hey how's it goin

during the rc overhaul back in 20whateverteen rc guidelines were revamped to function more or less as rules except for pretty clearly laid out circumstances. however, there are a bunch of guidelines atm that do not get this treatment, instead being pretty frequently ignored. this is posing a lot of trouble for enforcement of the more mandated guidelines, in particular the lowdiff guidelines, as people try to claim things are "just a guideline" so they can ignore it as they please. so uh let's do some cleanup of the guidelines to:

1. get rid of/repurpose obsolete ones
2. clarify exemption cases like we've been doing for newer guidelines

this thread is for osu! gamemode guidelines

general guidelines:
"You should not silence both slider ticks and slider slides together. Silencing both can be fitting when ticks cover no sounds, but doing so otherwise is not acceptable."
as far as i know this is not enforced at all, but i dont know of any recent examples where silencing both for no reason occurs.

"Avoid visually obstructing reverse arrows on sliders with other hit objects in the default or beatmap-specific skin. Covering up reverse arrows on sliders can result in sliders being ambiguous to read."
this is not enforced at all on higher difficulties. this should be repurposed into diff-specific guidelines where it is more useful. alternatively, edge cases where it is acceptable should be defined in a way better than "not ambiguous to read", because that is not enforceable.

"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."
this is not enforced at all on higher difficulties. this should be repurposed into diff-specific guidelines where it is more useful.

"All circles and slider heads should be snapped to distinct sounds in the music. Adding hit objects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in unfitting rhythms."
uh this isn't really enforced but it's just kinda accepted as "dont make a bad map lol"? not sure what to do here, it gets broken enough that i'd say remove it but it's kinda nice to have around for when something is inexcusably unfitting.. /shrug

"Avoid using combo colours, slider borders or hitcircleoverlays with ~50 luminosity or lower. Dark colours like these impact readability of approach circles with low background dim and the other elements partially give up their functions as borders."
"Avoid using combo colours with ~220 luminosity or higher during kiai times. They create bright pulses which can be unpleasant to the eyes."
these 2 probably need their own discussion thread, they've been pretty heatedly discussed throughout 2018.

"Avoid overlapping hit objects with other elements of the default and beatmap-specific skins. This refers to all elements that are part of the interface and can be skinned."
this is not enforced at all, except maybe on lower difficulties if the bn feels like bringing it up. it should be removed or repurposed into diff-specific guidelines.

"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."
this is not enforced at all, especially the "short" part. it should be removed or reworked.

"Buzz sliders should have appropriate delay before the next note. 1/8 and 1/16 sliders should be followed by a 1/4 gap, whereas 1/12 sliders should be followed by a 1/6 gap. This ensures that the hit-window between hit objects is playable."
this guideline is not enforced at all. also hot take but this guideline is garbage and founded on false understandings of playability. the hitwindow between hit objects is always playable because osu can register 2 keypresses at the same time. it should be removed completely, or at least repurposed into diff-specific guidelines.

"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."
this guideline is retarded and should be removed. it's also not enforced at all.

"Avoid using similar combo colours in successive combos. Players should be able to differentiate between different combos in a beatmap."
this guideline either needs better reasoning behind it (high level players in fact do not need to differentiate combos because they're going to click in order regardless) or needs to be removed or repurposed into diff-specific guidelines.

"Avoid replacing the hit finish in soft/normal samplesets with frequently used custom hit sound samples. Using these finishes to represent snare/bass drums or a song's melody can sound obnoxious for anyone disabling beatmap hit sounds. Replacing hit whistles/claps is recommended because those samples are used more often."
this is a good guideline but it needs its edge cases added.


diff-specific guidelines:
easy:
"When distance snap is used, try to keep it between 0.8x and 1.2x. Values too much higher or lower may make the difference between slider velocity and spacing counterintuitive. A higher distance snap can be used to avoid overlapping, but the slider velocity should be increased if you find yourself doing this often."
this guideline is useless when a base sv is not specified. it is also really misleading and will not apply to most songs. it should be reworked or removed.

"Manipulating slider velocity is discouraged. Slider velocity should only be changed for sections of music with different pacings and should not be drastically variable."
should probably be rewritten to put more emphasis on the "drastically variable" part, since atm this says "dont manipulate sv oh but actually it's ok"

normal:
"When distance snap is used, try to keep it between 0.8x and 1.3x. Values too much higher or lower may make the difference between slider velocity and spacing counterintuitive. A higher distance snap can be used to avoid overlapping, but the slider velocity should be increased if you find yourself doing this often."
same as easy

"Avoid 1/2 hit objects after sliders which appear underneath the previous slider's path. Players at this level fully follow sliders’ paths, so placing a hit object directly after the slider is more intuitive. This also includes stacks underneath slider ends."
this hasn't been enforced very well for some time now, it should either be enforced more or removed or reworked.

"Stacks are acceptable, but avoid switching between 1/1 and 1/2 stacks repeatedly. This may cause reading issues for new players, since two different rhythms are visually the same."
this is not being enforced heavily at the moment, except for maybe at the bn level. it should be either removed or reworded or more heavily enforced.

"Manipulating slider velocity is discouraged. Slider velocity should only be changed for sections of music with different pacings and should not be drastically variable."
same as easy

lowestdiff normal:
"Avoid slider velocity above 1.3x."
im preeeetty sure this needs to be reworked to deal with the lack of base sv specifications? or am i being dumb rn

insane:
"Avoid unjustified spikes in difficulty. Difficulty should be representative of the song's intensity."
shouldn't this be a general guideline? i mean it applies to the lower diffs too.....

expert:
"Avoid unjustified spikes in difficulty. Difficulty should be representative of the song's intensity."
same as insane

"Approach Rate / Overall Difficulty should be 8 or higher."
seems this is not enforced at all after squirrel's lindwurm got ranked. needs to be redone.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"Approach Rate / Overall Difficulty should be 8 or higher."
seems this is not enforced at all after squirrel's lindwurm got ranked. needs to be redone.

it is a guideline not a rule no? I mean I think the guideline can be more descriptive as to why you increase the AR but otherwise I think its fine, cuz he broke the "guideline" for a "reason"

if there is any "reason" for the guideline then it's not functioning properly as the guideline. i may as well give my reason for using ar2 as "oh the sky's blue"

a viable reason for breaking that guideline should be clarified in the guideline itself or it is a needless guideline as explained in the op post

"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."
this should be reinforced in lowers diff as shorts combos could make it harder to read for newbies, as for higher diffs like hard or more, this guideline is basically ignored so it should be diff-specific

realy0_ 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."
this should be reinforced in lowers diff as shorts combos could make it harder to read for newbies, as for higher diffs like hard or more, this guideline is basically ignored so it should be diff-specific

seems like a good idea to me~

"Time-distance equality should be used. Variations are acceptable if they are clearly different from spacing used for different rhythms. When hit objects are more than 1 beat apart and have relatively high spacing on the playfield, time-distance equality does not need to be as precise."

i dont do this in my ranked lower diffs anymore ergo we should adjust it https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/725431#osu/1531714 :^)

Smokeman wrote:

"Time-distance equality should be used. Variations are acceptable if they are clearly different from spacing used for different rhythms. When hit objects are more than 1 beat apart and have relatively high spacing on the playfield, time-distance equality does not need to be as precise."

i dont do this in my ranked lower diffs anymore ergo we should adjust it https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/725431#osu/1531714 :^)

i know you're trying to be funny but time-distance equality != uniform distance spacing settings. time-distance equality just means "1/1 is overall further than 1/2, etc." the mapset you linked has very viable normal and hard diffs under the current guidelines

"Time-distance equality should be used. Variations are acceptable if they are clearly different from spacing used for different rhythms. When hit objects are more than 1 beat apart and have relatively high spacing on the playfield, time-distance equality does not need to be as precise."

this needs some more clarity imo, especially since https://osu.ppy.sh/s/742570 low diffs were ranked. at all. I think specifying that for the rhythm that a specific difficulty is used to introduce. i.e. 1/2 beats in normal, there should be clear time -distance equality. That way its more clear that similar spacing can be used for for 1/1 and 2/1 or 1/1 and 3/1

it works (sort of) because of OD/AR settings and heavy focus the tutorial has on reading approach circles.

(so normal diff wouldn't need much for 1/1 to 2/1 distinction but more so for 1/1 and 3/2 or 1/1 and 1/2 distinction)

UndeadCapulet wrote:

Smokeman wrote:

"Time-distance equality should be used. Variations are acceptable if they are clearly different from spacing used for different rhythms. When hit objects are more than 1 beat apart and have relatively high spacing on the playfield, time-distance equality does not need to be as precise."

i dont do this in my ranked lower diffs anymore ergo we should adjust it https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/725431#osu/1531714 :^)

i know you're trying to be funny but time-distance equality != uniform distance spacing settings. time-distance equality just means "1/1 is overall further than 1/2, etc." the mapset you linked has very viable normal and hard diffs under the current guidelines

you could look at the map lol.

Either way i just wanted to make fun of the reasoning you provided in some of your initial points. A guideline is not meant to be followed by every map and having a good reason to not follow it doesnt devalue a guideline.
I would like you to provide better reasoning against some of those guidelines yourself.
As yahuri wrote "they're more of a "best practices" thing, and would probably be helpful for newer mappers."
I would actually be against removing the guideline i mentioned above for the same reason...

Smokeman wrote:

As yahuri wrote "they're more of a "best practices" thing, and would probably be helpful for newer mappers."
I would actually be against removing the guideline i mentioned above for the same reason...

The issue is that creates essentially 2 categories of guidelines, the ones that would be rules if not for circumstances that make it not possible, ie spinner recovery and different BPM and u have the hey new mappers here's some stuff for u. The fact is, very often, people mix up which are which, as the hey new mappers guidelines can be often very easily broken, and people assume oh hey this can be easily broken so I can also easily break this guideline. Having 2 categories of guidelines at varying degrees of breakability is confusing as hell, and isn't a good thing to keep in the RC. Referring to this post: https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/p/6948241 it even seems like having these 2 types of guidelines together was only temporary, and a hey new mappers wiki would be made instead.

So this thread is basically echoing this, and making sure that the guidelines kept at the ones that actually require reasoning to break, and aren't just barely enforceable tips for new mappers.

okay now onto the actual stuff

UndressedCatapult wrote:

"All circles and slider heads should be snapped to distinct sounds in the music. Adding hit objects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in unfitting rhythms."
uh this isn't really enforced but it's just kinda accepted as "dont make a bad map lol"? not sure what to do here, it gets broken enough that i'd say remove it but it's kinda nice to have around for when something is inexcusably unfitting.. shrug

Like u said, this one is kinda nice to keep just in case of really bad cases, it's not the best, but it remains still kinda useful. Would be better keeping imo

UnderseasonedSubcult wrote:

"Avoid using combo colours, slider borders or hitcircleoverlays with ~50 luminosity or lower. Dark colours like these impact readability of approach circles with low background dim and the other elements partially give up their functions as borders."
"Avoid using combo colours with ~220 luminosity or higher during kiai times. They create bright pulses which can be unpleasant to the eyes."
these 2 probably need their own discussion thread, they've been pretty heatedly discussed throughout 2018.

These could easily be merged into one rule idk. Also one of the things often overlooked in combo colours is this specific rule:

Each beatmap must use at least two different custom combo colours unless the default skin is forced. The combo colours must not blend with the beatmap's background/storyboard/video in any case. This is so hit objects are always visible to the player and custom skin's combo colours do not blend with the background accidentally.

especially that second line, The combo colours must not blend with the beatmap's background/storyboard/video in any case. I feel like most often when bad combo colours arise, they almost always break this part of the rule, having very dark combo colours that blend in perfectly with a dark background, most commonly with dark blues. I feel like this line should be moved into the dark combo colours rule instead of that first one, as I feel that way more ppl would actually enforce it, and it just fits more for it to be there instead of with the this needs combo colours rules. idk maybe I just get tilted at combo colours too much

I agree with realy on the combo length being moved to Normal/Easy specific guidelines
Also agree with the rest of the stuff in the original post I think I'm still half awake. This is a really needed clean up, thanks UC

"Avoid using combo colours, slider borders or hitcircleoverlays with ~50 luminosity or lower. Dark colours like these impact readability of approach circles with low background dim and the other elements partially give up their functions as borders."
"Avoid using combo colours with ~220 luminosity or higher during kiai times. They create bright pulses which can be unpleasant to the eyes."

Hey, there is nothing wrong with these guidelines. They're fine as they are.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

general guidelines:
"Avoid visually obstructing reverse arrows..."
"Avoid perfectly overlapping slider bodies..."
--> added diffspecific exceptions. for reverse arrows, insane/extra's wordings don't consider sliderbodies as "covered". i think the limits fit with how people map, but theyre worth double checking

"All circles and slider heads should be snapped to distinct sounds..."
--> not removing this one. tasteful overmapping cant be easily defined so best to use mapper judgement

"Avoid using combo colours..."
i dont see a suggestion for these?

"Avoid overlapping hit objects with other elements..."
"Ensure that your combos are not unreasonably short or long..."
--> moved to e/n

"Avoid replacing the hit finish in soft/normal samplesets..."
this is a good guideline but it needs its edge cases added.
--> its ok when it isnt obnoxious? depends on the song, not sure how to add edge cases

diff-specific guidelines:
easy:
"When distance snap is used, try to keep it between 0.8x and 1.2x..."
this guideline is useless when a base sv is not specified. it is also really misleading and will not apply to most songs. it should be reworked or removed.
the point is to not have big variation between slider movement and between-object movement, dont think sv is related

"Manipulating slider velocity is discouraged..."
--> stuck "frequently in front, should get the intended idea across

normal:
"Stacks are acceptable, but avoid switching between 1/1 and 1/2 stacks repeatedly..."
this is not being enforced heavily at the moment, except for maybe at the bn level. it should be either removed or reworded or more heavily enforced.
maybe i dont see enough normals. where is this being ignored?

lowestdiff normal:
"Avoid slider velocity above 1.3x."
--> this is referring to base*greenline sv, not only multiplier

"Approach Rate / Overall Difficulty should be 8 or higher."
seems this is not enforced at all after squirrel's lindwurm got ranked. needs to be redone.
--> rather not remove this. the referenced map was nearly raised to the guideline's limit anyway (and should have been higher imo)

unmentioned things were changed as described in first post https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/2156

merged