Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

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Jason Dread
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Jason Dread » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:36 am

Just wanted to hop in to say I'll be getting to the next set of questions in just a bit when I've got a little free time at work today. I also decided I'm proofreading the next post I make :P
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Jason Dread » Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:51 pm

Merk wrote:Are you recognized internationally at all? Are there any players worldwide that impress you?
I believe to some small degree that I am, but I’m not sure to what capacity or if it’s even by my handle in most cases. It’s not uncommon for me to receive a decent amount of friend requests from Mexican and Brazilian Pump players (two of the countries where Pump is more of a sport than just a game) on Facebook, and the very few forays I’ve done to International forums have had at least one comment about a video that was put on Youtube that I was in. Now if anyone would recognize me by anything else but my name internationally? I doubt it. I’m sure working on Pro has done a lot to facilitate that as well.

There most impressive people I’ve ever met have been Amy from Taiwan (a female player who is better than at least 99% of all males that play), and Legal and Black from Brazil. That pair have put on the absolutely best freestyles I have witnessed and I doubt I’ll ever see better.
Merk wrote:Have you ever participated in WPF?
For those unaware – WPF stands for the World Pump Festival, a tournament where the best players in the world as determined by each country’s Nationals are all sent to a centralized location to compete to see who is the best in the world. I did compete in at WPF in 2005 and finished 11th out of the 20-something participants. The way they did the tournament was a bit odd as it was single elimination and then standings for the eliminated were calculated based upon their overall score on the song where they were eliminated. The first song was Dignity CZ(the boss song at the time and still a somewhat difficult chart now) and I went against the Korean player who ended up winning the whole tournament. Bad beat.

I attended WPF 2007 but did not compete in the main tournament as I did not place high enough at Nationals. While there they did hold an unofficial gimmick tournament which was pretty fun, though. One male, female, and freestyler from each country was chosen and then teamed up at random to compete against each other at randomly chosen songs in a tournament format. Since there were two machines for this tournament the freestyle got one all to themselves and the male/female played the CZ chart for the song on the other machine; the best overall team moved on. The team I was in placed third, which we got some pretty cool swag from.
Merk wrote:Are there any non-gimmicky charts that you can't stage break clear?
This pretty heavily is based upon someone’s perception of “gimmicky”, but for my purposes the few that there are that I can’t stage break clear are Dignity Nightmare, Final Audition Episode 2-2 Nightmare, and Chimera Nightmare.
Merk wrote:Where do you see the community heading? I never hear of dancing game tournaments going on anymore much less PIU ones, is the game much more popular elsewhere in the country?
As far as I’m concerned the Pump It Up community is dying at a good pace and has been for quite some time. There are several outspoken individuals whom are really into the game but overall there just isn’t the following that there used to be. I understand this could be said for all dance games, but I have to wonder if it didn’t receive the largest hit of the three major games. The community is far too sectionalized by region and doesn’t have the desire to travel to meet those in different areas, part of the reason as to the decline of tournaments large or small (this reason in addition to the removal of National tournaments in the US from 2008 until surprisingly this year). This is without touching the online Pump community which has unfortunately degenerated to being on par as any other dance game community. When the major online communications centre for a particular interest or game is led by an individual or individuals whom are less about community integration, are generally close-minded, and don’t have the true desire to further anything outside of their own benefit there just isn’t going to be a base of people who want to stay and endure through that long term. It drives people away from the community and in some cases the game, which unfortunately is where I’ve seen the community heading for the past couple years and I see it continuing that way in the future.

There may be parts of the United States where Pump is a bit more popular but off the top of my head I can’t think of anywhere outside of some parts of Florida and Chicago. Outside of that are smaller pockets of casual players.
Merk wrote:You mentioned that people give you attitude when you're good at something which I can definitely see happening, has any random player that you've never met tried to start shit with you either in person or on some messageboard?
I’m sure there have been more, but only one sticks out in my mind at the moment (and even then it was awhile ago). I like to leave vowels out of peoples’ name so they aren’t incriminated, but we’ll just say this person was C-s-yD-dd-r. It was a pretty amusing situation on a forum where this individual challenged that Pump was easy to pick up and that someone with ITG experience and two weeks could easily beat me. I put up the challenge that I would give that individual more time than two weeks to pick up the game (since they were self-admitted to be pretty sharp at ITG) and put $50 up on a money match with me anytime, anywhere.

That challenge has still gone unanswered.
Merk wrote:How is hurtpiggypig doing these days?
Pretty good the last I’d talked to her. She recently graduated with a degree in Glass Creation and Workings (not sure of the actual title, I’m going on a limb here) and is spending parts of the Summer travelling and working on finding a city with a good glassmaking community for employment.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Ho » Thu Jun 16, 2011 9:43 am

Jason Dread wrote:The community is far too sectionalized by region and doesn’t have the desire to travel to meet those in different areas, part of the reason as to the decline of tournaments large or small (this reason in addition to the removal of National tournaments in the US from 2008 until surprisingly this year).
My understanding is that there hasn't been a WPF since 2007 and that's why there hasn't been a USPF either.

Also, I'd like to echo a thanks for responding to these questions. This little Q/A session has been enjoyable to read.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:52 am

In your mack-game, would you say PiU has won over ladies? Of those lucky enough to dreadlock (which is what I'm calling it now) how many were initially wooed through a dance game?

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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Jason Dread » Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:44 pm

Ho wrote:My understanding is that there hasn't been a WPF since 2007 and that's why there hasn't been a USPF either.

Also, I'd like to echo a thanks for responding to these questions. This little Q/A session has been enjoyable to read.
While I believe that this has played a factor, it's just a drop in the bucket. I would say we've seen things transpire from two different perspectives, though.
Fluffyumpkins wrote:In your mack-game, would you say PiU has won over ladies? Of those lucky enough to dreadlock (which is what I'm calling it now) how many were initially wooed through a dance game?
I can say that there have been none that were initially wooed through the use of Pump. A game that typically leaves me looking goofy and dripping sweat isn't exactly the best first impression.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Fri Jun 17, 2011 12:19 am

Now wait a second. Your lovely girlfriend mentioned that she'd met you through Pump when we hung out a few weekends ago. On top of that, PiggyPiggles is obviously a reputable Pump player. I'd never call you a liar, dear friend, but I do think there's more here than you're letting on.

Follow up question: Myself excluded, who would you say are your top 5 fanboy/girls.

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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by yindesu » Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:02 am

Just wanted to say my friend in socal loves your Pro 2 (NM) charts and wishes you wrote more but he's heard of drama too

also,
There may be parts of the United States where Pump is a bit more popular but off the top of my head I can’t think of anywhere outside of some parts of Florida and Chicago. Outside of that are smaller pockets of casual players.
Pump is fairly popular at Round1 in socal, even though 2 of the machines have shit pads. (They have 3 machines: FX Pro 2, FX Fiesta with shit pads, and TX Fiesta EX with shit pads.)

(It's funny because Andamiro makes machines in Korea and they suck after 2010, but Baohui Technology makes Chinese TX cabinets and their pads are godly)

and here's NO.3 Full CZ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4A6cr4lkg
(I love it too <3)

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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Merk » Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:43 am

Thanks for answering our questions Jason and this thread is a really good read. I'll try to come up with some more good questions but in the meantime I wanted to get your opinion on something.

We've recently got into a discussion on Pump tournaments and how they are run. Specifically, we talked about Score Attack vs. Perfect Attack and how Pump tournaments use straight score to determine a winner instead of the number of perfects. It's no secret that Pump determines your score in a pretty wonky and arguably disingenuous way - take a look at this video:

http://media.rhythmatic.net/index.php?d ... ong%29.avi

You might know what this is before you even click on it. It's a video where the affable John-Michael plays against our very own Fluffyumpkins on the full version of Hold The Line. Fluffy racks up a nice ~600 combo in the beginning of the song but later runs out of juice and gives up, completely stepping off the pad for about the last 15% of the song. John-Michael completes the song at a steady pace but never gets a particularly high combo. In the end John-Michael ends up with 25 misses compared to Fluffy's 130. However, because Fluffy got such a high combo, he ends up winning the song (albeit barely) and knocks John out of the tournament with a higher score.

This is pretty bullshit and it detracts from the game. DDR Extreme and below used bullshit scoring algorithms but the community decided to use PA in tournaments and in my opinion it helped the game's competitive longevity. Do you have an opinion on this or an explanation on why the Pump community prefers to use score instead of perfects? Has this ever been an argument in the Pump community? Have their been any major tournaments where this has become a factor in determining the champion?
Last edited by Merk on Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Ho » Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:52 am

Oh Merk, how you love to exaggerate. :P
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Merk » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:27 am

oops, I meant last 15% of the song, not 85%

This is why I am not grad school material
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Jason Dread » Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:39 pm

Sorry this battery of questions took me a bit longer than normal.
Fluffyumpkins wrote:Now wait a second. Your lovely girlfriend mentioned that she'd met you through Pump when we hung out a few weekends ago. On top of that, PiggyPiggles is obviously a reputable Pump player. I'd never call you a liar, dear friend, but I do think there's more here than you're letting on.
I don’t believe so; while it’s easy to strike up conversation with someone when you share a mutual interest that shouldn’t be the main attractor. I’d like to believe I’ve got a little bit of game otherwise.
Fluffyumpkins wrote:Follow up question: Myself excluded, who would you say are your top 5 fanboy/girls.
None. There are never “Top” fanboys/girls. They’re all equally at the bottom.
yindesu wrote:Just wanted to say my friend in socal loves your Pro 2 (NM) charts and wishes you wrote more but he's heard of drama too
Tell your friend that I appreciate it! I really like hearing positive feedback even on a project I’m no longer associated with. Funny story about writing more – I actually had at least 20 new/additional Nightmare charts that were going to make it to Pro in doubles Gauntlet courses. Near the end of the production cycle (plenty of time after the charts were finalized) I was told that doubles Gauntlet courses were “Too difficult” to implement despite single courses working without much issue. Meanwhile the mode utilizing most of the code from the Nonstop code base which was already present. It was something I could never get a straight answer on as to why that wasn’t possible (although I had a very strong indication as of why) and I dropped it and switched gears into improving existing charts and replacing ones which were there in Beta form but were poorly structured. It’s definitely safe to say that while a lot of charts may not have my name on them, I had a good part in creating and altering their final forms.

As far as drama, there was quite a bit. There had always been a few problems since I started back in 2007 but overall those were able to be ironed out. When one of the senior members of the team (and the real catalyst for getting quality work done) left to pursue a career elsewhere there was practically no balance for the team, as it became a constant struggle of how 5 different people wanted to game to turn out. On a content production standpoint I had standards for the content which several stepmakers had no intention of working within the confines of. A point of contention in one Nightmare chart was over someone else’s inclusion of a four button hold comprised entirely of all four of the top arrows from both pads – something which is near impossible to hit without even going into the safety aspect of trying to get a player to do that. While that hold was finally removed, it were struggles like this that I had absolutely no help with from anyone above me, and no one to attempt to mediate these discussions over content. The leadership degenerated to absolutely nothing as it was becoming more and more obvious that the end result of the game was not going to boil down to what the community wanted or what we as developers had ideas and suggestions about (which despite my gripes with some people, almost everyone brought good ideas to the table), but the game was going to entirely rely on what one person felt was how the game would be. It crippled creativity and morale (which was already pretty low for other reasons) and I reached a point to where I could not take it anymore and asked for my immediate separation from the project.
yindesu wrote:and here's NO.3 Full CZ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4A6cr4lkg
(I love it too <3)
Hell yeah! You rock :D
Merk wrote:We've recently got into a discussion on Pump tournaments and how they are run. Specifically, we talked about Score Attack vs. Perfect Attack and how Pump tournaments use straight score to determine a winner instead of the number of perfects. It's no secret that Pump determines your score in a pretty wonky and arguably disingenuous way - take a look at this video:

http://media.rhythmatic.net/index.php?d ... ong%29.avi

You might know what this is before you even click on it. It's a video where the affable John-Michael plays against our very own Fluffyumpkins on the full version of Hold The Line. Fluffy racks up a nice ~600 combo in the beginning of the song but later runs out of juice and gives up, completely stepping off the pad for about the last 15% of the song. John-Michael completes the song at a steady pace but never gets a particularly high combo. In the end John-Michael ends up with 25 misses compared to Fluffy's 130. However, because Fluffy got such a high combo, he ends up winning the song (albeit barely) and knocks John out of the tournament with a higher score.

This is pretty bullshit and it detracts from the game. DDR Extreme and below used bullshit scoring algorithms but the community decided to use PA in tournaments and in my opinion it helped the game's competitive longevity. Do you have an opinion on this or an explanation on why the Pump community prefers to use score instead of perfects? Has this ever been an argument in the Pump community? Have their been any major tournaments where this has become a factor in determining the champion?
I’m going to try and remember the scoring details of this mix the best I can but if I’m way off base I’m sure MonMotha or someone else just as qualified can come in and set me straight.

The general way the scoring system in this mix worked is that any combo above 50 will cause the player to accrue double the amount of points per step, with each grading having a point value assigned to it (let’s say 1000 for a perfect, 750 for a great, 500 for a good). Without going into the math it’s pretty easy to see that through that method one 600 arrow combo will provide an astronomical level of points, whereas someone who keep breaking combo at around 75 arrows will continually need to make up 50 arrows at a time without the double scoring bonus. Your mileage may vary as to if it’s a good method or not, but it’s the one that was chosen to be used competitively (all World Pump Festivals have gone with scoring systems) to hardly any outcry from Pump players.

My opinion lies with scoring being the best method for scoring Pump. I’ve both been in and ran tournaments for Pump which were PA based and none of those went smoothly, and in all cases alienated both the 4 and 5 panel players whom attended. 4 panel players because it overall was still Pump at the end of the day, and 5 panel players because it was a drastic change from any other tournaments they’ve been in. In the Pump community there is almost no argument (nor has there been that I’ve been privy to) about using Scoring over total Perfects.

Since this mix the scoring system continues to change (and I believe has always changed in every single mix since) and examples which you may be able to gather from Fiesta EX and such are not nearly as extreme as this video showed.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by yindesu » Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:46 am

Jason Dread wrote:A point of contention in one Nightmare chart was over someone else’s inclusion of a four button hold comprised entirely of all four of the top arrows from both pads
oh god

and I thought the forced hands in PRO 1 were bad enough. (where you couldn't do them with only your feet)

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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Jason Dread » Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:10 pm

Unfortunately that example was just a drop in the bucket.
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Merk » Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:15 pm

Quasi-thread-necro here. This is actually a really good thread now that I read it many months later.

There's been a little bit of a debate in the ITG thread about how much someone who is really good at these types of niche games can win from tournaments and whatnot. Praytell, Mr. Dread, how much have you won in total from Pump tournaments?
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Re: Why is Jason Dread so good at this game?

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:18 pm

Please separate prizes like trips and such from actual ₩.

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