I've watched the Just Dance World Cup finals since 2017 and it gets better each year. This year, I liked how the map behind the dancers matched their orientation, and I liked that you couldn't see the scoring bars (because I know how easy that can confuse an audience who isn't sure whether or not the bars on the screen are reflected compared to the players in front of the screen). I also thought the song selection was better, often with one extreme as the third dance. It was really enjoyable to watch, and it's incredible how many outstanding dancers are competing.
There is one thing that really stood out to me, and I suspect that the Just Dance team is thinking about it, too. Where are the girls? In the very final round of 3+ hours showing on YouTube, those finalists are all boys. Even most of the national finalists were boys. Since 2017, it seems like boys have dominated the finals.
When I watch videos from before 2017, I see a few girls who were highly successful, including Littlesiha, The Fairy Dina, and Pamela R. Watching Littlesiha and The Fairy Dina dance to Circus Extreme is my favorite match ever (and that might be my favorite dance, either that or OMG extreme; do they feature the same coach?).
So what has changed?
I would have thought that more girls buy and play Just Dance at home than boys. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe this also depends on the age range. And I would have thought that girls can dance just as well, if not better, than boys. It seems like it should be a fairly gender-neutral sport.
The national and world finals seem to use Xbox Kinect, but the online qualifications also include Switch, Wii U, and PS4. It must be difficult for players who qualify on another platform to compete against experienced Xbox Kinect players in the highest stages of the competition. The game's scoring counts as a point, so even though judges (or Twitch viewers) can also influence the outcome, that console is certainly important. Just Dance curves the scoring for the online qualifications, but players using other platforms haven't had years to learn the technical points that Kinect is looking for (but they do know some technical points that remotes and phones are looking for).
But that's a console issue, not necessarily related to the gender question that I raised. (Probably, both are being considered.)
Does the Kinect sensor and the current scoring system currently favor boys? It seems like there are girls who hit phenomenal scores with Kinect on the WDF. This is probably something that the Just Dance team has explored. If there is any difference, maybe it is slight, or maybe it is only for certain types of moves, but in the highest stages of the competition, a few points can make a huge difference.
Theoretically, you could have both male and female finalists for each nation and for the world. Just Dance appears to be very inclusive though. What I mean is, Just Dance seems more inclined to ask, "Which gender do you identify with," than, "Are you male or female," which may add a complication to this idea.
Many other sports, like golf, tennis, and basketball, have different leagues for males and females. Though in dancing, it seems like there could or should be more gender equality.
I expect that the Just Dance team is already considering some of the issues that I've raised, but thought I would share my thoughts just in case.
In my opinion, Just Dance is the best video game in the world, truly a video sport, and it keeps getting better. Just Dance is also very inclusive, as I mentioned earlier, and I didn't mean any disrepsect in raising this issue (which I'm sure you've already considered to some extent). The sensor itself obviously isn't biased, on any dance you choose you can find girls who hit phenomenal scores, and I know that there was no intention for the game or competition to favor one gender. Maybe it's just a statistican anomaly, but it's an observation that mostly boys seem to be reaching the later stages of the competition.
I even thought about the possibility for them to do an male and female categories for the world cup, but I imagine the cost it could be to have basically do everything twice, but maybe, depending on how the JDWC grows, it would even make the number of contestants grow, as they would guarantee diversity of players in this way, I guess
That's a great point. I had wondered about this too.I imagine the cost it could be to have basically do everything twice
Perhaps there is advertising potential. Sporting competitions often land huge contracts with television stations or sponsors as they grow, and it seems like Just Dance has the potential to be a hugely popular competitive televised sport. But between the Just Dance team, Ubisoft, and the current (and future?) JDWC sponsors, I'm not sure what their vision is for how large or rapidly for this competition to grow or what type of advertising potential they may wish to tap into (or how the current sponsors might feel about that). I'm just saying, in principle there could be resources of this sort available. (I'm also not sure whether they have pursued this in the past, but there is also the issue that if you land a television contract too soon and don't market the event strongly enough, the ratings might not pull enough traffic to really develop. The timing has to be right.)
It's amazing what resources Ubisoft already makes available for the competition, and I'm grateful for that. There are several National qualifiers now, with the addition of 8 finalists in the USA in 2019, and holding the world finals in Brazil (or Paris), there are certainly some big expenses involved already. I've just been thinking "out loud" because I love the JDWC and wish to see it continue to get better.
@greekphysics - I'm a female player who did fairly well in the USA online qualifiers. I've been playing Just Dance since ~2010 on the Wii, and only recently changed to both the Switch and Kinect. Adjusting to the Switch has been very easy, but I've had to learn a new skill set to play with the Kinect. As a small-ish person, my wrists disappear regularly on the Kinect, and I've found that I often have to wear long sleeves just to have proper arms in the sensor's eyes. I still have a lot of trouble getting my feet differentiated from the floor. I've reluctantly adjusted to my clothing, room temperature, etc. affecting my score; when playing on the Wii/Switch, the controller in your right hand is virtually all you have to worry about going wrong. Perhaps this is my own frustration talking, but I think the Kinect may be size-biased rather than gender-biased. I think more girls may play on the Switch due to Nintendo's more casual approach to gaming, but also because its lack of body sensing may even the playing field. I've also had ~9 years of experience with one-handed Just Dance and ~9 months with the Kinect, and I'm not sure I'll ever reach the same proficiency with the Kinect.
Congratulations! And thank you for sharing your experience.I'm a female player who did fairly well in the USA online qualifiers
I went through this, too. I started with Wii U in 2015 and 2017, then in the middle of JD 2017 I switched to Xbox. It took a few months to get the hang of it, and it has taken a couple of years to feel that I really understand most of the little subtleties involved with Kinect dancing.Adjusting to the Switch has been very easy, but I've had to learn a new skill set to play with the Kinect.
Before the dance begins, when you see your "body-outline-image" (there is probably a better word to describe it), which you also see at the top of the screen once a dance is in progress, as you move around, do you see your wrists disappear there and your feet get smaller there?As a small-ish person, my wrists disappear regularly on the Kinect, and I've found that I often have to wear long sleeves just to have proper arms in the sensor's eyes. I still have a lot of trouble getting my feet differentiated from the floor.
I noticed more issues with Kinect sensing me in 2017, fewer in 2018, and for me it has been much better in 2019, though I've also improved my clothing, background, flooring, etc. during that time period.
One other thing I've played with is the height of the Kinect Sensor. I used to have it on top of the t.v. stand, below the t.v. But I've decided that to get my full body in the view, whether I'm lying on the floor or jumping up with my arms stretched and raised, that it creates a little upward angle, and this can cause issues with perspective, perhaps making your feet or other parts look thinner in the perspective, and there are moves where front/back leans or motions matter.
Presently, I have the Kinect sensor mounted on a tripod just to the right side of my t.v. (which actually helps me line up with the coach well in Slot 3), with the Kinect sensor about one-half of my height above the floor. At this height, I find that the sensor can be level and get my full body in view from my feet to jumping up with my arms raised.
If there are issues with the Kinect sensing, usually you can see this with issues in the body-outline image, and in that case adjusting the background, clothing, flooring, lighting, etc. can make a difference.
However, I find that the Kinect sensor can often pick up amazing detail, and occasionally the game gives a significant penalty for a relatively small detail. The more I strive to get every possible detail right and get every part of my body in sync with the coach, the better I tend to do. Having learned how to do a few hundred Unlimited dances, I can tell stories about a few clever moves where a seeming subtle thing can cause a big penalty. Most of the time, when I have been frustrated over the sensor, I have been able to eventually realize that I had indeed been making a little mistake.
The game is also three-dimensional, and you're watching a two-dimensional map. Sometimes, I just didn't see and interpret the move properly when I first watched it. There are also dances like Pacman, Bubble Pop Alternate, Automaton Alternate, and Angry Birds where it is easy to misinterpret what's going on. (Imagine that you're wearing that costume and it might help to get these dances right.)
In 2017, I had a dry erase board on my back wall, and there were moves where the bottom of the board caused issues. Occasionally, even a wall outlet on the back wall showed up. In 2018, I put up a green background and started wearing tighter clothing with better contrast. With 2019, I made several changes to try to please the PS4 camera, which seems far pickier than Xbox Kinect.
With PS4, I ran into trouble with my wrists disappearing. I have to wear long sleeves with PS4, whereas short sleeves are fine for me with Kinect. I now have a black background and wear bright colors. This helped a lot with PS4. I've since switched back to Kinect, which doesn't seem as concerned with colors.
With PS4, I learned to make sure that the colors of my hands/wrists stand out against my shirt and pants as well as the background color to help the camera "see" them when passing in front of my body. Similarly, the shoes should stand out when passing before my legs or the background.
In 2018, I had a soft thick gym mat to help alleviate the wear to my knees and back. At first I was dancing in socks so that I could pick my feet up more quickly off the soft mat (it was almost like dancing in sand at first), but this made my foot smaller. With my shoes on, my feet looked larger, but my weight created impressions in the flooring and parts of my feet were disappearing in the footprints. I since added carpet over the mats (it was fun getting everything not to slide around but to stay fixed in place), and now I can wear shoes without creating those impressions and my feet pick up off the floor quickly even with shoes.
That's interesting. I can think of a few times where I realized that I needed to exaggerate a certain motion a little bit to please the Kinect sensor, so there may be moves where size is an advantage. When I watch the World Cup dances, I note one excellent dancer who seems to have rather large hands, and in 2018 I noted a few dancers who seemed relatively tall, and I wondered whether that may have given them a slight advantage. At the top, it just takes a few points here and there to make a big difference.Perhaps this is my own frustration talking, but I think the Kinect may be size-biased rather than gender-biased.
But I have also seen dancers with a variety of body types and sizes (though I'm not sure what the limit is on the smaller size scale) who can do very well with Kinect.
For a couple of years, I have danced almost every day to Xbox Kinect, but I have steadily learned a great deal, as I've spent most of my time working on my tougher dances. I had started with Wii U. I have also explored Switch and PS4 Move as well as the PS4 camera, and occasionally tried a phone.I've also had ~9 years of experience with one-handed Just Dance and ~9 months with the Kinect, and I'm not sure I'll ever reach the same proficiency with the Kinect.
Experience definitely helps on any platform or mode of dancing.
The more I learn, the less frustated I feel, the more I appreciate how the technology works, and the more determined I become to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
With Xbox Kinect, I've come across a huge variety of little details that can make a difference. The game doesn't appear to look at every possible detail with every possible move. (So if you "test" something out, you can "incorrectly" conclude that such a feature doesn't matter. Just because something doesn't seem to matter for some moves, it doesn't mean it won't matter for other moves.)
I've come to realize that the technology is generally quite amazing and can pick up far more detail than I had realized until very recently. Especially with 2019, there have been a few moves on dances where I had been making a seemingly subtle mistake that the Kinect sensor was picking up. I was really surprised when I made such a small correction and started hitting perfects. I hadn't expected it to be able to tell the difference.
In 2017 and 2018, I spent most of my time studying the technique of the choreography, since most of my mistakes seemed to result from mistakes in technique. But in 2019, I'm starting to find places where I'm a little off-speed or out of sync, and having to make other adjustments besides just technique to hit more perfects. One of the harder 2019 dances with Kinect, when I tried it on Switch, I realized that I was seeing a few moves slower than they really are (since I had to double my speed to hit them properly), and it turned out that this also helped me a little when I did these same dances on Xbox.
One thing I like about Xbox Kinect is that it appeals to me visually. The goal, of course, is to pull off every detail from head to toe correctly and in sync with the coach, and when a move isn't perfect, I feel that a little practice in front of the mirror and studying of video of the coach will help me figure out where I'm going wrong. The same is helpful with remote dancing too, and the remote technology does check that the full body is moving correctly (at least indirectly) on some moves, but I still find Xbox Kinect to be more of a visual puzzle to solve.
Wearing shoes has helped enormously, greekphysics, thank you for the suggestion! I've spent lots of time fiddling with the sensor bar over the past 9 months. When I first started, I, no joke, put it at about 6 feet (~1.83m), which helped me score very well on "Calypso" and literally nothing else (that high score still stands lol). I've also found that putting the sensor around waist-height or slightly above works best, which I realized by watching other players' autodances. My scores seem to be better when my room is cooler, when I wear slightly baggy/blocky shirts with long sleeves (littlesiha seems to do this a lot as well), and now when I wear shoes. The Kinect also cares a lot about turn in/out of knees and legs (the knee knocking motif is especially prominent in JD 2019). I wish there were more resources for first-time Kinect users, though I'm also unsure of how Microsoft's desertion of the technology will factor into the Kinect's relevance to the meta game or the JD World Cups. I agree that JD is fun partly because it feels like a puzzle to solve, but it's easier to complete a puzzle when the rules are laid out ahead of time for everyone to see.
I'm glad that helped. There should be clear instructions to help everyone setup their sensor, background, clothing, etc. (especially for the PS4 camera which is far pickier, though to be fair Ubisoft did add a few basic instructions in 2019 when first using the PS4 camera).Wearing shoes has helped enormously. I wish there were more resources for first-time Kinect users
The game should be more about "who dances best" and less about "who setup their room the best."
Personally, I do best by wearing compression pants and compression shirts, as this seems to make it easier for the sensor to tell if my arm and leg angles are just right. However, if you're having trouble with your wrists disappearing in the body-outline image, then I can see how long sleeves would help (I have to wear long sleeves for the PS4 camera, but fortunately Xbox Kinect picks up my wrists).My scores seem to be better when my room is cooler, when I wear slightly baggy/blocky shirts with long sleeves (littlesiha seems to do this a lot as well), and now when I wear shoes.
I notice that littlesiha has large dome lights along the back edge of her floor. The region where the floor meets the wall creates a discernible boundary that can interfere with the sensor, especially the PS4 camera. Many important moves with the legs or hips may coincide with this area from the camera's perspective. I ordered a set of globe lights, but they turned out to be too small to have any effect, but I was able to instead make my background color and carpet color match almost perfectly so it's no longer an issue. This mattered much more for the PS4 camera than for Kinect in my case, and would only be a problem if dancing in a room where you have a back wall a few feet behind you (though other furniture in the background could cause interference). Another issue to watch for is a shadow on your back wall or floor (though again this is far more important for the PS4 camera, and Kinect might not pick that up).
The game does say that the goal is to copy what the coach does so that the coach seems like a mirror image to our movements. If you copy everything you see, including small details, and are perfectly in sync from head to toe throughout the dance, in principle you should be able to hit 13,333 without knowing anything else about how the dance works (provided that your room and clothing are setup for the sensor to work properly).I agree that JD is fun partly because it feels like a puzzle to solve, but it's easier to complete a puzzle when the rules are laid out ahead of time for everyone to see.
I had a lot of trouble in 2017 by not realizing how well the sensor works. And by not realizing that the game may be looking for different things on different moves, and that there may be a huge variety of things that it looks for. This is also partly because I had started dancing with a remote with my focus on one body part, and suddenly I had to worry about several body parts at the same time.
I distinctly remember "testing" out a particular body part, and "incorrectly" concluding that it didn't matter. Well, it hadn't mattered on the moves where I tested it out, since I had still hit Perfects on those moves without using that body part. Several months later, I finally realized that body part did matter on other moves.
It's a very natural thing to try to figure out what matters and what doesn't matter, and to try to find the most efficient way to hit a great score. But I'm discovering more and more that the Kinect sensor can pick up subtle details that I had never expected. So now I try to take the vague instructions to heart: Copy what the coach does as if he/she is your mirror image.
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I could easily list 100 different things that the Kinect sensor can pick up on, but I don't think I should spoil the game like that on a public forum. The most insane thing I've found is in Funky Town. The gold moves are easy in Funky Town, but the moves between the gold moves gave me hell. I was going X X Yeah X X Yeah etc., with X's between the gold moves. I tried those moves 100 times and studied video closely, then I finally realized a very subtle detail. I was doing something really subtle that the coach wasn't doing, and when I fixed that little detail, I finally started hitting Perfects.
It seemed like a pretty extreme penalty, but it makes sense to some extent. I imagine that the game designers are asking the question, "On each dance, what will the best dancers in the world do correctly that most players won't do quite as well?" They are surely looking for a variety of details on a variety of moves that will separate the 13,300's from the 13,100's from the 12,900's etc.
Instead of listing specific things that the sensor may look for, I can break it down into a few general categories.
(1) Technique. Are you making the move properly from head to toe? The knee motions that you referred to fall in this category. The human body has a lot of parts, and we use all of them when dancing. Not only that, many moves are three-dimensional, such that leans or motions to/from the t.v. can be important (I ran into this issue with the opening move of Kaboom Pow). When I'm taking an X, OK, or Good repeatedly, the first thing I do is study video of the coach, and then I practice the move in front of a mirror. I can sometimes think of a dozen little details that might matter, and experiment until I can figure out what it is. Even the position of a secondary arm or leg can matter, or a small detail you might not expect that the sensor can even pick up. What are different things that the body can do? More than just a single part of the body, if you look at the pose of a body, you can identify angles, you can even compare where that body part is right now to where it was a moment ago, or see the motion of a minor body part relative to your whole body's motion (this was a key for me in Side to Side).
(2) Timing. Are you starting too early or too late? I can usually feel it when my timing is off enough for the game to flag this.
(3) Speed. More than just starting on time, is each body part moving at the right speed? Too fast or too slow can be a problem. Sometimes I don't see the moves at the right speed when I first watch them (it happened to me on Sweet Little Unforgettable Thing).
(4) Synchronization. Ideally, every body part should be in sync with the coach throughout the dance. On a few tougher moves, the sensor is checking that (at least) two different body parts are in sync with the coach throughout the move. I really concentrated on two different body parts simultaneously in Rockabye and Cake on the Ocean, for example.
(5) Motions. Maybe a body part shouldn't be moving at all. Maybe there is a preliminary move that you need to make before the move that seems to be the scored move. Anything that you do since the previous move can matter, not just the part of the move where you see a score go up. Or maybe the motion involves a few moves put together properly. With Watch Me, for example, on one sequence I would consistently hit all Perfects with one Good/OK in the mix, and it seemed odd. It turned out that I had been missing a move before the sequence ever started. If they had flagged the first move instead of like the third move of the sequence, it would have been obvious.
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The more I learn how to dance better, the better my scores get. :-)
I've been going through the Unlimited catalog this month, trying to hit Megastars on everything with Kinect. (It's a great way to learn more about how the game works.) I got a little frustrated with Walk Like an Egyptian today. This (older) dance has a lot of little details, and I've been working hard to nail those subtleties. (It's a challenge for me to get the details right and still try to be spot-on. Not sure exactly what it's looking for, I try to cover my bases.) I found a video of a player hitting Megastars on this dance either with Kinect or a camera. It didn't show the actual video of the player, but the body-out-line image at the top of the screen was pretty clear (so I think it was Kinect, not PS4; though a couple of other videos for this dance seem more like PS4). I noticed that his body appears very large in the body-outline image at the top. Then it occurred to me that he must be standing much closer to the t.v. than I normally stand. Certain details which may be difficult to pick up may stand out a little more this way. Ordinarily, especially with recent dances, I seem to do fine standing a little further back, and it seems to sense little details quite well. And some dances make you walk toward the t.v., where starting too close really isn't an option. But maybe there are a few dances where standing closer would help to pick up certain little details. Before the dance began, I raised my arms up high and checked that I wasn't so close that my hands or feet would go out of the field of view. On this dance anyway, I did score better up close. Judging from my scores on most other dances, I don't think this is something I ordinarily need to do, but say if the shape of your hands or shoes or your wrists are vanishing in the body-outline image, it might be worth experimenting with trying to dance a little closer to the screen when it's viable. (I constantly test out different things when I'm taking OK's or X's, which happens more with JD 1 thru JD 2014 for me. Those scores drive me crazy, even now that I know so many of the kinds of things that the game tends to look for.) Has Kinect gotten better for you? Happy dancing.
Hi GreekPhysics! Honestly, I took a break from JD for a few months after the World Cup was cancelled; like many others, I found that bit of news frustrating. I've been playing once or twice a week more recently, but I'm very excited to get my hands on JD2020! I've reverted back to playing on the Switch - I consider that my main platform, and it's what I'm best at. I'm not convinced the Kinect is worth my time right now, and if by some miracle I qualify for nationals, the in-person competition would use JD2021 songs so I'd practice those on the Kinect instead of JD2020. I love that I can easily reverse dances on the Switch by putting the Joy-Con in my left hand and choosing to do all the moves on the opposite hand and foot. One thing that always irked me about JD was the emphasis on right-handed play, so I made up my own work-around to keep my arms more balanced. I still score quite well doing that on the Switch, which you can't get away with on the Kinect. The Switch definitely has its own set of problems with ridiculous Joy-Con drift (has anyone talked about that affecting their JD score??), occasional blue tooth issues, and brutal Gold Move scoring, but I actually like that the scores tend to have a wider distribution (especially the extremes). High scores feel far more rewarding on the Switch to me, and there's less of an emphasis on absolute perfection due to there being more luck involved. We'll see what happens in the upcoming year regarding the World Cup and Nationals, but I enjoy the game more playing the way I want to play.