those wrote:

Let me provide a good example.

It takes an ear to listen to the objects on the timeline and match it with what's in the music; so far, over the past many years, maps have been ranked without going through this check. Surely that doesn't take playing experience; and on the contrary, playing experience will deem this fine when it is actually not mapped to the music, making it not fine.

Not really, playing experience makes you understand some of those checks are not necessary, if the map feels fine and has a good flow some 1/4 mapped over some 1/3 thing is not a major problem, of course each case is different, but when it's clearly "wrong" you can usually notice it by just playing it.

Wishy wrote:

some 1/4 mapped over some 1/3

show me a 2013 map doing this, please.

imo mappers are finally understanding that they at least should follow the song. Not talking about overmapping, which is still done FAAAR too often, but only about simplifying stuff which is not the way to go.

I'm not saying that ALL bats should be able to play ALL maps, just that that harder and more complex maps should at least get some input from the better players in the team.

I'm neither in support or against the proposal, if it works then great but I'm not so sure it will.

Zarerion wrote:

Wishy wrote:

some 1/4 mapped over some 1/3

show me a 2013 map doing this, please.

imo mappers are finally understanding that they at least should follow the song. Not talking about overmapping, which is still done FAAAR too often, but only about simplifying stuff which is not the way to go.

It was just an example, same way I don't care if they put some 1/2 that doesn't really fit with the song perfectly but goes really good with the gameplay. I'd like to provide an example but I rarely download maps at all.

Wishy wrote:

More experience = more skill = you can judge more maps because you can play them.

D33d, people who quit for years and came back whine because most of ranked maps are average crap (yes, they are) and then cry about the hard maps because they haven't played the game for like 2 years and hard maps today are too much for them.

Actually, citing Remmy and Roddie as examples, the complaints were more along the lines of "Nobody cares about spacing, actual readability etc." You know, certain guidelines which ought to be followed and not excused with "oh, just read by the hitcircles" or any other flimsy excuse. This sort of thing--the sorts of good habits which can actually make it possible to be more creative with patterns--could easily be scrutinised by staff members who know what they're doing. I don't necessarily making all of a map's spacing consistent either; rather, taking some form of action when a ranked map has loads of gimmicks which don't actually relate to the music. Other than that, a map which overdoes certain quirks--whether it's sloppy jumps everywhere or annoying SV changes--could surely be questioned in regards to its quality.

These are the types of things which could make me wonder why something was ranked, but there'd be plenty of other reasons to think that something has failed on a technical level. There may also be reasons to think that something has failed on a musical level, or simply on an appropriateness level, but my point is that there are those with experience who have valid reasons to complain about quality.

If you guys want to talk about the judge ability, I have something to say. Believe or not, most non-mapper players have a very unstable taste of the map. They care more about "whether I like the song" "whether I can FC it" "whether the map is incredible difficult". You can see this in the best of 2012.

I had a research about this too. I picked out 10 newly ranked maps and put them in 5 groups, and gave them to some non-mapper players and mappers. I asked them to choose the better map in each group. The result was quite different: for normal player all maps get similar number of supports, while mappers have a clear judge of them(the flow, the structure and the hitsounds etc.). Normal players can tell that "Oh, that map(or that part) plays good!" but can't pick up any detail about why it is good.

Make sure you have done a similar experiment before refuting me.

It is quite silly to suspect BATs' ability to do this work. Anyway I think the thread are discussing something irrelevant now, and better not to do this.

i don't think map quality dropped now, the average quality in new ranked maps is obviously better than in 2012

controversial maps you discussed are not quality problems, i would say controversial maps are mostly god maps

real quality problems are problems where no one will support not changing it

A significant consensus of 8 or more BAT would be required in order for this rule to be utilised. That is, if 20 BAT feel this is necessary but 28 BAT feel that the map is fine, the rule cannot be invoked.

I will specify this more clearly in the original wording.

Ok, after a try to stop "overmapping", we got an EVEN MORE SUBJECTIVE rule proposal?
The map quality IS certainly increasing, those days to get the first rank is HARD. SO DAMN HARD. You did see how now first-ranked maps are CERTAINLY of averagely better than most of the first-ranked maps of 2012 ( this is retroactive ).
The work of of a BAT as now is to control a map quality, map can be ranked by BAT.
With the new system, only a few will be able to do it, and most of that few are arguably good modders, not random people.
The most you can do is asking for modder to check the quality of the map more throughly (and most do a simple "rankability" check), but hey, we're human and we can do errors.

It's actually better to have something like 24/48 hrs in which a modder can deem the map "low quality" and the mapper itself or at least 75% BATs Members from at least 12(examples: 9 from 12, 12 from 16, 15 from 20,18 from 24,21 from 28, 24 from 36, etc) integrated in the ranking process.

It was actually arleady said by peppy that BATs role would still be "checking the maps were of a good quality" too, so we don't need rule that say us that our maps should be of a good quality, especially cause it's subjective.

D33d wrote:

Actually, citing Remmy and Roddie as examples, the complaints were more along the lines of "Nobody cares about spacing, actual readability etc." You know, certain guidelines which ought to be followed and not excused with "oh, just read by the hitcircles" or any other flimsy excuse. This sort of thing--the sorts of good habits which can actually make it possible to be more creative with patterns--could easily be scrutinised by staff members who know what they're doing. I don't necessarily making all of a map's spacing consistent either; rather, taking some form of action when a ranked map has loads of gimmicks which don't actually relate to the music. Other than that, a map which overdoes certain quirks--whether it's sloppy jumps everywhere or annoying SV changes--could surely be questioned in regards to its quality.

These are the types of things which could make me wonder why something was ranked, but there'd be plenty of other reasons to think that something has failed on a technical level. There may also be reasons to think that something has failed on a musical level, or simply on an appropriateness level, but my point is that there are those with experience who have valid reasons to complain about quality.

If the map is fun to play then the map is good. Readability is subjective, if you are good you can usually read hard stuff, if you are not then well you can't and it's not the mappers fault but yours, get better and stop crying. Saying jumps/SV changes/whatever is overused is subjective too, I can't stand to play maps where there are few jumps/SV changes/hard patterns because I get bored. See how it works?

I don't know who Reddie or Remmy are, but you gave two examples of things they whined about and both are dumb, "I can't read this" = "this is too hard for me", caring for spacing is subjective, most maps I see have "proper" spacing at least, if you don't like it that doesn't mean it's wrong.

This is nothing new. It's not even a rule. It's a way of telling people how unranked maps will be handled. I have been wanting a more complete ranking criteria for a long time. This would be one step closer even if it doesn't help non-BATs mod maps.

We need to define how long a time period is and what that process is. BATs have never given a set time to make changes to a map before it is nuked/denied ranking. IMO it should be if a consensus is made and the mapper denies changes, then it may be deranked/ considered unrankable. The amount of time before this happens doesn't matter (at least it doesn't in the current ranking system).

Wishy wrote:

D33d wrote:

Actually, citing Remmy and Roddie as examples, the complaints were more along the lines of "Nobody cares about spacing, actual readability etc." You know, certain guidelines which ought to be followed and not excused with "oh, just read by the hitcircles" or any other flimsy excuse. This sort of thing--the sorts of good habits which can actually make it possible to be more creative with patterns--could easily be scrutinised by staff members who know what they're doing. I don't necessarily making all of a map's spacing consistent either; rather, taking some form of action when a ranked map has loads of gimmicks which don't actually relate to the music. Other than that, a map which overdoes certain quirks--whether it's sloppy jumps everywhere or annoying SV changes--could surely be questioned in regards to its quality.

These are the types of things which could make me wonder why something was ranked, but there'd be plenty of other reasons to think that something has failed on a technical level. There may also be reasons to think that something has failed on a musical level, or simply on an appropriateness level, but my point is that there are those with experience who have valid reasons to complain about quality.

If the map is fun to play then the map is good. Readability is subjective, if you are good you can usually read hard stuff, if you are not then well you can't and it's not the mappers fault but yours, get better and stop crying. Saying jumps/SV changes/whatever is overused is subjective too, I can't stand to play maps where there are few jumps/SV changes/hard patterns because I get bored. See how it works?

I don't know who Reddie or Remmy are, but you gave two examples of things they whined about and both are dumb, "I can't read this" = "this is too hard for me", caring for spacing is subjective, most maps I see have "proper" spacing at least, if you don't like it that doesn't mean it's wrong.

They complained about things which could make maps unfair and sloppy. Also, Remmy and Roddie were around here from the beginning, or close to it. That might make their opinions seem antiquated to you, but they've been around for long enough to see a drastic change in what's cranked out. "Fun to play" is incredibly subjective and I find it much better to consider maps in terms of how they relate to the music.

If gimmicks are used and they're clearly forced, or there's no sense of development within a map, then you should be able to see why people might complain. "Get better and stop crying" is a rather holier-than-thou thing to say and it's immediately patronising. Guess what? I have a reasonable level of playing ability, but I can still pass a map and think that it feels like arse. Grow up and stop thinking that people are whining for the sake of it. If we were to abolish a set of standards, then we might as well omit the ranking process and allow everybody's attempts at mapping to be lumped together in one category. Nobody would need to complain, because it'd all be subjective. I bet you'd love that.

How is a map unfair? Sloppy? That's still subjective. Fun to play is subjective, that the map relates to the music is also subjective, I consider a map as something good when it feels right while listening to the song. I don't care if there is some overmapped stream or 1/4 over 1/3, if it gives a proper feeling according to the song then I say it's fine.

From what I've been told there are like 3 gimmick maps in the whole game, so I guess you are talking about maps that are not just a straight 1/2 line. People will always complain because they like to do so, they cried about AR 10 maps years ago, some others cried because they couldn't clear the map, people will always complain based on any reason you can think of, that's how it is. I can also clear a map and say it's shit, it's not a big deal tbh. If you still think people will always have good arguments for complaining then sorry but you are the one that needs to grow up.

All you need is a very basic set of rules, actually you need more like... the map must make sense, timing must be good, offset must be good, no more than one object at the saem time, and well that's it. Mapping is almost 100% subjective, all we do know is pick some users, call them BATs, and use them as standards. If they like the map and feel it's ok then it's good, if for some reason they don't like the map then it's bad. That + some rules.

Wishy wrote:

From what I've been told there are like 3 gimmick maps in the whole game, so I guess you are talking about maps that are not just a straight 1/2 line.

I would never advocate mapping in a boring, "intuitive" way like that and I would never map like that myself. When I talk about things being "sloppy," I mean that it could clearly be improved--if eight BATs think that, then it's probably a fair indicator that the map could be improved before being ranked. Not everything is destined to be ranked.

When I talk about something being "unfair," I mean that the arrangement of objects either bears little relevance to the music, or tells me little to nothing about what the map's supposed to follow. That is subjective in itself, but again, if eight BATs think that, then it's probably a fair indicator that the map could be improved before being ranked. In most of the "challenging" maps that I've seen, I've always got the impression that they were made like that for the sake of it, or that their challenging parts were stupidly overdone/unnecessary/could have been developed more gradually. If I was good enough to play them, then I'd find them heinously boring, so my ability is not a factor in this.

With that in mind, if eight bats think that, then _________. Fill in the blank!

What I find particularly frustrating is that the proponents of these kinds of silly maps like to rag on structure maps, just because they "don't flow well" or are "unintuitive," even though they tend to have much more relevance to the music and are usually much better at conveying the different rhythms in a song. This is part of why I get so vehement about this sort of thing--if people are going to complain about one style, then why shouldn't another style be held up to the same kind of scrutiny?

Outside of stylistic differences, others and I are vocal about this sort of thing because we care about the game. We want there to be a bar, and after almost six years, it should be reasonable to suggest that the bar should be high. It takes a lot of effort to get attention, so if there is clearly room for improvement that would bring a map up to par with others of its style, then why not have it improved? The only excuse is laziness.

DEEDIT: Besides, if you're talking about BATs' preferences being a part of a stripped-down ranking process, then this thread is entirely relevant and there's no room to complain about this. How about, "If you can't make a polished map, then get better and stop crying?" The community's came far enough that we should be able to push maps to be as good as possible. Of course, I also realise that it's important to prevent a map from becoming boring, but from what I've seen, people only use "interesting" gimmicks because they lack creativity. There are loads of ways to make things interesting, or at least consistent with plenty of variance, while still using jumps and the like sparingly.

Noting that this provision has already been used (albeit incorrectly) in unranking a map due to partially subjective-based quality concerns. Considering stripping this amendment down to simply stating that a group of 8 BAT may unrank a map over a subjective issue that they all agree on, provided that they all actively work towards restoring the map to a rankable state as soon as possible.

If you want to add it, bubble it, give it a few days and then heart it, Eph.
Let me rightout start with bubbling this to show that time is running out to discuss this

I'm not really agree with the bubble of this rule atm since

a) the discussion didn't bring some relly positve opinions about this rule
b) how should it really work now?, we will need 8 BAT to bubble/rank/approve a map? If it's so this will mean that new mappers will have no chance to become a map ranked,atm we don't have so many BATs to give they more ''work'' as they already have.

Lally wrote:

b) how should it really work now?, we will need 8 BAT to bubble/rank/approve a map? If it's so this will mean that new mappers will have no chance to become a map ranked,atm we don't have so many BATs to give they more ''work'' as they already have.

No, ranking will remain as is, but if a substantial group of BATs disagree with the map for subjective reasons (quality) it can be unranked.

my missunderstood then
the rule must explain it better because how it's wroten atm many people can missunderstood how i already did

The first portion of the rule is just a reminder about map quality before ranking, the 2nd part is the one that states that when a substantial ammount of BATs deem it a map may be unranked, it is written fine tho i can see why you would be confused.

I like the unrank if bad system more than the long ranking process. Bad ranked maps will shine through as players complain about it, and BATs will unrank them if the complaints have merit.

Ephemeral wrote:

Let's open a can of worms.

Beatmaps must be assessed by the presiding BAT and community modders as being of sufficient quality at a general level before they can be considered ready for ranking. This means that maps which are technically rankable under the criteria but are widely considered (8 or more members of the BAT over any opposing consensus) by the staff to be unrefined or in considerable need of improvement may be unranked or rendered unrankable if no suggested changes are made in an appropriate timeframe.

Some changes to this format.

Beatmaps must be assessed by the presiding BAT and community modders as being of sufficient quality at a general level before they can be considered ready for ranking.

Is community modder the new official term for modders with authority under the new modding system? I think this needs to be more specific, because we got a minimum star priority requirement before a song can be ranked. This needs to be taken into account either directly referring to star rating or requiring a minimum number of modders to be considered rankable. I'm going to say this number is 5.

Beatmaps must be assessed by at least 2 BATs as being of sufficient quality at a general level and have received a minimum of 5 mods from different people to be considered ready for ranking.

I'm having a difficult time translating the last part into a workable rule. The second statement doesn't describe what the first statement actually means. The problem here is that you're saying that any map must meet a general consensus of 8 BATs that it meets a general level of quality, when in reality we can't expect that to be the case for every map and including such phrasing will cause confusion. I don't think we should be confusing the actual ranking process and the terms that BATs reserve to stop maps from being ranked. You can exclude the part that says the second statement explains the first one, which is false.

Altogether we have:

Beatmaps must be assessed by at least 2 BATs as being of sufficient quality at a general level and have received a minimum of 5 distinct mods per map to be considered ready for ranking. Gamemode specific maps must receive at least 3 distinct mods; at least one of which must be from someone experienced in that specific gamemode. Maps which are technically rankable under the criteria but are widely considered (8 or more members of the BAT over any opposing consensus) by the staff to be unrefined or in considerable need of improvement may be unranked or rendered unrankable if no suggested changes are made in an appropriate timeframe.

IMO- "by the staff" sounds redundant. You could probably remove it from the rule.

In this version there is a distinction between how a map is ranked and the process on how unrankable criteria is discussed. There should be no confusion about whether it takes 2 or 8 BAT to rank a map using the phrasing I have made. The limits placed upon modding can be changed as you see fit. Under the new system, there must be at least 3 mods that exclude mods by BATs. I think requiring at least 3-5 mods per map in a mapset is reasonable to expect from any ranked map. I am highly skeptical that a mapper can perfect a mapset in under 3 mods. It can be discussed whether BAT mods count towards the requirement.

If this rule gets added, can there also be a rule for people to stop dicking around in said beatmap's thread (Possibly locking it or whatever idunno)

Like rather than having 5 pages of rage really doesn't help the map get ranked at all nor is anybody going to be like "Oh yeah whoops sorry there here's your map back!"

Mostly because people don't unrank over bad blankets or missing claps or anything, and like, most of it has already been discussed in #lounge, so it's kind of redundant to open it up to the general public when it's already been discussed by staff.

finding two BATs is already hard...
Well this would bring more quality to maps but would kill mappers' motivation on getting stuff ranked.
(Although this might be something positive at some point, iykwim.)

I think "8 or more members of the BAT" should be "8 or more members of the BAT, at least 2 for every region". This makes sure that the decision is based on the whole team.

popner wrote:

I think "8 or more members of the BAT" should be "8 or more members of the BAT, at least 2 for every region". This makes sure that the decision is based on the whole team.

What? That makes no sense at all. Does this mean we have to labeled on our knowledge of mapping/modding by what FLAG WE HAVE?

This is nonsense. We do not base quality by region. There tends to be some bias in certain regions about other regions.
We will never apply regional differences within the staff, because this is discrimination and racism.

Discard that. I will disallow this approach as long as I exist in the staff.

Quality by region is rather racist the way it sounds. I do agree with making the ranking requirements a bit more strict but the motivation will get down.

I agree with what Loctav wrote:

never apply regional differences within the staff, because this is discrimination and racism.

The region means time region, or time zone. Either this, or a 24h discussion. We treat each subjective unrank case by case. Subjective unrank should not be a simple decision that can be made quickly.

The time region is meaningless. Like stated in the rule, if 8 BATs agree, it can be unranked. This shouldn't be truly not rushed. That's why we have internal regulations that try to involve all time zones (I don't want to get detailed in this thread)

In conclusion: if you are afraid that your asian time zone is afraid of maps being unranked because western time zone BATs will group up, you will have enough time to gather contradicting opinions.

Also I heavily dislike this group thinking.

Rule will be finalized within 3 days as:

Members of the Beatmap Appreciation Team may unrank a beatmap on "subjective" quality grounds so long as they gather the consensus of 7 other members of the team, for a total of 8 BAT supporting the unrank. This unrank must be supported by well-thought and clear instructions on how to resolve the issues mentioned.

Well phrased. I guess maybe there should be a statute of limitations to add to this rule. It doesn't need to be included in the finalized version immediately, but we should decide around a time where a beatmap is considered too old to derank. I really like how you rephrased it though. It's much clearer about how it is to be handled.

I have some questions. Will gamemode specific maps still require the same amount of people to agree? Do we even have 8 BATs who know enough about CTB or mania to unrank a map? How long do you estimate the whole process to take? I think it might cause some frustration if a map is ranked for a week and then the BATs finally conclude it should be deranked. It might take a few days just for someone to realize there are issues in a map and any discussion would just add onto that time. Players tend to expect that a map with no unrankable issues will stay ranked. It would be particularly upsetting if problems with one map causes a derank and score wipe of the entire mapset. What about the possibility of partial score wiping? I think that would be incredibly helpful under the new system when it comes into effect. I have an even better idea. What if you could temporarily suspend score submission of maps (not the entire mapset) that are in debate and allow changes to only those maps. If the proper changes aren't made within a set time limit, consider whether the rest of the mapset is rankable without that difficulty and proceed accordingly.

Once discussions have begun, the mapper should be aware of what the problems are and I think it would be nice to include a notification message that indicates whether a map is under review. One way of implementing this would be to edit the beatmap's information page. This will not be very effective, because people who download through osu!direct, and who have already downloaded the map will likely not see the message and still assume that the map will forever be ranked. Sometime in the near future it would be nice to see the ingame notification system be used for situations such as this.

I highly recommend that the process of unranking maps be refined before the new ranking system gets implemented. Rules such as this that require several days to come to a decision and need to be carried out while causing as little grief as possible. It isn't the beatmapper's fault if we rank a map that is below acceptable standards. We should at least make an effort to minimize damage.

I would make a feature request for this, but it is one of those things that shouldn't need to be discussed endlessly. I think these things need to be possible at some point. It will be bad for osu's image if they aren't implemented.

Did this rule will affect maps what was ranked 1 week ago and older? If not, it should be mentiored in rule's text imo.

Ephemeral wrote:

Rule will be finalized within 3 days as:

Members of the Beatmap Appreciation Team may unrank a beatmap on "subjective" quality grounds so long as they gather the consensus of 7 other members of the team, for a total of 8 BAT supporting the unrank. This unrank must be supported by well-thought and clear instructions on how to resolve the issues mentioned.

Finalizing this.