How Does YouTube Perceive Difficulty in Rhythm Games?

[@CTL]

It's like how Flight of the Bumblebee gets so much attention despite not being anywhere near the most impressive piece for an instrument.

[@JustinRed624]

twoset represent

[@oxey_]

@@JustinRed624 FASTEST VIOLINIST

[@the_eternal_paradox]

40 LIKES WOOO

[@reflections7612]

Sacreligous

[@Dee-mm1bt]

But Muh 15 notes per second *nice intonation*

[@koboss]

*posts good score that you worked forever for* “Bro your girlfriend must be happy haha” “Wow rip any girls that date him” “This video must be your best pick up line”

[@dogethedoge25]

"Rip keyboard" "YOURE NOT HUMAN YOURE A ROBOT" "i can do that its easy just spam" "HOW YOUR FINGER NOT TIRED"

[@Garma_Zabi]

"learn a REAL instrument" "you could have developed a skill with the time you wasted playing this dumb game"

[@edherman7652]

@@Garma_Zabi these triggers me the most

[@Sakisageosu]

"if you start to play piano/guitar, you will be the best musician ever" "asian father: congrats you passed the tutorial"

[@lajenehuen260]

"(Something relating to Asians)"

[@AverageTreyVG]

"world record" is the universal clickbait for anything

[@ThinkAboutVic]

Hey SMS dude

[@linuxnoodle8682]

@KobePlays well, Guinness isn't exactly the best organization for world records. Billy Mitchell, for example

[@pangolinh]

DONT CALL NINJA AT 3 AM (NOT CLICKBAIT) (FASTEST DEATH WORLD RECORD) (COPS CALLED) (GONE WRONG)

[@ampersand64]

EK says many of his Cytus scores are "world records," when he really means that his video is the highest one-handed score on the internet. I love the guy, but man, his fanbase of 6-year-olds think he's such a god when he's just a really good Cytus player.

[@randomdudeofdahood3973]

@@linuxnoodle8682 I would say Rogers as well, but then I remembered his "hurr durr second gear" god revoked actually.

[@Signicial]

I feel painful, this is actually telling a lot of facts... They asked me to do something 40+ kps, while I can only do Long Note and Accuracy + Ratio.

[@justinrealasf100]

U shared me this vid now imma watch and listen

[@dogethedoge25]

I know that your weakest skillset is vibro so i feel bad for you

[@bag1ner]

haha fool moon night go brrrr

[@dogethedoge25]

beginnerbothal o no pls i cant vibro

[@bag1ner]

@@dogethedoge25 no pls i can't alpha i have rusted so much because i have lost motivation to play that much

[@Mephistel]

I thought this video was going to be about how the KZbin algorithm learned to classify rhythm game songs by difficulty by analyzing the videos or something. I dunno I'm dumb.

[@rydotion]

same lol

[@helios1_]

me three

[@jakezepeda1267]

I too have been tricked. Oh well.

[@MikeTheEntei]

same kekw

[@pukesan2746]

Yeah, I thought so too, I was about to be surprised and actually, kind of impressed by KZbin, but I was fooled…

[@itslilac5806]

HeY sTrEamEr plAY RaP goD hEY STreAmEr PlAy ReaLiTY cHeCk ThrOuGh thE SkUll, it;S tHe HardESt SonG iN ThE GaME

[@toone1562]

"Beat saber players" be like

[@the-royal-chef]

TRUEEEEEEEEEEE

[@tcjon4321]

bruh i still remember when i was new to the game and i still thought that RCTTS and overkill were hard songs

[@itslilac5806]

@Tc Jon I got so crazy hyped when I passed overkill lolz. It’s been a while since I’ve played tho

[@Darkrealm7]

@@tcjon4321 lmao yea, I used to hold them in such high regard but beat them easily once I got customs

[@LuckyHamburger]

Vaxei's titles are great. Just the song name, star value, and some data about the score in the most hilariously laid back way.

[@ThinkAboutVic]

Or just the alphabet

[@omegaorigins9917]

His descriptions are great

[@1N3K0]

The laid back videos just add to the mysterious vibe vaxei has and I love it. Never seen his face only the back side of him 4 years ago

[@FeixiaoLiao]

Whitecat: 👀

[@freddiebensonstan7037]

@@1N3K0 we've seen him in da maid costume doe

[@nado1908]

I feel the perfect example of this is the Rhythm Heaven series. Compared to other rhythm games, it's songs have a very low NPS but is still difficult because there's no clearnote chart, the best the player gets is audio ques, paying attention to the rhythm, and the rare visual que.

[@zerointerest9297]

As a rhythm heaven player this is true

[@zetexztt]

as a rhythm heaven player no LOL, rhythm heaven is extremely easy once you learn it

[@Shenaniganizer620]

Ok this is barely related but i want to talk about a similar kind of rhythm game that i find hard. Bullets Per Minute (BPM) and to a much lesser extent pistol whip are insanely hard to me due to the problem of multitasking. There is one hell of a learning curve to be able to do all the fps game actions, but you are required to do them on the beat which is, while rewarding, incredibly frustrating.

[@petrikhorr]

@@zetexztt exactly, like you just said: *once you learn it.*

[@zetexztt]

@@petrikhorr yeah, and you learn it from like a one minute tutorial. i was able to get all Perfect on megamix in one day

[@GreenDeLeBean]

I swear you could upload straight up jumptrills and mashable patterns and most casual viewers would think youre a god

[@iamstylishaf12222]

Fool Moon Night on Osu Mania in a nutshell

[@M4TTYN]

it's about perceptive if your out the loop you'll see awe in low level to basic things.

[@winterispretty6464]

Add some sv and they think you are a legit hacker

[@vioco]

Yo man, nice pfp! I have it too on most my accounts

[@dogethedoge25]

What about LN

[@Kyoko1]

more notes on the screen = harder, right? *ar11 intensifies*

[@numbers7097]

EZ: hello there!

[@Kyoko1]

@@numbers7097 pishifat... :(

[@apollo1211]

Well I mean osu is a harder game to understand than mania or ddr

[@arbi9506]

@@apollo1211 You're very funny.

[@apollo1211]

@@arbi9506 So are you with your mediocre KZbin content

[@krushrpants]

Its frustrating to see streamers whose sole focus is basically farming for fluke scores on things that casual players would find impressive. These types of streamers generally have a much higher viewer counts than people who are genuinely putting in work, or those who are objectively better at their game. I think another aspect of this is that many of the "top" players in rhythm games play content that is just plain not relateable to average players. For example, I can probably count on one hand the number of people who understand the difficulty difference of getting a 99.25 on an ITG 19, and getting a 99.50. And while currently there are less than 10 people globally who maybe can 99.00 a 19, the average FA player getting 100% on tech 11's will always get more viewers. Its easy to understand perfection, and its easy to understand a difficulty you can probably do yourself.

[@dcskater012345]

This comments reminds me of Flash's video's. They're all quads of charts that are like 11 and below. Granted, it's FA+ but I find it amusing when people get super hyped over those scores. To each their own though.

[@Flash244MCGaming]

lstoast is literally this lmao, its not that bad because he explains difficulty to his viewers on tik tok or twitch sometimes but he farms for views so much it hurts because hes actually really good at beat saber

[@バカロン]

I am not sure if "fluke scores" refers to osu because you didn't mention this game at all but it's so true in osu. that chika chika map Etienne mentioned has a huge difficulty spike when the rest of the map is way easier so hitting that spike can be about luck. even if you can't hit it you still can get lucky and fc by endlessly retrying the map. true that this kind of players (pp maps players) get way more views than others. meanwhile players like Aery will never average even 300 views on a video despite how much effort he put in his unique skillset. I feel really bad for him but I am glad he doesn't care and keeps doing his stuff

[@paydaygh9388]

I’m a relatively new Clone Hero player with fantastic speed, but almost no technical ability. When I see high NPS I think “I can do that, and so can anyone else.” However, when I see Randy speed up disc songs, Frosted transitioning perfectly between complex tapping methods, or Ace hitting notes with a 2 frame window, I think to myself “Only this player and their skill set can achieve this accomplishment, that was amazing”

[@drunktrunk8211]

all i can say is how tf do u read that

[@SimplyAstonished]

Depends on the High NPS. supernovae high NPS is megatechnical. something like sweeping solo a-d in dix millie is easy asf for example.

[@SimplyAstonished]

also WTF song. its always my party trick song. cause its easy but looks impressive.

[@Flaaroni]

Wait till you see Beat Saber viewers on KZbin. 95% of them still think Reality Check Through The Skull is the hardest level in the game

[@toone1562]

"Beat saber players" be like

[@alphazetavr1888]

Do many people still think that, I feel like it’s more of a meme now cause it’s an old map

[@Flaaroni]

@@alphazetavr1888 It's definitely a meme in the competitive community but ask any casual player what the hardest map is and chances are they'll either say rap god or rctts

[@alphazetavr1888]

Flaaroni that’s really sad

[@northern_limit]

do they really still do that? I haven't been into the game for 8 months and I thought maybe by now something would've replaced it in the casual audience

[@worldsendloneliness]

even if people take the initiative to educate people on these sort of games, people wont care at all, their just here to watch, and make the "he's prolly asian" and "i bet ur gf loves ur fingers" jokes.

[@replayarena8429]

Sadly true. It’s rare to even find someone who genuinely wants to learn more, though thanks to the perception of inflated difficulty, most people don’t feel inclined to look past that and see how it’s more than just being able to button spam for a period of time.

[@oxygengas5082]

It's they're not their

[@trashomega3084]

@@replayarena8429 how the fuck would you find someone like that if they didn't already know about rythme games

[@replayarena8429]

@@trashomega3084 I mean… I was that person who wanted to learn more? Granted I did already know about rhythm games before but it wasn’t until Arcaea that I actually got invested. I like to think there’s some small minority that’s learning in genuine interest, regardless if they’ve seen the biased perception or not. It’s just a matter what content you come across and how you choose to consume it.

[@trashomega3084]

@@replayarena8429 i guess so.

[@sebastianmitchell4776]

I guess you could say the same with any niche interest, like rock climbing or even juggling. You have to try it yourself to comprehend the difficulty

[@M4TTYN]

but amazing most don't try fighting games for the fear of losing. i know you don't want some OG completely owning you but that ass beating is a lesson a hard lesson it helps.

[@iiovemiku]

oh yeah, rock climbing looks super easy but even basic stuff becomes a huge challenge when you actually try. my best was probably a 5.10b or c lol

[@JuicedLeaf]

@@M4TTYN the reason people don’t try fighting games is because it takes literally hundreds of hours fighting against a training dummy and shitty Ai before you can even start to comprehend how your online opponent kept you in a seemingly perpetual hit stun, and then it takes hundreds of hours of being treated like a training dummy online before you start to actually win matches. New players learn nothing when losing because they don’t even know how they lost and what they should’ve done to prevent it.

[@afj810]

@@JuicedLeaf This is why combos in fighting games should have a cap.

[@JuicedLeaf]

@@afj810 most of them do, but ultimately punishing players for playing well is terrible game design so they have to implement systems that let players chain a combo into new ones. Nearly every game that does this though makes that a prime opportunity for the victim to break out, but a new player isn’t going to know all of this. But even if they do somehow know it’s possible to break out at that moment (whether via tutorial like in skull girls or some online tips and tricks) they’re not going to be able to know what to do and have the reflexes to do it.

[@thatotherandrew_]

I think a really good demonstration of this is Rhythm Doctor - where there's rarely more than 3 notes on the screen at a time (the final boss in the game is literally one repeated note at 2 different constant speeds), and yet some rhythm game players struggled with it, due to the game's different musical concepts and variations.

[@thespeedyyoshi]

And because of it, less popular….😢😢

[@happythirsty]

This reminds me of school talents shows. I competed as a pianist but the other pianist won because his muddy same-note piece was faster :

[@FighBat]

I actually had this happen to me not in rhythm games, but in speedrunning. I uploaded a video that was a run that would be top 10 without a core mechanic and some dude said this isn't what people want to see, I waved him off cuz I didn't care and just wanted to push myself in a unique way. Just something I took away from this video.

[@VoidHxnter]

People like this don’t realize that there has to be a video to show you getting that run before you can submit. Those videos don’t really have entertainment in mind, just to get a run into the speed running boards.

[@azurehaiku]

yeah clickbait is becoming. really harmful channels like bandoot just kind of putting "THIS IS THE MOST IMPRESSIVE BEAT SABER LEVEL EVER" without any mention of the song, the person who made it or the things it was derived from (looking at the extra sensory maps) it just kinda hurts, especially when the community that's being disregarded is very small and could use the attention

[@bananya6020]

yeah i mean bandoot is kind of a cool person (talk to him on twitch) though he kind of goes overboard on titles

[@epicmoo3410]

Agreed. Bandoot is a cool guy and beatsaber is great but his titles can get way too clickbaity and it sucks

[@M4TTYN]

@KobePlays he puts the song star rating that's it simple to the point thank god.

[@KingRazer]

His title are misleading tbh it's annoying how if he makes a video on some simple map it turns into people who haven't even played the game going into peoples streams saying this Map is almost impossible and bandoot can only get an A on it every other like 10 minutes

[@epicmoo3410]

@@KingRazer flash back to his reality check vid lmao

[@nuke9915]

my brain is not fast enough to comprehend rhythm games, so i just see non-repetitive patterns and think "hmmmm, difficult"

[@TryTane]

I'm trash at osu! but when I show my gameplay to my friends bc they want to know what kind of game it is, they're like: "wtf dude you're so good!!" Aahaha... no I'm not.....

[@potatopotato-lf1ns]

That’s why I don’t tell my friends about my rhythm games, like I have them hahaha

[@-undefined-]

I know people who see me play osu, and at first they thought it was insane. Although I've improved massively however, to them it seems like there is no change because it's still just a lot of fast notes. Like bruh, I went from mid 6 digit to almost 4 digit and you can't tell any difference

[@Mao0039]

It even worst at the arcade when someone mash a lvl 2 song and someone come by and say "holy shit ur so good"

[@shanestaley6595]

same, the average person looks at a “slightly higher than average” rhythm game player and thinks its insane. ill play a hard in pdiva (difficultly is misleading in those games hards more “normal”) and get a 90% and my friends all panic and think im god, meanwhile im just spamming abababab patterns

[@SummerAzures]

I relate to this. I play DDR/Stepmania at about a 10 feet level and my friends tell me to join competitions and can't understand when I tell them I'd get absolutely toasted

[@tryhardr2658]

I was playing 4k mania at school today. I‘m not a really good player, still struggling on passing low 3 star maps, but when I played some 2.6 - 2.8 star maps in front of them, they say "You‘re insane" and "HOW DO U DO THAT" I played a LN map, and they said it looks easier than the streams maps I played, when I didn‘t sweat much on the stream maps and nearly failed the LN map

[@supremechaosbeing2696]

what i understand from this: bunch of notes isn’t actually too hard it’s just pressing button fast but more complex sequences are much more difficult because you have to like process what things to press

[@sydosys]

not so much that you have to process what things to press, that comes naturally at this level, its the action of pressing them that's usually difficult. many patterns can also be very awkward to hit physically, even if you know perfectly well what notes to press and the rhythms are simple. of course, some patterns can also be very difficult to read in some games, and there's stuff that makes it harder to read as well, such as flashlight mod in osu, or SVs in osu!mania (look up polyriddim)

[@coocoo3336]

Ye. Even in adofai thats true. Maps like cardboard box - the limit does not exist. Are extremly overated when you compare it too omega omega parts or ghoul by camellia

[@bigfin20]

this happens in skateboarding too (and everything else ever) where "flashy" stuff like tres are the most impressive despite being relatively easy

[@WillyOsu]

Great video, really sums up what the issue with viewers who might not understand what actually makes something hard in rhythm games over what they do understand and what keeps their attention. After thinking a bit I'm almost certain I've been one of these people for rhythm games I'm not as familiar with, but I also think I've become more mindful of challenging rhythm as my experience has grown. Not sure if there's really a good way to prioritize better plays over the ones viewers want to see but who knows what the future will hold.

[@catbugtf]

with the rise of fnf, this has become extremely relevant

[@Rose-ez7yn]

"Guys I beat MILF/Ballistic/Expaguration PERFECTLY (even though it's 65% acc but hey it's also FC)"

[@Tsukastan]

The worst thing about rythm game difficulty perception is having irl friends that discredit your score because it "looks so easy it's just spamming"

[@theonlybass8947]

nothing makes me sadder than seeing a new 4k/vsrg player asking "how do I increase my NPS?"

[@fetzel5055]

It's so funny how the "godmode" thing is now primarily associated with whitecat, when it was actually popularized by uploads of plays by cookiezi during his prime and the likes (or even earlier) Just shows how much of a dominant and impressive force he's been and continues to be in the game

[@saturn6458]

tbf it was circle people

[@plasim.]

9:34 thanks for putting in a beat saber clip

[@Personyee]

What’s beat saber?

[@plasim.]

@@Personyee A virtual reality rhythm game where you slice blocks to the beat of a song, I think you might like it

[@uyk765]

kinda sad to know that beat saber get constantly shit on by other rhythm game communities good game, shittiest community, would be better if beat saber clickbaits didn't exist

[@hashiispep]

@@Personyee lmfao

[@Leo137]

well, not all good players are entertainers. There's a difference

[@GHSpaghetti]

When it comes to guitar hero especially people seem to only see the rhythm games for the "memes" as the game doesn't interest them, this can be extremely off-putting arguably alot more than just someone clickbaiting their title a bit for views. But that is probably a seperate issue overall, top players want recognition for their achievements and for some despite what they do will get overshadowed, the overall thing to take from this is we can complain about this all we want but nothing is going to change because there will always be ignorant people on the internet.

[@MedivalNinja500]

Sadge

[@arbi9506]

sir this is a wendys

[@calvinthedestroyer]

One thing that always comes to mind is having a 2 min song in ddr with only one arrow. It would be the easiest song and the hardest song!

[@Prism019]

**cough cough that one Down ITG meme chart** Edit: I guess my friend must have edited the chart to make all the arrows down and sent a video to me. Damn, got jebaited.

[@laurensweyn]

"Biiiiiii Bi Bi Bi Bi Bbibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibi-"

[@Emilia089]

There is this idea that when osu players play hidden with fast bpm normal viewers think they memorize it from finish to last but as someone whom plays alot of hd dt its reflex or reading

[@MMenyan]

you don't even need hddt, a lot of viewers assume they memorised when it's just nm or hr bc they don't think of the possibility they can read it or they don't consider it feasible from what i heard, a big thing to ppl who never seen the game before is the order of the objects

[@akunin417]

This is doubly weird when you realize that the faster the ar, the easier HD becomes, it's such a hard mod to play well with at ar 7, but 9-10 and it's just a preference mod on anything that isn't a spaced stream/tech map.

[@raynei]

@@akunin417 I think it's the effect of modern maps. If we were still playing ar 7-8 2009 maps I think most players would be able to do ar7-8 hd

[@ayeronical]

osu on hidden in any gamemodes is just a bonus score amp if you’re trying to hit a good score, if you played a map for about 1 to 5 times, the rhythm is already in your head, making it easier for you to determined where 3 1/4s appear and 2 1/2s appear. This also applies to mania, I don’t know how I hit 300s during mania hidden on 800 combo, but that’s really just reading patterns that you can already foresee as a player of the gamemode. This is basically the reason DT and FL is the only high multiplier that gives 0.12, since they coordinate more on map memorization or consistency. HR gives a small share of difficulty increase due to how usual you might lose, and the circle size shrinks, while HD may give a multiplier, this doesn’t affect the star difficulty (just like FL, memorizing the map doesn’t mean you’re good at the game, but DTing a map still relies on speed and reading. everyone can do a 7 star nomod if they passed the map a thousand times). That’s basically how we react to usual patterns we’ve seen repetitively.

[@WriggleNB]

Before when I was playing Groove Coaster, my mindset was "I have to be perfect on these hard songs so I can be a good player too." Though, I wasn't really having fun. I think that's important with everything, you should value the entertainment you get out of what you're doing.

[@LightLock]

at first I was like yeah higher nps means harder. But now I realize I was including different patterns in that thought. I didn't know that people literally only looked at how many notes and ignored the pattern

[@chiffaonosu]

Okay, comment from osu!std player who knows one osu!mania pro player - I cannot understand what is going on in high end mania. At all. I can keep up with Taiko to some extent (when it isn’t 300+ bpm at least, can’t read that shit), I understand CtB... kinda, but I can’t understand mania. This video is very good in this way. It actually is relatable for me, and works for my friends watching me playing standard once in a while. Good job, man, good content

[@viktoriatheskinnynerd2674]

This video has become much more relevant now with the popularity of friday night funkin.

[@Lh0000]

In all fairness, I highly doubt that game was made with professional skill in mind, and was more built as a casual game in general.

[@BWithey-1]

Very great video on the topic. It's funny because even as a rhythm game player myself (Osu!Taiko) there are things within the community as a whole that I miss when watching other games. This really helped put a few of those things to light and helped me understand some more general concepts with in the genre as a whole.

[@sendy8578]

This video expresses my thoughts perfectly you don't even know LMAO. Interesting that you mention newer players gravitating toward these higher nps songs themselves since they'll receive more gratification (from both themselves and others) than if they were playing technical charts. This is very true for the Clone Hero community specifically right now. Very, very rarely is there an upcoming player that focuses on or even plays highly technical charts. But yeah very well thought out video Mr. Etienne

[@thelordflygon6169]

Despite the fact it’s not a rhythm game, I think this is the same reason that videos of spam challenges got so big in the geometry dash KZbin community.

[@hambonepng1152]

Geometry dash is partially a rhythm game

[@saxwastaken]

IIDX has the best scoring sytem IMO, when you reach a certain level of difficulty it's all about how high of a score you can get rather than how perfect you are. you can get a higher score by missing a bunch of notes as long as you hit them accurately compared to someone who gets a full combo but has shit accuracy.

[@pawface7271]

Preach it And aside from that, "Full Combo" reallllly should be reserved for perfect accuracy as well. Ghost inputs are a thing, but spam tapping is a fucking detriment to the scene.

[@meepilee7991]

These problems mostly apply to geometry dash as well. It all really comes down to these types of rage games (They're all rage games imo, you can get to the last part of the level and messup a bit and fail) since they look way too easy compared to the actual difficulty of them. Heck this is why npesta is such a meme and people dont like osu/think they need a trackpad or smth to be good (well good enough to beat any map)

[@stanleychen2584]

osu has to be the biggest culprit of perceived difficulty. everything looks super easy until you load up the map

[@jazzling]

beat saber is the other way round

[@varanova6086]

I think KZbin looks at difficult scores based on how blown their minds are

[@dragoniux4364]

This.

[@zx9018]

knowing from experience, I think you have to play the game and understand how hard it is to do something for you to truly realize how good the score is. I saw some 100pp play from my friend, and I tried it, and I realized how much better he is, and how hard things actually are.

[@Hero3life]

A lot of my buddies who don't know the game (CH) say they just get lost when there is very complex and fast sections. I'm like, "holy fuck that was nuts" because of my knowledge of the game, but they are mostly like, "Wow that's a lot of notes." And they really just don't understand how much time it takes to hit some of these sections. Or they don't care to learn. It's a hard thing to explain. Good video :)

[@TNTspaz]

This was obviously already been a thing before but Friday Night Funkins popularity turned this into a much more toxic issue. With many casual players labeling tons if high skill players as elitist for even bringing up the notion that Friday Night Funkin has poor charting and isn't as hard as people perceive. Especially with the poor hitmap code in the base game. It really exposed the ignorance of the casual audience even though rythum games are fairly widely known and popular after being around for decades.

[@pascald7863]

Same thing for deathstreams in taiko. Very fast deathstreams but with same colors repeated for a while are MUCH easier than slower ones with color variation every max 4 notes, speed is simply a difficulty factor.

[@diddy_dante]

Same goes for the people getting impressed by music instrument playing. Some things are so much harder then they seem while others are fast but require little technicality

[@arthurmarmocathala]

Damn whitecat and his neverending godmodes! /s

[@whenisdinner2137]

If he gets clapped this OWC the whole ranking system is going to get exposed.

[@oxey_]

@@whenisdinner2137 _if_, _if_... Dustice and him on the same team seems really scary, though I'm looking forward to what UK and australia can do

[@whenisdinner2137]

@@oxey_ true

[@voxel9470]

Tbh the reason why whitecat is at #1 is coz he is consistent and versatile so I bet he will be good at tournament

[@whenisdinner2137]

@@voxel9470 no he got number 1 with DT inflation and farming a lot. He is nowhere near as versitile of consistent as other tournement players and especially Vaxei.

[@SorAosu]

While the evidences and arguments presented in the video are accurate and reasonable, i think it's gonna be very hard or even nearly impossible to teach the viewers about rhythm games' knowledge and insights, since most of them aren't really interested in rhythm games and only watch them for entertainment, hence don't want to dive deeper in.

[@Scopatone]

This 100%. The rhythm community is probably one of the most closed off/smallest communities I've ever been part of. The only people I meet irl that say "I play rhythm games" are either above average or VERY good and have been playing for years. There is no mid-low tier regular players I've met, it's mostly casual players that hop on for a song or 2 with their friend and play like a difficulty 2 or 3 on Pump/DDR just to screw around. Most people into rhythm are REALLY into rhythm games that I've seen

[@itsdarious555]

this video is really necesary and very well done, good job etienne, many casual players should watch this XD

[@johnwiese6760]

For violin its tremolo, basically just spam the bow as fast as you can and it sounds way more impressive than it is

[@KedKi]

I think a lot of these issues could be solved by doing some more editing on score videos, like commentary tracks, including failed attempts at hard sections, or including text highlighting difficult patterns. Of course this obv would take a lot more work, and it could be off-putting to non-casual viewers who can already tell what's impressive about a score.

[@sploob865]

KZbin thinks that if you can hit chord jacks at 90 bpm you will ascend into god hood

[@derailedamazementisfuzzy]

just getting back into rhythm games after being away from them since ~2015 these videos are amazing rhythm games have def needed content this good

[@theauxer2836]

I can't believe I'm months late but I hope more people see this video. A lot of communities don't understand these things you explained. (Especially the FNF community who think mods with just a bunch of random notes are the coolest)

[@Simrasil_]

yo your audio quality has really improved, you're making some great content keep it up :D

[@RyDawgE]

"Yeah I'm a pro rhythm game player" "Oh what game do you play?" "Friday Night Funkin"

[@acoolduckinabanana7274]

“I’m a pro gamer because I can beat ballistic”

[@ecoleafv]

i can’t take fnf players seriously when they say that lmao

[@duykhangtran4406]

You can't say you are a pro rhythm gamer if you only play the most casual rhythm game

[@onyxiris]

@@duykhangtran4406 Literally this. I’ll take people who play Geometry Dash more seriously than FnF players unless they’re on the leaderboard and even then...

[@ej-jz5rc]

the FnF community is literally a dumpster fire

[@ChronicalV]

Ok, world's fastest gamer But seriously, great points made here. I'd like to also mention how alienating it can be for someone who IS aware of these points in various high level gaming communities. Going into any other game I guard my words carefully because I'm aware that the laymans perception is often innacurate in terms of judging the difficulty or skill of a game or player. More of an isolated personal case tho.

[@d.h.jack_rhythmgames5091]

Sometimes I would really wish there exists some kind of 10-min-ish all-rounded basic introduction video on rhythem games so that everyone can refer to it to clear up casual viewers' misunderstandings. I guess it requires a lot of work, an impartial mind, and the ability to produce educational yet intriguing video. Wouldn't that be epic.

[@catofdoom11]

I really like this video and the points you put out do make a lot of sense. It's toxic for the community when people go from stream to stream requesting songs just cause x streamer played it and people who just grind shit to get views and shit from casuals or new people to the community

[@warguy6474]

tbf in the case of osu and speed players, nps of streams makes a large part of a play impressive. For example, zestiny and aetrna both have plays that are difficult and are perceived as so because of the sheer speed of how many notes there are.

[@finadoggie]

not that that perceived difficulty is unearned though, the speeds that they can go at are insanely fast for just two keys, and way above the amount of skill that it would take to do the jacks in fool moon night

[@unova3557]

There's just more competition in the jump skillset than the extremely fast stream skillset. aetrna is pretty much the only person who can do really really fast streams at this point, but for jumps there's Whitecat, mrekk and Vaxei (maybe Micca aswell) all competing on similar skill levels. So I think that aetrna has mainly gotten his popularity off of the sheer skill difference between speed stream players, and the lack of competition in this subset.

[@whenisdinner2137]

You forgot acerin (gayz)

[@whenisdinner2137]

@@unova3557 did gayz die?

[@warguy6474]

@@whenisdinner2137 gayz is in a weird place he's definitely good at speed but he's slower than zestiny and merami. Its the same for informous. In the end it doesn't really matter how fast you are unless you fc, given the example of aricin and zestiny, zestiny may be able to stream upwards of 300, but aricin is much more consistent and accurate at 250-290 making him overall better. Aricin has impressive plays but what I'm trying to say is that in terms of raw nps, merami and zestiny are practically unmatched.

[@MartZOZ]

Etienne just debunked the entirety of robeats videos

[@Gingy_Music]

As a pretty good beat saber player (top 3000 ish), I can say the casual player can really mess up a high level player, with “play rctts”. It also somewhat hurts to see insane accuracy scores, like 99s or 98s neglected. This mostly happens when people come from casual channels, (tempex and others), with a much lower understanding of the games mechanics. Luckily, we do have great channels like the Cube Community, who display great tech, acc, challenge and speed scores.

[@miroslavbulldosex]

yeah the acc aspects is so underestimated most low rank players dont quite understand the constistency needed to score a 98% on long maps

[@epicmoo3410]

When i still to this day see people unironically talking about how rctts is the hardest map and bandoot is the best player it just makes me sad and cringe

[@OrangeW]

pain-peko

[@miroslavbulldosex]

@@OrangeW lol you got the first fc

[@Bogglemanify]

I said this on the recent acc map that Cube Community put out but a reason I love beat saber so much is that super simple maps can have insane plays on them. This makes beat saber super unique compared to every other rhythm game.

[@sigmarthcipherius5153]

Me, before getting into rhythm games: Man, Freedom Dive is very scary =m= Me, now playing Taiko no Tatsujin (Arcade): Freedom Dive buffed my triceps.

[@dcskater012345]

Its almost like how casuals viewed a Max 300 FC as something amazing back in the day. When in retrospect, people who actually played DDR new that it wasnt even something to bat an eye at. I used to get praise at the arcades back then because everyone standing around watching thought it was the most impressive thing ever. To me, max 300 was always played in my warm up sets because the patterns aren't difficult, but enough to get the blood pumping.

[@MikeTheEntei]

That's more because Max 300 is one of many, many boss songs. Pretty much anything 15 and above (and even lots of 14s) are impressive to casual viewers. Sure, it's easy compared to a lot of hardcore songs now, but it literally used to be the hardest song in the game.

[@pikachu-dr1vs]

9:13 my man obama chilling in the corner

[@KataokaTV]

PogFish

[@DuBCraft21]

I appreciate you including the GHOS7 pass from taichi in beatsaber. I spend a lot of time hanging around streams in that community and still see people try to request that horrid map constantly!

[@craft_warrior177]

I think a good example of this is the 100 meter dash vs parkour, and attempting to use speed as a judgement. Yes, the person doing the 100 meter dash is moving faster, but parkour requires different techniques and decision making, which are difficult, and not represented if you use speed as a judgement. (not that the 100 meter dash is easy, proper technique is important there too)

[@RonaldPoe]

I consider myself a top American player of an obscure rhythm game called Neon FM (the arcade version is incredibly rare but I have one locally). It's basically a drum simulator you play with your fingers and has 5 large buttons. Anyway I've recently noticed it's often harder to hit songs with the scroll speed slowed to 3 (it's normally at 4 when under 50) than ones set to like 8. The faster speed is more tiring and impressive looking but the slower one is a lot more awkward. ' Just my two cents ...

[@euphoria_kisses]

"Players should be comfortable with expressing their unique skills" This was why I left the SM/Etterna community (among other reasons such as veterans quitting). I had a skillset that made me shunned as a "one-dimensional" player, and eventually, it made the game unfun for me. I still miss playing the game but I'm not ready to dive back into playing the game anymore

[@kisparks]

I'm reminded of a video that the algorithm feeds me labeled "DDR Level Asian" and it makes me sigh because it's pump doubles.

[@ioinsun]

i’m a cytus 2 player and I’d like to bring up another form of difficulty misperception that occurs specifically in C2 and has very few other analogues. that’s with the song CODE NAME : SIGMA. It’s a Chaos 15, which is the highest possible rank a song can get (althoufh the difficulty range among them is pretty wide). there’s one section at around 350 combo in it that will fool non experienced players into thinking it’s really hard- because the line moves at around 400 bpm. now i don’t know if this is universal, but I was extremely intimidated by this when I first saw it in a video. even though it’s an extremely easy pattern (literally just quarter notes), the sheer fact that the scanline moves so fast (the song even has the vocal cue “speed up” right before the drop) may trick people pretty hard, when the actual hard part of the level comes around 700 combo right near the end. idk i just thought this was an interesting case where note density is not what lends difficulty perception, but the unique mechanics of cytus doing something weird (Compare that to the song Revelation, which has a similar extremely fast part, but one which is charted really dense and ends up being one of the most technical and tricky patterns in the game, but w/e)

[@guitarherorobloxgod]

LeafgreenHD is who started the “World Record” thing in the Clone Hero Scene. Before that, it was simply “first place”.

[@KudosK42]

Ok now... How do we get this video spread to other people's recommendations?

[@Signicial]

I tried to let more people get this too. Good contents never hit the algorithm, which is what I really dislike about the system.

[@KudosK42]

@@Signicial sigh, short, sweet, and dopamine striking video like *EVERY CAPS ON THE TITLE* is what people want, attention span is no more than 5 mins. I hate those people.

[@coleo6141]

Tbh I'm a relatively new clone hero youtuber and I completely agree with what you have said. I have tried technical songs and I have tried tappy songs, i have tried fcs vs high scores, and people tend to go for the speedy fcs the most

[@vynmo6114]

For osu!std, even most players have note speed as the be-all and end-all for determining not only map difficulty, but a player's perceived skill in the community. There are a few examples, Freddie Benson who even became global #1, but still had 0 respect from the community because he was a "3-mod aim one trick" to the point where he semi-quit, and only got respect by the community when he fc'd Airman DT which had high BPM streams, despite being a great player, people only saw him as one when he had a skill that was respectable in their eyes (note speed). Another one Whitecat being dismissed as a 3-mod aim one trick, undeserving of being the global #1 for months and only gaining respect after fc-ing ROR HR, and getting several other stream scores that no one thought would be achieved any time soon, which still sometimes get dismissed because "the note speed is too low". The inverse is also true, players who specialize in speed get immediate idolization, Ryuk was a top ten aim player that everyone made fun of because his note speed was low. But he practiced speed for 2 years and came back and he automatically became respected in the community as one of the best players (which is deserved), but people only cared about his scores when they had high bpm streams. The most extreme example right now is Xeltol, who was a rising speed player with insane high bpm scores like Ascension to Heaven DT 6 miss, but when he became a mainstream player, people considered him the best player in the game despite his only outstanding skill being note speed. He's incredibly respected for his 3 mod scores, while people actively hate on Freddie Benson, Mrekk, and Whitecat's 3 mod scores because they're 3 mod scores was aim-based and Xeltol's was note speed-based. Xeltol is also praised heavily for scores no one thought was possible before, like Mou Ii Kai DT 1 miss and Ascension to Heaven 3 mod, but Whitecat also sets scores that no one ever thought was possible, like 1-hope Sniper HDHR, Happy Song 1xSB, Altar 2 miss, Euphoria, and Galaxy Collapse 6 miss, but people don't care about it or bring it up after a week because they're just aim scores, while people still bring up Xeltol's scores after months because they're note speed scores, so they're automatically better in the eyes of the community. There are other examples like 90% of Woey's scores being dismissed by pretty much everyone except for us tech players, but how the osu community perceives difficulty is always biased by whatever social media circlejerk they follow, which is typically aim=bad, note speed=good, to the point where casual youtube viewers' perception on difficulty is more accurate than veteran players sometimes.

[@mrsparklepants5636]

I don't think I've ever seen more facts spat about osu! ever before, especially for Woey, I'm not a tech player (you can probably tell from my replays), but tech players have a hard time getting noticed or getting the respect they deserve.

[@raynei]

can kinda agree on everything you said, but not the part about casual viewers perception being more accurate than veterans. These casual viewers are the people fueling the pp = good theory, and they know too little to know what's actually impressive. You can split scores into 3 types, the first type being the "holy shit what the fuck did I watch" these can probably include cross screen jumps, 300 bpm deathstreams, etc. These plays can be shown to anyone, casual or not and they'll think it's impressive. Then are the more obscure scores that new players fail to comprehend the difficulty of, such as gn's polygon ez play, or his the government knows ez play. These are reading and finger control plays that often get overlooked by casual viewers, but will get recognized by more experienced players that have tried and know the difficulty of these plays. Then there are the plays that you've listed, the 90 acc woey plays, I've been playing osu for a year and I haven't heard of them nor seen them, so they're probably really only for tech players like you. Also this is my first time making a long comment and I have to say it's actually kinda stressful lmao

[@raynei]

I also think the idolization of speed was somewhat bound to happen. Because osu has gotten generation after generation of aim players. Tuna, mathi, Freddie Benson, and alot others in the top 20. This essentially makes speed a niche skill and when a speed player finally shows up, everyone goes wow wtf this person insane because it's so rare, and aim equivalent plays get less attention because people have seen similar plays already.

[@bananya6020]

also gn is a good ez player but he gets more respect compared to techplayers like woey on ez scores just because ez looks so confusing. while his nomod scores and such never get the respect they deserve, especially such as everything will freeze 1miss which everyone brushed off when it was a really impressive score in stream speed which a lot of people still can't do

[@badereric]

@@bananya6020 to be fair i can understand that, many of -GN's EZ scores are completely unique, however there are quite a few FCs on everything will freeze right now.

[@digitalunity]

The real difficulty in rhythm games is being able to find and afford the ones you like to watch

[@twitertaker]

6:53 Fun story from back in the time: For I thought the famous GH3 Song was called "The Devil Came To Georgia First" because of the "First FC" part, GHPhenom put in his title.

[@xxmysticexpertxx113]

I realized that forgotten 1x rate (dan 10 shoegazer) looks impressive to people when its not too hard at all

[@beetza600]

It’s hard for me lol

[@4nmao]

what

[@xxmysticexpertxx113]

tech maps

[@4nmao]

@@xxmysticexpertxx113 forgotten is hard thats why i said that

[@xxmysticexpertxx113]

@@4nmao huh oh ok

[@Nox__]

"Nps isnt difficulty" Damn this sounds like fnf charts.

[@YayapLives]

Due to the technical gate causing most people to have not played it and the perceived difficulty of it being physically active nearly every Beatsaber video I've seen has commenters expressing amazement at the players skill. granted the 400pp+ stuff is actually bonkers but even for the easier stuff too. Also accuracy and swingthrough are only tracked via points too so you could theoretically get a FC that is like 50% of the total possible score meaning that there is a much smaller accuracy focused group too. Also I guess it just fits the whole concept of aesthetically looking really impressive. cool vid.

[@tabbycar6741]

I mainly just play 4k rhythm games, and when i do something like a warm up song, and then the song ive been working on for a week and the warm up gets more praise then the actual piece. I just say "no how about you try both and watch with a smile as they fail miserably at the harder one.

[@oldthug7624]

Whenever I want to flex my osu skills, I just play speed or stream maps. They’re easy to me, but look impressive to people who don’t play.

[@lnterest-ing]

Theres definitely a sweet spot when it comes to rhythm games, too easy and it's not impressive, too hard and it just looks like spamming buttons / flailing arms / etc. Right in the middle, theres that flow area that both looks and feels great.

[@tcjon4321]

i love how you added taichi playing ghost in beat saber, fits really well with the topic of the video

[@egcart4957]

I THOUGHT I knew what all those words meant, hold on let me get a thesaurus

[@zetorux]

Here's all you need to know: If Jonx #1 did it, then it was impressive -Jonx #1

[@M4TTYN]

8:26 is mouse player funorange dude's hella chill and knows coding to made cool things one being the circle trainer which can make a new beatmap of any map faster, slower and etc which is nuts his twitch user page with his Twitch & YT osu.ppy.sh/users/2051389 his osu trainer github.com/FunOrange/osu-trainer/releases/tag/1.4 also the circle tracker which is pretty fucking cool

[@TetraBui]

This has gotten a lot worse the the video has gotten more relevant with the FNF community

[@tomato6102]

as an osu!std player i find any keyboard based game play incredibly impressive as i can't read even 1* mania maps

[@Jerros_]

And here I am just waiting for the day when MAX300 finally gets beaten.

[@swiggity6232]

I love Cpol's thumbnails. For the crazy plays he completely changes his thumbnail layout and just has a few question marks to signify it as insane. For osu! a lot of the plays look so easy when youre watching but if you combine it with actually reading and clicking its so fucking hard

[@fujiwarachika2187]

On the topic of scoring, have you ever heard of Project DIVA Arcade/Future Tone/MegaMix? It's a prime example of how inaccurate and misleading a scoring system can be. Your score is measured in both points and %, but most people tend to look at the % you got and the amount of misses you get. Now, for some strange reason, in this game, you can get a higher score by missing certain notes on purpose. These are called "Score Attack routes", where you intentionally miss certain notes so you can keep holding the Hold Notes for longer time, getting a better score. So, you could end a song with 3 or 4 misses and get a % higher than 100% (because yes, 100% isn't the max, why would it? It's around 105% or so, I am not sure if any song reaches 106%), or you could full combo or "Perfect" a song and get a percentage lower than 100%. So if you want to compete in the leaderboards, instead of looking for a full combo with max accuracy, in many cases you have to find out or look up the score attack route which tells you which notes to skip/hold in order to get a higher score

[@Nedyarg1100]

I know I believed many of these misconceptions about clone hero until I tried the game and then realized just how hard some of the really easy looking patterns actually are and how easy some hard looking patterns are.

[@tengu6225]

8:02 Didn't expect you to show EGHD's play on BUCHiGiRE Berserker here, nice!

[@Fulmine243]

I've been playing a lot of rhythm games for the last 4 years and I still don't understand most of these things

[@RealSolerius]

Same

[@angelhaerim]

the difficulty rating for project diva is funky as hell. 1* being the easiest and 10* being the hardest, i have several 10* extreme perfects, and the rest excellents or greats, (95%+ and 85%+ respectively) except for this one damn song, “intense voice of hatsune miku,” which i have only ever passed _once_ in the year that i’ve been playing, and haven’t even come close since. i felt so fucking elated when i passed that in comparison to perfecting the other 10* songs. and _then_ there’s _extra_ extreme, where the charts are so much harder, but they’re still rated as 10*?? so to someone who doesn’t play these games, they’ll probably look at a song which is a 10* and immediately think every other song like that is the same difficulty when that couldn’t be further from the truth. shit’s wack

[@bigfin20]

pretty sure most casual viewers realize that repetitive jacks aren't as hard as tech stuff, I mean you don't need to play rhythm games to know that a repetitive motion is easier than finer motor control