LR2 Complete Guide

LR2 is a Beatmania simulator that is able to play BMS files.
This game is mainly 7k + scratch (so 8k) but there are variations like 9k (Pop'n style), 14k + 2 scratches (DP), 5k + 1... etc

You only need to read up to part 5 to understand the basics of LR2 but I suggest you read the rest as well because I put lots of useful information you may want to know. Especially the stairway part...

Let's get started~!

PART 1*: SETTING UP LR2
PART 2*: WHERE TO GET SONGS AND SKINS
PART 3*: NAVIGATING LR2 WEBSITE
PART 4*: SONG CLEAR STATUS + LEVEL SYSTEMS
PART 5*: GAMEPLAY
PART 6: DAN COURSES
PART 7: HOW TO CHANGE SKINS
PART 8: STAIRWAY

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PART 1: SETTING UP LR2

Get this file -> http://www.lr2.sakura.ne.jp/LR2_100201.zip
After you downloaded it, unzip it and you should have a folder named LR2beta3. Open it and click LR2.exe.
There's gonna be gibberish text all over when you first start it so just ignore it and click OK

http://puu.sh/aty7n/2ac98feb82.jpg
You should get something like this.

In the ID part, type in your desired ID. *REMEMBER* this ID because you will need this when you have to restore your account because you had to delete your LR2 and re-install the game because of whatever reason.
Password is self-explanatory.
For the last one, just uncheck the box because that's how you would restore your account but you don't need that for now.
Keeping pressing OK to gibberish text.

After all that, you should have something like this. Mine's a Korean computer so gibberish text shows up as gibberish Korean to me. http://puu.sh/atywf/5ba10c44da.png
To fix this, Click Language at the top and change it to English.

http://puu.sh/atL42/2e2b24d313.png
Make sure to check all these boxes if you want Internet Ranking enabled.

LR2IR my page directs you to your profile page but you need to have at least one song cleared or failed in order to have a profile page. We'll take care of that later. LR2IR top page takes you to the main website. I'll show you how to navigate through the LR2IR main page later~

Go to Jukebox 1 tab. This is where you add songs and dan courses. Simply drag the folders into here that has all your BMS songs.
http://puu.sh/atyX4/3116ac1bd5.png This is mine as an example. If you want to delete a folder, right click it and click the second bottom one that starts with データベース. Rest you don't really need to know.

For Jukebox 2 tab, you have all the custom folders you can make in-game for easier navigation.
My advice is if you like to play easy, unofficial BMS songs, have LEVEL FOLDER checked and if you are an advanced player coming from other rhythm games, check the ?狂BMS FOLDER. You can check both too. Then, change the Max result to 0.

For OPTION, SELECT, and SYSTEM tab, you don't really need to change anything. Here's mine.
http://puu.sh/atzop/a9e77ae113.png
http://puu.sh/atzsL/50cfc1fd94.png
http://puu.sh/atzub/ef274ddf65.png
You can do what I did but you can just leave everything the way it is. Doesn't matter too much.

Now start the game~!
If you click play and wait, you'll see

LR2 beta3 version 100201
PUSH ANY KEY

Do what it says xd

After all that you should have something like this
http://puu.sh/atzJo/18ae89ee6a.jpg (color on things might be different because I edited my default skin slightly)
To exit the game, simply press ESC in the main song selection screen.

First thing's first, you should set your key configurations. Go to SYSTEM OPTIONS and click KEY CONFIG.
*If you want the table on the right, edit the right side. If you want it on left, edit the left side.*
Press F2 to remove the default key configuration and start setting keys to each of the buttons. (make sure not to map 2 buttons with same key) Don't forget to set the keys for start and select ones to. They are the 2 little circles. Editing one side is fine. To go back a screen, press ESC or right button of your mouse. (Don't worry, pressing ESC only in the main screen exits the game!)

Click SYSTEM again and set REPLAY to ALWAYS. If you play any song, you get a replay file for that song so you can use it to record your plays after you played a song. (But you can only save 1 replay files per song..... so if you play it again, that will replace the old replay file) You have options of setting the replay to CLEAR where the game only saves CLEARED plays. FULL COMBO if you full comboed the song or HIGH SCORE if you beat your score... etc

That's pretty much everything you need to know for a basic LR2 setup!


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PART 2: WHERE TO GET SONGS

There's a super nice torrent with 40gb of songs so I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU DOWNLOAD THAT.
http://www.toez2dj.net/zeroboard/zboard.php?id=f_bms&page=1&sn1=&divpage=4&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=22263
Click File 1 :)

If you want other songs, you can search for a specific song in the lr2 main website and download individually.
Or if you want, you can download these.

BOF 2013
http://www.ceena.net/view.php?id=130928232042-195010

BOF 2012
http://www.ceena.net/view.php?id=120929235457-966460

BOF 2011
http://www.ceena.net/view.php?id=110929005410-456216

BOF 2010
http://www.ceena.net/view.php?id=101006023050-563716

BOF 2009
http://www.ceena.net/view.php?id=090928130314-49988

BOF is a famous global BMS competition where people submit high quality BMS songs. These torrents have all the songs submitted.
This site has all the not-as-popular BMS events http://manbow.nothing.sh/event/event.cgi.

After getting some songs, make sure to play at least one, hit few notes and just fail immediately to get a LR2 profile page.

For skins, try these links~
http://www.kasacontent.com/single/skinlist/
http://overactive.nobody.jp/bms_skin/index.html

If you need help finding a skin from a YouTube video, ask me on http://ask.fm/hazelnut53
I'll try to see where the skin is from.

---------------------------------

PART 3: NAVIGATING LR2 WEBSITE

This is the main LR2 website. It's in Japanese orz.
http://www.dream-pro.info/~lavalse/LR2IR/search.cgi

At the top is where you log in. Left side is your ID NUMBER. You get a number after you create a profile. That's what you enter here NOT the ID you entered in the beginning of the tutorial. Right is the password.
You're probably already logged in the first time you visit that site. (assuming you already set lr2 up from the previous parts..)

Here you have 6 different links.
http://puu.sh/atBzs/fb96577107.png

Going from left,
1st is your profile page.
2nd is the list of all the INSANE difficulty charts. (you don't need this if you are a beginner player).
3rd is the list of all the most played songs on LR2 Internet Rankings.
4th is list of dan courses (more on that later).
5th is advanced search (I never use this lol)
6th is a list of Japanese sentences with dates(?) on them. You can read them if you can read Japanese :)

Here's the search bar for finding song pages.
http://puu.sh/atBY0/bf6d8fa3e6.png

Going from left,
1st is when you want to search by keywords of the song.
2nd is searching songs by tags.
3rd is finding player pages.
4th is finding courses. (you mainly use this to play dan courses)

That's pretty much everything for the main page. Now let's go to your profile page :D

Here's what it looks like for mine.
http://puu.sh/atC9n/32218b293f.png

Going from top,
- Clicking on that blue link will let you see how others see your profile.
- In the top box, that's where you can change your nickname. *BUT REMEMBER, CHANGING YOUR NAME DOES NOT MEAN YOU'RE CHANGING YOUR LR2 ID* My display name is Lucie♪ but my ID is still Hazelnut because that's the name I started with.
- Number beside the LR2ID is your profile number. That is a very important number because you need that to restore your account or to login to this site. This number will never change so I highly suggest you remember this number.
- The big box is your introduction. Put something like "Hi! I play LR2. Nice to meet you~" or whatever you want lel.
- Next is your homepage. People usually put their Twitter or YouTube links.
- The top number is the number of songs you played and the bottom number is how many times you played overall.
- Next is the list of rivals. Basically you can rival people you like. Top is the list of all the players who you rivaled and bottom list is all the people who rivaled you. To rival a person, go to their profile page and click the grey box that looks like this http://puu.sh/atCWg/ea1b3abe22.png Rivaling gives you access to your rival's scores and it tells you if you won or lost on songs you both played. Use it if you want some rivalry huehue.
- Bottom is the privacy level of your profile. Mine's always open but if you want your scores to be private, check the most-bottom option.

Next...
http://puu.sh/atD5s/6a73fa7f79.png

- The top list of songs is the songs you played the most. My most played song is G e n g a o z o _ G O D. I have a HARD CLEAR with a 44 playcount with a ranking of 209th out of 2177 people (I play it a lot because I want to fullcombo it ;w;)
- The bottom list of songs is the songs you recently played. My most recently played song is Gorillaful Beat (^^).
If you want to see all the songs in the list, click the blue link below each lists.

Lastly,
http://puu.sh/atDnv/628676cc80.png

- This is the BBS of your profile. People can comment on your profile :D
- You can delete your comments. Just click the blue text beside your comment. You can delete your comments on other people's profiles but you can't delete other people's comments on your profile lol.

That's the basics on how to navigate the website \o/

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PART 4: SONG CLEAR STATUS + LEVEL SYSTEMS

In LR2 there are various clear status. They are ★FULL COMBO, FULL COMBO, HARD CLEAR, CLEAR, EASY CLEAR, FAIL.
LR2 always records your highest achievements in clear and score, even if you got them in different plays. For example, if you hard clear a song, your clear status on the song becomes HARD CLEAR. However, if you hard cleared a song already but passed it again with an EASY CLEAR, your clear status is still HARD CLEAR. If you cleared a song but got a full combo, your clear status becomes FULL COMBO. (You don't need to beat your high score to get a better clear status. If you FULL COMBOed a song with terrible accuracy, the clear status still goes from CLEAR to FULL COMBO) Your highest score is best play no matter what gauge you play the song on.

This is the level of the different clear status
★FULL COMBO > FULL COMBO > HARD CLEAR > CLEAR > EASY CLEAR > FAIL

FAIL = Failing a song using any gauge.
EASY CLEAR = Clearing a song using EASY gauge. You need 80% health at the end to pass. (your health may deplete anywhere in the song but all you need is 80% at the end). You start with 20% gauge.
CLEAR = Clearing a song with GROOVE gauge. Exactly the same as EASY CLEAR except the gauge is harsher.
HARD CLEAR = Clearing a song using SURVIVAL gauge. If you health depletes anywhere during a song, you fail instantly. Gauge is harsher than both easy and regular clear gauge. You start with full health.
FULL COMBO = Finishing a song with full combo. You can play on any gauge (except P-ATTACK) as long as you get a full combo.
★FULL COMBO = Playing using the P-ATTACK option. With this option on, you can't have any GOOD, BAD, or POORs. Your health also goes down if you get few GREATS so your accuracy must be somehow decent.

Unlike other games, LR2 highly focuses on accuracy. This is how scores are calculated
EXSCORE = Number of PGREATs x2 + Number of GREATS (notice how number of misses have no effect on the score lmao)
Percentage is taken from your score divided by the total score.

88.89% and above = AAA
77.78% ~ 88.88% = AA
66.67% ~ 77.77% = A
55.56% ~ 66.66% = B
44.44% ~ 55.55% = C
33.33% ~ 44.44% = D
22.22% ~ 33.33% = E
Below 22.22% is F

There are various level systems in LR2. Here's the list.

☆ = Normal scale. Ranges from level 1 to 12. Think of it as the IIDX rating system.
★ = Insane scale. ☆12 is roughly ★1. Ranges from ★1 ~ ★25. This is the main scale on LR2.
★★ = Overjoy scales. ★★1 is roughly ★21. These are ridiculously difficult charts so I highly suggest you stay away from these if you're just starting out. Ranges from ★★1 ~ ★★7. ★★7s are impossible to play.
▽ = Normal no.2 scale. The level system is almost identical to ☆ scale but it's a completely separate scale. There are some overlaps with ☆ scale songs.
▼ = Insane no.2 scale. The level system is almost identical to ★ scale but it's a completely separate scale. There are some overlaps with ★ scale songs.
◆ = LN scale. Ranges from ◆1 ~ ◆26.
♪ = MN scale. MN is a popular LR2 player and all the songs in this scale are all made by him. Ranges from ♪1 ~ ♪15
◎ = Scratch scale. All the songs here are filled with heavy scratching.
● = PMS (9k) scale. Ranges from ●1 ~ ●17
δ = DP (14k) normal scale. Ranges from δ1 ~ δ12.

If you want to play any of these songs, type the difficulty name (ex. ●7, ◆16... etc) and search it in the main website using the TAGS function.

Only the first 3 on the list are the most used scales.

Remember in the LR2 navigation part -> "2nd is the list of all the INSANE difficulty charts."
That's the ★ scale. If you click that link, all the ★ scale songs will show up.

---------------------------------

PART 5: GAMEPLAY

Start LR2 and you should be at the main screen.
http://puu.sh/atGSI/572137cb7b.jpg

Green folders are the Insane song folders.
Blue folders are the rival folders. They have all the information about your rival's plays on songs you played.
Light blue folders are the custom song folders. (They are the folders you imported onto jukebox 1 tab earlier)

You can play the songs at the top by title, clears, playstyles (number of keys), or difficulty.

If you go to any song... you should get something like this.
http://puu.sh/atHmT/89cd04f712.png
The bottom right is your score on that song. That's also the place where you can see your clear status.
Help is written in Japanese orz. Replay is when you want to see your replay of your play and autoplay is self-explanatory.
In the search bar, you can search for songs duh.

Now click play options.
http://puu.sh/atHyR/c451f8ddf6.jpg

- Random is where you can change the arrangement of the notes.

	Mirror - Mirrors the notes vertically
	Random - Changes the columns
	S-Random - Changes the notes (unlike Random, you can get jacks too D:)
	Scatter - Changes the notes but you don't get any jacks \o/ (score and clear status are both not saved)
	Converge - Puts the notes into the scratch column (score and clear status are both not saved)

- Gauge we talked about in the clear status but there are some few extra ones.

	DEATH - If you get a combo breaker, you fail instantly. Use this if you want to get a FULL COMBO.
	G-Attack - You are trying to get GOODs this time not PGREATS like P-Attack.

- For assist, set to OFF. If you put AUTOSCR on, you don't have to hit the scratches but score won't save.
- For effects, you can set to off, hidden, sudden, or both. Hidden is when the bottom of the lane is hidden while sudden it the top part of the lane being hidden.
- For playstyle, set to Single. Battle should be OFF. HI-SPD is where you adjust the speed of the song. (you dont need to use this since you can change speed during plays) Target is the main target you wish to beat while playing. Mine's just set at My Best. Set DP FLIP to off. If you're playing 14k, it just flips the two 8k lanes. For HS-FIX, set it to OFF.

In the system options,

Ghost Position: This is the little + or - number you get while playing. This number represents the number of points away from your target. + if you're above and - for below.
Score Graph: You get a score graph with your target score, best score, and your current score while playing.
Default Target: This is the default target if you didn't set your target to anything.
BGA: If you want BGA while playing...
BGA Size: If you want big BGA or normal bga
Judge Timing: Offset. Mine's +35 usually but +10 while streaming...
Judge Auto Adjust: Your offset is adjusted automatically for you depending on when you hit the notes most of the time.
Lane Cover: If you want the top portion of the lane hidden. You can change how much you want hidden in-game.
Screen Mode: Self-explanatory.
Replay: Sets which type of replays you want to save.

Score status is your score status (...) on a song. Tag-editor is where you can change the song information (but I don't use this..) Effects is self-explanatory. Player status is your whole status. It has your total plays, judge counts... etc

Now go play a song!

This is what should look like.
http://puu.sh/atJeY/a5926fff31.png

Everything is really self-explanatory.

There's a nice option to remove all the gears. If you press 5 and up, you go into dark option. Basically everything is dark and everything's not an eyesore. This is what it should sort of look like. http://puu.sh/atJsx/3d74122403.png

After playing a song, you get a result screen like this http://puu.sh/atM9z/0af192b8c5.png
If you want to re-play a song with the same random you just played, hold your 2 left most keys until you're be back on the play screen with the same random.

---------------------------------

PART 6: DAN COURSES

Basically a test to see what level you are at.
Here are the steps in playing a dan course.

- Go to http://www.dream-pro.info/~lavalse/LR2IR/search.cgi?mode=gradelist and click on any of the courses you want to try.

The blank stars are normal dan courses and black/shaded stars are insane level dan courses. ★★ is the kaiden course and it's harder than ★10. (^^) is the overjoy course which is the hardest dan course.

- Click on "コースファイルのダウンロード" and you should have a file called "course.lr2crs" regardless of which level course you downloded.

- Make sure you have all the songs in that course or else the course won't run. There are total of 4 songs in a dan course (3 songs in DP (14 keys) dan courses)

- Start up LR2 and go to Jukebox 1 tab. Click your course.lr2crs and drag it into the box that shows you the locations of your bms files. (Your course file should also be erased after you drop it off)

- On the main screen, look for 段位認定 folder and it should have all your courses.

All you need to do to pass a course is make sure your health doesn't deplete anywhere during the course. You can also only play courses on groove gauge or survival. Once you pass the course, on the 段位認定 part of your profile page, it should show you the highest dan course you passed. Left side represents the SP(7k) dan certificate and right side represents the DP(14k) dan certificate. For example, http://puu.sh/atGtl/07e081f2b1.png this person passed the Kaiden course and normal 6th DP dan

There are "unofficial" dan courses like the PMS, LN dan courses.
They are not official so they don't officially register on your profile BUT... they are official if you are using stairways. For information on stairways, go to PART 8.

---------------------------------

PART 7: HOW TO CHANGE SKINS

Default skin looks boring eh? Here's how you can apply the new skins you downloaded.

Basically get your new skin folder, and drop it in LR2beta3\LR2files\Theme This is how mine looks like.
http://puu.sh/atJXX/c1a2654da9.png

To apply the skin in-game, go to System Options and click Skin/Soundset.
You'll have something like this http://puu.sh/atK3C/aba45fd7a7.jpg
The big screen is the skin preview and the left tabs are the different types of screens you can apply the skins on. To change skins in each tabs, click the little arrows beside the skin preview. Underneath all that is the skin options. You can change these however you want. Note that this option is different for every skin.

---------------------------------

PART 8: STAIRWAY

One of the main reasons why I love to play LR2 is because of the Stairway. It's very useful in keeping track of your scores from each of the tables listed in the LEVEL SYSTEM part.

This is the main stairway website.
http://stairway.sakura.ne.jp/bms/

As of 07/28/2014, there are 8 stairways. (LN Overjoy scale got emerged with regular LN scale since January 19th)

There are
★Insane, ★★Overjoy ◆LongNote ☆Normal ▽Normal No2, ▼Insane No2, ●PMS, and ♪mn.
All the stairway links to each scale are on that site except ♪mn (It's a secret scale xd)

To get a stairway profile, it's very simple. Do what each scale tells you to do.

★Insane: Must have 125 songs or more cleared or failed.
★★Overjoy: Must have 1 song cleared. Failing doesn't count.
◆LongNote: Must have 30 songs or more cleared or failed.
☆Normal: Must have 50 songs or more cleared or failed.
▽Normal No2: Must have 100 songs or more cleared or failed.
▼Insane No2: Must have 50 songs or more cleared or failed.
●PMS: Must have 50 songs or more cleared or failed
♪mn: I don't know lol. It's probably a secret I bet.

Once you complete your stairway mission, go to the main stairway website of the scale and click PlayerList. Then click 全てのプレイ
ヤーを表示...

This one if you're confused
http://puu.sh/auNSI/ba99943ef2.png

Then, you get a massive list of players who also have the stairway. The colors represent the dan courses. Remember in PART 6 when I told you PMS, LN dan courses are somewhat "official"? It's because the these courses don't register on LR2 website but they register on the stairway site. The colors represent their dan level. White are players who haven't passed any dan courses. Green are players between 1st ~ 4th dan. Turqoise are players between 5st ~ 8th dan. Red are players who are either 9th or 10th dan. Shining blues are kaiden players and flaming reds are overjoys... (note that grading might be different for some scale. To check, click on Grades and look for this http://puu.sh/auOJG/a02d9c496f.jpg Grade section also lists all the players from the highest dan to lowest. Orders in each dans are determined by their scores on the dan course. People passing dan courses with higher score are higher on the list.)

Find your name by F3 and click on it :)
Example stairway page looks like this. http://puu.sh/auP1F/57b1a5af3f.png
If you look at the mini table below your name, there's a table with how many of each clear statuses you have on that scale.
There are two lists of players below with each having a percantage beside their name. First one is how much you both share the similar rankings. Second list is how much you both share the SAME clear statuses.

For example, I share lots of clear statuses with these people.
http://puu.sh/auPk6/435f1b639f.png

If you scroll down, you see the list of all the songs and you will notice they are all colored. The color represents your clear status. White is when you haven't played them. Grey for fail, green for easy clears, purple for clears, red for hard clears, orangish yellow for fullcombo, and pink for P-ATTACK.

The reason why stairways are useful is because you can look at all the songs in that scale in one page without having to find each songs individually. For exmaple, if you want to hard clear let's say all ◆12s, instead of searching ◆12 in the search bar and clicking every single song to see what clear status you have, you can just go to the stairway and see the list of ◆12s you haven't played or cleared yet.

One issue with using a stairway is that the scores are updated once every week (usually Sunday). So if you cleared a song, you'll have to wait until Sunday for your stairway to be updated. You can find the exact update time in the information tab for each scales. http://puu.sh/auWsa/7dd07703b0.png However, there is a way around this using a program called GLAssist... more on that in the future.


---------------------------------

Phew that's a long guide.
I think that's it for now but if I have anything else added in the future, I'll have the changelog right here. :)
If you want anything changed, let me know by

http://ask.fm/hazelnut53
https://osu.ppy.sh/u/3964588
https://twitter.com/hazelnut153
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbg-H2tXvQk-9wYHFhFjLQ

07/27/2014: Guide Finished!
07/28/2014: Rearranged the parts and added stairway + edited minor details