Difficulty Rating - a Compendium

[Rodman]

This is colaborative work. The collection of opinions end experience of Championship organizers, song raters, players and CF members.

Work in progress.

If you wanna add something please copy this whole text, add your statement in the fitting place or if you want something changed please cross it out and comment stating your member name!
I will update the opening post.

Let´s go.

Diff ratings are 1(very easy) to 10(ultra hard). We are in the good position that we have 5 diff classes that those diff ratings are assigned to..

Classes difficulties standards are BEG: 1-3 INT: 4,5 ADV: 6,7 MC: 8,9 GoG 10

that does make it easier to begin with:

Beg (1-3) very easy charts, basic chords, no fast changes, basic tunings, easy single note melodies and solos.
MC/Gog (8) Masterclass = very hard charts (9) absolute Masterclass, (10) insane charts

what´s left is to define are diffs (4) to (7) easy intermediate to hard advanced.

General statements:

1) In general songs (= songpaths)  shall be rated by their hardest parts because if you cannot master the hardest part you cannot master the song. Exception can be made here eventually if there is a eg. VERY short (surely not 50+ notes) harder solo in an else easy chorded song. It´s also ok to rate that song after the hardest part - that songs just may not be very feasible for the CS for the vast inter-song diff difference.

2) If you feel a song does not meet one straight number (.5) ratings are welcome of course.

3) Scores are in general not helpful for difficulty ratings! Why? There are eg. songs with short very hard sections with few notes that make them very hard rated songs... the long easy chord sections will bring a very high accuracy. OR there will be easy to play songs that will be badly recognised in RS that will yield a low accuracy. Both of the above might not be optimal for competition, no - but the accuracy will not show the difficulty in a lot of songs.

4) The ability to master a song of the highest difficulty of a class (3/5/7), meaning achieving 99% (guitar), 99,5% (bass) or more marks the limit to level up to the next class (respecting 4) that might be cozen - so it´s up to the player to deny the level-up).

X) Rating songs is always a somehow overall impression of the playthrough and also always for some degree subjective (because of personal preference, personal playing style and taste) so the features below mark non-cemented cornerstones that fit "best" in the category. Best not always.

Let´s do examples also!

BEG - mostly exclusive E-Std, Drop D, almost NO harmonics or other tech notes, NO fast chord switches, only basic slow melody parts and solos

(1)

(2)

(3)

INT

(4)

those quick bends are above beginner level and fit (4)

the melody part thats needing the pinky is more (4) than (3)

and octaves are intermediate (4)

(5)

ADV

(6)

(7)

MC

(8)

(9)

God of Guitar

(10) everything above

 

(last update 22.07.24 - @ Rodman )

To be continued soon.
 

[direct3r]

in my opinion, difficulty is felt different for everyone, especially experienced players.

beginners might struggle for example with 16th notes, despite it's a simple 1 chord song, but for the experienced one it's just a matter of endurance.

 

but on the other side, even 1 chord songs could be different, when they are things like finger-crippling ones or just simple barres in alternation - and then even experienced players can struggle, just by never having played such chords that often or getting cramps easily.

 

 

For me , most ratings were totally fine, maybe they were off by 1-2 ratings, but close enough to get a feeling of what's coming!

[Rodman]

4 hours ago, direct3r said:

in my opinion, difficulty is felt different for everyone, especially experienced players.

beginners might struggle for example with 16th notes, despite it's a simple 1 chord song, but for the experienced one it's just a matter of endurance.

but on the other side, even 1 chord songs could be different, when they are things like finger-crippling ones or just simple barres in alternation - and then even experienced players can struggle, just by never having played such chords that often or getting cramps easily.

For me , most ratings were totally fine, maybe they were off by 1-2 ratings, but close enough to get a feeling of what's coming!

Absolutely. Everything is fine, and it´s on a very high level. We are always +- 0.5 - that´s way way better than in the beginning of the Champs, when started to implement Classes and started to rate songs. That topic will show how hard it is to be only objective on a song
But what´s important to state is what a certain difficulty shall not hold, cause it´s too hard.
And yeah - difficulties of songs are far more than RS recognition can tell - you name some important points. Stamina or Speed (16th and 32th) can make a simple but fast and long path very much harder than it seems on a screenshot. Also esp. on rhythm parts (but anywhere) the ability to make a rhythm or riff sound right defines the difficulty, not the recognition.

Let´s see.

Rod.

[Rodman]

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