I was JUST about to request this.
This thread lives for 3 years, why have I NEVVER seen it?
In any case, I strongly support it.
First of all, EVERYTHING I'm saying now is my own opinion. It's based on my own experiences and my own point of view, please respect that and don't insult me right off the bat.
Why do I want it?
a) BPM changes in a map.You know, compilations made by users, maps like DeltaMAX or even just normal songs with varying AR.
AR >should be< mostly dependant on the density of objects in a map. If you have more objects, you need higher AR to make reading comfortable. And the higher your BPM, the higher your object density. This is why Banned Forever (high BPM => high density) does not seems comfortable to read for many players, we all agree here, yes?
So imagine you have a track that starts off at around 150 BPM, which, in my opinion, would work well with AR7 depending on the stream spacing n stuff, but then speeds up to 180 or 190. The AR would be far too low then. By using different ARs for different sections we could achieve two things.
First, we gain ARs that actually
fit the pacing of the map.
Secondly the change of ARs implies the speedup and thus even
helps the reading of said speedups. When you, as a player, see that the next approach circles are faster, you intuitively realize something will happen, and will react better.
EXAMPLE BEATMAP:
ginkiha - Oriens [Extra] (Deif)This song starts at 140 BPM and then goes up to 185. Back when I first played it I had a hard time even understanding what was going on since it's not really a sudden change or anything. It just felt off for me. Granted, I wasn't good at reading maps back then, but if there would have been an AR change in the map, I just might have had a better time reading the speedup.
b) SV changesI know these days SV changes are kind of a controversial issue, if you do anything that exceeds what some people call "reasonable" it's instantly called abused, unreadable and BAD without second thought.
If AR could be changed according to SV, sudden slowdowns would be easier to read. Why is that? As far as I know, the current speed at which Sliderticks appear depends on the AR. Or rather, if the AR is lower, the slider will appear earlier and thus the sliderticks will appear earlier as well. That means: If you have a slowdown slider which would NOT be "readable" (in fact everything not 2B-style is technically readable, but let's just stick to that term for now) alone, using a lower AR for that AR would make the slider appear earlier, thus make the sliderticks accessible for the player to read faster and enable him to play the slider properly without needing to worry about overshooting it.
EXAMPLE BEATMAP:
HujuniseikouyuuP - Sayonara Lechenaultia [Lechenaultia] or [Fay] (qq944364487)This map uses some 0.5x SV multipliers which are kinda hard to get. A described earlier, variable AR might help for those.
c) GimmicksI know I'll get hate for this. But yeah I don't even care.
osu! has exceeded the state of being a simple rhythm game ages ago. By now, many mappers use various gimmicks to make their map more interesting, more challenging, more fun, more enjoyable. That includes weird spacing or SV changes, streamjumps etc. Please, guys, this is
not a bad thing. You're free to dislike every gimmicky map but don't call it bad just for that reason. It's simply another form of progress.
Some like those. Others don't. It's subjective. Whether it's playable or not
depends on the player's skills, NOT on the map.
I see a LOT of potential for multiple ARs to be used as a gimmick. It's possible to emphasize strong beats in the music or force the player adapt to another pace. Unless you don't change the AR with every circle so that the map will be a total mess, I can imagine this to be very fun and take "reading" to a whole new level.
Obviously, players will need to adapt to this. They are not used to adapting to new AR, let alone playing stuff like AR8 or AR10 at all (mappers putting AR9 on 132 BPM maps... *sigh*)
This would require them to learn a new skill in order to play as many maps as possible, and I can imagine that a lot of people, mappers, modders and players, can be afraid of this. But don't you think it just might be better in the long run? If players learn to play differing ARs they will also have less trouble playing maps that have lower or higher AR than they should have, like Banned Forever or Airman (my opinion, don't kill me. thx)
As for the "This will be abused!" argument: Are you sure? I mean, surely, mappers will try to use such a new feature, and maybe it won't work out just as well as planned, but who of you decides where "abuse" starts? Isn't that term too subjective already?
If something really is just
stupid in a way that it makes absolutely no sense, rhythmically or gameplay-wise, we still have modders and BATs who have the opportunity and duty to point out such issues and get rid of them. However I expect mappers, at least the experienced ones, to treat this with caution and not overuse it when it's implemented.
So that's why I want multiple ARs in a map.
Just give new stuff a chance. Try new things, adapt, and make progress. You will notice it is not all bad just because it seemed a little bit off at the beginning.
