I may be the outlier here, but in the example Cardy posted in the OP, the reduced hitbursts actually look kind of ugly - by that, I mean the effect is ruined. Imagine blowing something up, like a CD, with a reasonably-sized explosive. Did you picture the explosion smaller than the CD itself? If you're being honest, the answer is probably no.

There's a visceral reaction to the feedback when popping a hitcircle. The well-timed strike, followed by the audible bang and the visible explosion, are not only valuable feedback, but stand on their own merits as being part of the experience. I believe that the game would be a lot less fun if clicking a hitcircle just made a happy "beep" sound and turned the hitcircle green (or blue or some other good-job colour) upon proper execution, and in a way, this feels like the first step toward that. And for what? I'm not sure what we stand to gain, here, by shrinking it not-so-modestly.

It sounds to me like the problem is with things being too cluttered

Though I can see how part of the problem comes from tightly spaced maps, the default hitbursts do seem quite large, in my opinion. In response to awp, I'd rather have the explosion keep the other CDs in clear view so I can blow them up, too. And the size that CnF is suggesting in the original post still seems reasonably satisfying, though you're free to disagree. Either way, I support this request.

I know, we need a better explosion. It will only say BOOM! in ever so 18 font letters.

For the record, if you're not looking ahead in a map to see the notes, you're doing it wrong.

OzzyOzrock wrote:

I know, we need a better explosion. It will only say BOOM! in ever so 18 font letters.

And a toggle to decide whether the font is Comic Sans or Jokerman.

peppy wrote:

I've never even considered them too big. Ever. Could this be because I haven't played any recent maps which use "new-style" (aka broken) mapping?

Actually playing anything somewhat hard with default skin is annoying. You should note that tons of players nowadays are using 100% invisible 300 bursts and small 100/50 bursts, playing with those standar bursts is like... horrible.

Ok, after reading the responses this thread as gathered, it seems like we have two factions.

* Those who like smaller hit bursts

* Those will prefer current hit bursts.

And this is normal really, if everyone liked the same thing, this world would be boring. cliche? maybe, but this is true. orz.

Anyway.

My suggestion to change the following suggestion will go something like this. It might even slide in seamlessly with osu2 development. It will also require more work on the skinners side of things, but I wont say its a trainsmash. Maybe add a function where you can select what type of bursts you want to apply to your current skin. Where default will always be set to Normal.

So, if you go select a custom skin inside the game, somewhere in the UI it will have an option where you can select what type of hit burst it should use like Normal/Small.

s_hit50.jpg
s_hit100.jpg
s_hit300.jpg
s_hit300g.jpg
etc

so if you say small, it will look/use the s_hit50.jpg set instead of the normal hitburts. ~ if it doesn't find any s_hit300 in the skin folder, the small button will be greyed out. and it will always use the normal set then.

Well, this is just an random idea that popped into my head.

Thanks for reading

rust45 wrote:

For the record, if you're not looking ahead in a map to see the notes, you're doing it wrong.

That doesn't help much with AR9...


I support this. Even though it doesn't match the original game, I would just prefer omitting the actual burst and just using a number

ShadowLord wrote:

So, if you go select a custom skin inside the game, somewhere in the UI it will have an option where you can select what type of hit burst it should use like Normal/Small.

I like this too.

Guys, please don't start saying what kind of hitburst you would like to see, that's not the point of this request.

Ekaru explained pretty well what i mean.

As a mapper and a player, I usually find that the size and decay time of the default hitbursts are perhaps a little bit too great. However, we should definitely not flop to the other extreme of using tiny hitbursts. If they're made a little bit less obtrusive and distracting, without allowing for severe bullshit in mapping, then I would be happy.

As an aside, it annoys me greatly when people try to justify an unreasonable amount of overlapping in maps. Sure, back-and-forth and obvious notes under notes is fine, but anything where patterns are clearly too tight is just silly. If the mapper still insists on making incredibly tight patterns, then they should force smaller hitbursts for that map's skin.

DEEDIT: Actually, I kind of like ziin's idea of making the hitbursts semitransparent. Also, the example that Luna had posted looks rather cluttered to me. Not very keen on that sort of thing at all and if I were to map something like that, then I'd cringe and change it straight away.

Card N'FoRcE wrote:

This often happens with incomplete skins or other cases who force the default skin. Similiar cases are skins with re-coloured default hitbursts (that are never resized): doing this won't fix older ranked maps that did this trick, but it will help newer ones.

If the mapper is forcing default, they're going to be more inclined to make their map intuitive with default's "large" hit bursts. (If they aren't, they're doing something horribly wrong which should be modded.)

Luna wrote:

SPOILER

In what order do you hit stuff here?
The pattern is really fun and intuitive, but looks confusing as heck with huge hitbursts orz

See peppy's response. Looking ahead probably makes this very readable.

Makar8000 wrote:

rust45 wrote:

For the record, if you're not looking ahead in a map to see the notes, you're doing it wrong.

That doesn't help much with AR9...

If a map requires a custom skin to be playable because of overlaps + high AR, it should be modded and one of those things be changed.

Card N'FoRcE wrote:

Ekaru explained pretty well what i mean.

I am one of the biggest overlapophobes on the system and I have no problem with any of Ekaru's examples.

I like the aesthetic of the current hitburst size. Approaching the problem from a player's perspective is a folly because the game's appearance could be set up in a multitude of different but functionally equivalent ways, each having its own different balance of visible/invisible patterns. As long as mappers map for the game the way it is, this shouldn't make any difference.

To me, this request is the equivalent of asking for the default hitsounds to be replaced with air horns because some maps use an inappropriately low volume.

Fact is most new players I introduce to this game end up complaining many stuff is REALLY hard to play because whenever you get a 300/100 you can't really see a thing. They find the game way better when I gave them some playable skin (usually my own, which is no 300 and smaller-default-with-no-bg 100/50). Maybe those old maps were actually quite playable with that default skin, I have played a few old maps and the spacing and simplicity of the maps makes them quite playable even with huge hitbursts. But truth is mapping has evolved to a certain point where overlaps are used a lot, some tricky patterns are always used and it's sometimes even normal to make some strange clusters like those you can see in Matryoshka [Insane], which are damn hard to see with the default stuff because... pretty much nobody playing insane maps use it? Don't start saying "but I do!!" because you are a minority. Seriously making them even smaller than what the OP asked for (or even adding an option to make the player be able to set it's size?) would be just right.

Please use line returns. I can hardly read that.

Skinnng away hitbursts is a form of fake skill, and when fake skill dominates advanced play in a game, it means something is wrong with the game, which needs to be fixed. Ascending the fake skill to official status isn't my idea of a proper fix.

I don't say "I do" (I don't; I use the osu!stream skin), but I say "osu! does," which should be all the reason anyone needs.

Custom skinning is sauce. It should never be necessary to play the game. It's mappers' responsibility to make sure their maps are playable with the default skin. Change your maps to suit the game, don't change the game to suit your maps. If what you want to do is the latter, maybe you're better off making your own game? Then you can control all the characteristics and maybe create something entirely new! osu! is what it is--an Ouendan clone. peppy went to great lengths to provide authentic gameplay. If you don't want authentic gameplay, find or create a different game.

Or, much more simply, but following the exact same logic, if you want/expect the player to use smaller-than-default hitbursts when playing your map, why don't you include them in your map's skin? Since you're targeting non-standard gameplay, you should provide the non-standard accompanying elements. Old maps which didn't do this can have them haxsubmitted in following osz2.

See my previous post regarding this being solely a matter of aesthetics and having nothing to do with gameplay. Please don't devolve this into a circular argument about gameplay and poorly built Insanes.

mm201 wrote:

See my previous post regarding this being solely a matter of aesthetics and having nothing to do with gameplay. Please don't devolve this into a circular argument about gameplay and poorly built Insanes.

Ehh... I'd say this does have something to do with gameplay. Why are we killing different kinds of mapping (aka different types of gameplay) for aesthetics? Shouldn't it be the opposite? I'd rather play something harder to read and fun than something linear, boring and easy to read stuff. And no, a map with overlaps isn't poorly built just because you don't like overlaps.

Let the game change and evolve with the users.

CXu wrote:

Ehh... I'd say this does have something to do with gameplay. Why are we killing different kinds of mapping (aka different types of gameplay) for aesthetics? Shouldn't it be the opposite? I'd rather play something harder to read and fun than something linear, boring and easy to read stuff.

Read up:

mm201 wrote:

if you want/expect the player to use smaller-than-default hitbursts when playing your map, why don't you include them in your map's skin?

Furthermore, who's killing anything? Confounding overlaps are already unrankable. This request would effectively expand the limits of what's rankable, since rankability is based off the default skin as is.

CXu wrote:

And no, a map with overlaps aren't poorly built just because you don't like overlaps.

Stop making it personal. If it's a good map, it's a good map. I wasn't talking about the good maps.

CXu wrote:

Let the game change and evolve with the users.

Bending too much to the whim of the current players turns the game into an insiders only club that's alienating to newcomers. Newcomers who might have otherwise had the potential of steering the game in surprising new directions. Broad appeal is more important than making life slightly more convenient for the small number of experts who should know how to change skins anyway.

The only message sent by changing the default skin's hitbursts is that closely spaced patterns are good and everyone should use them. See my original point that this is a runaway logic and encourages even further overuse of clustering. It also applies to everything else, not just hitbursts. Why not make the circles themselves transparent? Or slider paths? We could take the ReRave approach and make slider paths tiny. Then slider overlaps would be readable!

Actually, I do think almost every map can somehow benefit from a bit smaller hitbursts, not just those specific maps with overlaps. Well, to begin with, it makes maps easier to read, so yeah.

mm201 wrote:

Furthermore, who's killing anything? Confounding overlaps are already unrankable. This request would effectively expand the limits of what's rankable, since rankability is based off the default skin as is.

Though I do get the impression that there are some overlaps that are unrankable because the hitbursts cover too much of the pattern or w/e. And if smaller hitbursts can make these more readable, that would mean these patterns being rankable, no?

mm201 wrote:

CXu wrote:

And no, a map with overlaps aren't poorly built just because you don't like overlaps.

Stop making it personal. If it's a good map, it's a good map. I wasn't talking about the good maps.

You're saying we shouldn't talk about poorly built insanes (where unreadability is mostly because of overlaps or hard patterns). Now, why are they poorly built then? Obviously there is atleast some standard if they get ranked, and if the only reason you're saying they're poorly built is because it's unreadable due to overlaps, then yes, I do think it is because you don't like them much or something. Do tell me if I'm wrong here (as my reading comprehension might be a jackass)

mm201 wrote:

CXu wrote:

Let the game change and evolve with the users.

Bending too much to the whim of the current players turns the game into an insiders only club that's alienating to newcomers. Newcomers who might have otherwise had the potential of steering the game in surprising new directions. Broad appeal is more important than making life slightly more convenient for the small number of experts who should know how to change skins anyway.

So you're saying the majority of newcomers these days prefer these huge hitbursts? I don't know. Some probably do, but others probably find them too big and obscures the view for other gameplay elements. Those who find them fine might also be players who still doesn't know that it's possible to change the skin.

Not saying that most new people have to prefer small hitbursts, but it is a fact that smaller hitbursts obscures less on the playfield, which in return gives a better experience gameplay wise imo.

I don't think making the hitbursts a bit smaller is bending too much either.

mm201 wrote:

The only message sent by changing the default skin's hitbursts is that closely spaced patterns are good and everyone should use them. See my original point that this is a runaway logic and encourages even further overuse of clustering.

You probably won't be seeing tsurupettan's everywhere if you do change this.

mm201 wrote:

It also applies to everything else, not just hitbursts. Why not make the circles themselves transparent? Or slider paths? We could take the ReRave approach and make slider paths tiny. Then slider overlaps would be readable!

Now that's bending too much. Yes, I guess it indeed is kinda the same logic, but at the same time not really. These are objects we're interacting with, which should be what we're focused on while playing, and not the hitburst telling us we got a 300.

Also, think about stuff like stacks in Hidden.
If the hitbursts are about as big as the hitcircles, you can actually see them. And I really don't think it's "fake skill" to read Hidden instead of learning every stacked pattern by heart. It's more a removal of fake difficulty.
If the default hitbursts stay as huge as they are now, you are basically forcing players to use their own skins if they want to play Hidden properly.

I'm pretty sure that Hidden itself is a strain of fake difficulty. It's also very easy to read where stacks occur, long before one has to hit them. There is still plenty of stack memorisation in that there's no indicator of how far apart the circles within a stack are.

Honestly, larger hitbursts are growing on me more and more, because they do feel more visceral to hit. They also provide more feedback that I'm actually playing well.

D33d wrote:

I'm pretty sure that Hidden itself is a strain of fake difficulty. It's also very easy to read where stacks occur, long before one has to hit them. There is still plenty of stack memorisation in that there's no indicator of how far apart the circles within a stack are.

I'm not talking about simple stacks like triples or something, you can read those in advance. What I mean are patterns where the stacked circle only appears after you have hit the hitobject above it. For example in certain back-and-forth-combos. Patterns like that are actually really common and pretty much impossible to read with huge hitbursts.
Also, you can read the timing of stacked notes in Hidden by paying attention to the AR. It's not that hard, really. But that's a different topic altogether~

Luna wrote:

D33d wrote:

I'm pretty sure that Hidden itself is a strain of fake difficulty. It's also very easy to read where stacks occur, long before one has to hit them. There is still plenty of stack memorisation in that there's no indicator of how far apart the circles within a stack are.

I'm not talking about simple stacks like triples or something, you can read those in advance. What I mean are patterns where the stacked circle only appears after you have hit the hitobject above it. For example in certain back-and-forth-combos. Patterns like that are actually really common and pretty much impossible to read with huge hitbursts.
Also, you can read the timing of stacked notes in Hidden by paying attention to the AR. It's not that hard, really. But that's a different topic altogether~

I only consider back-and-forth notes to be sightreadable by their approach circles. Really, if that sort of thing is to be a problem, then the stack leniency should be reduced. It is variable like that for a reason and the default setting tends to stack back-and-forths.

It is also up to the player if they want to use mods. If they want to shoot themselves in the foot by hiding the approach circles of complicated patterns and/or hidden notes on their first playthrough(s), then that should have no bearing on how a map is designed for default settings. Even when ignoring that, such points as "using back-and-forths like that would make the map a nightmare to read with HD and the default skin" could be made.

CXu wrote:

Actually, I do think almost every map can somehow benefit from a bit smaller hitbursts, not just those specific maps with overlaps. Well, to begin with, it makes maps easier to read, so yeah.

I disagree with this. The large hitbursts are more visually attractive to me. So no, they aren't unquestionably better.

CXu wrote:

Though I do get the impression that there are some overlaps that are unrankable because the hitbursts cover too much of the pattern or w/e. And if smaller hitbursts can make these more readable, that would mean these patterns being rankable, no?

Exactly. Considering how we have this topic, current ranking standards regarding overlaps are too lenient for some. It stands to reason that by reducing the hitburst size along with the ranking standards, these same people will still have problems with the new maps' even more extreme overlaps. This creates a runaway process feedback loop in which there's no pleasing anyone.

CXu wrote:

You're saying we shouldn't talk about poorly built insanes (where unreadability is mostly because of overlaps or hard patterns). Now, why are they poorly built then? Obviously there is atleast some standard if they get ranked, and if the only reason you're saying they're poorly built is because it's unreadable due to overlaps, then yes, I do think it is because you don't like them much or something. Do tell me if I'm wrong here (as my reading comprehension might be a jackass)

Yes you are wrong. I didn't make any specific examples, and have no intentions of. Specific examples are subject to interpretation, and can easily be countered with "I disagree." Instead, I use an "if-then" relationship. If a map causes difficulties because of the default skin then that map has balance issues. If anything, Card, Ekaru, and Luna can be held at fault for listing specifics they think are confusing. Assaulting someone's preferences is a cheap way of sidestepping their arguments.

CXu wrote:

So you're saying the majority of newcomers these days prefer these huge hitbursts? I don't know. Some probably do, but others probably find them too big and obscures the view for other gameplay elements. Those who find them fine might also be players who still doesn't know that it's possible to change the skin.

Not saying that most new people have to prefer small hitbursts, but it is a fact that smaller hitbursts obscures less on the playfield, which in return gives a better experience gameplay wise imo.

I don't think making the hitbursts a bit smaller is bending too much either.

Now we're on the same page. Newcomers may like larger or smaller ones--it's hard to decide. I'd be happy to carry on this discussion from an aesthetic standpoint. So far, only myself, peppy, awp, and Ekaru have really presented their aesthetic opinions, and Ekaru was the only one opposed.

I like the large hitbursts, gameplay-wise as well. It lets me tell out of the corner of my eye whether I got 100s or 300s on jump objects. If it somehow became necessary for me to FC one of those clustery maps, I might consider disabling them with a skin, but I'd turn it off shortly after. Normally, I'd just not bother with those maps. Chasing a high rank is a waste of time.

CXu wrote:

Now that's bending too much. Yes, I guess it indeed is kinda the same logic, but at the same time not really. These are objects we're interacting with, which should be what we're focused on while playing, and not the hitburst telling us we got a 300.

You never directly interact with the slider track. Only the ball and arguably the ticks. There's no technical reason why we couldn't have skinny ReRave slider tracks. In fact, once I get skinnable sliders up, this will be possible. Even once this becomes possible, existing ranking criteria involving slider track overlaps won't be reduced, nor will the default skin ever use them.

Luna wrote:

Also, think about stuff like stacks in Hidden.
If the hitbursts are about as big as the hitcircles, you can actually see them. And I really don't think it's "fake skill" to read Hidden instead of learning every stacked pattern by heart. It's more a removal of fake difficulty.
If the default hitbursts stay as huge as they are now, you are basically forcing players to use their own skins if they want to play Hidden properly.

Hidden, being exclusively a visibility modifying mod, is supposed to have fake difficulty. It's a bonus mode which isn't held to the same expectation of balance. (Having said that, I disagree with back/forth patterns anyway. I map in a style which is readable on Hidden, but I wouldn't have the same expectation of others.)

mm201 wrote:

Now we're on the same page. Newcomers may like larger or smaller ones--it's hard to decide. I'd be happy to carry on this discussion from an aesthetic standpoint. So far, only myself, peppy, awp, and Ekaru have really presented their aesthetic opinions, and Ekaru was the only one opposed.

Just for the record, I always thought hitbursts would look better if they were about the size of the hitcircles, even before I started playing maps with advanced patterns.

awp stated my opinion better than I could. As an "explosion," it needs to completely cover the circle which is exploding, which the current ones just barely do. I also like the effect where the faded ghost circle zooms out from behind the hitburst. This effect would be completely spoiled if you could see it from the beginning.

These days there is too many players that's want tiny hitbursts or hell even don't want them... where and when this come out? I don't know. (I want to see these people crying about hitbursts on older maps when osz2 will come out :3 )
Personally I just hate when there is no hitburst or they are just small. I want to see when I hit 300 correctly.

1-2 years ago people haven't got problems with size of these hitbursts. After all you look on forward notes or you just play 3-4 times and remember patterns...
And... on some kind fast map, do you really care about hitbursts? or you just trying to remember placement of notes? D:

Also people should think about other players, because "you don't like big hitbursts" doesn't mean, that others too.

Mostly people would like to hide any distracting(?) skin elements (hitburts, combobursts, some parts of spinner etc.) where is fun it this?

Personally I love the current default skin since the large 300 provides a satisfying feel when perfectly timing (or at least almost) beats. I do admit that it does have slight readability issues in cluttered patterns, but I think it's since the hit burst remains there for awhile rather than the size of the hit burst that causes most problems. The issue most people seem to have is with the hit burst being present or not. I do use a skin that has no hit bursts for hidden since the length the hit bursts stay will hide a few notes with the absence of approach circles.

I'm happy with the current size of hit bursts.

mm201 wrote:

awp stated my opinion better than I could. As an "explosion," it needs to completely cover the circle which is exploding, which the current ones just barely do. I also like the effect where the faded ghost circle zooms out from behind the hitburst. This effect would be completely spoiled if you could see it from the beginning.

I agree with awp's post too, actually. I've been playing with these hitbursts for years, too, so the more I think about it, the more I don't want them changed too drastically.

I agree with silklash, too; I think, if anything, that they should fade a little bit faster, which would help with clustered patterns while not ruining the effect or messing with my mind too much.

Maybe add to the game some other default skin together with the actual one so new players can actually try it? Or why not them? Making the game come with 3 or 4 skins so players can choose the one that they think plays/looks best. And yeah I know you got that osume thing to download some... ranked? skins, but I'm quite sure newcomers don't even know about it and since that's what we're talking about...

Should we make hitbursts fade faster when the AR is high? I can check with peppy about adding this.

I have no problem with faster fading (considering I already made such a change in o!s) if done at a good ratio.

Speaking for myself, fading them faster might solve the problem better than shrinking the images would. And it would apply to all skins as well. I would definitely be fine with that approach.

Yeah, faster fading would already be a huge step.
I like it!

Looking back at the hitbursts after reading this post... yeah, they do hang out for quite a while. Making them fade faster would solve problems.

Not bad at all... +Support

Hmm... a good idea. ^~^ Support.

support~

reskinning it is out of the question. Some beatmaps demand the default skin.
Support.

support, it really is too big, i suggest the minimalist skin to all my friends, because the bursts are smaller

Added?

TheVileOne wrote:

Added?

I'd say so.