After 574 hours, I still suck.

[nwad]

I'm mediocre at 6 key, and I can't beat even the easiest SC charts. What can I do?

[No⑨bert]

A practice mode seems silly as a lot of the game is muscle memory and pattern reading. But everyone learns differently I suppose. The inclusion or such a thing wouldn't hurt. IIRC RockBand had one to help with specific parts of the track so you didn't have to dedicate three or four minutes just to practice that 20 second part that was causing you to slip.

I personally just got into EZ2ON for 6k. Pattern complexity is introduced at a much more forgiving pace as you increase the difficulty. I was getting As in a lot of 15star non-SC tracks in DJMax but could barely scrape by even a 3SC songs. After maybe a month of swallowing my pride and playing EZ on lower difficulties and working the way up, I can at least do half way descent at 7SC tracks.
It'll also improve your timing if you are having problems with Hard Judgment mode.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Tiearian:

I have 175hrs. Six button is basically all I play. . . I can do 4 and 5 button but don't really find them "fun or relaxing.". . .

wait really? i think 5 button has really good flow. 4 button is sorta fun but it's meh & can get very spammy & cramped.

Originally posted by No⑨bert:

A practice mode seems silly as a lot of the game is muscle memory and pattern reading. But everyone learns differently I suppose. The inclusion or such a thing wouldn't hurt. IIRC RockBand had one to help with specific parts of the track so you didn't have to dedicate three or four minutes just to practice that 20 second part that was causing you to slip.

lol. it doesn't have to be a defacto "training mode" i dont think.

"UNBEATABLE [white label]" implemented it the best. there were some extra modes, one that let you play a track in double time, and one that let you play in half time. these modes were just there lol. i don't think the devs had any 'real' intention behind them except just wanting to add cool modes i guess? however the latter one could clearly be used to help learn tricky patterns efficiently, and the former one could really be used as a challenge mode.

after i played Unbeatable, i have to question why most popular PC rhythm games lack what seems to be a basic feature full of utility, but some random indie game can do it flawlessly...

when you're learning to play any instrument, say guitar for this instance... you don't learn well if you immediately start playing complex tablature/music charts as fast as you possibly can... you learn effectively by going slow, then you increase the speed once your muscle memory & central nervous system gets used to what you're trying to do! this is the philosophy i use to approach anything that takes years to learn!

it can be learning instruments, playing learning to play fighting games versus actual humans, virtually any other art form etc. but for some reason, rhythm games are massively behind on this concept, but idk they seem kinda dated.

[Verizon]

To be honest just enjoy the game at your own pace, play the button and difficulty you have fun with, challenge yourself to something higher from time to time.

I played this to death on ps4, and i can safely say 6b was my homeground, playing 8b just felt uncomfortable for me, so i ignored it completely and still had the best time with the game.

In terms of getting better, everyone here has said it, just play, and keep trying, something just clicks after a while and you get the rhythm going.

You get better everytime you play, no matter how long you have played for. its not as easy to see when you have invested a long time into it, but i was 600 plus hours on console, and after each time i sit down to play, some small combination of notes just click in the brain a bit better.

Keep the head up my man, and enjoy the game! its hands down the most enjoyable rhythm game out there, and some of the songs are genuinely brilliant. (chain of gravity is my all time fav, hittin a max combo on that song just feels great everytime)

[Hamsterspeed]

Just a couple of small tips from me,
1. Play with random pattern =)
2. Try another rhythm game, ez2on. That game really put you to the test.

[RaGe]

Don't get discouraged if you can't clear SC charts. They're meant to be difficult. I make top 10% in ladder match every season and even I struggle with SC charts. I just go for perfect play on everything up to MX, and it's still a challenge, but it's more fun and less discouraging than when I play SC. Stick to what you're comfortable with, push yourself to do better in that, then when you're confident, slowly go up the difficulties and slowly work your way into the SC charts again, you'll have much more fun.

[Franco et al.]

Originally posted by nwad:

I'm mediocre at 6 key, and I can't beat even the easiest SC charts. What can I do?

I've always been curious what's supposed to be mediocre in this game.

most of my hours I've been playing 4 key and I play around level 9 to 12 stars (I avoid higher levels because I can barely get an Z going blind because I don't see anything in my monitor)
usually ranking from 2000 to 4000 (400 in my good songs maybe) in most plays, I think that's pretty average. but then I have songs I rank like top 30,000 after putting effort, specially those at 13 stars. I didn't even know that so many people played this.

What confuses me is that I barely play 6 key and 8 key. I don't think I would have more than 20 hours put there, and I consider myself horrible there, but for some reason, I have a lot of top 100 to 400 (specially on 8 key) from what I remember. I play low ranks there though, 5 to 8 stars at most.
So I guessed no one played those modes on those levels, because there's no way that's considered good.
Well, now that they resetted the ranks it's easy to rank high in any song as not everyone is playing right now and you can easily get top 20s and top 50s, I even got a top 2 (9 or 10 stars I think), but I meant before the update.

By the way, I'm talking about Freestyle. I still consider myself too bad to play other modes with other players. I remember I tried playing a mission and it was hella difficult changing from 4 to 6 to 8 key, I don't remember exactly but it was so confusing.
Hell nah, that moment I decided, I'm not gonna ridicule myself playing with other people, specially when I already enjoy playing alone.

By the way, what's the game mode that most people play, and what levels are considered easy, and which are the hard ones?
I still don't understand SC, it's so inconsistent. There are some patterns that seem as easy as the non-SC, while other seem impossible and I don't even mean SCs with a lot of stars, for example, I remember playing and finding easy a SC with 4 or 5 stars (not really easy, but a lot easier from what I thought it would be), then thinking every other SC was going to be like that I played another SC of the same level, but this time it was just freaking impossible, why is it so inconsistent.

That said, maybe what you consider mediocre is actually pretty high, while I'm struggling with 8 stars at 6 key charts when I play those.

[Zombie]

One thing I would like to say is play any song on the easiest difficulty or even on hard if you aren't good at Max difficulty yet and just pretend that difficulties don't even matter/exist. The number of Stars on each difficulty can be deceiving, for example a 6 Star song may feel more difficult and may feel more like a 9 or 10 Star. Don't go off of Stars every time because sometimes the Stars aren't accurate. Don't degrade yourself and feel like you "suck" just because you are on a lower difficulty, because first to even attempt SC charts you would have to get so good at the lower difficulty charts down to a point where you are comfortable enough to get 99.90%s or higher every time you play them. Not everyone is the same/learns at the same pace and if you feel like you are losing your confidence or you are playing online and comparing yourself to others who are averaging 99%s on SC it is because most players online have had years of experience on many other rhythm games and have had a lot more time practicing patterns/charts. I do agree that some charts have superhuman like patterns and seem impossible to even ATTEMPT so you just have to accept that it will take lots of time and when you are comfortable enough you can go back and play those charts even though it may not seem like it you are giving yourself practice, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. Don't be afraid to experiment and don't wear yourself out and get burnt out from playing ridiculous charts that you wouldn't normally play, there will be a time where you will be playing them in the future if you continue to try and learn.

[ShinyStardust]

I'm progressing from 8B hard to 8B maximum and some of the latest songs (vliberty2, vextension5...) are just way too speedy even in hard, so I'm just avoinding those for now.
Playing 1234streaming in hard, I barely have time to properly input most alternating note patterns even if I can recognize them. I'm using a lineal non-tactile mechanical keyboard (red-like switches) and I'm not able to input these kind of quick patterns in a consistent way when they go so fast.
I perform much better at slower songs with the same rating even if they've more crumped notes. I find this frustrating because the latests song packs have very catchy songs.