Guest
home
beatmaps
rankings
community
store
help
forum
  1. Forums
  2. Beatmaps
  3. Mapping Discussion
  4. Ranking Criteria
  5. Finalized/Denied Amendments

[Proposal] Spread requirements based on song length

posted
Total Posts
360
show more
Noffy
Nomination Assessment Team
1,659 posts
Joined April 2012
Noffy
Yeah, though I disagree with banning fades because even if songs fit well together such as being from the same album or series, making "seamless" transitions can be very difficult unless you are super good at audio editing edit: especially what's considered seamless can be quite ambiguous.
"Song compilations must be mixed properly and cannot include abrupt breaks or long fades between different songs. This is to ensure compilations achieve the same cohesive gameplay experience as other beatmaps."
could be better as a guideline so that there is some discretion about what works and what doesn't?
Doormat
2,049 posts
Joined September 2013
Doormat

Mapset Proposal wrote:

If the drain time of a song is...
… lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Normal. Because osu!mania does not have a difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria yet, an osu!mania mapset's Normal difficulty is defined as a difficulty below 2.00 stars. For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.
… lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.
… lower than 5:00, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than an Insane.
… anything else, the mapset does not require a reasonable spread.
Just my opinion, but the cutoffs are a bit odd; why does it shift from 3:30 to 4:30 to 5:00? imo it might be a bit more cohesive if it was 3:00 to 4:00 to 5:00, but I'd like to hear what you guys think. Also this is a bit nitpicky but instead of "anything else" maybe we should be more specific and use "anything over 5:00". Other than that, I don't really have any objections.

edit: apparently this was answered earlier in the thread lol.

Audio Proposal wrote:

The audio file of a song must not be artificially extended in order to meet a time limitation in the mapset section of this criteria. Illegal extensions include (but are not limited to) looping sections of the audio file, lowering the bpm of the song or section of the song, and adding small amounts of music to the song without incorporating it throughout the entire song. If the audio file is extended in such a way, the mapset must still comply with the time limitations of its unaltered audio. Song compilations are not considered extensions, and are exempt from this rule.
From what I understand, this rule stems from the prevention of extending mp3s via looping (i.e. True Force) or jamming two songs to meet marathon length (looking at you, R3 Music Box Extension mappers...). But what about cases in which mp3s don't meet the rankable drain time of 30 seconds? There are quite a TV songs usually end up being 29 seconds in drain and thus require extension (Bill Nye, for example).. Will the new rule of prohibiting mp3 extension also apply to these songs?
Last edited by Doormat , edited 2 times in total.
Arf
901 posts
Joined December 2013
Arf
>Song compilations must be mixed properly and cannot include abrupt breaks or long fades between different songs. This is to ensure compilations achieve the same cohesive gameplay experience as other beatmaps.

So about this, based on what Ephemeral wrote in the oimc map, we are now disallowing any compilation that has any sort of break or fade between songs at all? It's less of a compilation and more of an extended mashup at that point isn't it? We're going to discontinue the use of this mechanic entirely now? That seems somewhat excessive doesn't it
Naxess
Nomination Assessment Team
390 posts
Joined March 2016
Naxess
The wording around "does not require a reasonable spread" and "must form a reasonable spread" is conflicting, probably a good idea replacing the former with something along the lines of "the lowest difficulty can be anything" or "has no limitations", to avoid having two rules say opposite things, even though it could probably be understood with some common sense. Would allow that whole first rule to define what a "reasonable spread" is without contradicting itself.
Nevo
Global Moderator
1,176 posts
Joined November 2015
Nevo

the thingie wrote:

>Song compilations must be mixed properly and cannot include abrupt breaks or long fades between different songs. This is to ensure compilations achieve the same cohesive gameplay experience as other beatmaps.
I really dont see why we can't use the normal method of fade out fade in for songs in compilations to me it seems by far the most logical way to make them. Nuking the way most compilations have been done for years seems kinda overkill. Especially when not all of these maps were made just to be over 5 minutes. Calling it low quality is fairly subjective :nyab:
-Mo-
Nomination Assessment Team
953 posts
Joined December 2012
-Mo-
There was concern about how there are some two song 'compilations' that are actually good or intended by the artist that the draft would deny, so stuff like A B C (Malformed Box was even spotlight).

Suggestion would be to allow two song compilations if both songs are from the same artist, and that the full version of both songs must be used.

Also I'm personally not fully convinced whether these changes are right for the newbie players, so I want to play around with x86's TSV file before having an opinion.
Last edited by -Mo- , edited 1 time in total.
Halfslashed
Global Moderator
425 posts
Joined July 2014
Halfslashed
Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is not a sufficient number of tracks to offer a compelling experience for players when compiled together, and should be broken up into separate mapsets.
I think an exception should be made for using two songs that were composed to transition into each other. Ranked examples would be stuff like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/496656 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/654053. Another exception would be songs performed together in a live performance like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/627671 - while this case is single artist, it would be a good idea to include cases for performances with multiple artists. Other examples are songs like Miss Murder which is actually two songs: Prelude 12/21 and Miss Murder, as well as Prayer of the Refugee and Drones, which are both connected by the fade at the end of the former song and the fade at the beginning of the latter one.

Possible wording:

Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is not a sufficient number of tracks to offer a compelling experience for players when compiled together, and should be broken up into separate mapsets. The exception is when songs are related by a live performance and/or composed to transition into one another by the same artist.
Pretty happy with the rest of the proposal though.
Last edited by Halfslashed , edited 1 time in total.
Ryuusei Aika
Elite Mapper
1,085 posts
Joined January 2016
Ryuusei Aika
i agree with nevo on that thingie :blobuwu:
currently the problem of a compilation is not how the way those songs got mixed bc not everyone is a pro mixer or composer
i think we may need to focus on the definition of a compilation (i think there was a thread about it)
for me the basic components (ie. rules) of a compilation would be
(1) songs from the same artist, and/or
(2) songs from the same production (like, from the same film/game/series/anime/album etc.)

and for a compilation itself is proper or not, since it’s a purely subjective issue i’d like to let concerned BN/QAT member(s) to judge

edit: fk typo
Last edited by Ryuusei Aika , edited 2 times in total.
Monstrata
Elite Mapper: Aspirant
4,642 posts
Joined May 2013
Monstrata
Two very big issues:

1. Artificially extending mp3's should be allowed.

This has already been discussed before but there are many reasons why this just won't work as a rule. You shouldn't expect every BN to be able to know that the song they are checking is actually 4:59 length and not 5:01. It's very easy to get away with extending mp3, and enforcing this rule is just not something feasible. Maps will inevitably slip through and you are going to get "well, x got theirs ranked, why can't I?" People will always be lazy, stop trying to penalize it, it won't work. Additionally, this rule applies to a very small minority of mappers anyways. I can only see this being enforced for quality-based concerns such as the mp3 editing (to achieve 5 minutes) being poor quality. If you can't tell the map has been extended artificially just from listening to the song, then it is fair game.

2. Cross-fade editing is perfectly fine in almost all cases.

No one had issue with crossfading until Ephemeral brought it up. Him and peppy have clearly decided to take a backseat and not interfere too much with mapping. I don't see why this is being pushed forward on the basis that "staff doesn't like it". The staff doesn't like it? Well too bad for them, because it's something that's been done for a long time. One (apparently) poorly cross-faded map should not prevent the multitude of perfectly fine ones from being ranked. I could talk about how the genre-compilation mp3 was perfectly fine anyways (and how the current one is worse). "Low quality crossfade" is subjective to begin with, and unless you can accurately define what the difference is between "low quality crossfading" and "acceptable crossfading" and "high quality crossfading" etc... this should not be a rule because it doesn't even know what it is trying to bar from ranked, or what it is allowing into ranked.

Please stop holding the staff's words as things we need to follow. Ephemeral has made it very clear since the QAT upheaval that he won't be intervening in these matters, and peppy as well, is not heavily invested in RC rework because if he is i'm sure there are other things he would have commented about. They are fine to offer their opinions on whether these things should be acceptable or not, and you can consider them as being from informed sources, but enforcing a set of rules because "two people thought the crossfading on a certain mp3 was low quality" is kinda ridiculous.

---

Basically,

1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.

2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.
squirrelpascals
982 posts
Joined March 2015
squirrelpascals
1) Why are we removing the marathon definition from the glossary? After the changes I feel like people will still refer to single diff spreads as marathons so it only seems practical.

2)
If the drain time of a song is...

… lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Normal. For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.
… lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.


I still see a lot of people get discouraged over making spreads for songs that are around 2:30. A song bpm / rhythm complexity has a lot to do with how long someone might take to create a difficulty. This also hurts if there's no particularly "slow section" or break part of a map. So this can still be discouraging for those types of songs, i don't feel like it's entirely out of laziness at that point. I would change it like so:

If the drain time of a song is...

… lower than 3:00, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Normal.
… lower than 4:00, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.


This feels like it would make a little more sense too because the drain requirements for each type of spread would be established in a more linear fashion (3:00, 4:00, 5:00) similar to the difficulty increases in spreads (normal, hard, insane). But that probably doesn't matter much xd

3)
  1. Single-mode mapsets must form a reasonable spread. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.
  2. Hybrid mapsets without osu! difficulties must form a reasonable spread for each mode. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.


These are pretty repetitive, they can be combined into one

  1. Single-mode and Hybrid mapsets without osu! difficulties must form a reasonable spread for each mode. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.


Hybrid spreads with osu! difficulties are specified afterward so that should cover everything too

4)
Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is not a sufficient number of tracks to offer a compelling experience for players when compiled together, and should be broken up into separate mapsets.


Definitely disagree here. There are many ways 2 songs together can offer a compelling experience.
  1. There are a lot of cases where 2 songs are cohesive / go alongside eachother, which are intentionally done by the composer. Example of a ranked set that does this: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/654053 According to the mapper, both songs are usually performed together, and the theme of both songs align in a somewhat chronological way.
  2. Another different example, https://osu.ppy.sh/b/315867 The songs in the actual album for this one are sold as "The Island, Part 1 (Dawn)" and "The Island, Part 2 (Dusk)." So under this rule, wouldn't this be illegal? Even though part 2 is literally intended to be a sequel to part 1, plus they are extremely similar in the first place.
  3. One last point, while its might be uncommon for only 2 songs to be contained on an album together, 2 song eps are a thing. Since they're intended to be sold together by the artist, why would it be unfitting to make them into a compilation, if they encompass their own album? exmaple


Okay so to change this I would basically move this over to a guideline and modify it to encompass combining 2 songs out of laziness:

Guidelines

Song compilations must should incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is usually unfitting, unless the music within the compilation is cohesive together.


5) One thing that I think should definitely be addressed is reasoning for songs compilations. As in: you shouldn't be able to take any random songs by any random composers and throw it into a 5:00 minute compilation just because I don't feel like making a spread. I think this would be the most important thing to address if anything:

Rules
Song choice within song compilations must be justified in some manner. This is to ensure that song choice within compilations are not by random and that the songs with in the compilation fit in with eachother.


Don't know if that would be the best way to word it though.
Last edited by squirrelpascals , edited 5 times in total.
Monstrata
Elite Mapper: Aspirant
4,642 posts
Joined May 2013
Monstrata
Agreeing with squireel about reasoning being the more important factor with respects to defining a song compilation.

But honestly, shouldn't song compilation rules be discussed on: t/756468 or can we get a merger of the two drafts?
UndeadCapulet
1,100 posts
Joined April 2013
Topic Starter
UndeadCapulet
@squirrel
terms are only defined when they appear in the criteria. the marathon term doesn't ever appear in the new draft so there's no need to keep the definition. it was only defined because there was a rule for it, but now it's better to just standardize everything.

please read the first few pages for why we can't do 3/4/5 for time limits. it was almost exclusively seen as too lenient.

can't combine the single/hybrid sets the way you suggested bc the wording is very misleading. the current draft/current rc are how they are for a reason
(tho ive now noticed a poor wording in the current draft that'll be fixed)

--

@squirrelstrata
that draft is discussing more than just the technical requirements of compilations, so it's prob best to keep it as its own thing

---

@all
as there's been a fair amount of edge cases we forgot, and just general backlash against the 3 song rule in the thread and outside of it, that'll be reworked shortly
Rivals_7
Beatmap Nominator
2,978 posts
Joined July 2014
Rivals_7

Monstrata wrote:

1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.
Agree with this. so we wont get any abrupt editing loop/extension like wonder stella or Ashita no kimi sae ireba ii ever again
sahuang
2,293 posts
Joined December 2014
sahuang
Looking forward to 4:30 IXXXXXX maps
Nevo
Global Moderator
1,176 posts
Joined November 2015
Nevo

sahuang wrote:

Looking forward to 4:30 IXXXXXX maps
hold my beer
Ascendance
Elite Mapper
4,225 posts
Joined July 2013
Ascendance
not gonna bother reading the thread since i'm not keen on reading 12 pages for something someone might not have brought up

In the "removed" section of the proposal, you have all rules of hybrid sets that previously adhered to the RC removed and some new ones brought up.

---

I'm mostly concerned about the removal of this:

"Any two or more osu!taiko, osu!mania, or osu!catch difficulties must be arranged in a reasonable spread. The lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard."

which now reads (in the updated proposal) as:

"… any two or more osu!taiko, osu!mania, or osu!catch difficulties must be arranged in a reasonable spread."

---

Recently, we made a rule change proposal to ctb which made it so that hybrid sets with ctb needed the minimum of a Platter (hard diff for non-minigame users) which can be found here

I'm of the opinion that hybrid sets should still have a hard limit on how hard the lowest difficulty is allowed to be. At the very least, for ctb over the last 2-3 years we've progressively changed rules to prevent hybrid sets from only having only an overdose or only a rain and overdose to eventually get to where we are now with things like this becoming normalized with this rule change.

We came to this conclusion and have been slowly moving this scale downwards to be more in line with other non-standard modes, since we believe that converts are not enough to create a reliable spread for missing osu!catch difficulties, despite them being probably the most playable out of the 3 non-standard modes.

Again, I didn't read the thread, but is there any plan to standardize these hybrid set limits or will we have to once again combat the idea of IX or XX spreads that we fought to remove only recently?
UndeadCapulet
1,100 posts
Joined April 2013
Topic Starter
UndeadCapulet
dw that's still there, it just got moved to this location: https://puu.sh/ACl3J/b9e8881660.png
Ascendance
Elite Mapper
4,225 posts
Joined July 2013
Ascendance
must be blind oops

this applies to all lengths though, not just the ones below 3:30? or do the ones such as "lower than 4:30..." also apply to non-standard modes?
UndeadCapulet
1,100 posts
Joined April 2013
Topic Starter
UndeadCapulet
they apply to non-standard modes, felt it best for spread rules to be consistent across all gamemodes
Ascendance
Elite Mapper
4,225 posts
Joined July 2013
Ascendance
alright, cool, was kinda confused on the wording since normally "the lowest difficulty" only considered standard-only stuff in the past. dunno how to word it any better tho
squirrelpascals
982 posts
Joined March 2015
squirrelpascals

UndeadCapulet wrote:

@squirrel
terms are only defined when they appear in the criteria. the marathon term doesn't ever appear in the new draft so there's no need to keep the definition. it was only defined because there was a rule for it, but now it's better to just standardize everything.
Thats true. The main reasoning for this was because tha'ts still how the community will refer to those kinds of maps, like its part of a mapper lingo of some sort. I guess its similar to "bubbles" in v2 (theyre dead xd).

UndeadCapulet wrote:

can't combine the single/hybrid sets the way you suggested bc the wording is very misleading. the current draft/current rc are how they are for a reason
(tho ive now noticed a poor wording in the current draft that'll be fixed)
dont see why not tbh, both rules exactly say "This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria." The one change in wording for that elaboration would just be changing "this spread" to "spreads." I don't think its a big deal but tbh it would be a lot more efficient and less repetitive so i still dont see why not

UndeadCapulet wrote:

@squirrelstrata
that draft is discussing more than just the technical requirements of compilations, so it's prob best to keep it as its own thing
If you're saying we should wait to include it (which in that case, I disagree), i think it should be added in as soon as we define "song compilations" in the criteria. Song choice and your reasonging for it acts as a backbone for a compilation.

8-)
Net0
1,238 posts
Joined October 2014
Net0
This rule proposal was mostly related to spread requirement but somehow is now about how to regulate audio. The matters are related but the second topic needs to be clearer in the way it will handle 4 different case scenarios;

1- Cut versions of original songs.
2- Original song editions, such as timing fixes, looping sections, bpm modification, remixes, etc.
3- 2 different songs that are combined together for various reasons into one mp3, in this case, it could be two entire songs combined, or one section of a particular song with another full sized song, etc.
4- Songs compilation, when three or more songs (or sections) are combined into one mp3.

For the first case I think the debate about cutting songs is pretty much resolved since peppy already mentioned that it’s fine (still needs discussion imo). The concern about the second case wasn't specifically brought on the proposal, but mixed with the third case. So the discussion should be on the third and fourth case that were brought on the proposal.

Song Extensions;

The second case (music extension) in the new rule proposal, will be forbidden according to;
Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is not a sufficient number of tracks to offer a compelling experience for players when compiled together, and should be broken up into separate mapsets.
And
The audio file of a song must not be artificially extended in order to meet a time limitation in the mapset section of this criteria. Illegal extensions include (but are not limited to) looping sections of the audio file, lowering the bpm of the song or section of the song, and adding small amounts of music to the song without incorporating it throughout the entire song.
But allowed according to;
If the audio file is extended in such a way, the mapset must still comply with the time limitations of its unaltered audio.
Leaving the contradiction itself, I don’t really recommend banning the combination of two songs from being rankable since there are good results coming from that idea. Refer to;
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/346740
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/430959
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/627671
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/654053
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/673138

Using different songs from the same artist that blend well together, using different arranges of the same song to create an intro or outro for the original song, combining part I and part II of the same song, etc. The problem isn’t the extension itself, but people forcing extensions/song additions to meet a spread requirement, that is what resulted recently in very low quality mixes.

To solve this problem we can actually re-word the following rule proposal;
The audio file of a song must not be artificially extended in order to meet a time limitation in the mapset section of this criteria.
To
Only the official song length will be considered in order to meet a time limitation in the mapset section of this criteria.Extensions and song additions are not considered for spread requirements, exception being songs compilation. Extensions include (but are not limited to) looping sections of the audio file, lowering the bpm of the song or section of the song, and adding small amounts of music to the song without incorporating it throughout the entire song are not considered for spread requirements. If the audio file is extended in such a way, the mapset must still comply with the time limitations of its unaltered audio.

The intent here is that even if a person loops any part of the song or add another song in the mp3, the spread requirement will consider only the main song being mapped, the only expection being songs compilation.

Songs compilation;

Probably the topic with almost no consensus so far and a lot of discussion is happening on t/756468 , so I’ll probably just give suggestions regarding the re-wording of some stuff proposed. I agree with the definition brought on the glossary, I just think that it’s slightly inconsistent with the rule proposal;
Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs.
and
Song Compilation: An audio file that features more than 2 different songs or sections of multiple different songs.
The suggestion is to use the same number in both sections in the RC to make it simpler.

Song Compilation: An audio file that features at least 3 songs or sections of multiple different songs.
About the rule itself;

Song compilations must incorporate 3 or more songs. Using only 2 songs in a compilation is not a sufficient number of tracks to offer a compelling experience for players when compiled together, and should be broken up into separate mapsets.
We can remove the following explanation since it contradicts allowing the extensions when the rule is about songs compilation. All explanations of rules in the RC are supposed to be related to the first sentence and things like “Using only 2 songs […]should be broken up into separate mapsets.” Doesn’t relate to the topic of songs compilation.

->while I was editing this a lot of discussion happened and I'm not sure if my concerns were adressed or not, sorry if anything here is doubled and resolved already.
ZiRoX
Elite Mapper
1,019 posts
Joined November 2009
ZiRoX
I know the first rule applies to all modes as Ascendance asked about it, but the current wording doesn't make it clear if it applies to every mode in hybrid mapsets, which I think it should. For this reason, I suggest to change the wording to:
  1. If the drain time of a song is...
    1. (the lower than 3:30 thing remains the same)
    2. ...lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty of each mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
    3. ...lower than 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each mode cannot be harder than an Insane.


This would make it clear that you can't have, for example, a HI standard spread + an IX catch spread on a 3:30-4:30 song, which is what at least us catch people agreed a while ago.
Last edited by ZiRoX , edited 2 times in total.
Ascendance
Elite Mapper
4,225 posts
Joined July 2013
Ascendance

ZiRoX wrote:

I know the first rule applies to all modes as Ascendance asked about it, but the current wording doesn't make it clear if it applies to every mode in hybrid mapsets, which I think it should. For this reason, I suggest to change the wording to:
  1. If the drain time of a song is...
    1. ...lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty of each mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
    2. ...lower than 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each mode cannot be harder than an Insane.
This would make it clear that you can't have, for example, a HI standard spread + an IX catch spread on a 3:30-4:30 song, which is what at least us catch people agreed a while ago.
+1 this, we just had a fiesta about this in #catch over confusing wording, this would help clear things up for those who weren't aware of it
UndeadCapulet
1,100 posts
Joined April 2013
Topic Starter
UndeadCapulet
ok, will add those 3 words those places
pimp
1,417 posts
Joined April 2010
pimp
not really looking forward to see the beginner difficulties decreasing but the boss has spoken and he doesn't really mind that...

"only allow compilations to be mapped as the same difficulty level each song..."
^ I think this should be considered
Xinnoh
Elite Mapper
1,950 posts
Joined April 2014
Xinnoh
Don't agree with that because album compilations would have to follow that, if there's a low intensity song within then it becomes unrankable.
This would make almost all currently rankd 30 minute marathons unrankable which isn't that helpful
timemon
Beatmap Nominator
1,305 posts
Joined November 2012
timemon
I've only read the spread proposal. I quite like it, though 3:30 drain time is very hard to reach.

1) full ver maps have lots of break (because they don't have to care about drain time)
2) some full ver songs can be quite short (3:30 to 4:00) so they might even fail to hit the rules designed to help them.

Maybe adjust the drain time a bit? I think 3:00 is good for the lowest point.
LwL
363 posts
Joined November 2013
LwL
My issues with the song compilations stuff have already been adressed, though overall I'd think it to probably be better to move it to t/756468 entirely, as long as it's made sure that something comes of that, it would probably be better to seperate the two issues. Having a short period of time with laxer spread rules and no extension rules isn't gonna kill mapping or anything.

More importantly, while I unfortunately can't come up with a good way to word it, it might be beneficial for overall difficulty variety to allow "replacing" a diff in the spread with one below the maximum. Reasoning being that I don't see how an N-H-X spread is any better or worse than H-I-X in terms of player accessability, or how an H-X-X is worse than I-X-X, since the amount of players covered would be about the same, maybe even higher.
Last edited by LwL , edited 1 time in total.
Nozhomi
Global Moderator
4,568 posts
Joined May 2013
Nozhomi
From what I read on the draft, we authorize people to be even more lazy when they could already rank mapset with only 1 difficulty done and the rest from GDs. So maybe we could include the idea about having a minimum amount of participation on a set (like 50% of it done by the original mapper) to be sure this won't lead to the opposite direction that draft is supposed to go.

And about the drain time of a song :
… lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard.
… lower than 5:00, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than an Insane.

There's some songs who don't support difficulties above Hard or Insane (depending of their BPM / density / etc...) who will lead this to mappers having forced difficulties who won't fit the song at all to have a spread as rules expect (example : https://osu.ppy.sh/b/481272 / https://osu.ppy.sh/b/550579). So I don't think than you should force people do to a Hard / Insane in case of the songs can't support it, or allow them to fall under Marathon rule.
Last edited by Nozhomi , edited 1 time in total.
Lasse
Beatmap Nominator
3,596 posts
Joined June 2011
Lasse

Monstrata wrote:

1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.

2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.

agree with both of these, mainly the bold part

agree with Halfslashed's point about combining two songs, since there are a lot of cases where songs work much better if you combine them, just look at https://osu.ppy.sh/s/100348 which would be affected by this change since it technically combines two songs, it's split like this https://i.imgur.com/3fhDLNU.jpg on the album. where the actual kanshou no matenrou starts at 00:43:271 -


also with how this change is currently, if you're mapping a song that is just slightly above 3:30 you wouldn't be allowed to put breaks on your hard diff because then it wouldn't reach the drain minimum to not need a normal.
For example https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1072897 higher diffs on this are ~3:40, so lowest diff could be a hard, but then diffs below another are <3:30.
Or https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1590239 where Insane+ diffs are all above 3:30, but hard is 3:29 due to breaks.
Breaks can be very important on <Insane diffs of this length and this would discourage using them, so I think this should somehow be accounted for, but I can't really come up with a nice solution right now.

Other drain time related spread changes look nice to me
TheKingHenry
1,666 posts
Joined October 2014
TheKingHenry

Nozhomi wrote:

There's some songs who don't support difficulties above Hard or Insane (depending of their BPM / density / etc...) who will lead this to mappers having forced difficulties who won't fit the song at all to have a spread as rules expect (example : https://osu.ppy.sh/b/481272 / https://osu.ppy.sh/b/550579). So I don't think than you should force people do to a Hard / Insane in case of the songs can't support it, or allow them to fall under Marathon rule.
Maybe I misunderstood something in your post, but I'm pretty sure this ain't forcing anyone to map those diffs or over them, but rather those diffs and under (for atleast the lowest diff); and thus in case of calmer songs having all diffs under those shouldn't be contradicting the idea of the wording there.

Halfslashed wrote:

I think an exception should be made for using two songs that were composed to transition into each other.
Same but not restricted to two, considering there's compositions consisting of more parts than that still working as one whole. Basically restricting this with any number shouldn't really be necessary. In most cases songs ain't so short that you'd need like half dozen to get to the 5 min mark (so it ain't really abusable anyways), so putting the max amount for this will only end up forbidding mapping some pieces as whole, while their length would be over the 5 mins for single-diff-mapset even without all parts.
Nozhomi
Global Moderator
4,568 posts
Joined May 2013
Nozhomi
[quote="TheKingHenry"]Maybe I misunderstood something in your post, but I'm pretty sure this ain't forcing anyone to map those diffs or over them, but rather those diffs and under (for atleast the lowest diff); and thus in case of calmer songs having all diffs under those shouldn't be contradicting the idea of the wording there.

I see what you mean, and yeah agree I'm retarded.
Tho my first point is still something we should considerate.
moonlightleaf
2,155 posts
Joined September 2011
moonlightleaf
Happy ! but if do this , e E&N diff will decrease ? (just imo

so i suggest if do TV size(<2min?) , should be map E N at least ?
-Arche
132 posts
Joined December 2014
-Arche

Lasse wrote:

Monstrata wrote:

1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.

2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.
agree with both of these, mainly the bold part

agree with Halfslashed's point about combining two songs, since there are a lot of cases where songs work much better if you combine them, just look at https://osu.ppy.sh/s/100348 which would be affected by this change since it technically combines two songs, it's split like this https://i.imgur.com/3fhDLNU.jpg on the album. where the actual kanshou no matenrou starts at 00:43:271 -


also with how this change is currently, if you're mapping a song that is just slightly above 3:30 you wouldn't be allowed to put breaks on your hard diff because then it wouldn't reach the drain minimum to not need a normal.
For example https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1072897 higher diffs on this are ~3:40, so lowest diff could be a hard, but then diffs below another are <3:30.
Or https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1590239 where Insane+ diffs are all above 3:30, but hard is 3:29 due to breaks.
Breaks can be very important on <Insane diffs of this length and this would discourage using them, so I think this should somehow be accounted for, but I can't really come up with a nice solution right now.

Other drain time related spread changes look nice to me
-Arche
132 posts
Joined December 2014
-Arche
When there is a loop in the song, or the album have an intro, and your song is 4:55, it's really bad to not been able anymore to extend it. R3 music box are really autistic way to extend because it have basically nothing to see with the original song, and an extend of 30 secondes aka 1/10 of the map, is not an extend anymore. Adding a loop in the song to reach 5 minutes is maybe lazy, but when its inaudible, this rules is just bad and wont help beginners mappers to rank there stuff. Making it more like a guideslines as said Monstrata or Lasse would be much better.
-Arche
132 posts
Joined December 2014
-Arche

peppy wrote:

Cutting shorter is done to make it more playable/suited to a rhythm game. Making longer is done to avoid mapping certain difficulties with basically no exception.
No, cutting a full version of a song to make it "tv size" is basically just been lazy to map a spread of 1:30 minutes for each diff despite a spread of 4:30 for each diff lol
pimp
1,417 posts
Joined April 2010
pimp

moonlightleaf wrote:

Happy ! but if do this , e E&N diff will decrease ? (just imo

so i suggest if do TV size(<2min?) , should be map E N at least ?
shorter songs will not be affected, anything shorter than 3:30 minutes will still have to follow the current spread rules
Mir
osu! Alumni
2,151 posts
Joined July 2016
Mir

timemon wrote:

I've only read the spread proposal. I quite like it, though 3:30 drain time is very hard to reach.

1) full ver maps have lots of break (because they don't have to care about drain time)
2) some full ver songs can be quite short (3:30 to 4:00) so they might even fail to hit the rules designed to help them.

Maybe adjust the drain time a bit? I think 3:00 is good for the lowest point.


I actually agree with this, full version songs are more likely to have breaks in them so having slight leeway for breaks in longer songs would be nice. Instead of 3:30 -> 4:30 -> 5:00, I would prefer 3:00 -> 4:00 -> 5:00. Not only is it more linear (there's a lot of room between 3:30-4:30 to require a hard but half that from 4:30-5:00 to require an insane) but it could also allow more breaks in 3:00+ songs.

This pretty much solves Lasse's concern I think?

Lasse wrote:

Breaks can be very important on <Insane diffs of this length and this would discourage using them, so I think this should somehow be accounted for, but I can't really come up with a nice solution right now.


The rest of the proposal I pretty much agree with.

The matter of Songs Compilation is kinda iffy. I think I agree most with what Monstrata wrote:

Monstrata wrote:

1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.

2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.


I wouldn't say mp3 extensions are always bad, because sometimes songs are literally milliseconds away from being 5 minutes long, and a small extension would be fine in that case if it's natural or unnoticeable. I also think crossfades can vary in quality so I agree having it as a guideline works much better than as a rule.

As for "EN diffs will decrease" nobody is forcing people not to make difficulties lower than a hard/insane for songs that don't require them, if mappers want to continue mapping low diffs for those songs they are free to do so. Most newer players don't play long songs and don't stay around Easy/Normal level for too long anyways so for mappers that like to do less work I view this more as a QOL option.

Regarding Nozhomi's concern about participation, I think having the spread rules more lenient would encourage mappers to make more diffs themselves since they don't have to map as much. At least, that's how it would affect me most likely. Getting GDs wouldn't be so high priority if you only had to map two difficulties as opposed to 4 perhaps.

That's about all that's on my mind right now... :?
Last edited by Mir , edited 3 times in total.
-Mo-
Nomination Assessment Team
953 posts
Joined December 2012
-Mo-
Had a chance to play around with map data now thanks to x86's TSV. I personally think that there should be some adjustments to the proposal.

I just finished gathering the research and writing the script for my next video on song length (relevant polls here and here), and the conclusion is that most players when it comes to enjoyment prefer full length songs over shortened versions. A lot of the time full length songs do go above 3:30 in length.

Fancy graphs

Figure 1: Scatter plots of plays against song length for each difficulty. Red line is the current proposal's cut-off point for the respective difficulty.


Figure 2: Single scatter plot of plays against song length for Normal difficulties between 0 to 6 minutes and up to 6 million plays.


Figure 3: Same, but for Hard diff.


Looking at figure 1, it is true that the longer the map length, the less likely that the map becomes super popular, but keep in mind that this could be due to there being less maps in the 4 minute range compared to maps in the 1:30-2 minute range (see: these). It's unreasonable to say that lower level difficulties in the 4 minute range don't get played at all, because they clearly do. In figure 2 you can see that there are still a good handful of normal diffs with at least 250k plays in to 3:30 to 4, with a few being above 1 million plays.

The main concern for me is locking out those 3:30-4:00 songs from the newbie players, since they still do play them, and the jump from normal to hard can be difficult for some players because of how large that gap can be compared to other difficulty gaps.

You could say that we already have a large number of ranked normal difficulties in the game already, but this is a long-term change for the game, and mapping standards and quality change over time. Most of us would recommend a newbie player to play something ranked within the last few years rather than something from say 2009, for example.

Suggestions:

- Move the cut-off point for Normal difficulties up to 4:00. I think this is a more reasonable place to put it given the demand for full length songs.

- Add a new guideline that relaxes what a reasonable spread is for maps above 3:00. This is my compromise for raising the normal diff cut-off. One of the problems mappers face is having a low level normal diff and a high level hard diff, and requiring either remaps of the current diffs or the addition of an advanced diff to fill the gap. This problem is amplified for longer maps because more effort etc etc. This new guideline would allow spreads with wider gaps between each difficulty, lowering the workload on the mapper by not having to worry about spread too much and having less drain time to map whilst keeping maps accessible for lower level players.

- An (unwritten) guideline should be added/agreed for bundled maps or maps of featured artists to require normal spreads. It's probably no surprise that the most played maps in the game are the bundled default maps, and more specifically the lower level difficulties of those maps, since those are usually the first maps one plays when they first download the game. To me it wouldn't make sense to add official/bundled content into the game that isn't accessible to newbies.

I should say that I'm all for the general direction of this proposal. I just want to be weary about this sort of change since it's going to have a long term effect on the content we get in this game.
Last edited by -Mo- , edited 1 time in total.
show more
Please sign in to reply.

New reply

0
156 / 360