Important parts of the song should always be properly represented in each difficulty. Skipping over important parts of the song can lead to random moments of idling where the player feels like they should be playing something, which may make the map uncomfortable or boring to play.

RC wrote:

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. While hitsounds must be audible, these elements are not actively clicked and therefore do not always need feedback.

Desperate-kun wrote:

1. Sliders should begin on stronger beats and end on equal or weaker sounds. Stressing important sounds through clicking is more natural to play than stressing unimportant sounds.
2. Avoid beginning ¼ sliders on unsupported blue ticks. Often white/red ticks should be prioritized even if the same sound sample is used for blue ticks. If there is a distinctly important sound on the blue tick, however, beginning a ¼ slider there can be acceptable.

Krimek wrote:

Desperate-kun wrote:

Ensure that your combos are not unreasonably short or long. Combos should reflect patterns expressed in the song, such as bars of music or vocal/instrumental phrases.

What about the use of NCs for regaining HP? This can be really useful to be done in a rythmical way.

Tess wrote:

Hanzer streams should not be mapped by anyone that isn't Hanzer

I saw the part mentioned about not overmapping, but what about undermapping? Something like

Important parts of the song should always be properly represented in each difficulty. Skipping over important parts of the song can lead to random moments of idling where the player feels like they should be playing something, which may make the map uncomfortable or boring to play.

Just my 2c

UndeadCapulet wrote:

RC wrote:

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. While hitsounds must be audible, these elements are not actively clicked and therefore do not always need feedback.

This is just an exception to a rule, it seems weird to include this in Guidelines imo. Everything else is saying "avoid x" but this is saying "don't avoid x". It'd be better to move this to Rules, or even a separate section titled something like "Exceptions to Global Ruleset". Also add sliderticks into the list :v

Everything else is great, all the problem rules got moved out, and the guidelines section is actually useful for new mappers now. Good job

Bonsai wrote:

I'm just a bit surprised by this being in the guidelines

Desperate-kun wrote:

1. Sliders should begin on stronger beats and end on equal or weaker sounds. Stressing important sounds through clicking is more natural to play than stressing unimportant sounds.
2. Avoid beginning ¼ sliders on unsupported blue ticks. Often white/red ticks should be prioritized even if the same sound sample is used for blue ticks. If there is a distinctly important sound on the blue tick, however, beginning a ¼ slider there can be acceptable.

because to me that just seems like a tutorial-esque tip for newer mappers, but there are soo many reasons to 'break' this guideline, the most convenient example being that you want to express a holding sound that happens to start on a weaker beat than it ends (isn't that what sliders were originally for lol), that it seems weird to me to add it here, it sounds rather scary with the "can be acceptable" and all
I mean this isn't a compendium of tips and tricks for new mappers, it's a list of rather objective stuff that should be avoided breaking at all costs, right?

Other than that this seems good to me

pinataman wrote:

These rules look both reasonable and helpful for newer mappers. Thank you QAT's for revisiting this subject.

The one issue I have is with naming. Recently, there has been a trend to include a 'Light Insane' type of difficulty in between Hard and Insane. Can this be added to the list of recognized names? Or perhaps even, can we take the opportunity to add another name for this level of difficulty to make this a more authentic difficulty level, preferably one that starts with an 'I' to go with the red 'I' icon like 'Intense' or 'Intermediate'?

Okorin wrote:

What exactly do you mean? Putting a mean pattern and justifying it by it giving back a lot of hp when being played correctly or something like that ?

fastmarkus wrote:

Hello! Can someone enlighten me here: are now hold sliders rankable? if yes, how do you make a slider border (i don't understand much about mapping, sorry if it is a dumb question) for that? or was this rule already applied?


I got that impression after reading this sentence:"Every slider must have a clear and visible path to follow from start to end. Sliders which overlap themselves in a way that makes any section unreadable or ambiguous cannot be used, such as burai sliders and hold sliders without straightforward slider borders. Perfectly overlapping slider bodies must give enough time to fully read each slider’s path"

Krimek wrote:

Okorin wrote:

What exactly do you mean? Putting a mean pattern and justifying it by it giving back a lot of hp when being played correctly or something like that ?

This does not have to be a mean pattern. Let's take for an example a longslider or a spinner, and the HP drops down, but followed up by a build-up pattern or whatever. You can use more NCs to get the HP back; e.g. you were playing NCs all 4/1 but at this special part you're using NCs all 1/1 so you can build up your HP way faster.

abraker wrote:

I think there should be a rule regarding that all consecutively stacked notes and slider ends must be snapped to distinced sound or at least have equal snapping intervals because that can lead to confusing patterns otherwise.

Seni wrote:

You didn't make it very clear if it would still be allowed to use a custom name for the hardest difficulty in a mapset or not. I don't think being permitted to use only the basic names would allow for much variety or creativity, since the hardest difficulty is most often the focus point of a mapset anyway. Having all the hardest difficulties named Expert or Ultra would be really dull.

Cherry Blossom wrote:

I don't know if it was already mentioned by someone else.
But this current Rules/Guidelines doesn't talk about ninja spinners, or not enough explicit about it.

This rule "Spinners must be long enough for Auto to achieve 1000 bonus score. Shorter spinners are unreasonably difficult to complete."
And guildeline "Spinners should be used when they fit the music. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard." are not enough explicit about what is a "ninja spinner", and if it's rankable or not.

By ninja spinners i mean a very short spinner (assume auto can still achieve at least 1000) but in a place where it is not predictable, and for sure, it is suprising for the player and he might combobreak.
The term "ninja spinner" should be added.


Edit, and did you talk about giving enough time after spinners, in easier diffs ?

abraker wrote:

So according to the rules, 2B maps are now allowed? And non moving sliders?

abraker wrote:

So according to the rules, 2B maps are now allowed? And non moving sliders?

Every slider must have a clear and visible path to follow from start to end.

Both slider border and body colors must be manually set or not set. Setting only one may conflict with a user’s custom skin choices.

Sieg wrote:

Both slider border and body colors must be manually set or not set. Setting only one may conflict with a user’s custom skin choices.

Can you please elaborate this?

Sieg wrote:

Both slider border and body colors must be manually set or not set. Setting only one may conflict with a user’s custom skin choices.

Can you please elaborate this?

Desperate-kun wrote:

Quote:
Every slider must have a clear and visible path to follow from start to end.

abraker wrote:

Desperate-kun wrote:

Quote:
Every slider must have a clear and visible path to follow from start to end.

Ohhhh I was thinking that in terms of visibility. Like for example, a slider fully in view has a visible path from start to end, but not necessarily has the velocity or consistent velocity which can indicate the time the path starts and the time the path ends.

Desperate-kun wrote:

It's a bit unfortunate that it's not possible to force the slidertrack taking the color of the combo colors automatically, like it is in the default skin. We will do our best to make the devs implement this, and then we can remove this rule. But for now, we want to ensure maximum compatibility with player's skins.

Sieg wrote:

Desperate-kun wrote:

It's a bit unfortunate that it's not possible to force the slidertrack taking the color of the combo colors automatically, like it is in the default skin. We will do our best to make the devs implement this, and then we can remove this rule. But for now, we want to ensure maximum compatibility with player's skins.

So if you use custom slider skin element in your map you must set sliderborder, if you have sliderborder set you must set sliderbody? This means sliderbody cannot use combo colors and forced to a single color until feature for this will be implemented by the devs, right?

quaternary wrote:

You might want to add a guideline about using custom numbers in your beatmap skin.

If the player has a HitCircleOverlap or ScoreOverlap value set in their skin.ini and uses the beatmap skin, osu! will use the player's Overlap settings with the beatmap skin's numbers, which, more often than not, just makes a mess...

Desperate-kun wrote:

Sieg wrote:

So if you use custom slider skin element in your map you must set sliderborder, if you have sliderborder set you must set sliderbody? This means sliderbody cannot use combo colors and forced to a single color until feature for this will be implemented by the devs, right?

Unfortunately, yes. If someone doesn't find a workaround for this (which I highly doubt will happen).

Sieg wrote:

uh, alright, but this is such a huge limiting in skining to cover just a few edgy cases that may occur

1. there is a typo.

Avoid excessive composition differences in similar sections of a song. The basic spacing and rhythm should similar, while patterning can vary. This is to ensure players do not get confused when playing the same rhythm twice.

> should BE similar

2.
Avoid beginning ¼ sliders on unsupported blue ticks. Often white/red ticks should be prioritized even if the same sound sample is used for blue ticks. If there is a distinctly important sound on the blue tick, however, beginning a ¼ slider there can be acceptable.

probably would want to emphasize that blue tick sound should be more distinct than red/white to start a slider there

3.
Spinners should be used when they fit the music. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard.

3rd sentence refers to 1st so its better like this

Spinners should be used when they fit the music. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections.

4.
Avoid following multiple layers of the song if it is unclear what rhythm is prioritizing. Players should be able to discern what part of the song is being followed.

probably should add that this mostly applies to lower diffs

grumd wrote:

copy pasting this
not sure what was fixed already

1. there is a typo.

Avoid excessive composition differences in similar sections of a song. The basic spacing and rhythm should similar, while patterning can vary. This is to ensure players do not get confused when playing the same rhythm twice.

> should BE similar

Already fixed.

grumd wrote:

2.
Avoid beginning ¼ sliders on unsupported blue ticks. Often white/red ticks should be prioritized even if the same sound sample is used for blue ticks. If there is a distinctly important sound on the blue tick, however, beginning a ¼ slider there can be acceptable.

probably would want to emphasize that blue tick sound should be more distinct than red/white to start a slider there

3.
Spinners should be used when they fit the music. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard.

3rd sentence refers to 1st so its better like this

Spinners should be used when they fit the music. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections.

4.
Avoid following multiple layers of the song if it is unclear what rhythm is prioritizing. Players should be able to discern what part of the song is being followed.

probably should add that this mostly applies to lower diffs

Koiyuki wrote:

i think custom combo color have to be used, which can be added to the rule 2 in general.

also it seems changing .osu file is not banned, from my side we can allow some of the changing by .osu file like sv, str, lr and some of the slider go through the timing section(red line)......

other seems fine.

Desperate-kun wrote:

Each map must use at least two different custom combo colors unless the default skin is forced.
is already here... I don't really understand what you want to say regarding colors.

Changing .osu files is still banned like before, because it is part of the all-mode Ranking Crieria. This one here is only std-specific.

Koiyuki wrote:

Desperate-kun wrote:

Each map must use at least two different custom combo colors unless the default skin is forced.
is already here... I don't really understand what you want to say regarding colors.

Changing .osu files is still banned like before, because it is part of the all-mode Ranking Crieria. This one here is only std-specific.

eh that's a misreading, because i met a map which doesnt set any combo color, also unforced default skin, and get bubbled.

Koiyuki wrote:

for std rule, i remember that charles445 mentioned that the stack leniency can be set as 0 by changing .osu file, also it's rankable. So I think we should mention it in std rule.

Changing .osu files is still banned like before, because it is part of the all-mode Ranking Crieria. This one here is only std-specific.

Do not manually edit anything in an .osu file that cannot be changed through the Editor.

grumd wrote:

Changing .osu files is still banned like before, because it is part of the all-mode Ranking Crieria. This one here is only std-specific.

This is wrong.

Do not manually edit anything in an .osu file that cannot be changed through the Editor.

There's an important part there.

Do not manually edit anything in an .osu file that cannot be changed through the Editor.

Haruto wrote:

Do not manually edit anything in an .osu file that cannot be changed through the Editor.

Does adding Skinning stuff like, colours of sliderborder and slidertrackoverride is still considered as manual editing through the .osu file? and does it will still allowed if the new RC applies?