Well, I just watched a video in the 'show of your new combo videos' thread, or whatever it's called, and it got me thinking. Are people in this age of pen spinning going more for difficulty and less for a combo that is aesthetically pleasing? In a battle, do you judge on difficulty, or on beauty of the combo? Would a really simple, yet aesthetically pleasing combo, beat an ugly, yet very hard one? Are difficulty and beauty of equal important i) in a collab ii) in a battle iii) in a personal video iiii) When doing a demonstration to someone in real life?

I'd rather not give my opinion on any of this just yet. I would like to see what you guys think.

To people who dont have enough knowledge to break combos down an aesthetically pleasing combo probably beats an ugly hard one just because they dont know what the hell is going on in the hard combo (i know from experience :ssst: ). For persons experienced and knowledgable enough to watch and break down combos in their head easily then an ugly hard combo might win. But in the end it comes down to user skill...someone with high skill makes a hard combo look good regardless.

Of course if i'm showing to some random guy, i'll use tricks I know really well, so that'lll be an ez combo.

But.. Although either extreme is distasteful imo (whether really ez but smooth, or rlly hard but crap execution), I think something very hard and acceptably smooth beats something very smooth and acceptably hard.

i often think about this.

example- bonkura's stall: Fucking ugly.

but very hard to do.

but the thing is the whole point of pen spinning is to be aesthetically pleasing. who cares how easy it is, if it looks good then thats all that matters. and if you can do something very very easy, but make it look better than other people, then thats difficult as well (not sure if that made sense lol)

example- Eriror's fundamental combo. pretty easy tricks, but it looks amazing. that would beat any of my combo's even if i used uber difficult tricks...

just my 2 cents anyway

The point is.. It's easier to make simple things look good and smooth than harder things. To make an extraordinary video with simple tricks would be really hard, though. Even though Bonkura could do that with ease [look at this videos with ballsign mod]

I prefer doing harder things, but only when I have mastered it. You won't see me doing BackAround 1.5 Fall in a combo yet, but parts of it could happen. Of course, it's not always about the difficulty, it has to fit in the nature of the combo and style.

When combos looks beautiful, even if it's mostly not a great tricks, it looks pro.

Beauty comes first, the difficult tricks are merely a tool to get there.

No, a good looking combo against a unstylish combo with very hard difficulty usually loses. People take a lot of points off for difficulty and there isn't a Beauty 10/10 scoring.

QFT

This is an old question. No matter how many people you ask, it's still a matter of preference. Ideally, a balance between the two would be the best.

hmm well.. there ought to be..

I) In the collab, combos difficult and beauty must be balanced.
II) In the battle, combos must be more difficult, but all trick must be smooth.
III) In personal video some combos must be difficult and some combos must be beauty
IV) When i doing demonstration in real life i don't use difficult tricks, i use more easy things but douing it fast. People who don't know anything about psing can't understand what i doing and is it very hard tricks or not. They just see how fast pen spin,

sport vs art..

same discussion... u decide

I think beauty (aka aesthetic appeal) naturally springs out of fluidity and the portrayal of effortlessness, so it's more important than difficulty. However, this is no excuse to spam certain fundamentals + backaround, which is why these videos lose points.

If someone does a krazy hard combo, but does it really ugly it will look like they cant do the
tricks therefore they wont look as good as someone who has mastered the simpler tricks and
can do them well. :banana:

A lot of commonly used difficult tricks look pretty cool when done well however, such as neobak fall and shadow hybrids and combinations.

Here is what I think:
i) In a collab, beauty comes first, difficulty second.
ii In a battle, difficulty comes first, beauty second.
iii) In a personal video, in the end, it is down to you, but a balance of beauty and difficulty is the way I would do it.
iv) In real life, unless it's a fellow pen spinner, beauty first, forget difficulty.

iN REAL life beauty and rate of success

sorry but that doesn't make any sense :?

I guess he meant easy, attractive combo's

I think that a dificult combo can be very beautiful. It is just necessary to know well how connect the tricks to have a pretty combo, difficult AND esthetics ;)

ok but everybody knows that we're talking about beauty to pen spinners here, not to commoners.
Because any easy combo can easily impress commoners.

I have to agree with him on this one especially in a battle cause there are experienced people judging you, not an average Joe.

both really matters as im too nooby to be able to breakdown combos i appreciate beautiful combos more i think the perfect thing is if both are balanced.