more than anything, sliderends are usually snapped to the end of a sound ( sometime not a beat ), so the problem would be actually to find a decent wording.
Though still, the most generic it could get is " Hit Objects should be following a sound in the music. .... "

I haven't read the entire thread so forgive me if I say something that's already been said, but I got a gist of it from the first few pages. My thoughts on overmapping are that it's fine, as long as the rhythm is intuitive and consistent with the song. If you would make a rule that states "Hitcircles and slider starts should all be snapped to a beat in the song", then a map which is perfect and plays right, but has one note that doesn't follow a beat in the song - which is placed there for the sake of consistency - can't be ranked because it's overmapped. However, BATs would obviously not see the problem with this and rank it anyway, disregarding that rule because it would ruin an otherwise great map.

So the rule itself would have to be about as grey as the concept it addresses and the opinions on them. I do agree that there should be a rule on overmapping, but saying "Overmapping is forbidden in all cases" would severely restrict a mapper's creativity, and possibly even detract from the quality of a map, rather than add to it. Ranked maps are supposed to be enjoyable for all players, but "enjoyable" is something subjective, so the rules regarding ranked maps will have to allow room for subjectivity, or else all maps will feel the same and eventually bore the players, because of the restrictions on a mapper's creativity that objective rules will place.

I'd say a good rule would be to forbid excessive and unintuitive overmapping - this would include overdoing the distance spacing (i.e. random fullscreen jumps or those horrible jump-stream-jump-stream-jump maps), however if the overmapping fits the song and is consistent with the flow of the map, I don't see why it shouldn't get a map ranked just because there's an extra hit circle in there that doesn't represent any sound in the song.

In music there are things called ghost notes, which are notes that the musician plays very softly to be able to stay consistent in their playing, but that the listener doesn't hear. When a mapper places extra notes in a similar way to how ghost notes are used, I'd see no point in deeming it unrankable. Yes, whether this is "good" or not is subjective - but isn't that why maps need to go through the process of getting modded by several players, then a few BATs, and then still need 2 BATs to approve of the map for it to get ranked - with any other BATs who noticed a well-hidden and unacceptable mistake still having the authority to unrank it so said mistake can be fixed?

People are just making a way bigger deal out of this than it really is, and BATs shouldn't worry about mappers calling them on their decision, they aren't BATs for nothing.

Hey man, if a particular pattern you want to use isn't featured in a song, use a different song. Nothing is stopping anyone from being creative while being within the bounds of what the song allows. If only this simple concept could be so easily understood...

If a song uses ghost notes go ahead and use them in your map, but you better be able to prove they are there. You can hear ghost notes, you just need to listen closely, and that defeats the purpose of their existence.

Either way, if you can't establish the rhythm properly and need to use ghost notes as an excuse, you are mapping wrong.

Oh come on Zerer, you should know that "but muh creativity" isn't an excuse, since it takes creativity to work with what's there. Ghost notes are all well and good in actual music, but in a map, this sort of thing usually implies tactility without actually delivering it. Still, that effect can be achieved pretty well with the right hitsounds on overmapped sliderends, but it's much harder to express "barely there" when tapping and clicking are involved. Hitsounds don't really offset that.

The fact is that mappers will pull all kinds of excuses out of their backsides and blithely ignore a point if it's not in official writing. It's what some people do. Stipulating conditions such as this, to any degree of severity, helps to keep people to produce higher-quality maps and gives the staff a much easier time. I like the proposed guideline as it is, but it might be worth mentioning sliderends as well. They still have some tactility--the end explodes with the hitburst and the action and animation of a slider's kind of a tension and release thing. Moreover, overmapped sliderends can feel horrible, especially with the wrong hitsounds.

actually, there should be a category of recommendation for not experienced mapper, with things that people with no experience should rarely try.
Examples:
-Overmapping, you should be able to know if your patterns is intuitive ( with logical/musical guessing ) ( so, being able to know if other could try it )
-SVM ( on the other discussion ), same thing, being able to know if what you've done is playable by others

I thought that there was already a recommendations category, but guidelines satisfy this by being guidelines.

Could we get back on track and discuss ephemeral's proposed version? I think it is loosely phrased enough to be included into guidelines. Other types of overmapping are too subjective to clearly specify.

I think Ephemeral's version is pretty good to go.
I myself try to not overmap at all, but I realize other mappers can do it, and can do it well, without breaking consistency or playability, so I don't have a problem with it. I mean, this is a rhythm game, so the map needs to fit the rhythm, but it's not a music visualizer, so as long as it's not random 1/6s where the map doesn't even have 1/4s, but only a small stream as pickup before a strong kiai transition? why not? You can use hitsounding to make it sound right without killing anything. And I'd say such a kiai transition (e.g. chorus starts) is already a "musical cue" and the stream would just emphasize it

I'd think that version makes sure to prevent a certain kind of stupidity but still allows for rhythmically logical stuff

Zarerion wrote:

random 1/6s where the map doesn't even have 1/4s

This is wrongly snapped notes (kind of already unrankable issue).

I agree with Haku, we need to explain this guideline more for not experienced mappers. Ephemeral's wording is good already, but some more recommendations would be useful too.

Zarerion wrote:

I myself try to not overmap at all, but I realize other mappers can do it, and can do it well, without breaking consistency or playability, so I don't have a problem with it.

This is what I meant with my post. If you can do it, and can do it well, then a perfectly fine map might be disregarded because there will be a strict rule against overmapping. It's not that I think it should be done, but if the mapper can do it without subtracting from the map's quality, I don't see the issue. I agree with D33d that it requires creativity to work with what you've got, rather than slapping random notes onto the song and using "muh creativity" as an excuse, but sometimes adding something that isn't there can make a map feel more complete. With this I don't mean a deathstream where there's only 1/2 stuff going on, I mean some additional notes to help the player keep rhythm in places where they fit.

tl;dr saying overmapping should always be allowed isn't smart, but completely forbidding all overmapping won't be smart either.

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

I'm suggesting this All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.
Thoughts lets get this wrapped up and shipped out.

But Charles already explained why ends of sliders should be exceptions:

Charles445 wrote:

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.

ztrot wrote:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

I'm suggesting this All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.
Thoughts lets get this wrapped up and shipped out.

This will be cool as guideline. Overmap parts can be quite enjoyable if done well so I think this should be decided from case to case.

Kodora wrote:

But Charles already explained why ends of sliders should be exceptions:

Charles445 wrote:

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.

Should not must there is a large difference

I think we should at least allow occasional silencing of slider ends. I sometimes like ending a map (or entering a break) on a slider with a silenced end, for example, if there is a hold note where music drops off very suddenly and a spinner would be too short.

Then again, I've played some maps where silenced slider ends really bugged me.

Kytoxid wrote:

I think we should at least allow occasional silencing of slider ends. I sometimes like ending a map (or entering a break) on a slider with a silenced end, for example, if there is a hold note where music drops off very suddenly and a spinner would be too short.

Then again, I've played some maps where silenced slider ends really bugged me.

It is already allowed, isn't it?

yeah so really all we are doing is closing the book on this and making it official

Kodora wrote:

Kytoxid wrote:

I think we should at least allow occasional silencing of slider ends. I sometimes like ending a map (or entering a break) on a slider with a silenced end, for example, if there is a hold note where music drops off very suddenly and a spinner would be too short.

Then again, I've played some maps where silenced slider ends really bugged me.

It is already allowed, isn't it?

It is. Check t/149154

What about this wording as a guideline:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.
that should be the proper guideline. lets get that done.

What's the point of a guideline that says pretty much nothing? I mean you know how some overmapped maps may look/feel like shit to some people while they can be extremely good/high quality/whatever you call it to some others.

I don't mean to say that the guideline you typed is wrong or anything, but I don't see it doing anything at all other than stating the obvious.

All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

^ fixed a grammatical issue.

Wouldn't Hit objects cover both circles and sliders? I'm not sure about mentioning slider ends in the guideline. It is a very common practice to end a slider before the next sound even if the sound doesn't naturally end there. Also you don't need a musical cue to correctly end a slider. The second statement doesn't apply to slider ends, leaving no justification to why a slider end needs to be snapped to a beat in music.

I have to agree with Wishy.The problem is not that objects are not mapped to sounds in music. These issues get weeded out during the modding process anyways. The problem is that jumps in intensity and sudden shifts in the music sometimes get poorly translated into playable patterns or that the patterns themselves take precedence over the music. For the type of player who plays streamy maps, audio cues aren't that important. There is not enough time to process the music when playing a very fast death stream. The key to playing any map is developing high dexterity and muscle memory. The fingers repeat the motions without needing the mind to think about each motion.

A couple factors influence how bothersome an overmapped rhythm is. The less busy the song is, the more noticeable it will be. Less busy songs influence players to rely more on audio cues or the audio cues present in the song become more distracting to the player. A good way to avoid this kind of distraction is by limiting the reaction time of the player by increasing the AR. As long as the player is focused on hitting the patterns and not listening to the music, overmapped patterns shouldn't matter in most cases. Increasing difficulty settings changes the intensity of the map. The downside to this is that using an intensity that doesn't suit the map very well can result in a degradation of quality. The mapper is responsible for finding the right balance of intensity and rhythm for his map. No guideline will express this more clearly.

so ultimately, what can we achieve via the ranking criteria to sufficiently address this problem? there has been marginal discussion about what constitutes overmapping and how to avoid/achieve it, but very little on actually introducing measures to combat it or prevent it from happening.

After thinking about it for a couple months the main problem I with overmapping isn't that it doesn't exist in the song, it's if the overmapping causes the map to be hard to follow rhythmically.

For instance, a song with a bunch of 1/2 can usually have a short stream in there for flair and the player is adept enough to simply add a click in between the 1/2. That's why triple hit stacks are so common.

Of course something like that wouldn't work as a rule as it is a case by case basis, but I'm not sure a rule would even work at this point.

If you ask me, the most effective course of action is to detect potential cases through algorithms in the editor. There are certain qualities that most overmapped patterns have in common that are very abstract. If the game could actively detect them and present them in aimod similar to how aimod used to list difficulty specific distance snap changes.

Here are some qualities that overmapped or at least poorly thought out patterns often share.

1. Sudden increases in note density. A pattern might be overmapped if there is a dramatic increase in intensity or note density after an extended period of benign rhythm.

2. A pattern may be overmapped if 1/8th, 1/16th, or 1/12th ticks are used. Changing to 1/6th in a 1/4th measure section may indicate an overmapped pattern.

3. AR 9 in a song under 130 bpm.

4. AR 10 used in a song under 180 BPM

5. A slow song with fast slider velocity.

6. A pattern that contains jumps spaced much wider than the average deviation in spacing. In other words extreme outliers may be overmapped.

7. Streams that exceed 20 seconds may be overmapped.

There are plenty of patterns that aren't overmapped that fit into these categories. There's no way to single out just the overmapped patterns. It's subjective. It may be overmapped or it may not be in most non extreme cases.

Bump. There's 20 pages of discussion here that doesn't seem to have generated much in terms of what we can actually do in the RC.

I don't think there's value in introducing an item in the RC to explicitly state that objects should be placed to the beat. As people have stated, sometimes there is value in overmapping a triplet here or there, and sometimes there are more intuitive rhythms that play better, while accompanying the music instead of following it, and we should leave this subjective matter to the modding process.

TVO's ideas above are interesting, but outside the scope of the RC as well. Thus, I'm in favour of a "no change" here. Anyone else care to chime in?

Can we surely agree that "bad overmapping" is that which detracts from the feel of a section, or otherwise makes it unreasonably hard or unexpected? These are all "subjective" in that some people enjoy them, but they're plenty objective if the mapper couldn't explain a deep connection with the music.

To clarify, see my sig, see those maps with pulse-crippling triples and see 'End Time'--a mapset which has one MP3 without sextuplets and then an [Insane] MP3 with them out of buttfuck nowhere. Nothing in the other diffs, the song until that point or the map's presentation implies them in the slightest. That's the crux of the problem, yet people will always find some way to weasel out of fixing that kind of error. This is why a strict, clear guideline would at least provide a basis to discourage this particular quirk.

May I also remind everybody that "the obvious" basically needs to be rammed down people's throats? It's as if some people don't use their brains when they map.

Bad way of overmapping should be judged case by case & fixed while modding. Supporting as no change.

Kodora wrote:

Bad way of overmapping should be judged case by case & fixed while modding. Supporting as no change.

Having a guideline would make it easier to mod it out. That's why Charles was pushing it in the first place. You know as well as I that people love to use the "it's not in the guidelines" excuse.

D33d wrote:

Kodora wrote:

Bad way of overmapping should be judged case by case & fixed while modding. Supporting as no change.

Having a guideline would make it easier to mod it out. That's why Charles was pushing it in the first place. You know as well as I that people love to use the "it's not in the guidelines" excuse.

Have we actually progressed to that point? :O Back in my day they just went, "LALALA IT'S JUST A GUIDELINE LALALA!"

Ekaru wrote:

D33d wrote:

Having a guideline would make it easier to mod it out. That's why Charles was pushing it in the first place. You know as well as I that people love to use the "it's not in the guidelines" excuse.

Have we actually progressed to that point? :O Back in my day they just went, "LALALA IT'S JUST A GUIDELINE LALALA!"

They need a good smack across the lips, but if it's not even a guideline, mappers will say "LALALA IT'S NOT EVEN A GUIDELINE LALALA!"

D33d wrote:

Kodora wrote:

Bad way of overmapping should be judged case by case & fixed while modding. Supporting as no change.

Having a guideline would make it easier to mod it out. That's why Charles was pushing it in the first place. You know as well as I that people love to use the "it's not in the guidelines" excuse.

There are was lots of examples of good & bad overmapping, but noone sum it up to something with what everyone can agree. How can we add to RC something like that?

Still support as "no change".

Kodora wrote:

D33d wrote:

Having a guideline would make it easier to mod it out. That's why Charles was pushing it in the first place. You know as well as I that people love to use the "it's not in the guidelines" excuse.

There are was lots of examples of good & bad overmapping, but noone sum it up to something with what everyone can agree. How can we add to RC something like that?

Still support as "no change".

It would be a guideline and it would say something the lines of "don't map what isn't there, as it would play differently to what's expected by listening to the music." Still not a difficult or nebulous concept to impose on mappers.

i don't see why we can't stick in the rules and still work through a case by case basis. afterall, we already have rules which leave some amount of room for interpretation, which include:

1. Do not overuse kiai time.
2. The mapset must have a well-designed spread of difficulties.

the one most similar to this scenario here is (as someone mentioned before) the "Hitsounds from notes and sliders must be audible", full rule in spoilerbox if you're lazy to go to ranking critieria wiki.

ranking criteria btw for lazy people: https://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/Ranking_criteria

it's a rule we have that gives us a solid idea of what we can and can't do while still leaving room for some interpretation and subjectivity. i think in terms of overmapping, it'd be best if we word the rule in a style similar to this one here.

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Slider end points should be snapped to a beat in the music, or the end of a prolonged note where appropriate. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in confusing patterns which are difficult to follow and incongruent with the backing track.

The above is being added as a guideline as previously discussed.

Marking as added.