trick but likely playing few hours before you normally get sleepy is clearly gonna limit yourself. Your mid day is likely when you be the best you can be.
  
  
• Getting the right look or view that works for you.
  - I personal play so much better when i got the perfect-good etc in the middle of the track rail and am looking slightly above the wheel and when i have time, i glance at what is coming up next. Also i've set the colour's that does help me much better then the default colurs would do for me. bright white and cyan for the wheel a very bluey green for bars and deep red and a slightly dark orange this helps my bright bars and notes to stand out to be lot more.
  
  Overall they are much more eye catching to see them for me to process my next action swiftly. You know its like in shooters you see red enemy or outline colour from your blue teammates you are likely to understand what to do sooner.
  
  
• Having the best hardware / setup.
  - Due to this game being a reaction based well from hard upwards that yeah sometimes your hardware or setup is perhaps holding you back from achieving the best. Get the best hardware you can get ahold off and you shouldn't be getting held back by what you use anymore. I used to be so much better but due to the change this game has had i do now and then see stutters of fps drops not too often but can be seen from time to time that's what i get for a old spec pc also my desk has changed in size from when i first played and i will admit my mouse movement space has decreased so i can clearly tell am a getting a bit limited in that regard as well.
  
  
  as for the last tip
  
  
• Just admitting defeat is sometimes the hardest thing one can do.
  - Sometimes spite all odds and perhaps our wants to be the best person we strive to be, it might not be possible for you to do so. Sure some people will be far greater then you but, we all have our limits on what we can do, we are not robots after all. Perhaps your reactions or your eyes or what not, is all you can do and you shouldn't feel ashamed to recognise you've given it all and no matter what and how long you may train, you know you cannot out do yourself then you already have done.

[Jamballino]

Switching to a higher track speed helped a lot with improving my reaction time it seems. I played some custom expert songs for a few days at TS40 and then returned to TS28 for the difficulty 26 official set list songs that were giving me trouble. I was getting gate kept by Lovesick and one of the Teminite songs. As soon as I beat those two, I broke through the rest of difficulty 26 and most of 27, finally getting stuck on Mimic.

This is the exact kind of song I always struggle with. I think it's just from it being a very strange mixture of ambidextrous inputs that I can't parse out fast enough to solve. Same thing happened with that difficulty 26 Teminite song. I think this is where practice mode helps a lot, so I can get the patterns that give me trouble out of my mind and into my muscle memory, where it's already solved. I noticed that when I'm actively trying to think about the pattern as it's happening, my reaction time starts to lag behind as my focus drifts closer to the bottom of the screen as I try to keep up, compounding the difficulty of what's coming next.

Anyways, as it turns out, Lovesick just sucks to play and was way harder than most of difficulty 26. I don't think I've enjoyed playing that song on any difficulty as I progressed. Ironically, a lot of the Muse Dash songs that I enjoyed playing in that game don't seem to chart very well in Spin Rhythm. That or it's just a case of the things I tend to struggle with happen to be appropriate for those charts.

TS40 is definitely not doable for me in the long term I think. Every XD difficulty song is twice as hard at that speed and a lot of things become completely unreactable for me. It does seem to be a pretty good training tool overall though. Switching back to TS28 makes everything feel like it's in slow motion and becomes much easier to sight read.

[Edge]

Going straight to TS40 was way too drastic of a change. You need to increase it bit by bit as you get used to it. Start with 30 at most.

[Strangelove]

play more

[Sentinel.Fox]

I mentioned the over stimulus of a lot of the charts on XD difficulty pretty early in the game's early access release and was laughed out of the room and told to "git gud". They did add a lot to calm it down, black backgrounds, chart path customization, color editing, etc. but I still can't get past 23-24 or even do most XD charts.

As someone who was a die hard rhythm game player for many years it's frustrating that the visuals and basic charting makes that difficulty practically impossible for me. I FC'd every song in DJ Hero 1 and 2 on Expert, same with GH3 and Rockband 3 and 4.

Maybe I am just too old for this stuff now but I feel like it's only SRXD I can't come to "master". I have tried every accessibility option and it just overwhelms my brain to near shut down status.

To date I have only squeaked through 2 XD songs.
Show me Love and Beyond the Heart.

I noticed on XD the really fast switch backs when doing spins sometimes doesn't seem to register and makes me miss consecutively because it doesn't auto center on the upcoming taps and such, IDK if it's my mouse or the game or what but it's really frustrating to spin and have it just not do it at all.