RBRat3 wrote:
I brought this up in another request and thought it deserved its own request as to not side track the other thats completely different.
I'm sure I've seen star maps come up even before that... but again that's probably lost deep in some other thread, so it's best that it has it's own now.
The main problem with star maps is that they're not actually very good at anything.
There are a number of problems with using them here:
1) Star maps work best when the arms are weighted to be the same. This makes the area represent something consistent (although the human ability to judge that isn't very good, which is part of the reason why star maps aren't very good). This is pretty much impossible to do here objectively. The shape itself does carry some meaning even if the area is inconsistent... however, I'm not so sure how useful those shapes would be with these particular values.
2) OD, AR, DR, and CS are discrete parameters. They have definite set values that people want to know. If they were calculated stats on a continuous scale where people might not care so much about the exact value, then star graphs would work better... because reading values from star graphs is a relative pain. Bar graphs/histograms (ie the stars on the web page listing) work better (most notably because they're aligned to the same direction, which is easier to compare that the star graph's, each one in a different direction). However, in this case, just giving the numbers works best for these four... there's no need to make people count stars in a histogram or ticks on a star, because the specific values of OD and AR for a map are of more interest than a visual representation of the difference between OD and AR for a map (this ties back to why the shapes produced won't be interesting... the correlations between these values is less interesting than the values alone).
3) The star graph is so large it needs to be hidden away and brought up on demand (or alternatively, for those that default to it, it blocks other information that needs to be brought up on demand... for one, it hides that precious "max combo" information that some people love). A more compact format that's small enough to be always up is far better. For example, numbers in icons (eg a number inside a solid circle for CS, a number in a double circle for AR, a number under a left pointing arrow for DR, and a number in a square for OD) are nice and small, give the exact values, and could be squeezed in just about anywhere (ie they can be arranged as a 2x2 square and should be able to squeeze in beside the current displayed Length/BPM/Object/rating info with room to spare)... even on the song tabs (allowing for comparison across maps at a glance).
That isn't to say that a star graph couldn't be pretty... it's just that I wouldn't use it this way. A better way would be to use in not for the set map parameters at all, but only for calculated continuous ones. By calculating a bunch of factors from a map, you could then organize the arms so that the shape carries meaning... ie putting factors that are tied largely to object density on one side and putting the factors related more to movement on the other will create blobs that lean one way or the other depending on how streamy or jumpy a map is.
. I see this is a feasible addition, and for a lot of lower players, would likely be more useful than the top players display.