Wednesday, 20 September 2023

DDR diary: the BOOSTED mind

How silly was I. Here are the evidences:

June 12 -- passed Bitter Chocolate Strike CSP 2.25x. "Now with the crappy 2nd gen cab I can only do BPM 350 boost."
June 24 -- "I suddenly find BPM360 boost too slow and BPM300 intolerable."
August 30 -- Passed perditus†paradisus CSP 2.75x with an exhilarating 6:1 fast-slow ratio, a score of 550k. Lowest ever passing score.


Early September -- Every play ended up with notes overwhelmingly hit too fast. Change in offset (this is nice to have btw) helps nothing.

What happened?

Well, a closer inspection on the captures reveals the answer that took me too long to figure out: the damn boost is gone when I played perditus†paradisus. I has been using the default option since July till recently, and I played so bad in the period (not over) that I almost give up on playing any further.

In Bitter Chocolate Strike the speed was 2.25x BOOST, an effective speed of ~BPM560, slow but not intolerably slow even in the usual (i.e. good white cab) standard. And perditus†paradisus? Without BOOST would be BPM470 but if boosted would be close to 700, doable on white cab in the past (or rather, very comfortable for these hard songs), but very susceptible on this shitty cab.

Going back to what I said, I felt BPM350 BOOST comfortable in this cab, which is effectively BPM525, so BPM470 is rather slow in such standard. Together with the fact that my brain is so used with the BOOST flow that ended up with the historically low passing score. (Another possibility is that I changed my sneakers and perditus†paradisus was played in the first credit with the new sneakers, but the thickness of the new pair is similar to the old one so I don't think it's too much of a problem. As a contrast it took me months to get used with my last pair of sneakers.)

I finally realized and corrected such error last week and the result is clear. I started getting A+~AA- consistently across warm up levels (i.e. 13-15). So I started experimenting about the optimized setup seriously this time:

- Speed: BOOST is a must, now I say firmly say that. The problem is that I don't bother the extra cost for premium and BPM350 BOOST is too narrow of a range to get without the 0.25x multiplier. I found BPM380 (e.g. 御千手メディテーション or Possession) barely doable and BPM400 BOOST too much.

- Note colors: the sole reason I can't use higher BPM is the existence of unreadable blue arrows, so I really want the note option to minimize that. I tried NOTE again but then the deep blue arrows are simply impossible to read (to the point I almost failed a lv13 just by that and the most recent mystery is how did I passed 18s like Glitch Angel with that). RAINBOW is acceptable but the occasional purple-ish blue notes are still mildly annoying, and VIVID is similar. I will settle with FLAT for now, something I never would have imagined in the past.

To test if it worked I tried Fascination Eternal Love Mix ESP at 1.0x BOOST, which is BPM400 BOOST:


This is not too bad -- on a mild/bad/tiring day I might get similar result on a proper white cab. BPM400 boost is manageable with 1/1 notes at the beginning, but the double steps in the middle starts becoming hard and the last section is very hard to read given the speed and note option. The song is a clear indication the what works and what doesn't. The only thing yet to be verified is whether or not I played perditus†paradisus too nervously that I treated it more like BPM190 and hit notes too fast. To address that I should think about trying 18s again...

Monday, 4 September 2023

古早遊戲BGM巡遊(5): 藏海村

最近我在把我的Youtube收藏清單從頭到尾聽一次,看看我以前都在聽甚麼東西。隨便舉例的話列表上在100、200、300和400位附近的分別是陳慧琳的星期五檔案、四月是你的謊言古典音樂集、beatstream的地方創生☆チクワクティクス和The Best of Brahms。第一千位呢?是One Winged Angel的交響樂版。即使這列表已經累積了十年以上的曲目,有些規律喜好還是始終如一:古典和遊戲音樂。

又比如今天主角,新絕代雙嬌Online的藏海村BGM。


有關新絕代雙嬌/武林同萌傳Online的東西相信我在這裡提過無數次,為何我偏要挑選這首呢?該不會我以為打到藏海村就到此為止了嗎?--這倒沒有,正常小學生再廢再沒時間也能兩三個月內推到這裡。

從個人角度來看,我好像對這種曠野民族風的音樂特別有感?不算Sun of Son也有Babylonia跟喜多郎的Dance Of Sarasvati(也就是尋找他鄉的故事主題曲)。也許是極度適應發達城市的我的情意結?也對啦,在Mt Cook躺在芒草上仰望著星空聽著這類音樂也十分應景。

從遊戲角度來看藏海村玩家擺脫新手期的轉折點,而非九秀山莊。後者雖是第一個新手副本的位置,但說穿了只要穿過Lv.12的樹海就能抵達。這裡只是走出門派據點後的第一個中轉站而已。藏海村呢?你需要穿過三四個難度遞升的地圖,也會接觸到第一張怪物都會主動攻擊玩家的地圖。在重重困難下終於抵達藏海村的玩家可說是完成了遊戲第一個挑戰:學會裝上合適的裝備,在戰鬥中能適時使用技能和補血的玩家,終於不再是新手了。

藏海村是遊戲向玩家展示一個更廣闊世界的要點。這裡是玩家第一次接觸坐騎,第一次接觸副門派,也是三四個支線劇情的開展之處。這裡還是通往大城市成都的最後一個據點,也就是說,藏海村是最後一個新人玩家聚集之處,過了這裡你就要面對五湖四海的妖魔鬼怪了。就是這麼一個地方,怎能教人不印象深刻?

作為武俠風online其BGM當然是古風為主,比如我出身的惡人谷、輕快的水上杭州和悠長的龍虎山等。

但非純古風的關卡BGM也有一堆,比如雲夢湖底會令我想到JR的發車BGM water crown;塞外沙漠的波斯風則令人想起1987倚天屠龍記的熊熊聖火;八門八窟則以現代鼓聲將以笛子為主的旋律帶來強烈的動感。當然還有最輕快的新手流星村啦!

每一首BGM都跟其地區特色相襯,這已經是非常難得了。在台灣這邊實在不容易找到在這方面可以與新絕代相提並論的網遊--把外國一狗票網遊拉進來比的話那當然是另一回事了。甚麼RO、甚麼楓之谷,這我們以後有機會再說…………