I'm not stating that "half-way" modding isn't possible. We can easily "half-way" mod the stage if we desire, but in the current condition the stage at ACME is in, that is impossible without it becoming unplayable.

When we first started modding the stage, half-way was the method we chose. However, the stage became awful in a number of different ways. So through some advice from top-end players (Archi, Pez, Dimir, Dirk) I was directed to completely flush the stage. After doing so, the stage performed extremely well for a long period of time.

Also, this goes back into the discussion of compatibility for the players. As stated by BLueSS, the most active portion of the community prefers the stage flushed. In knowing this, If I were to "half-way" mod the stage, players who desire to play 14's+ would be once again, placed on the back burner. While a flushed stage still allows players who choose to play 9's to do so.

As Allan (Gerrak) mentioned in a pervious post, modding a stage flush allows for a much deeper endgame.

When me and my team receive the new sensors, we will install them ASAP and mod the stage flush. This is where we need the cooperation of the entire community to leave constructive feedback on the forums with regards to how the stage is functioning for you.

Thanks

Hey APHR, could you describe the issues Acme's machine had with the half-way method?

the fact that not all the community's qualms have been satisfactorily responded to means that any discussion that moves forward without said issues being discussed is dishonest. a halfway mod is more than possible as it's been done elsewhere. perhaps let someone else do the halfway mod? the argument that since one person couldn't successfully do it so all people can't/it's universally bad is a false premise since someone else could try fixing it. perhaps having someone out of state with experience regarding this should help or at least give some advice on half modded pads (which is actually a misnomer given the state of modding a pad is a yes/no proposition). i should probably clarify and say that i don't oppose ALL MODDED pads here. i am a huge proponent of people doing as they wish with their property

Iori, please be specific in providing a listing of qualms that local Acme players have with the ITG modding that haven't been addressed and we'll re-address them; provided they aren't issues that should wait until after the new sensors arrive, at which point then would be the proper time for bringing those up.

Please include the user's name with their qualm so that we can properly make sure we address the person's specific concern.

Initially, when I started to mod the stage at ACME it was done with the following:

4 pieces of 2 1/2 inch weather stripping foam that were placed on all 4 "L" brackets.

When modded this way (half-way or half-flushed), the sensors at ACME false triggered a lot more than it should. I believe the reason why this happened was from the panel rocking and hitting the other super sensitive sensors. I want to emphasize that this issue was unique to ACME do to the condition of the sensors.

When the stage is "half-way" modded, the panels do not fully touch the triangle brackets that are placed to hold the arrow panel in place, nor does it fully touch the "L" Brackets and the frame around the "L" Bracket. Therefore, the arrow panel will rock back and forth when playing. For instance, when your left foot is moving up to hit the left arrow after hitting the down arrow, your foot is generally placed lower on the left arrow panel which causes the panel to rock up and hit bottom sensor in the left arrow panel. This is where the false/ghost triggers occur. In order to prevent the panel from rocking, more foam and tape were used to further flush the stage.

I do want to re-emphasize that, if the stage reverts back to the "recessed" or "half-modded" state, we are preventing players from reaching the end-game portion of ITG. Without a fully flushed stage, we are preventing a large group of players from playing at ACME. At least 6 of the 8 players who have voted for keeping the flushed stage will frequent ACME far less, or stop going entirely. I know at least 4 of the 6 players will stop going if the stage reverts back. These are the player who play more than 3-4 times a week, and spend more than $50 a week.

My intent is to be inclusive of all players and all play levels.

I would love to think that PIU would do better if relocated, but I know that would not be the case.  You would have to see just how bad it compares to everything else in te room.  It's mega poopy!

The good thing, it will be relocated to Starfire, only a 3 minute drive from Acme.

This is very heavily at odds with how you've been approaching the conversation. If you want to let the people who are dumping the most cash into the machine determine how it is for the rest of the players, just say it outright. Don't tell us "the people who pay the most want the pads flush, so I'm making them flush" and then claim to be looking out for the community at large.

Thanks for at least having the machine at Acme for a while, Bill. Being able to play there helped re-ignite my love for Pump after I got tired of the Pro 2 at Power Play.

Don't forget that the Waterfront arcade in Seattle has Fiesta 2. The machine isn't as good as the Acme one, but it's something at least, especially if Acme was already a drive for you.

Why don't let this debate wait until after we can test with the new sensors?

How would someone play a 16 on a recessed stage? A 17 or 18 would be laughably impossible.

We would be removing the most active portion of this community from the Arcade by removing the modding. Having the stage modded will still let players who want to play 9's play 9's while players who want to play 17's play 17's. that's what I mean by inclusive.

Seriously though, this.

Debating it now smacks that you're not really interested in how the pad will play, you just want to be right. If the pad has major concerns AFTER the new sensors are installed, well then yes things would absolutely need to be addressed.

You can't say this for everyone. Most 16's I've passed are on recessed pads. It's a matter of getting used to it/pushing yourself. Is it harder than flush pads? Of course! But no it's not impossible.

You are right about being able to do 16's on a recessed stage. As you stated, it's about getting used to it. Shouldn't that apply to everyone who doesn't like the stage modded as well?

It's about getting used to it.

Once again, I'm off the forums until we get to install the new sensors, nothing productive is being added here.

Just to clear this up, and I mean this in the nicest way:

Iori, I've never met you in real-life, and I've played at Acme religiously for over 4 years. I asked Laura and she hasn't met you either. That means you've basically never been to Acme, and never go to PNWBemani events. You basically aren't even a member of our community in the first place. Your antagonistic opinions certainly don't belong in a thread for an arcade you are not involved with. Please, for the rest of our sake, just don't even post regarding this matter anymore because your antagonistic opinion carries no weight with us. Thank you.

Honestly I hate the flush pads mostly because it feels like playing on a cobalt flux or other shitty home pad.  My playstyle doesnt work well with that setup.  If you ever seen me play you would know lol

so you're saying that anything valid i say is automatically invalidated because you don't want to listen. that's a really nice sentiment.

so you're essentially asking me to out people for their opinions? last time i mentioned names my post was deleted, so you're saying two times is the charm when it comes to these things. that actually works for me, i'll respond to this more in depth later when i feel like sifting through the thread and quoting multiple posts but here's a decent case in hand where something is dodged without being addressed at all.
how is this by any means inclusive when the 9 players can't feel the arrows that they are used to feeling to begin with? bluess if you want me to take posts like your previous one seriously you need to take a closer look at who you're defending. one thing i find commendable is your strive for empiricism with the survey, but this was proven in many different angles and senses to be very flawed. just because i don't live in washington, just because i don't play at acme is the logic behind my points somehow magically invalidated? what if someone who does play there makes points like mine? oh wait, they just get ignored like vhyd's, kevinddr's and pantsu's. this whole situation is, to use a choice word: retarded.

edit: bluess if you want me to go through this and other threads and cite every instance where a reasonable argument has been ignored by that kind of post i can do it.

This is in violation of the new moderation policy, per:

http://www.pnwbemani.net/feedbacksite-stuff/new-moderation-policy-in-effect-as-of-842014!-please-read/


Additionally I should answer this question:


Yes. Stop posting in this thread.

frankly i couldn't give less of a fuck about what you say

Iori, you have clearly proven that you are not here to help Acme nor the situation at hand. You are here to argue and rile people up. As warned 3 days ago in this thread, anyone not trying to help will be temp banned.

I'm banning you for a week.

It was going to be 1 week; but considering your friendly attitude it's now a month.

Yeah that's not what I was debating, but whatever.
You're right though, I got used to flush pads because I wanted to. Not because I was forced too.

You're all probably wondering why I'm concerned about this at all. Well I've been showing up a bit more at awkward times during the week so I haven't seen anyone in the past two weeks. Since the machine I play on has been moved and it won't be back up here for a little bit I decided to hit up acme again.

Just promise me, whatever happens. The stages will be even, modded or unmodded, because right now doubles is so awkward to play

Hopefully, when we receive the new sensors this will fix some of the issues with doubles play. I think it should be installed by the end of next week. It would help if you or other doubles players would come test it out. Seeing how some of the players that are currently active there don't really play doubles.  If we get a wider range of play styles we can get a better assessment of the pad fixes when more people test it out.

I play a bit of lower level (7-8 difficulty) no-bar doubles as well, so can arrange to come down and give things a shot once the new sensors are in.

(I mentioned 'no-bar' because a doubles player will likely hit the panels differently in bar play than in 'no-bar' play, as their weight isn't centered on the middle of the stage as much in no-bar.)

So I browsed back in this thread to July of last year, and reread the modding discussion. It seemed back then that many posts referenced the sensors being bad.

Are we still using the same sensors as back then?  Or were sensors upgraded between July of last year and today?  Because if they haven't been upgraded...  

I also browsed r21freak's thread of Machine Locations, and it does look like other public arcade locations do have ITG2 machines with raised pads, which other hardcore ITG players are extremely happy about. I didn't find posts on r21freak about players complaining about raised pads, other than for pads that needed general maintenance.

EDIT: I reread the objections from the Poll that's now closed. These are the objections I see:
Laura - maintenance of sensors
KevinDDR - maintenance of sensors
vyhd - not sure
shakesoda - maintenance of sensors
jmeisburg - unclear
Dr.Z - unclear

SO yeah, it really looks to me like objections are based on the amount of maintenance required to have the sensors workable, and the dysfunctional sensors at times.

In a nutshell, and not really in priority order:

• There are serious concerns around how much extra maintenance will be needed to keep the pads in playable shape, and how quickly they'll degrade
• Doubles is awful to play when the outer sensors are removed
• The vast majority of machines are not modded like this; scores aren't repeatable on regular ITG cabinets
• Baby powder users making the pads hazardous for everyone; you can mitigate this by wiping up part of it, but it's not going to be solved by anything less than vacuuming out the pads after use
• I hate the feeling of flush modding and it really fucks with my ability to play
• It raises the difficulty curve for players who are otherwise new or trying to improve, especially w.r.t. repeatability above. That's possibly the worst thing you can do for a niche community.
• The people in favor of modding have decided that the pads will be flush modded despite something like 1/4 of the responses being against it. Look through the responses; was there ever a time they said "maybe you have a point" instead of squashing dissenting opinions?
• The idea of compromising between the two was immediately shot down by those same people, when the people against the flush modding are at least trying to meet halfway

Honestly, the single thing that irks me the most is that the people that want flush modding haven't even considered the idea that there might be any valid points against it besides "I don't like it".

vyhd, thanks for the post. I'm going to try to add what I've seen about the discussion of each point to try to address it as a neutral party here. If I get these wrong, someone please correct me.

[/list]