Lunatic Rave / BMS

Haven't been able to get back to this in awhile thanks to Borderlands 2 and other life shit.

A lot of people ask me this question: "Do you have to play Lunatic Rave (LR2) in order to get better?"

Well this article should be able to answer that question.

What is LR2?

First off for the people that don't know, LR2 is a IIDX simulator that you can play on your computer. I'm not going to write a tutorial on how to get it running and what not since there are a bunch of start up guides that you can find. I will post a bunch of links at the end for people that want to get into LR2.

LR2 allows you to play BMS's which are original made charts by users. Most of the time these charts are often WAAAY harder then IIDX 12's, but not all of the charts are like that and there are multiple rating systems. But most of the time in order to play on the standard scale of BMS's you have to pretty proficient in IIDX 12s.

Rating systems

These are totally unofficial just to let you know.

The first rating system is the what im going to call the "White Star" system, which varies from 1-12. This is closer to actual IIDX ratings. I'm not too sure how accurate it is to IIDX since i never played any of the charts before.

The second system is the "Black Star" system which varies from 1-24. This is what you would call the "standard" BMS scale and includes most of the harder BMS's.

The third system is the "Overjoy" scale which are insanely hard or stupid ass songs. OJ varies from 0-7 (Only 1 song in the OJ 0 category). Basically to compare it to the standard BMS scale a OJ 1 is equal to a 21 or so on the standard scale.

There are other rating systems such as the long note system, scratch and what not.

When to start playing LR2?

There's no absolute time when to start playing LR2, its a good option for people who don't have access to CS or for people that want to play more songs since CS is currently dead at the moment.

I haven't started played it until maybe about 1 year ago or so, my reason being that i wanted to get better at reading denser / harder shit and work on stamina.

Where to start?

If you just wanna play more easier and casual stuff then i would recommend playing stuff from like BMS of fighters or from the white star rating system. Most of the stuff here will be easier and closer to IIDX ratings.

I would recommend to start playing on the standard scale if you can consistently beat 12's such as AA another, Golden Cross another, and what not. A level 1 on this scale is about equivalent to AA another. If you are already like a pro then i would just play like different levels of difficulties until you know what your threshold is of clearing stuff. Once you find your threshold then i would practice songs from that level and if you want to progress then play songs that are 1-2 levels above.

Don't even try OJ unless you can beat 20's or so on the standard scale.

Progressing  levels in LR2

I'm just going to give a general range of level gaps on the standard scale. You probably want to make sure you can beat most of the songs in each level before moving on to the next level of songs. There are some exceptions with stupid songs that have dumb ass gimmicks. Keep in mind playing the lower level songs are always a good thing to practice, when i practice them i just work on combo-ing, timing, and control of my hands. Where i wrote "wall" is where i had the most problems and is where i believe good checkpoints are of progress.


1-4
5-7
8-9
10-11
12-14 Wall
15-16
17-18
19
20 Wall
21-22
23 Wall
24
FDFD = DANNY LEE

I basically brute force my way to read shit by doing stuff like playing the charts that im trying to get used to reading to over and over even though I 2% it. Keep in mind that doesn't mean you can just play a hard ass chart and mash on it. Just make sure you know yourself that you can COMPREHEND it and HIT it to a CERTAIN extent. Don't do this when you can't even comprehend it.


There is a dan ranking system in LR2, for people that are curious i'm only a 10 dan in LR2.


4 Songs that's a good gauge to judge your skill that isn't gimmicky as shit

12: Gengaozo -GOD-
20: AIR -GOD-
23: Little HeartS -GOD-
OJ: FREEDOM DiVE FOUR DIMENSIONS


So what can LR do to me to get better?

This is what LR2 will help you with: READING notes, stamina, and overall technique to a certain point. Technique is something i don't really focus on in LR2 just because i do feel like you DO have to wrist scratch  ESPECIALLY if your playing on a non-KOC dimension controller. As for myself I play completely different from IIDX AC and LR2. There are players that don't wrist scratch on LR2 and still get around just as crazy.

LR2 v. IIDX

These are the biggest differences between IIDX and LR2.

1. Timing on songs are different

Every BMS on LR2 can have its timing adjusted when its made. The most common timings you will see is EASY and NORMAL. EASY timing is a lot easier then standard IIDX timing, the windows for JG and Greats are a lot bigger. NORMAL is closer to IIDX AC, in my opinion its a little tighter then AC but it could just be me and my game going off sync.

2. The normal bar on songs are also different

The normal gauge can be adjusted on each song on how fast it builds up. You will run into a lot of songs that have high ratings but have noticeably easier charts and a REALLY hard normal bar. When i mean really hard i mean it takes about 800 combo of greats to get to 80%. Of course if you can hit most of these charts then you can just hard bar it since hard is standardized for any song.

3. Holds

The holds in LR2 do NOT need to be let go. IIDX you have to time when you let go the holds.

4. Randoms are replay-able / select-able

Yes, you can keep playing a random you cherry picked. Just hold a blue and white key when you get to the result screen. You can even choose your random if you have IR activated with G-Battle, which allows you to play the same exact chart that someone played on IR, but you will have to play the same bar as the ghost your battling. Playing fraud randoms all day is pretty fun once awhile.

5. Notes are a lot more mashable

You can literary mash all 7 keys during a cluster fuck and combo it.

6. Controllers

Use a KOC if you wanna get good at LR2. Use a ASC if you wanna have more of a feel for IIDX.

Epilogue

To me LR2 helped me progress a lot in IIDX mostly from reading, stamina and the ability to wrist scratch on AC IIDX to a certain extent. It didn't help me too much in timing since when i play LR2 my play time doesn't really focus on timing but more on hitting notes.

I'll admit LR2 does take some dedication, but don't get demoralized if you don't get better at it, since this is WAY HARDER and WAY STUPIDER then IIDX, you will run into the dumbest gimmicks that will piss you off. Pretty much any song you run into from 19+ will have some kind of dumb ass gimmick.

Links

Setup tutorial
http://pastebin.com/89ZtkYeE (I think this was originally wrote by LongGone so give credit to him)

All the songs ready for DL on the standard scale of 1-24 + Overjoy 0-7.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=b95cff3a8a971013&sc=documents&id=B95CFF3A8A971013%21104

Website for all the BMS events such as BMS of fighters and what not
http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event.cgi

BMS uploader, you can find a lot of fan made charts here.
http://absolute.pv.land.to/bmsuploader.html

3 rating systems
http://losak.web.fc2.com/normalSP.html
http://losak.web.fc2.com/insaneSP.html
http://achusi.main.jp/overjoy/nanido-luna.php

LR Internet ranking
http://www.dream-pro.info/~lavalse/LR2IR/search.cgi?mode=search&type=insane&exlevel=0&7keys=1