Accuracy Training

12:06 AM 0 Comments

Accuracy is mainly related to scoring system and the key to determine the total score you could get in a song. In case you don't think of it as a big deal, accuracy affect how much score you got in the end of the song and that's determine your position in all type of PIU competitions and tournaments, as well as world ranking.

At this point, I'll be talking about type of accuracy in PIU fiesta 2 only.

The very basic type of accuracy (duh~) consists of Perfect, Great, Good, Bad, and Miss. There is no official information about how to define the differences between each type. Most players know what it is and how each accuracy is achieved when they have more experience. Below is the basic concept an description of each accuracy:

Perfect - Step with really good accuracy when the note reach the note bar (the static grey note skin on top of the screen where you know you need to step when the note reach that place. That's how I call it). Like more than 90% accuracy,

Great - Step with good accuracy and lesser compare to Perfect. Approximately around 70%.

Good - Consider fine. You are still manage to step on the note but slightly off from the beat. Maybe around 50%.

Bad - Not good. You step on the note when it reach near to the note bar but it's not reaching the note bar or it's passed the note bar.

Miss - Totally miss the note.

*Disclaimer: Above description are totally based on own thinking and experience, as there is no official info about this (Or I just failed to find it). You will understand it as you play often anyway.

Next, you need to know how to get a good accuracy in order to get a chain of perfect and good grade.

Accuracy and Grade

Grade basically consists of SS, S, A, B, C, D, and F. Obviously, SS is the best and F is the worst. When you are playing in full mode, get A and above maintain your life point which determine how many songs you can play. Other than affecting the life point, grade also give your extra points if you get S or SS.

Grade SS - Get all Perfect only. Which means zero Great, Good, Bad and Miss.

Grade S - Get any amount of Perfect, Great, Good and Bad but with zero Miss.

Grade A - Get small amount of Bad and Misses with high number of Perfect, Great, and Good.

Grade B - Get more Bad or Misses with slightly low amount of Perfect, Great and Good.

Grade C - Get tons of Bad and Misses although you also get tons of Perfect, Great and Good.

Grade D - Manage to get some Perfect, Great and Good but Bad and Misses are too much.

Grade F - Well, you know.

*Disclaimer: Well, you know. (Duh~)

Now, enough with the basic. Let's talk about the training for getting better accuracy.

Training for Better Accuracy

First of all, I can tell you that I'm not a player with good accuracy. I start off with doesn't care too much about accuracy, all I care was combo. Even now, the max level I can get SS is level 12. However, that does not disqualify me from telling people how to train for better accuracy.

Accuracy training is a long term training. Let's say, you can get less than 5 great and a golden S grade for numerous level 10 songs, you can invest all your money and time in getting SS for all level 10 songs before you move on with level 11. I can't say that's a bad idea, I won't suggest it's a good idea either. If you are capable of playing level 15 well, let's say you can get S but more than 20 greats, you should focus on this level where you can train. Because training on higher level give you more benefits for improving your skill and stamina. Just remember that, the key is to train based on the level that suit you.

Another important thing that improve my accuracy rate to another level is this thing call "Beat". People who learn the music theory or play instrument should this well. This doesn't mean people who don't know music theory or instrument won't get it thou. For the details of listening to beat in music, you can refer to How to hear the beat of music by James Joseph. It's not a must to under the details of beats anyway.

Basically, when you listen to a specific music or song, you can try to tag your feet according to the rhythm. That sound that your feet tap according to is basically known as beat. Same thing in PIU music. You need to listen carefully to the music. Most of the stepchart of music and songs in PIU are really good because the step chart and notes follow according to the beat. Which mean, most of the notes required you to step according to how the music and rhythm goes. Getting yourself familiar with the music allow you to know when to step as long as you can see the note.

This is not always true because there are music that sounds quite messy, and you might also found some extra notes that are not following to the beat. Therefore, you can't expect every note is follow exactly to the beats and rhythm.

So, listen closely to the beats can help you not only to step at the correct time but also enjoy the music or songs. The main thing you need is "Focus" on the beat, and also see clearly how the notes cope with the beats in order to achieve good accuracy. Oh, and careful with some extra notes.

Additionally, listening to the beats is one great way to improve accuracy but not necessary the only way. If you found any great way that work your self, feel free to drop me an e-mail to let me know.

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Overview: Speeder

12:22 AM 0 Comments

"Speeder" is a commonly used term to describe PIU player who focus on playing and training on difficult songs to train different stepping and leg skills. The information belong is very basic and commonly understood by all players but I will try to cover some advance knowledge as well.
In terms of game play, speeder can train according to the following method. Note that I'm categorized each of the item below as with bar and no bar.

In case you are wondering, bar is the metal stick attached behind you when you standing on the game pad. It took me quite a long time to wondering what people meant by no bar when I was still new to PIU.

+ Single - With Bar

Play on one side of the game pad. You only need to focus on five keys. Usually, every player start with playing single at first to get familiar with the position of each key and how to step accurately. Being accurate here is not referring to the game score system that involve perfect, great, good, and so on, but I'm referring to the accuracy of your step on the physical key itself. No matter how well we can play, we might mistakenly step on the edge of the key and miss the notes, especially on songs with higher level difficulty where we need to step really fast and when we need to perform Twist.

When playing on single mode, one of the way of training for many players where you might not be able to notice is the training to conserve energy and stamina. Let's face this, when we push our self very hard and consume a lot of energy playing on one song, we get exhausted really fast even though most of the song durations are around 2 minutes to 2 & half minutes long except for full songs and remixes. If you fail to conserve and spending too much energy, you get really tired and just hope that the song end quickly. That's make you unable train with a correct manner because you need to train the accuracy and skills, which required a proper flow of breathing and energy as you play.

How to conserve energy? Here is the practical way in details from my experience. First you need to maintain a proper standing stance, with your knee slightly bend down but not too much, you don't want to look like a froggy man walking with two legs. Your upper half of the body should be straighten, try not to bend down unless you need to speed up really fast. But maintain a straightening upper body afterwards. This is crucial because the gesture of your upper body helps to reduce the strength that your leg need to takes when it step around. You can experiment this by standing on a flat floor, randomly move around your leg imagining you are stepping on the five keys. Try both stepping randomly with a straighten upper body and with your upper body bend down a little, then see which one make you feel tired sooner.

As for your lower body part, you just need to ensure your leg is at a proper position. As mentioned earlier, you need to bend your knee a little so that you be well prepared to twist, run faster and so on.

About the hand? Just make sure your hands hold tight on the bar and do not easily release the bar before the song finish. Release the bar only when you are very sure that the song is finish. I seen people who switch several times from holding bar to no bar, then hold bar again. I can't say you won't be able to train in such a way. But releasing the bar and hold it back afterwards give you the chance to lose grip of the bar because you don't have an eye on your back, you need to wander your hand on the back for awhile to grab to bar properly and that will result in losing balance, thus giving you a high chances of losing accuracy and miss many notes.

+ Double - With Bar

The obvious differences is that, you need to step on ten keys compare to five keys in single mode. But that's only covering the surface. Double mode is something very different. Able to play single very well doesn't guarantee you to be able to play fine in double, because the way to practice your skill in double is totally different.

The first thing you need to know about playing double is the position of your body on the game pad. The proper position of your body should be on the center of the game pad. Then, hold the left bar with your left hand and hold the right bar with your right hand. Sounds too basic and seems needless to mention about this? Well, I seen people who hold only one side of the bar and play double. That's making their way of stepping notes looks really awkward and difficult. There are also people who hold only one side of the bar with both hand all of a sudden, and then try to move their body to another bar and grab the other bar with both hand. Again, I can't say you definitely can't train in that way but I see more bad than good playing in such way. Not only you will feel really hard for your body to maintain at a proper position for playing double, you feel even more difficult to step properly and miss more notes when you can't even maintain your balance while holding bar.

I would suggest to practice holding bar when you playing double often. Although it sounds too basic, but it's a crucial method to ensure you able to step the ten notes in a correct way and perform the skill in double properly. To practice this, just keep these in mind when you are playing double:

i) Hold left hand on the left bar and right hand on the right bar. Hold tight and do not let go until you sure that the song is finish.

ii) Maintain your body on the middle of the game pad. Try not to move your body too much to the side.

iii) Bend your knee a little and imagine your leg should run around the ten keys. Your leg is the one that suppose to do all the running and stepping.

Anything else? That's cover what you should do when you are playing double but of course, that's just the basic that you need to master. Here's one factor you need to consider, level 15 single and level 15 double is very different not only the number of keys and how your body position should adapt to, the main thing here is stamina. Double is more breath and stamina killing because you need to use more energy from your upper body to move from left to right and another way round. So conserving energy is much more crucial for double.

Try to reduce the speed and maintain at a speed where you can see the notes really clear instead of trying to catch the notes with all your breath when playing double. For example, for a song with BPM 140, you can read the notes clear with speed 4.5. But for double, speed 4.5 could be too fast for you, so try to set speed 4. You might find it a little slow and you wish that it's a little faster, but the key here is to ensure you can really read the notes clearly in order to finish the entire song, instead of losing all your breath in the middle of the songs, playing well in the beginning but unable to play the rest of the songs. This is because faster speed required you to catch the notes faster, and kill your stamina much faster.

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Beginning of BadKitty: Road to Fiesta

10:45 PM 0 Comments

"Beginning of BadKitty: Road to Fiesta" is a journal of improvement for me, IGN: BadKitty, in Pump-It-Up Fiesta 2. The word "Beginning" is just to indicate that it's the beginning of this blog as a record of my improvement and experience in PIU Fiesta, does not mean that I'm new to PIU Fiesta. In fact, I started PIU approximately at July of 2012, which is roughly 2 years plus by this date.

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