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イディアックのデレステ日記

イディアック / イズニール

はじめまして。 イディアックです。周りでノートを書いている人を多く見かけ、私も試してみることにしました。元々は「アイドルマスターシンデレラガールズスターライトステージ」通称「デレステ」のメインプレイヤーでしたが、「アイドルマスターシャイニーカラーズ Song for Prism」通称「シャニソン」がリリースされてからは、そのゲームにも力を入れています。最近では、シャニソンを通じて「イズニール」というニックネームで私を知る人も少なくないと感じています。この文章では、デレステでスコアタを始めた時から現在までの旅路を振り返り、その過程で自己紹介を兼ねて個人的な思い出を共有したいと思います。

入る前に、私は外国人です。日本語がよくわからないので、ここからは英語で書かせていただきます。ご了承ください。


Returning to デレステ

It's been a while since I first started playing デレステ. My account records show it was created on July 9, 2016, at 4:54 a.m. (7 years, 7 months ago). During this period, there were times when I only engaged in free gacha pulls and seldom participated in events. My return was sparked by the introduction of a new gacha type, the "Cinderella Fes Noir."

[深淵なる月影] 高垣楓+

This gacha featured cards with a striking illustration and a highly unconventional center effect, "Cinderella Bless," which activates the center effects of all other idols, and a skill "Cinderella Magic," which triggers the skills of all other idols. Although Kaede's cards were previously not good for scoring, this new card changed everything. It became a meta card in every aspect—auto play, full combo cheesing, and scoring. This compelling update made me return to the game. Despite reaching the ceiling, the ample amount of free jewels I had accumulated meant that this was not an issue. Since my return, I've been periodically engaging in the Blanc Gacha to collect blanc fes cards.

Score Attack Debut

Collecting cards, increasing fan count, and gradually assembling a meta unit. The first song to grind for high score ranking seriously was "堕ちる果実." This song's MASTER+ difficulty is at the highest level of 31 in WIDE mode, but it has a uniquely low note count of 734. I failed to achieve a full combo during the event period and personally harbored a desire for some degree of revenge. At that time, units using "Cinderella Magic" and "Concentration" were the meta. Concentration increases the score at the expense of narrowing the PERFECT judgment range (to ±30 ms for tap notes). Since Cinderella Magic also adopts this effect, most of the song is played with these more challenging judgments. Additionally, skills that activate probabilistically need to activate without fail for a proper score (in this unit's case, there's about a 25% chance for full activation). It becomes a battle against judgment and probability. After many tries, I finally achieved 3rd place in the song ranking.

The result of achieving 3rd place at that time

The record for 1st place at the time was 282.7万. I thought I could take the top spot by reducing the number of GREATs, which was 24, so I tried a bit harder. Then, something incredible happened.

A nearly unbelievable record of 3 GREATs was achieved, pushing the score more than 3万 points above the previous 1st place. However, the "LIVE SUCCESS" message was absent—it was a rehearsal record. Due to guest cooldown issues at the time, the number of attempts was limited, so it was practice from a rehearsal that led to this record. As an aside, I hadn't engaged in external activities related to デレステ until then, but I started tweeting to share this tragedy. Overcoming this sorrow, I managed to update the record after a few more days.

Where you get GREATs matters greatly on the score
Level 31 chart 1st place

Beginning with this song, I continued to play high-level songs with units including concentration. I made my name on several leaderboards, and in the process, my judgment accuracy significantly improved.

Getting used to 巻き込み

In デレステ, skills activate and deactivate at regular intervals during gameplay. By intentionally hitting notes on the edge of a skill's activation early or late, you can score higher points. This technique is commonly referred to as "abuse" or "巻き込み," and it currently plays a significant role in デレステ's score attack. Initially, I was aware of the existence of this technique, but I only thought of it as hitting notes slightly slower when a skill was about to activate and faster when it was about to deactivate. Then, by chance, I watched a video of someone playing in SMART mode, one of the play modes in デレステ.

(While not the exact video, I am mentioning a similar video by the same person for context because embedding for the video does not work for some reason.)
Watching it, I was freshly shocked and thought, "So this is how far it goes." It was one of the reasons I became interested in デレステ's score attack. The first time I seriously attempted abuse was with Kaede's song, こいかぜ-花葉- MASTER+. This song, with its high proportion of slide notes, is one of those where you can achieve the highest scores by using the "Slide Act" skill, which significantly boosts slide note scores. As this skill is used instead of Concentration, and since the judgment range for slides is much wider than for regular tap notes, there were lots of points to abuse.

First attempt. The 1st place at that time scored 294万 with the same team.

Becoming proficient in abuse was not easy. I had to memorize all the abuse points and recall them during the song's progression in time. Both overcoming the fear of missing notes while attempting abuse, and avoiding hitting notes too inaccurately was essential. There were times when I had to hit the notes entirely differently from the original chart.

By recording my plays and reviewing the successful and failed abuses, correcting them, and learning how to use visual cues and muscle memory, I gradually increased my success rate with abuse.

The Fruit of Practice
Kaedeさん's song 1st place

Finally, I managed to get 1st place. I was thrilled to achieve this because not only this is a song by my tantou, Kaedeさん, but also it was a highly competitive song due to its high scoring potential. This experience helped me master the scoring with abuse. デレステ's score attack can be divided into two main strategies: reducing GREATs when using teams with Concentration and maximizing bonus points through abuse with teams without Concentration. Now, I'm capable of employing both strategies.

Conquering PRP

Rhythm games often have metrics that represent a player's skill level. In デレステ, PRP serves a similar function. The difference is that PRP is influenced not just by a player's skill but also significantly by their card collection. PRP represents the sum of the top high scores across 10 WIDE songs, 3 GRAND songs, and 3 SMART songs. 1 PRP is added every 1万 points. Not every player strives to increase their PRP. I was one of them until I learned about an external site that aggregates PRP rankings. Though not available in-game, knowing such rankings exist motivated me to increase my PRP.

For the basic 5 lane WIDE mode, I filled my PRP with songs at levels 30 and 31, and those that could score highly with Slide Act skills, using units that were meta at the time. I managed to rank 1st or 2nd in most of the songs contributing to my PRP. In the single lane mode, SMART mode, I also achieved the highest PRP sum using a similar Slide Act unit. The problem was GRAND mode. Unlike other modes that use 5 cards, GRAND mode uses 3 units of 5 cards each, totaling 15 cards, and the composition strategy is entirely different. WIDE and SMART modes use skills within a single unit that activate score bonuses and boost other skills, but GRAND mode organizes one main unit with score bonus skills and two sub-units that boost the main unit. The complexity deepens, so I'll spare further details. The issue is that the cards with these skills come from limited gachas and are reissued once a year. Because the potential scores in GRAND mode are much higher (the highest score in WIDE mode was about 300 PRP, whereas GRAND mode could go up to 800 PRP), missing a single card can lead to significant score losses, making it the biggest barrier to entry for PRP. Given there was a time when I didn't played デレステ and my card pool was lacking, GRAND mode was a weakness for me. As of October 25, 2022, I was 13th overall with a PRP of 5701, but my rankings in individual GRAND songs were 圏外, 59th, and 60th.

However, this also meant that solving the card issue in GRAND could significantly boost my PRP. I waited for reissues over time and gradually collected the necessary cards. Then, on the day the last needed card was reissued,

The historical moment
Link to the PRP ranking of the time

On November 21, 2022, I achieved 1st place in PRP, with an increase of +93. It's astonishing how much one card could raise my score. I was thrilled to have something in デレステ where I could say I was the strongest. I even thought I had seen the end of デレステ, though I was unaware of what would happen later.

I continued to increase my PRP afterward. Then, something unexpected happened.

Just one person.
During デレステ's end-of-the-year countdown event, they often introduce statistics from the year. One of the categories in 2022 was the producers with the highest PRP. As of November 31, 2022, I was the only person whose PRP exceeded 5900. I became the officially recognized number one and the person Karen wanted to meet. The joy I felt after this was announced is indescribable. PRP was a metric for personal satisfaction without in-game rankings, but I was rewarded in such a way.

GRAND mode conquered

As of the time of writing, I currently hold 1st place in all three top PRP songs in GRAND mode. Despite slightly lacking stats, I've managed to pull ahead of 2nd place by more than 5 PRP through a team with extremely low(<0.1%) ideal skill activation probability and through sophisticated abuse. This is a very profound topic, and explaining it could fill an entire article, so I will skip it here. GRAND mode has now become my strength, and I continue to maintain my position as 1st in PRP based on this.

Challenging Event Ranking

For score attackers in デレステ, besides PRP, there's another target: event song high score rankings. This becomes a battle of skill among those who have the theoretical team for the event song. Unlike PRP, which demands a vast collection of cards, having just the right team for an event allows entry into top-tier competition with relatively low barriers to entry, hence it becomes the most fiercely contested area.

My first dive into high score competition was during the N.O.R. ~Notes of Revolution~ 革命についての覚書 event. The theoretical team for its MASTER+ difficulty was similar to my main team that I had been using since the song "堕ちる果実," with a difficulty of 31. Having achieved 1st place in the regular 31-level rankings before, I saw this as a good opportunity to aim for a high rank.

Event song rankings were entirely different from regular song rankings. The event attracted many highly skilled players who only participate in event rankings. Even a pro player from other rhythm games participated this time. After pushing into the top 3, I would wake up to find my rank had slipped, a cycle that repeated throughout the event. In the latter part of the event, I even found myself waking up to check my ranking.

Here's the highest recorded run I achieved during that time. With the team using concentration, I managed 5 GREATs. As seen in the video, my playstyle involves handling almost all patterns only with my index fingers because デレステ does not force multi-finger plays and I'm not skilled or accurate with them. Thus, sections like the sabi of this song were physically demanding. If I could get through the song without retiring up to the lyric "チャンスは今" at 1110 combos, I'd often feel like a real opportunity had arrived.

Another point to note is that scoring high isn't just about reducing the number of GREATs. Although I mentioned デレステ's score attack splits into concentration and abuse, using a concentration lineup doesn't mean not abusing. Even with concentration active, long/flick/slide notes have a PERFECT range of 100 ms, so in this densely noted song, there's a significant score to be gained (e.g. 443 combo).

After continuous attempts, I finished the event with 262.6 PRP. 1st place was overwhelmingly at 264.5 PRP, and from 262.8 PRP for 2nd place, the rankings were decided by slim margins. One regret was focusing too much on reducing GREATs and not earning abuse bonus points. Since 1st place had 8 GREATs, it was clear that was where the significant difference lay. This event marked my first time achieving 3rd place and my first colored rank. The pressure from constantly monitoring rankings during the event was immense. At the time, I thought it was a rare opportunity and was overly invested in securing that colored rank, making me reluctant to aim for event rankings again…

The First Victory

A month after the N.O.R. event, a new song event for ミライコンパス was held. The song themed around graduation, and it was really good. Its MASTER+ level is 29, and even that feels easier than its listed level suggests. The theoretical team was the same as for N.O.R., making participation in the event possible. However, after the struggles of the N.O.R. event, I had decided not to participate at the start of the event, thinking if I did, it would only be towards the end. A few days after the event started, I began my score attack and achieved this record about 3 days later.

1 GREAT is not a mistake.

At first glance, it appears to be a chart of low to medium difficulty. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the scoring difficulty is low. The devil is in the details. The scoring points can be broadly divided into three categories.

The first is full activation of skills and AP. This is common to scoring in any song. The central cinderella magic skill with the interval of 12 second activates at a 94.25% chance, while the other 9 second interval skills activate at a 100% chance, making the overall full activation chance 55%. There's a strategy to lower the skill activation chances and slightly increase stats, reducing the full activation chance to 28% but gaining about 1500 additional points. However, since a single mistake typically results in a deduction of more than 2000 points, I prioritized playing perfectly with the highest skill activation rate. Unlike N.O.R., the chart's difficulty is very low, so achieving a concentration AP is a basic assumption. However, there are other critical aspects to scoring, making it this part where most mistakes occur.

Deduction avoidance

The second is deduction avoidance, which can be considered a form of abuse. In the image above, the colored lanes indicate the skill activation range. Hitting a note 0~30 ms or 0~75100 ms late can each yield an additional 4253 points. Two notes fall precisely at the skill activation moment. Hitting them even one frame early results in a PERFECT judgment but without the skill effect, leading to deductions. The issue is that the BPM of this song is 130. With 60 seconds having exactly 130 beats, that's 6.5 beats every 3 seconds. The skills' intervals of 9 and 12 seconds are multiples of 3, often resulting in beats that perfectly align with skill boundaries. There are 24 such sections in this song, and remembering all to hit within the 30 ms window to catch all skills for theoretical scoring is necessary.

The biggest variable in scoring

The last is what's called the "9+12 1-framer." At 60 seconds, 9 second interval skill ends, and the 12 second interval skill begins, with 2 notes at this timing. デレステ's unique frame processing allows for a single frame where both the 9s and 12s skills are active.

The magical 1 frame

There are 3 such instances at 24, 60, and 96 seconds, potentially adding about 10200 points if all are successfully hit. While hitting these on isolation isn't inherently too difficult, succeeding in all these together is.

GREAT abuse

Additionally, quickly releasing this long note which result in GREAT can yield a small bonus of 146 points. The 1 GREAT in my result came from this.

A slow-motion replay from 2:52 in the video shows deduction avoidance and the 1-frame sections. Except for a 759-point deduction (one of the smallest deduction types) at 730 combos, I hit everything perfectly, which was unexpected and led to my surprised reaction at the end of the video. With 252.7 PRP, I surpassed my previous record of 252.5 PRP to take 1st place, 4 days before the event ended.

Surprise Attack

One day before the event concluded, I nearly had a heart attack seeing the rankings. Someone lurking in rehearsal had closed the gap by a mere 300 points. This person currently has the most 1st places in the event. Certainly, my record was tough to beat, but I was at a disadvantage. There's an item called "Produce Recipe" that slightly boosts an idol's stats, usable up to five times per idol. These are given as event rewards twice a month or can be purchased at a high price. I was missing 4 of these, at a loss of 1490 points. Thus, even with one more mistake, there was a chance to surpass me. Seeing this, I lowered the special skill activation rate to 28% and increased stats for another scoring attempt during the remaining event period but didn't manage to improve my record.

In the last hour before the event ended, I monitored the rankings nervously, hoping for no surprises. Fortunately, there were none, and I won for the first time. It was a moment of achieving one of the biggest items on my デレステ bucket list.

Since then, I've participated in event rankings whenever I had the theoretical team. However, my mindset has been more relaxed. Having achieved 1st place once, I could approach rankings with a mindset of "it's nice if I get a high rank, but it's also fine if I don't." Here are the event ranks I've achieved so far.

1位 ミライコンパス
2位 Nightwear
3位 N.O.R. ~Notes of Revolution~革命についての覚書
      ノートの中のテラリウム
5位 ハートボイルドウォーズ
9位 Next Chapter
10位 チョコレート？レモネード？どっち？？

The Unprecedented Win from Key Mode

In the DMM version of デレステ, you can play WIDE mode using a keyboard. Flicks are treated like regular tap notes, and slides can be managed by simply pressing and holding at each checkpoint's timing as it crosses the judgment line. However, due to the vastly different feel from what I had been accustomed to and my lack of experience with keyboard rhythm games, I initially did not play much in Key mode. Then, in March 2023, Key mode ranking was introduced, separating scores played on a keyboard from the traditional Touch mode rankings. This prompted me to give Key mode another try.

The ミライコンパス event, mentioned earlier, was the first event after the introduction of Key mode ranking. Achieving a full combo in Key mode was extremely difficult for me, and after much effort, I managed a score of 245.9 PRP with 19 GREATs, ending up in 3rd place. The gap of about 6 PRP from 1st place was insurmountable.

Very few people play in Key mode. デレステ awards a gold trophy for high scores within the top 5000, whether in Touch or Key mode, based on whichever rank is higher. However, because fewer than 5000 people even play once in Key mode, scoring even 1 point guarantees a gold trophy. The competition at the top is similarly less intense in Key mode, with scores significantly lower than those in Touch mode, making it content only for those who actively choose to engage with it. I became one of the few people taking Key mode play seriously. Participating in events, I became more accustomed to Key mode play, almost always placing within the top 3 ranks (though it's relatively meaningless due to the low competition).

In October 2023, the パジャマジャマ event was held. It's a 28-level song that's easy and focuses on scoring through abuse. It was one of the most competitive events because it was easier than ever to have the theoretical team. I decided to participate in this event in Key mode, not Touch, because I believed there were points where Key mode offered advantages due to the different control schemes in this event song.

Deduction avoidance

Generally, the greater the greatest common divisor between the BPM and 60 (usually above 5), the more notes exist at the boundaries of skills. パジャマジャマ's BPM is 160, with a GCD of 20 with 60, indicating many sections require deduction avoidance. Unlike ミライコンパス, not using concentration means deduction avoidance isn't difficult, provided you don't forget.

Casual abuse

There are also many ordinary abuse points where failure is almost impossible. What makes scoring this song difficult are the following.

25 ms window abuse

There are 3 abuse points with a permitted interval of 25 ms, about 2 frames. Especially for slide notes, which only allow for PERFECT or MISS judgments, failing to hit these late results in an immediate fail.

13 ms window abuse

Furthermore, there's an even tighter "13 ms, 1-frame" abuse point. Key mode has an advantage here because, in Touch mode, you must move your hand away from the center lane where the slide checkpoints are, then return at the exact frame. Key mode only requires pressing the center key at the right timing, making it much more reliable. Despite this, it's still very challenging. There's no visual cue to rely on for these points, so it's all about feeling, or muscle memory. But it doesn't stop there.

Note at 18.562 second
The "impossible" abuse

Without concentration, the judgment range for tap notes is ±60 ms. Theoretically, it's impossible for a note at 18.562 seconds to catch a skill ending at 18.5 seconds with a PERFECT judgment. However, due to デレステ's frame handling, these "impossible" abuses are feasible. You must aim for the precise frame. There are 3 such abuse points in the song, collectively offering an additional 6231 points.

Aside from one failed "12 ms slide abuse" at 319 combos (-1734 points), I succeeded in all other abuses. The 1 GREAT occurred from attempting an abuse exceeding the PERFECT range by 6 ms, still scoring higher than a non-skilled PERFECT.

Event result: I secured 1st place in Key mode. However, that's not all. The 1st place score in Touch mode for this event was 2155458 points, meaning I surpassed the Touch mode's 1st place record, achieving デレステ's first comprehensive victory in both Touch/Key modes with Key mode. Winning in Key mode requires much less effort compared to Touch, so for it to be meaningful, I believed I had to outscore Touch mode with Key mode play. This event was a perfect opportunity, resulting in a unique achievement never seen before.

The オバコンセ Meta

Let me share a recent story. In 2023, the newly introduced "Overdrive" skill provides a high combo bonus effect but only maintains the combo with PERFECT judgments. In other words, during its activation, any GREAT or judgments lower than GREAT breaks the combo. This skill was designed to be used together with the "Overload" skill, which maintains the combo up to BAD judgments and offsets the penalty of overdrive with its score-up effect. However, the score up effect of overload is weaker than that of concentration. Thus, to maximize scores, players must use a combination of concentration and overdrive, or オバコンセ, a notoriously difficult setup. Since concentration narrows the PERFECT judgment window, making GREATs more likely, and GREATs would break the combo under overdrive, オバコンセ demands an almost AP performance.

オバコンセ is dominant in the current WIDE PRP environment, so I ground hard after assembling the team. Not only was completing songs without breaking the combo extremely challenging, but achieving a 20% chance of full skill activation simultaneously made it incredibly difficult. The low chance of full skill activation made the latter parts of songs particularly stressful due to increased tension. After a long and hard battle, I succeeded in achieving full skill activation and full combos with オバコンセ on several level 30 and 31 songs, including "堕ちる果実," currently holding 1st place in six songs.

In this combination, the only moment when a GREAT is permissible is during the brief instance when concentration is active but overdrive is not, making even a single GREAT significantly impactful. Therefore, each section must be meticulously studied. Through extensive play, I've developed techniques for consistently achieving PERFECT judgments. I've realized that focusing on the visual cues, specifically judgment line is crucial. Do you remember when I scored over 20 GREATs in 堕ちる果実? Even considering the slightly lower coverage of concentration in my current setup, I've made significant progress in accuracy.

Honestly, I do not like this meta, and most people probably don't either. Instead of scores decreasing linearly with the number of GREATs, those who can play オバコンセ create a significant gap of over 10 PRP compared to those using the オバオバ setup. It's highly stressful even for those capable of employing the オバコンセ combo. While it seems the game management is aware of this and tries to avoid events where オバコンセ becomes the theoretical best lineup, the likelihood of this meta continuing for some time appears high.

Conclusion

This has been my journey with デレステ from 2021 to the present. There have been many events and experiences that I couldn't include in this note, each contributing to a deeper understanding of score attacking. While I feel the journey in デレステ is heading to its end (though no one knows when it will be), I hope to continue as long as possible. The experiences gained from playing デレステ are being applied to playing シャニソン as well. I'll continue this story in my next note. Thank you for reading through this self-indulgent long article.

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