I need a bit of advice

lgolem · Post by **lgolem** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:39 pm

ok, I keep playing Pump and it is like I have hit like a "brick wall" if you will, I can do all 3's, some 4's and some 5's. And I keep trying other 4's and 5's and fail them, I was seeking to see if maybe someone has like advice that will help me break through the "brick wall" so I can keep going up to the cooler songs, that are higher difficulties. Any one have any advice?

SoDeepPolaris · Post by **SoDeepPolaris** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:59 pm

Speed mods.

lgolem · Post by **lgolem** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:58 pm

I use x2 or x3 depending on the beats per minute....I need other advice if you have any...lol, thanks for trying though

Pheonixguy · Post by **Pheonixguy** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:25 pm

What are you having trouble with?

(IMO speed mods dont help much on 4/5s...)

lgolem · Post by **lgolem** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 11:48 pm

I guess I just mostly have probablems when I have a series of fast steps with breaks in the middle.....it just throws me off.....like say on Love is Dangerzone 2, it is like fast and hard..... and most of the time I see a spin and I'm like what is that, later told it is a spin and I don't exactly know how to execute that..... also on Final Audition Episode 1 (danny plays that one all the time) and it throws me off when the is a step immediatly before a jump, like you do a series of jumps right before and then you have to step down left, and then immediatly after jump on the down arrows and I can' time it at all.

Arka · Post by **Arka** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 12:49 am

Start out with songs that have relatively slow spins - Beethoven Virus Hard and Starian Hard are both pretty good for that.

I don't recall Love is a Danger Zone 2 having any spins...

Ditch the speed mods, seriously. Newbies on x2 and x3 make Baby Andamiro cry.

Post by Ho » Sat Jun 17, 2006 8:46 am

Arka wrote:Ditch the speed mods, seriously. Newbies on x2 and x3 make Baby Andamiro cry.

I dunno. While I'm a strong proponent of 1x DDR, I must admit to speed whoring PIU. The 2x PIU scroll seems to be roughly equivalent to the 1x DDR scroll, in my opinion, and Andamiro does not seem to be as inclined to artificially double tempo songs as Konami does.

Konami seems to take the Intel approach and goes for the big numbers while Andamiro takes the AMD way and just tells it like it is but still crams just as much in. What I'm saying is that a 300 bpm song on DDR with a bunch of eighth notes would be a 150 bpm song on PIU with a bunch of sixteenths...pretty much the same difference, but Konami likes to advertise the bigger number.

Getting away from that analogy, it would vary the way you might prefer to read those scrolls. And that's why I tend to use speed mods on PIU when I almost never do on DDR.

However, my speed mod usage on Pump tends to be lower than most other people I watch play. For freestyle, I just 2x everything--even slow songs. I like to have more arrows on the screen at a time that I can read ahead and hopefully turn away from the screen. For tech play, I'll 3x stuff up around 120 bpm and 2x everything faster than that...with some exceptions, of course.

Specifically to Igolem, I know just how you feel about the "wall" you describe. I know how frustrating it can be. But just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it. Safe songs that you know you can pass are fine, but challenge yourself with things that are just at the fringe of your ability level and you may just surprise yourself!

Arka · Post by **Arka** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:16 am

Brian:

I find your comments... interesting (enlightening?). I've always found it much harder to use speed mods on PIU than on DDR - I think I can count on my fingers the number of challenging Pump songs I can pass with a speed mod enabled, whereas I can at least play most DDR songs on 1.5x and 2x. Familiarity breeds contempt?

I attribute my PIU difficulty with speed mods to the lead time seeming shorter to begin with. Perhaps the rhythm of the typical PIU stepchart is also more natural to me, and so I don't need the arrow spacing as a crutch so much. In any case, I recognize that I'm a bizarre freak of nature (

), but I do think that variety often helps to get around that wall quicker.

[Yeah, I was one of those crazy teachers who made her students transpose pieces into different keys if they were frustrated with them. So sue me.

]

FLAKK · Post by **FLAKK** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:31 am

Arka wrote:Ditch the speed mods, seriously. Newbies on x2 and x3 make Baby Andamiro cry.

No. Bad.

Playing with speed mods early on may seem like it hurts the newbies. However, when they start going into the Crazy songs and NEED the speed mod, they won't be able to read the steps.

I do agree on playing songs with easy spins. Like you said, Beethoven's Virus - HD and Starian - HD are great examples. For the jumps, play Another Truth - HD (CZ will help too. But... yea, that's more than I even care to try and I liked the Pierrot steps from X2). It has a ton of jumps. Power of Dream - HD and Fiesta - HD (a bit harder than Power of Dream) are good songs to play to get better at turning. Not sure what else to tell you other than practice will make you better.

Arka · Post by **Arka** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:40 am

Hmf. I'm rather sullen about the idea that one NEEDS speed mods on *any* song (I finally fulfilled my great desire to see someone pass LIADZ2 NM on 1x this month, actually), but given my own limitations I shall defer to your & Ho's combined expertise.

Lgolem, I completely missed your comment about the jumps until now. May I recommend trying anything and everything by Novasonic?

Pheonixguy · Post by **Pheonixguy** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:40 am

Arka wrote:
[Yeah, I was one of those crazy teachers who made her students transpose pieces into different keys if they were frustrated with them. So sue me. ]

Thats EVIL

Arka · Post by **Arka** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:42 am

Not ALL my students, only the ones who were mentally balanced enough not to be traumatized by the experience.

'Course, uh, my judgement of mental balance was a little off at the time...

lgolem · Post by **lgolem** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:30 am

FLAKK wrote:For the jumps, play Another Truth - HD

That was the first 5 I beat, I liked that song alot so I forced myself to beat it....yesterday I played Canon D on the arcade on HD a 5, and for some odd reason when it really starts to play I get lost, I have no idea what I am looking at and what I am supposed to do....I guess that is the majority of my problem is seeing stuff and not having the slightest idea on how to execute it.

lgolem · Post by **lgolem** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:36 am

Ho wrote: Specifically to Igolem, I know just how you feel about the "wall" you describe. I know how frustrating it can be. But just keep practicing and you'll start to get the hang of it. Safe songs that you know you can pass are fine, but challenge yourself with things that are just at the fringe of your ability level and you may just surprise yourself!

Well, thanks for giving me some advice Ho, and in case you are wondering why I put my name bold, I know it looks like a capital I but it is a lower case L.....I am touchy about people calling me that because lgolem was my sn on Battle.net. It got a tad annoying.

And thanks Flakk for mentioning songs that will help me out with different areas of this fun yet pain in the butt game.[/b]

FLAKK · Post by **FLAKK** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:54 am

Arka wrote:Hmf. I'm rather sullen about the idea that one NEEDS speed mods on *any* song (I finally fulfilled my great desire to see someone pass LIADZ2 NM on 1x this month, actually), but given my own limitations I shall defer to your & Ho's combined expertise.

Lgolem, I completely missed your comment about the jumps until now. May I recommend trying anything and everything by Novasonic?

I've seen things like that too (Moonlight - CZ - No bar, I'm guessing 1x concidering it was one of the top dog Mexicans). He FPC'd the song. With that said, he's been playing PIU much longer than some of us (myself included) and most likely memorized the song (or most of it). Once again, to learn the turns of a song, speed mods aren't required. However, they do tend to help new players. Maybe I'm just a speed mod whore. But on Typhoon - CZ, a song I can nearly FPC (4 greats), I have a harder time judging steps and patterns when I put it on anything under 4x.