I got some additional things to mention about the highest difficulty, however some of these things apply for the other difficulties too. I won't mention points Nozhomi already mentioned, but I agree with all of his points.
- 00:03:557 (2) - Seems inconsistent to have a slider here, since you didn't use one before on 00:00:843 (2,3) -. Circles fit a lot better here because all the sounds are equal.
- 00:05:592 (1,2) - Would be nice if there was a small jump between these too like 00:07:118 (1,2) - 00:08:306 (1,2) - to seperate the different vocal phrases.
- 00:06:949 (4,1) - These NCs should be swapped.
- 00:21:026 - Since the first drum beat is here, I would start mapping here instead of at the next beat.
- 00:57:152 (1,2) - A rather minor point, but the overlap of these sliders doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing. In my opinion, it would look better to stack the tails or to not have the tails overlap at all, like this: http://osu.ppy.sh/ss/7142807 Same applies for 01:40:572 (1,2) -
- 01:14:791 (1,2) - I would use an 1/1-slider instead of these objects. Reason is that there is a long vocal here compared to 01:13:435 (1,2) -, so using the same rhythms in both of these measures feels awkward. Changing the rhythm as I suggested would make it clear that both measures are different from each other.
- 01:50:578 (3,4,5,6,7) - I don't agree with how these objects follow the 'sound' in the music. The rhythm you used in Insane fits it much better, because it's a more or less continous sound. The 1/4-sliders put a lot of emphasis on these beats 01:50:748 - 01:50:918 - 01:51:087 - which doesn't make much sense.
- 01:54:140 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) - That's quite a weird rhythm for this section. The rhythm puts heavy emphasis on the white ticks but less emphasis on the red ticks. None of the instrument in the music focuses so heavily on white ticks here, though, so I recommend you to redo this rhythm and base it on one of the instruments present in the song, for example the drums, which would mean making 01:54:649 - 01:55:327 - etc. clickable.
- 02:09:065 (1,2,3,4) - Adding on to what Nozhomi said, I think you should have objects for each of the drum beats here, otherwise it sounds undermapped since you followed the drums before. You can still emphasize the vocals by using sliderends where there are no vocals: http://puu.sh/tyo2K/57c44f8d39.jpg
- 02:40:273 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,1) - You emphasized the change of intensity in the stream nicely with this angle change and new combo 02:40:951 - , however something similar happens at 02:40:612 - so it would be nice to have an angle change and a new combo there, too.
My main concern about this difficulty is related to rhythm emphasis. It applies to the prechoruses (for example 00:32:729 - to 00:42:227 - ) and the chorus sections themselves. The rhythm density here is pretty high with a lot of 1/2-only sections such as 00:34:086 (1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - 00:44:941 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6) - and more. What's bothering me is that those rhythms follow multiple layers of the song at once, and it's not really clear what rhythm is prioritizing. Let me explain this in more detail:
For the prechorus-sections such as 00:32:729 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5) - , the rhythms feel too dense to me. You followed a mix of vocals and drums in the verses, but both are less dense in the prechoruses, so it would make more sense to have less dense rhythms here, too. It would be nice if you could use more 1/1-sliders here to follow the long vocals.
For the choruses, denser rhythms make sense because the song is more intense here. However, a long section consisting of circles and 1/2-sliders means that most beats are clickable, but some are not (the slider tails). Clicking puts more emphasis on the sounds, so the player would expect slidertails on less strong sounds. However, in these sections the slider-circle-composition looks rather random and it's not really clear what is being emphasized. Examples:
- 00:44:093 (2,3,4,5,6) - You are using a circle pattern here, which follows everything in the music at once. Vocals are at the red ticks, drums are mostly at the white ticks. It would make more sense to focus on one layer (preferably the vocals because you emphasize them at other sections and even in the kiais too, like 00:43:584 (1) - ) and place sliders starting on the strong beats of that layer.
- 00:44:941 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5) - Here, you are using sliders too, but it isn't really clear what they follow either.
- 00:47:654 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) - I like these circle patterns with the special hitsounds. They don't emphasize anything particular in the music, but they serve well as transitions and fit to the mood of the song. If you adjust the rhythms that I am pointing out so they follow a specific layer of the song, these sections will stick out even more when playing and feel more awesome to play :b
- 00:49:011 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5) - These are rather weird again, though, as it's not clear what is being followed here.
The same applies to the other chorus sections. The rhythm issues apply to Insane too, overall.
Some people talked to me already about having similar concerns with this map. I think your mapping style has a lot of potential and you already spend a lot of effort on this mapset, however I think that fixing up those rhythms is needed to push this map into ranked. If my explanations were unclear or you want to discuss these, feel free to contact me ingame and we'll talk it over!
Good luck
it used to feel awesome, perfect. It should've been ranked at that time, before they made you change it so much.
