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[Added] Perfectly overlapping slider bodies

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-Mo-

Standard Rules wrote:

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. When perfectly overlapping two slider bodies, the first slider must be fully faded out before the second slider is fully faded in.
I'm mostly going to talk about that final sentence, though you can talk about the rest of that rule too if you wanted. This started from a discussion concerning this map on the thread and then in the mentorship discord.

The rule currently disallows perfectly stacking slider bodies from being too close to each other in time. It's in place so that reading a slider isn't ambiguous and that it isn't mistaken for a circle. However I believe there are cases where breaking this rule does not make a slider ambiguous to read, and following it would affect the quality of the pattern, e.g. in the map I linked.

There's also cases where sliders of different lengths but still with perfectly overlapping bodies can still be fairly clear to read, e.g. the start of Karen's Nobore. This means that even if a slider is not completely clear and visible, it does not necessarily make it ambiguous and unreadable.

My suggestion would be to move this final sentence to the guidelines, so that it can still be observed to make sure sliders are not ambiguous, but can still be broken under edge cases where ambiguity would not be affected like in the maps I linked.
Mir
Adding to that it's also quite different when the slider itself is perfectly stacked and when it's ctrl+g'd which is what the map in question does. Having the slider ctrl+g'd is arguably less ambiguous to read than a slider that is literally just perfectly stacked since you have the approach circle at the end instead of the head.

Overall though, the rule is fairly ambiguous in what it allows and what it doesn't, and in certain maps like Karen's Nobore it would detract from the playing experience were it removed, which is the same reason I didn't want to change it in my own map.

Leaving it as a guideline seems totally reasonable though, since there are cases where it's really difficult to read (https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1127971 - 02:42:827 (1,2,1,2) - ) and some cases where it's easy to read (Karen's Nobore or my own map.)
Monstrata
Yea. The rule was too vague. If you want to break it down, the math behind the rule is AR + fadeout - fadein. Fadeout is ~240 ms and Fadein is ~320ms so you could write it as "AR - 80ms = time necessary between overlapped sliders to be rankable".

That said, I already brought this up in the RC like two months ago. It was supposed to be added onto: p/6054268 but I guess someone forgot.

In any case, I think a guideline actually works because under the right circumstances, such as very sparse rhythms, or very specific note placements and "flow" it is possible to read a slider's path based only off the approach circle and the assumption that the path is identical to a slider played earlier. It would still bar incorrect and confusing use of the technique from being ranked.
squirrelpascals
I agree that this would work better as a guideline. it would give mappers a lot more flexibility, since perfect overlaps like these can work well as a creative choice in a map when done correctly. It can be a good choice if the mapper wants to emphasize a repeated movement or repetition in the song. Same concept for an overlapping ctrl+g.

On the other hand, it's a completely new element of difficulty. If these show up randomly in the middle of your average map, then it makes less sense. Like already said, they're readable under certain conditions.
Nao Tomori
yeah, but it could and would be treated like any other random element of difficult readability, a la equal 1/2 and 1/1 spacing, misleading overlaps, whatever. and if it's being randomly shoehorned into a map in one place, then as a guideline a bn could call on it to point out an issue, and if a map is built around it then it's not a problem
Kondou-Shinichi
TL;DR: As long as it's not random I think it's fine
Lasse
Agree that this should be rankable

When I tried to rank https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1216282 which was formerly built around that type of currently unrankable slider (old version is on description), I got a lot of testplays and while a few people struggled with reading them (they usually also struggled with reading many other patterns of this map) a majority found them rather intuitive and very enjoyable to play.

It's an interesting technique hat can be used for some nice concepts with the most well known example probably being https://osu.ppy.sh/s/35629 where it reflects the repetitive musical pattern nicely and becomes quite intuitive to play due to how it is arranged.

Making this unrankable by default just doesn't seem right, sure it can really ruin a map if it's used badly/randomly/inconsistently, but so can most other perfectly rankable things.

But it should probably be difficulty specific as I don't think such a pattern would be suitable for hard and lower.
Okoratu
Okoratu
Merged as of today:
  1. When perfectly overlapping two slider bodies, the first slider must be fully faded out before the second slider is fully faded in. -> delete
  2. Avoid perfectly overlapping slider bodies in a way that causes reading issues. Doing so can cause sliders to be misread as a circle due to obscuring the slider body. -> Guideline add
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