forum

[New Rule] Overmapping

posted
Total Posts
300
Topic Starter
Charles445
Currently overmapping doesn't have a definition and isn't in the ranking criteria, yet we still enforce it.
It's been unrankable for ages yet nobody can clearly say what it is. Some are more lenient than others.

With a word with no meaning comes conflict and confusion, so I'm proposing a potential definition for "overmapping" to stop it.

Hitcircles and the starts of sliders must be snapped to a beat in the music.

The reasoning behind this is, hitcircles and the starts of sliders are the objects in the game that require the player to press down on time. Spinners and the end of sliders don't require a knowledge of the beat beforehand as they both involve keeping the already pressed button held down.
This is also mirroring the Audio rule "Hitsounds from notes and sliders must be audible." and its exception "The end of a spinner (or even the entire spinner) the sliding sound of a slider, and the end of a slider can be silent".

That's all there is to it. This would allow for the insanity of slider fun maps (like val0108 stuff) but still keep it to the music (no endless streams on a lullaby song).
Aqo
I love you Charles
Starz0r
Not sure how I feel about this rule.
Andrea
Overmapping can't be truly considered a rule since it's a personal feeling, for some people a map can be overmapped, for some not.

It's totally a subjective thing, so it's impossible to establish a rule for that.

Just throwing my 2 cents here.
Chewin
http://osu.ppy.sh/s/81653

[Chewin's style]
00:06:679 (5) - Circle not in music
00:07:284 (2) - Circle not in music
00:09:102 (4) - Circle not in music
00:46:053 (2) - Circle not in music
These points have been considered overmapped.
1/2 circles are used also to don't break the gameplay/map/rhythm flow.
Overmapping is a subjective thing, adding this rule would solve nothing. You can see by yourself how ALL the mappers add some 1/2 or 1/4 circles to keep a consistent flow in their insane maps. Following your points would just ruin the flow of the map making the maps bad to play.
I want to repeat myself: overmapping is a subjective thing and create a rule on it is just dumb in my opinion.
lolcubes
This works only for a specific genre of music. There are tons of moments in rock songs where an "intro stream" can work wonders that would come over nothing before the moment you are trying to define.

Overmapping can't be defined by rules. Sadly subjectivity plays a major role here, however what is always true is that the rhythms should be preserved when overmapping does happen. If you have a distinct rhythm such as 3 notes which are 3/4 between each other then it's pretty stupid and pointless to map a stream between the first and the last note. With your rule this would be allowed and it wouldn't make a difference towards the better.

Also this rule would still allow the really disgusting extended sliders which intentionally go past the required rhythm point just to justify "cool rhythms" or "it follows the vocals".

TBH instead of a rule just have a recommendation that mappers shouldn't map notes which are not in the music. Anything more than that will cause endless debates (as you are already familiar with) and will still allow double standards when it comes to certain people.

I personally don't like where this is going at all because I know that some people intentionally do this because they think it's cool, same goes with doubling bpm just for the sake of it.
wmfchris
Your definition is more like whether the note is 'with the music' but nowhere close to the definition of overmapping. It's more like mapping over the pace that is supposed to be brought by the music, but not identical to the over the beat brought by the music.

Add yes, overmapping is subjective and can't be defined deterministically.
Aqo
This rule should be taken to consideration to some extent to at least prevent mappers from making up timings like notes on blue ticks from their imagination that literally follows nothing in the song. That's the worst type of overmapping, and it goes against the whole point of a rhythm game which is to play the song.

Also, mappers should really not spam 1/2s to "keep a flow". Design a map to fit a song, not to fit your interpretation of the song.
Shiro
This is never going to be accepted because people like too much their absolutely random 1/4 triples and longer song-unrelated streams. And overmapping should also take unfitting jumps into account, which is impossible to formalize as a rule because it's subjective.
Topic Starter
Charles445
If something isn't done about overmapping, we won't get anywhere on maps as a team.
Suggest new ideas please, it's better than nothing.

EDIT: Adding to this post since nobody has replied yet

Accepting that "oh, it's all subjective there's nothing that can be done" is a failure on our part. If anything is to happen something concrete must be decided on. It's not time to give up.
lolcubes

Aqo wrote:

Also, mappers should really not spam 1/2s to "keep a flow". Design a map to fit a song, not to fit your interpretation of the song.
Agreed.

Though I would like to point out that trying to define this is pretty pointless. Overmapping is not subjective, it's pretty objective, because you can clearly define it and that is notes which don't happen to be in the music.
However the usage of overmapping is subjective and in half cases it's not wrong at all.

There are quite a lot maps which use overmapping in a really bad taste with all those random triples and other nonsense, however there are pretty well made maps which occasionally add a personal rhythm to complement the song, and do that quite well. Also there are certain genres of music which are really hard to map without overmap (hardcore for example), simply because the song is too static and needs variance.

Charles445 wrote:

If something isn't done about overmapping, we won't get anywhere on maps as a team.
Suggest new ideas please, it's better than nothing.
There doesn't have to be a rule for something for you to say NO to. It's more of a matter why some people say yes in the team. Sadly you just can't define this as you have already seen how discussions like this end up.
Zare
I actually like the idea, but I believe the community might dislike, consider maps like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/53923, which contains some overmapped streams, are really liked by the people, so maybe disallowing all kinds of overmapping isn't such a good idea.

Also think about Mythologia or some cRyo maps.
wmfchris

Aqo wrote:

Design a map to fit a song, not to fit your interpretation of the song.
Mapping is about expressing your interpretation of the song, of course. They are accepted in a certain range but it can't be too over and get ranked.

Everyone gets different message from the same song, and mapping is to enforce those messages. Since they are from the song of course your interpretation goes with the original message, otherwise the interpretation might be off.

As far as the rules as an objective measure stands, putting a definition on overmapping is like proving 1+1 = 3, which is just impossible.
Topic Starter
Charles445

lolcubes wrote:

There doesn't have to be a rule for something for you to say NO to. It's more of a matter why some people say yes in the team.
This is when the mapper starts calling you subjective for saying no to something not explicity listed in the rules. There does have to be a rule for it if the state is to be improved.
lolcubes
I have no problems with that. Mapper can call me whatever they want really. I will not approve of things I strongly disagree with, be in the rules or not. It's that part of "common sense" which everyone forgot about already.

There used to be a time where mappers actually cared about their own maps rather than just rushing to rank. And it is not mapper's attitude that changed much, it's that stuff was getting allowed and not kept in check.
Aqo

wmfchris wrote:

Aqo wrote:

Design a map to fit a song, not to fit your interpretation of the song.
Mapping is about expressing your interpretation of the song, of course. They are accepted in a certain range but it can't be too over and get ranked.
Express how the song feels to you with the spacing between notes.
Not by making up notes that don't follow the song.

That's what I meant.

The "feel" of a map comes from the movement between objects. That's where the mapper has room to express their feelings.
As far as the clicking, my own belief is the same as Charles, it should follow the music 1:1 or else there's no point in mapping a song and you might as well map a blank mp3 purely with hitsounds.
Agka
if the object isn't bound to a sound or pattern in the music, it's overmapping. how can it be any more concrete than that- that's not subjective.
lolcubes

Agka wrote:

if the object isn't bound to a sound or pattern in the music, it's overmapping. how can it be any more concrete than that- that's not subjective.
Yes, that's what I wrote in my post too. However the problem is how can you define what's acceptable and what is not? You can't.

That's why there are a lot of problems and grey area cases about this around.
Topic Starter
Charles445
See, there are two main sides on it, those who are for the entire removal of overmapping (i.e. all beats on the music) and those who are against any restriction (beats can go as long as it's rhythmic regardless of the music).

I am striking a balance between the two, where the actual player interaction with the beat must be in the music, however any beats brought by other objects (slider ends or spinners) can be off the music.

The reason why I highly recommend not allowing clicked beats (slider starts and hitcircles) to be in maps with no music is because, in that case, it'd technically be like having wrong timing as the beats are not snapped to the music anymore. A map with horribly off timing could be considered 'overmapped' if hits are allowed to be off the music. See what I'm saying?
Agka
I can propose something.

Is it fun to play? Yes? To most people? Alright, well done, that's acceptable.

Is it lame/frustrating/unfitting to most people? Yes? Then it has to go.

Ahem. Edit: Is it.. just okay? Take it out. Being in doubt about anything isn't good. Ever.
lolcubes

Agka wrote:

I can propose something.

Is it fun to play? Yes? To most people? Alright, well done, that's acceptable.

Is it lame/frustrating/unfitting to most people? Yes? Then it has to go.
So, we should hold a poll and ask the whole community to vote?
See how pointless that would be?

Also not that I am dissing people, however I am pretty sure that not everyone can understand rhythms on a more professional level. Also even if they do it's still possible that the opinions differ.

It's just an endless conflict which has no solution but to make mappers use more moderation in how they overmap (or not overmap at all). Sadly there isn't a way to make them do that, and it wouldn't be right either.

Charles445 wrote:

See, there are two main sides on it, those who are for the entire removal of overmapping (i.e. all beats on the music) and those who are against any restriction (beats can go as long as it's rhythmic regardless of the music).

I am striking a balance between the two, where the actual player interaction with the beat must be in the music, however any beats brought by other objects (slider ends or spinners) can be off the music.

The reason why I highly recommend not allowing clicked beats (slider starts and hitcircles) to be in maps with no music is because, in that case, it'd technically be like having wrong timing as the beats are not snapped to the music anymore. A map with horribly off timing could be considered 'overmapped' if hits are allowed to be off the music. See what I'm saying?
Clicking doesn't matter. Audible objects still create rhythms. I understand your point, but I don't think this "balance" you are trying to achieve is going to work, if anything it will cause even more problems. Read my first post in the thread why.
Agka
You don't need the whole community- just the modders/playtesters/MAT and BAT who agree on being okay or not.
lolcubes
Which is still WAY too many people. If you need to ask someone else about something because you are not sure about it yourself, then that also undermines your ability to judge and stay objective about the matter at hand.

I commend you for trying to find most simple solutions but such things just can't work. Just check some map threads from maps which were unranked for excessive overmap to see why.
Makar

lolcubes wrote:

Though I would like to point out that trying to define this is pretty pointless. Overmapping is not subjective, it's pretty objective, because you can clearly define it and that is notes which don't happen to be in the music.
However the usage of overmapping is subjective and in half cases it's not wrong at all.


There are quite a lot maps which use overmapping in a really bad taste with all those random triples and other nonsense, however there are pretty well made maps which occasionally add a personal rhythm to complement the song, and do that quite well. Also there are certain genres of music which are really hard to map without overmap (hardcore for example), simply because the song is too static and needs variance.
I completely agree with this, which is why I don't think a rule can really be made on it. And tbh, discussion of it is pretty pointless since these threads always go in circles or into oblivion.
RLC
let's take an example.

if placebo dying had no 1/4, then the deathstream in the second half of aho's ExtrA would be considered overmapped.
but hey, M2U decided to put some REALLY faint 1/4 in there, and so that deathstream can't be considered overmapped at all. does that suddenly make it a better mapping choice? (hint: no.)

and on the other end of the spectrum, consider some of val's bibuko maps. they contain a lot of overmapped 1/4 stacks, yet they are very natural to hit, as lolcubes was talking about earlier:

lolcubes wrote:

There are tons of moments in rock songs where an "intro stream" can work wonders that would come over nothing before the moment you are trying to define.
overmapping shouldn't be about misrepresenting the notes of a song, and making it about the notes really won't improve mapping very much at all.
for me, overmapping has always been about misrepresenting the overall feel of a song... and the feel of a song is clearly subjective.

tl;dr: suggestion, not rule, would work better for something like this
show more
Please sign in to reply.

New reply