I think the more important question to be discussed here is what the purpose of the ranked section is. Is it meant to be a curated category for the best maps, or simply allow anything that abides by the ranking criteria?

Proposals like this scream the former. However, we've reached this point because there's been an unclear message from the top about what the ranked section should be, so BNs have been functioning based on their own opinions. Should BNs who believe that any map that abides by the ranking criteria be kicked? Not necessarily, if NATs take a firm stance on what the ranked section should be, and offers a grace period for supposedly "low-standard" BNs to improve their nomination catalogue if it's the former.

At the end of the day, we need a system to fight against doing the bare minimum and provide rewards to those who are high achievers. Right now the bar is set pretty low with how minimal the ranking criteria is (other than low difficulties), so it should not be surprising issues like this are being confronted. Perhaps it's time to bring the ranking criteria under intense scrutiny?

Returning to the post itself, I don't believe any map is unsalvageable. What do experienced mappers tell newer mappers when they inevitable create a messy, unpolished map? Remap. Vetoes should be more generalized in order to cover harsher cases like this instead of implementing a new, scarily powerful system just to say "remap lol." From what I've read about past vetoes, beside all of the complaining about work and writing times, is that they work when upheld. No one is allowed to nominate an upheld veto unless it is uplifted, and the mapper is responsible for making the changes outlined by the vetoer. If the map truly is blatant, lazy pp garbage, what's the likelihood the mapper will care enough to dramatically change their map?

Example vetoes that worked: beatmapsets/1116349/discussion/2332088/general#/1905819 (never ranked)
beatmapsets/1229837/discussion/-/generalAll#/1906056 (ranked but nerfed significantly)
beatmapsets/1059836/discussion/-/generalAll#/1538418 (never ranked)
beatmapsets/1334617/discussion/-/generalAll#/2081343 (never ranked)

The backlash part is the only thing I can agree with. BNs should not feel scared about vetoing maps they believe have considerable quality issues, even if that's effectively overriding their colleague's opinions.

VINXIS wrote:

awayuru wrote:

mux wrote:

Wtf? just don't rank the map if it's bad lol.

Mapping drama rate declines to 0% 📉📉📉

I mean u joke but this is quite literally possible with work on better systems for encouragement of discussion instead of these vetting system proposals

this thread is kinda funy nocap. I feel like vetoes r already similar to the nuke function but this feels really meh considering there was definitely a reason it was removed in the first place. 2 bns nominated a map and if the map gets dq'd by a veto i think that is a similar process for the nuke. if this kind of thing happens what happens to the bns involved in nominating the map??

there's so many unknown variables tht come into play when u think about randomly assigned voting n stuff to handle "nukes", they just seem toxic overall (unironically).

in short i dont think any1 needs a nuke button unless ur looking to a sugarcoated remap maybe or else idk

Deca wrote:

some maps are simply unsuited for rank and to imply otherwise is to imply that a BN can mod someone's first map into rankability.

this is literally what BNs are supposed to be able to do lol.

there are no unsalvageable maps for rank unless the person outright refuses to listen to feedback to make it so that it fits the quality standard for ranking.

this proposal is just bad.

this proposal is hilariously bad

first of all: what would even be considered unsalvageable? and who is going to decide what is salvageable and what isn't?

second: the same way ranking the map is a social thing, playing the game is too. if the map brings enjoyment to the communtiy AND doesn't abuse the pp system, what's the point of nuking it? are you mapping because you want to get respect from other mappers or because, you know, you want to make content for a video game? which is supposed to be fun?

if the map abides by the ranking criteria and does not abuse the mechanics and systems the game has (pp farm and exploits), there is absolutely ZERO reason for nuking the map, especially if the reason is that a bunch of people in BNG, of which like half barely plays the game, let's be real (situation in other modes is a bit better) decided that.

moreover, the veto system is already in place. just use that for shit that actually matters. and regarding the "effort" point: that's even more ridiculous, like... if you can't articulate properly the reason you don't want to see the map in ranked, then just, you know, don't veto/nuke it? yes, BNs are volunteers. but they signed up for this themselves.

Adding a nuke function collides with the scope of upheld vetos, as both disallows a map any nominations. Also, veto meditation provided something for in-house discussion, so in this respect, the nuke process as what is said in the proposal is effectively "veto and direct to meditation".

But then if there is a chance that mapper can still be discussed with...shouldn't a group of people on the NAT/BN Discord agreeing that a map should be vetoed be enough?

On the nuke button...Can we really reject the possibility of the fame of a mapper determining the outcome of the discussion, with [name a famous mapper]'s map of inferior quality not nuked while that of [some random guy] of a similar quality got nuked?

Agree with fieryrage.

Uberzolik wrote:

is there any documentation for when and why the old nuke function was removed?

(don't quite me on this but) iirc there has never been any dedicated "nuke function" of this sort to begin with tho... from my hazy memory in the v1/old forum days to "nuke" a map in this sense (i.e. as NatsumeRin did with his Justice Breaker for example, not the kind of nuking that deletes the map from existence right away) you'll need to

1) mark the beatmap's discussion thread manually with a nuke symbol (if you're someone who's been into old bbs/forum systems in the past you should know what i'm referring about here)

2) lock the discussion thread (also manually) so that the beatmap can't be updated from the game client and the posts in the thread can't be edited

---

as for the proposed idea itself i... don't know really. it's clear that the response to the proposal has been divisive and i'm inclined to simply watch how things unfold for now ;~;

Personally don’t think this would fix or that anything will fix the ranked section. Too man people have differing opinions on ranked quality and unless peppy came out and gave super detailed instructions on what boundaries are for good and bad we will likely never agree.

The button is a cool idea but in reality you have no idea how it will work with there being a wide range of opinions in the BNG. You would either make every Nominator think the same and homogenize the group or nothing will ever be nuked because people will not be able to agree. Not to mention some people might just be inclined to be biased towards their friends so they convince others to vote otherwise.

Myxo wrote:

no
don't keep maps from ranked, literally everything that bns have shown interest in in "salvageable" in some way. maybe not for you personally but for the community as a whole it should be. thinking otherwise is just extremely elitist

this is the only true answer, stop trying to extend your reach

Actually this is also pretty based

VINXIS wrote:

also start fucking deciding if ranked is supposed to be a form of "quality standard" that BNs should be having or if its just "follow RC lol " and have that actually drilled into people's heads everywhere so we are all on the same page for once

who in their right mind thinks that forcing mappers to remap is a good idea? why do we want to set systems in place that divide us even more? where does the sudden urge to enforce quality control come from when its been pretty tame this year? i dont mind seeing maps i disagree with in the ranked section since theres always people that take inspirarion from it

we're going from "cool, map ur own shit and have fun" to "please the big guys and dont do risky stuff" once again

i have trouble seeing a healthy mapper environment where we could benefit from one another in such system.

feels unnecessary imo, i mean sure add it. it doesnt really solve much

and since osu is a community driven game, what defines an unsalvageable map?

most maps have pros and cons, and everyone has different views of whats good and bad, so how is any map getting nuked going to satisfy all parties?

we already have the current sections for maps that may not necessarily fit for ranked like loved, and graved. so adding this nuke feature is kinda pointless

agree with fiery, and as fixxis mentioned, theres the problem of biasness coming into hand when bns want to avoid the nuke for their mapper friends.

warning: this post is rather free thoughts so it might feel a little chaotic

The nuke option

i will assume the goal of this feature is to ensure generally higher quality of ranked section, therefore i don't think it's gonna change much

a) a really small amount of beatmaps would actually be voted out believe (don't really see a lot of cases where most of bng would agree on a map being "unsalvageable"). it's likely not going to result in a longstanding quality of ranked and instead will eliminate only very rare edge cases

b) it's likely (compared to vetoes) not time consuming at all. if certain people would start doing kind of QA checks to find "unsalvageable" beatmaps, they could as well just go ahead and report 10 maps a day (even with some proper reasonings), doubt bns would like to have to vote on tons of maps a week, at some point it can just become a mandatory quality assurance for beatmap nominators (which are likely meant to/interested on nominating beatmaps instead), also a lot of workload for nat that'd check every report

tl;dr it's very likely not only time consuming but also pointless (considering how big is a chance for a map to be voted out) - i believe that's the current problem with vetoes

instead, i would suggest working on generally improving the system, since i feel this entire nuke button is just a quick fix for serious issues ongoing

Improving the system to achieve higher quality

Kibbleru wrote:

Just prevent this issue altogether by dealing with bad BNs.
Well, main metric for this would to see who nominated maps that got DQ'd, however, DQs of this type are not happening in general. Nukes that go through could also be treated as such metric.

i don't think any of these could be a possible metric for being a "bad bn", DQs are mostly RC criteria, while nukes would be just really a few of cases. to judge who's actually incompetent as a bn, you'd need an actual active quality assurance which doesn't exist in the current system (almost nobody's interested on doing qah checks, and even if someone does, they will likely check for unrankable things mostly).

to achieve a quality ranked section, you need to have a quality and active QA.

some free suggestion of how this could be achieved of mine:

1. have a separated set of people responsible for overseeing the qualified section (yes, something like old QAT) that would be made of the best bns (based on their nomination/modding quality etc) which wouldn't have to nominate beatmaps and their responsibility would be just to check qualified maps. if you reward it with some cool badge, forum title or something like that and make it somehow elitist (not everyone could join), pretty sure people would be interested in competing for such position (which would affect ranked section positively as well, since they'd put more effort into modding/nominating). their checks would affect bn evaluations, that could be a better metric than dqs or nukes. (participation in such a thing could also make chances for becoming a nat higher so people would be interested even more)

i know it can sound a little unrealistic or something, but keep in mind it's just a free general thought of kinda complex thing, not gonna write up a 10 pages long proposal for now.

I don't really see where this is coming from?

What seems odd to me is the reasons for why this was deemed necessary.

"Vetoes for maps with quality issues are very time consuming to write and mediate. This makes it so that very few people are willing to actually go through this process."
- If there are serious quality issues, someone will probably take their time to do so. If they care enough. Making this easier will just lead to a big overload of nukes because it's so easy.

"For maps with serious quality issues, vetoes are often not going to solve anything. Even if the veto mediation goes through, the mapper usually just resolves whatever example points that were posted in the veto, and in the end doesn't actually fix anything important."
- I don't get it? If the main concern of the veto isn't fixed, even though the mediation upheld the veto, the veto is still not resolved. How does it not fix anything important when the veto got resolved?

"Some maps are just simply unsalvageable, but it's not appropriate to ask them to remap in a veto."
- If the map is unsalvageable, or simply put, "too bad" for being ranked, it shouldn't get 2 BNs that are willing to nominate it in its current state. This is more something about the BNs than the map itself in my opinion.

"Some maps are just simply unsalvageable, but it's not appropriate to ask them to remap in a veto."
- Make it an anonymous feature on the BN website. A NAT could then proceed to DQ a map with a reason like "This map received an anonymous veto" and paste the concerns of the vetoing BN in that message. When the mapper disagrees it goes it's normal way into mediation.

However I might not fully get the idea behind this, so take this with a grain of salt :3c

im honestly suprised vetoes arent anonymous, seems like this system would work much better if that were put in place
some bns are scared to veto maps that they have a problem with, this should be addressed

Seems like a waste of developers' time to me. The 'problems' (some more debatable than others) with quality in Ranked are more so due to a major variation in opinion from BN to BN - no beatmap, no matter how bad it is, has implications for Ranked until they are qualified (or at least nominated), of course. There's clearly a discrepancy between what counts as quality between BNs - simply because there's so many and they are all human, as well as there being no obvious standard (for good reason).

Also, as previously mentioned, if a map is unsalvageable, then WHY WOULD TWO BNS NOMINATE IT? If you want to say "I think these BN's decision to nominate this is shit", there's already have a method for that. It's called a veto. You'd still have to deal with explaining your reasons behind a nuke, because perhaps the shittiest thing you can do to the mapper and BNs is to just say "yeah your map and the map you nominated sucks but we're not gonna discuss it's just bad Lol."

You, as a member of the NAT, have the discretion to decide whether a BN is doing a good job or not. This seems like a lame excuse to kick the can down the road when you or the community as a whole doesn't like what a BN has been nominating. "The majority of the community has been disliking the majority of what you've been promoting" or "The NAT has decided that your choices for maps to nominate are too controversial/low-quality/against what we are aiming for in Ranked" are perfectly valid reason to reprimand a BN should you so desire for the sake of quality in the ranked section, if you believe said BN does not know what should be in Ranked/does not promote what you consider to be quality beatmaps. You have the absolute authority to use subjective discretion to determine whether a BN is promoting high quality beatmaps. Use it. An individual map is not, and has never been the problem.

If there were no development costs here, I'd say "fuck it why not", but this is a waste of time for the people that would have to develop this feature that would likely never be used.

Ninove wrote:

who in their right mind thinks that forcing mappers to remap is a good idea? why do we want to set systems in place that divide us even more? where does the sudden urge to enforce quality control come from when its been pretty tame this year? i dont mind seeing maps i disagree with in the ranked section since theres always people that take inspirarion from it

we're going from "cool, map ur own shit and have fun" to "please the big guys and dont do risky stuff" once again

i have trouble seeing a healthy mapper environment where we could benefit from one another in such system.

Quality control and enforcement has been a swinging pendulum since at least 2015 (I only say that because that's when I was first active). The QAT used to be fairly ruthless in subjective quality DQs, and as player backlash grew, the standards for Ranked have become more and more permissive. However, due to what a lot of people view as low quality beatmaps making it to Ranked, that pendulum is likely beginning its downswing into more strict quality control.

1103 wrote:

im honestly suprised vetoes arent anonymous, seems like this system would work much better if that were put in place

The QAT used to have an anonymized account and most people despised it, so it's probably best to avoid anonymity in this case.

So, my two cents.

This may address some concerns, such as effort required to submit vetoes, and potentially ease of voting for mediation. However, The BNG is too large and varied to determine a concrete quality standard (which has not been clearly defined), and as such I am concerned this could discourage variety. People are going to have different standards and values in mapping, and I wouldn't want to prevent people from pushing content they are passionate about.

Yes, mapping improvement is a good thing to see, though I don't know if this will address that properly. I don't know that we necessarily need an entirely new system to deal with the problem.

I'm not against working more on these systems further though, I understand there's a lot of mixed opinions on the matter.




As a side note, I thought what Venix had to say was interesting.

Bruh, and if the mapper want to remap all of the mapset?

actual /shrug moment

I mean sure
I don't think this is gonna solve anything or change anything really

The question of accountability remains unsolved here though

If a map is obliterated from existence, who is the person owning the thing supposed to ask to make sure their rework is less shit? Is it put up for yet another vote?

How is the ensuing shitstorm resulting from a nuke less overhead for the NAT? Last time I consciously remember a nuke it was posted to Monster Ratata's A-L-I-E-N or whatever (?) and that just resulted in 20 or so pages of wastelanded conversation on the forum, a ton of stress and a lot of locked conversations because shit was exploding left and right to then result in nothing being changed and the nuke lifted

I feel like we're gonna repeat tragic love memes at this point and honestly I'm down to see it happen

A map should only ever get "nuked" if it contains inappropriate content - but you should simply report the map to GMT in that case and poof, it's gone.
The other "case" I could remotely imagine is when the mapper is simply a massive dickhead about treating modders and tramples all over the code of conduct. But same thing here, certainly there are other ways to deal with such people and their maps than introducing a nuke button.

If you feel like osu! has a quality problem you should ask yourself whether a point system that encourages output quantity and at the same time causes people that repeatedly pick on what they feel is a quality issue in qualified maps to become public enemies because it would induce score penalties is a good system to encourage quality in the first place. I think it isn't.
This entire system is simply not laid-out for quality, it's not laid-out for collaboration and a nuke button won't make anything better. It would merely be a reaction to a symptom and an inefficient one too while leaving the root causes for low quality qualifications/rankings untouched.

As an example: I have been asked to resolve storyboard issues I opened on a qualified map because the BN would get a big score penalty if it would have been DQd again and there wouldn't be other BNs to requalify that map at a later point or whatever the exact reason was again. So the BN, the map host and the storyboarder were all like "please just resolve these or the set is set up for graveyard".
Regardless of whether I complied or not (I did): Would the same request have been made if there was no such thing as that penalty? I think not. How often does stuff like this happen under the radar?
This entire brownie points thing does not really seem to be working in the favor of quality, only in the favor of quantity.

Specifically on the implementation: A democratic vote will just cause some people to be like "oh hey, there's a map I don't care about, i'll just go through the motions, make my decision within 2min of fastforwarding through the map in editor and certainly I will receive points as a reward because if I don't, how is this even different from a veto and why should I even care about it".


Last but not least...
This is a bit besides the point but if you're looking to improve the quality of ranked beatmaps through a technical implementation I think you should rather look into replacing hypes with something relevant. I think in a decent % of cases, low quality qualifications happen because maps were only modded by the nominating BNs.
Introduce an actual requirement to have your map modded by a bunch of people similar to the old minimum +12 SP rule. Yes, that also had its own problems but at least stars weren't free like hypes are with Hype4Hype queues and everyone literally asking people to just hype their map when they don't even have to look at it. Even if it's not much, having 1-2 mods compared to having 7 mods on a map is still a big difference. And if you ask me it's not asking for too much to collect 5 mods before getting qualified at all.
Modding is - in a way - quality assurance.
Putting it in the first part of the nomination process definitely looks like the best way to brush up on the nominated maps that are on the lower quality end of the spectrum before they even reach qualification.

warning: wall for the perspective of how I think the system would apply to taiko. idk how useful it is, but put shortly I think this wouldn't be particularly useful for taiko, and at worst it could be misused. Admitedly I'm kinda neutral on this as I can't predict what would happen with the system in place. But it seems unnecessary to me.

controversial opinion, but I do think some maps that are mapped "correctly" don't really belong in the ranked section.

I personally think this would only be useful like once a year maybe in terms of taiko. And I'm worried it'd just be abused for standard. (though I can't say I'm very aware of the standard meta)

I can't necessarily comment on standard, but in terms of taiko I think it could be useful in like... two to three situations.

1) Assuming we want to make certain easy sets unrankable, I guess it'd be useful since those are subjective and BNs might want to go vote against it. I don't really see why these should be unrankable though.
2) Maps that are basically done in bad faith, but most of the time when this happens I think it's better to just warn/remove the offending BNs, at least for taiko. I guess a vote could happen for those cases but idk if the system is worth implementing for this.
3) Certain maps that are so unconventional they probably belong in loved assuming they get the popularity. I personally don't think these should be ranked, and there has been cases where this was attempted... but no BNs decided to rank it.

I can't imagine a case where a map is so "bad" despite two BNs nominating it, unless it was basically done in bad faith. I personally prefer the veto system if you're really questioning a map that got qualified and actually care about it getting better/whatever. I'm personally seeing this being borderline useless to being a problem for taiko ranking, hard to predict how the system will be used.

EDIT: I guess I will say that I do observe some maps I think could be polished more, but I doubt this system will make people actually care about those maps. (for taiko anyways) I ultimately don't think they hurt the game, either.

fieryrage wrote:

there are no unsalvageable maps for rank unless the person outright refuses to listen to feedback to make it so that it fits the quality standard for ranking.

this proposal is just bad.

Myxo wrote:

no
don't keep maps from ranked, literally everything that bns have shown interest in in "salvageable" in some way. maybe not for you personally but for the community as a whole it should be. thinking otherwise is just extremely elitist

these

quoting 11t from 2014

"creativity; stop killing it"

Prefer to say this system would not kill creativity, but I think it would almost solve nothing as there're only ~12 veto mediations per year (for std mode). What deemed painful for these 12 sets would still be a pain (imagine twitter s**tstorm after locking the thread). Probably the only thing that the system can significantly play an importance of is

1103 wrote:

some bns are scared to veto maps that they have a problem with, this should be addressed

but I think there may be some better ways by changing the veto system, possibly burden involved BNs with recheck/revote/etc. (remember we have only 12 mediations last year); also this would be much more friendly to web devs

1103 wrote:

some bns are scared to veto maps that they have a problem with, this should be addressed

If that is the problem, they shouldn't be BN in the first place, as their task is literally to check the quality of the map and veto it if it has flaws.
I really see no reason why a "nuke button" should be implemented, bacause maps that are fundamentally trash and unsalvageable shouldn't even be qualified in the first place. If that happens, the BNs that nominated the map are the reason and should be kicked. Also: maps can be disqualified, there is really no need to make another button that basically does the same.

mux wrote:

1103 wrote:

some bns are scared to veto maps that they have a problem with, this should be addressed

If that is the problem, they shouldn't be BN in the first place, as their task is literally to check the quality of the map and veto it if it has flaws.
I really see no reason why a "nuke button" should be implemented, bacause maps that are fundamentally trash and unsalvageable shouldn't even be qualified in the first place. If that happens, the BNs that nominated the map are the reason and should be kicked. Also: maps can be disqualified, there is really no need to make another button that basically does the same.

Though the community really likes to shame the uncommon-style maps such as beatmapsets/935707#osu/1967172 when they can't differentiate it with the actual bad maps, that's the main problem to me

- Mahiro - wrote:

Though the community really likes to shame the uncommon-style maps such as beatmapsets/935707#osu/1967172 when they can't differentiate it with the actual bad maps, that's the main problem to me

There are comments saying both. The ratings show most people like the map


Kinda weird how few people can make everybody else think people hate the map. It's always easy to get fixated on why something shouldn't be. People should think instead what it can bring to the table for people who like it.

let ppl upload what they want smh

Kibbleru wrote:

There has been some internal discussion about the potential implementation of a nuke button for maps that are deemed to be unsalvageable. [...] Even if you disagree with the implementation, does anyone disagree that a nuke button should exist?

waste of dev time. could almost not care less cuz these arcane ranking features used on the magnitude of once per month do absolutely nothing to guide ranked in any direction and they're not much more than facades of rationale to be used for "controversial" issues/maps that aren't actually dramatic if any1 could be not retarded on these forums

abraker wrote:

- Mahiro - wrote:

Though the community really likes to shame the uncommon-style maps such as beatmapsets/935707#osu/1967172 when they can't differentiate it with the actual bad maps, that's the main problem to me

There are comments saying both. The ratings show most people like the map


Kinda weird how few people can make everybody else think people hate the map. It's always easy to get fixated on why something shouldn't be. People should think instead what it can bring to the table for people who like it.

Didn't notice that rating exist www

Deca wrote:

the "everything is subjective and X doesn't matter argument" gave us so many insanely low quality maps that were pushed through with this justification because it wasn't quashed immediately, to the point where modern mapping discourse has devolved into a competition of who can stonewall the hardest/scream the loudest. (cxu guren no yumiya, every hailie map ever, etc etc.)?

Lol ok, I thought people were dancing around just going out and saying "i want an anti hailie button" nice to get confirmation on that.

also guren no yumiya (the one by undeadcapulet, i assume) is great, I remember playing and loving that map, wish it was still up t bh. It's a shame what happened to it

Hey folks instead of pressing a nuke button when you decide the map sucks, you go to a different map that you like better, wow, it's really not that hard. Not every map is for everyone.

Hoes can be mad

quaternary wrote:

Hey folks instead of pressing a nuke button when you decide the map sucks, you go to a different map that you like better, wow, it's really not that hard. Not every map is for everyone.

selectivity is what makes Ranked Ranked. advising people to ignore any part of it leaves no value in the curative aspect and defeats an entire purpose of the category...

been thinking abt nuke a bit more and while I still think the usage isn't worth the effort (community/forums/posts/7912056), I also think it's a bummer that current system doesn't have great options for stopping losses on effort & sanity when a map unfit for Ranked is being pushed towards it anyway. unfortunately some people (including BNs in this thread) will die on the hill that every map can be modded into a decent one and brush off the distinction between modding as a tool and ranking as a platform, so there's not really any safe territory to explore here imo

if I were NAT I'd be trying to encourage (force?) BN/NAT members to have more consensus about what Ranked is actually for and what purposes it should serve rather than trying to handle all of the wacky cases that come from not having that consensus. easier said than done but stop-loss proposals like this one make me feel like we're putting off problems instead of fixing them

clayton wrote:

if I were NAT I'd be trying to encourage (force?) BN/NAT members to have more consensus about what Ranked is actually for and what purposes it should serve rather than trying to handle all of the wacky cases that come from not having that consensus. easier said than done but stop-loss proposals like this one make me feel like we're putting off problems instead of fixing them

late

ya

Well, this doesn't seem like it will be happening. General consensus seems like that this wouldn't actually accomplish much, which I can see why, and the feedback from this thread will be noted.

particularly we'll see if any changes can be done to tackle the root of the problem which would be the BNs.

the response to this indicates to me that (at least a few vocal) people in this thread seem to think the problem lies mostly in BN selection and/or understanding of what a Ranked map should be from their POV.

there are problems with addressing this specifically, at least in any of the ways that i can think of doing it. let me run through some stuff:

1. the BN are too varied a group to reconcile any one universally agreed upon "standard" for Ranked outside of the RC.

the idea behind throwing open the doors to the group was to get as many people in as possible to hope that a sort of collective 'mind' would emerge over time as the BN talk and work together with one another. in hindsight, hoping for this might've been a bit shortsighted - we couldn't get an appreciable consensus on mapping with less than 30 people together back in the BAT, what made us think that this would happen with over a hundred people thrown into the mix?

the mapping/modding scenes are notorious for being essentially cockatiel screaming galleries instead of fields of meaningful discussion and feedback, and that much hasn't significantly changed over the years as far as i can tell

2. limiting or reassessing who is able to access the BN achieves an entirely different result that i don't think people actually want

if it is decided that the NAT should start exercising more individual care when adding particular BN into the team in order to do things like "ensuring everyone is on the same page with Ranked", we're essentially just insidiously cycling back to the way things used to be under the early QAT in terms of control over the artistic and creative expression involved in beatmaps.

some might look at that and go "damn that's a bit of a stretch", but it's fundamentally true if you think about - curating BN is means-to-an-end curating beatmaps, which brings me to my final point here:

3. the nuke consensus is the only real way forward.

as the content review process has keenly demonstrated, the only way to reconcile people's differences in opinion over creative things is to put them to a hard numbers vote. not doing this results in days, weeks, months, sometimes *years* of fruitless discussion that serves no purpose other than to incense dismay and sap good will in its participants, all the while providing ample means for the less scrupulous among us to exhaust those trying to do their best to help.

delegating the NAT to curate individual BN to fit their tastes beyond the barest competency requirements that currently exist is backsliding into old ways, as i described previously.

if we are paying homage to the old ways, a return of the nuke at least resembles a hard statement from a concerned portion of the mapping/modding community that something really just isn't okay, and requires discussion now.

the alternative is to do precisely nothing and continue to allow this laissez-faire model to chip away at the confidence of players and mappers alike. most people don't remember the 29 maps they played that month which were sort of okay or unremarkable, but they sure as fuck do remember the 1 that made their eyebrows shoot off their head or burrow themselves into their eyesockets.

the choice is yours, i guess

I think what you said applies very much to vetos, where people are pressured into making more immediate discussions, as opposed to the ideas proposed at the start of this thread which requires less discussion. You're taking the worst of both worlds: a bunch of people with varied opinions, except now instead of trying to reconcile through some kind of veto system there's no discussion and they're just voting it into oblivion. There's been lots of talk about fixing the veto system but this proposal definitely goes in the wrong direction.

I can't say for sure how to fix the "problem" this proposal is trying to fix but I think a good first step would be trying to look back at the ranked section, finding the stuff that we can all agree we want to avoid, and trying to formulize that into some kind of guideline in the ranking criteria so we all have a good idea of it right now, since I do agree that giving mappers and BNs too much freedom has had adverse effects as well.

veto system hasn't worked for many reasons, but foremost because it places a huge burden on the person floating the veto to do so in a way that is meaningful and constructive, and it paints a giant social target on the face of the person calling the veto.

posit that you care about mapping quality and you see something in qualified that you think really shouldn't be there and for good reason - you write up essentially an academic essay's worth of veto post with detailed instructions on what you think should change, and you go ahead and post it. the mapper looks at it in peak ???? status because they've convinced 2+ BN to nominate it already, so it must be fine, right?

from the very get go the vetoer is now (99% of the time) facing a defensive mapper and responses from people who support the map (or people who support beatmap deregulation in general because fuck da polis), and they can expect at least 3 days of this with a possible escalation to weeks if mapping twitter gets its fangs sunk into it.

conversely, view this from the mapper POV again: they've gotten two BNs to sign off on something and now they're faced with having to try and justify it to a third who's popped out of nowhere (in some circumstances) or risk losing the set entirely. who's not gonna share this with their given discord friends and bring more people in to help? doubly so if the veto is for nebulous reasons like "this isn't what ranked is for" - says who? says the vetoer? you ask just about anyone in this scene what Ranked should be and you're likely to receive a slightly different answer for every person.

the reason laissez-faire (aka current) model is so enduring is because both sides have recognized that it just isn't worth the effort anymore. vetoes are far less in number than they should be because the people who want to use the system also don't want to be worn down by continually fending off concerted criticism alone when it's just straight up easier to let the map pass by and join the nameless hundred of ranked maps that month. then to quote what i've heard from other BN/NAT, you spend all this effort successfully vetoing one map and like 5 more shit ones have snuck through the cracks while you were preoccupied there.

we're dealing with volumes and scales now that make the models of yesteryear not really appropriate anymore. i'm not sure what the solution is, but the nuclear option does seem worth at least trying, if not for a lack of better options. if people really do want to try the BN approach and have the NAT more closely decide the composition of the team, i can't see why we couldn't try that either, but it is a regression in some ways, as is this, i suppose.

as far getting everyone on the same page about what Ranked actually is, this will be difficult, if not impossible.

to me, a Ranked map should have elements of cohesive and original design, be constructed with significant and deliberate effort and free of direct mechanical faults as defined by the Ranking Criteria. not all maps should be capable of being Ranked, and there will be times where the the best someone can do is just not enough, and that no amount of patched-on fixes from the modding process will produce a viable product. this is probably a discussion for another topic and one we should absolutely at least try to have though.

i had a long ass essay response written but it started rambling so i boiled it down to a few main points:

1. friction of dq is the big problem with what you were saying, it should be easier to requalify (maybe have some detection for small issues) so people aren't afraid to dq
2. people who are pressed for time in mpg quests should only be timed for the periods in which they have control of the ranking process (eg. not qualified or veto), everyone else shouldn't be pressured for time
3. should get players + mappers involved in the vetoing process with some kind of positive incentives, repaint qualification as a way to improve maps rather than only punishing bns for fucking up
4. maps are definitely judged wiht respect to other maps in ranked, so it's difficult to say "oh this map is bad" when there's mappers who have literally ranked like 50+ maps with the same broken style
5. i don't think there's honestly anything wrong with majority of stuff, if it's pp mapping we want to fix then we should fix the pp system. there's only a few maps (relatively) i can think of that i'd unrank today for "low quality" if i had the chance
6. imo judging maps by effort isn't really productive for the most part

what we could possibly do is require mostly positive responses via user rating for qualified maps before they can actually end up ranked, i think that was discussed at one point as well. if it averages over like 7.0 with a certain number of plays, it enters ranked, etc

that would give players some steading in the process too

User rating would definitely ban maps that are made for specific audiences and possibly some mappers entirely, don't think that's a very nice approach

Ephemeral wrote:

veto system hasn't worked for many reasons, but foremost because it places a huge burden on the person floating the veto to do so in a way that is meaningful and constructive, and it paints a giant social target on the face of the person calling the veto.

I don't see how nukes actually fix anything when vetoes are essentially the same thing but with discussion to improve a map. This just seems like a 5 year step back in time to a system that is shittier, less developed and has worse implications for mappers.

Instead of abandoning a system that has essentially worked as it should (though not without its flaws) how about trying to improve it instead of moving on to the next idea which the community will abandon in another five years?

Kinda didn't respond on the thread since it made me realize it's a bad idea at its core but feedback is always nice thank u all.

Ephemeral wrote:

as far getting everyone on the same page about what Ranked actually is, this will be difficult, if not impossible.

to me, a Ranked map should have elements of cohesive and original design, be constructed with significant and deliberate effort and free of direct mechanical faults as defined by the Ranking Criteria. not all maps should be capable of being Ranked, and there will be times where the the best someone can do is just not enough, and that no amount of patched-on fixes from the modding process will produce a viable product. this is probably a discussion for another topic and one we should absolutely at least try to have though.

A united goal written down would help BNs understand what to aim for even if they don't initially agree with it. Right now they have to form totally disparate visions. Like a basic mission statement would help clear up if it's just strictly "RC rankable" or "good quality" - even if what constitutes good quality would still be arguable and subjective, it would help eliminate the mindset of pushing maps that only just pass.

For an interesting read, check out the survey Nevo conducted on the BN/NAT. You can see differing views but a lot of ones say similar things throughout, which would be a good base point to utilize. That way the mission would be aligned somewhat with current overall views while still setting something a bit more in stone.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mJif41b-le6wIdlyIhCvyPUibnRinVYGAZBbD9Z6r0M/edit

The scenario of a veto in community/forums/posts/7930691 is something that I think is 100% on the dot until

Ephemeral wrote:

vetoes are far less in number than they should be because the people who want to use the system also don't want to be worn down by continually fending off concerted criticism alone when it's just straight up easier to let the map pass by and join the nameless hundred of ranked maps that month.

That's not the root cause, you have to go deeper than that. You don't find the solution to a problem until you at least find the root cause. The fundamental system of improving a beatmap has been flawed from a very long period, and it didn't have to do with the density of new beatmaps coming through the ranking system.

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This is my opinion on it: There has quite honestly ALMOST NEVER been actual OUTSIDE POSITIVE incentives given to people in actually attempting to improve their maps OR their mapping skills ASIDE for either:

1. Getting your map ranked
2. Being able to join whatever the group was at that period of osu that "controlled" the ranking system since they would partly decide at least to some degree as to what is considered good and bad for a beatmap, and them recognizing how "good" they thought your map was would help in getting you closer to that group (circlejerking, that is what it is)

First one is good but it's also a given since that's simply the basis of the system anyway, and the way you do this currently is to just abide by the ranking criteria. The second on the other hand is really Not a GOOD positive incentive as its built upon a more "toxic" system. After time had passed, as the "groups" that "controlled" ranked changed to systems of less power in an attempt of decentralizing and dissolving power, there quickly became quite literally no incentive at all to really improve on your own mapping skill outside of just the ranking criteria unless if you personally enjoyed improving your own mapping skill for your own self which is NOT an outside incentive. I don't know how many people agree with this point at all if any but that is how I have seen it based on my own anecdotal experience since I know MANY mappers who would much rather let their bros nominate their map quickly and be done with it rather than trying to improve it at all or get more opinions.

Furthermore, there is also little to none outside positive incentives in having people improve OTHER PEOPLE's maps as well. For example with the idea of using a user rating threshold, there isn't really an incentive given for players to give a response AT ALL via user rating to a beatmap unless if the map is absolute mad farm or some shit and they just want their pp because qualified already provides everything aside for that. Another example: There isn't really an incentive for me to mod a map that I think is dogshit or "terribly offensive" for many reasons with A FEW being that because the map will be long forgotten, and I'd rather spend that time on maps that I actually like instead; furthermore, when a map is qualified, mappers tend to be less receptive to feedback because time of the mapper and the BNs, as well as the qualified status is at stake.

In my opinion there has to be some form of way created where you have 2 things: The mapper feels like getting more people to "help" with their map doesn't feel like their time is being wasted, and the ones helping feel rewarded for investing their time into the beatmap. I think both, the incentives for improving your own map, and incentives for improving other people's maps should be tackled at the same time in order to If things that help doing both of these are implemented, I feel that mapping in general would be in a much better state than currently. Negative incentives like vetoes and This only amplify the issues of both sides and only encourage complacency and a laissez-faire (for example, THE PRESENT TIME)

Alongside that, I also feel that bumping up the incentive of getting a map ranked by repurposing the ranking criteria into something that encourages discussion and also actively improves itself on it would also benefit the ranked system.

I obviously do not have the answers as to what those are because first I'm technically a literal pissrandom that CURRENTLY does not have the tools nor the data to conduct large scale research to work on something like this in the context of the game's environment anyway, second because I'm not a Nomination Assessor, third I have way too many other things to do and I'm technically wasting my time writing this instead of working on those other things

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Also regarding the statement on getting everyone to agree on the definition of Ranked. I really don't think it's impossible. It will just take a lot of time to get to it. For the record you DON'T really have to make EVERY single person to agree on the same definition of ranked before officializing its definition and dumping it in the glossary honestly. You could even just let statistics and surveying do its work on this honestly to create what the definition of ranked Should be.

I got sniped by Noffy because I was gonna say more and link the nevo doc too

Some players like the 1-2 jump meta, other not. Some players flock to play pp maps, some are disgusted by it. Personally I like older maps with the awkward jump patterns you would get scrutinized for doing these days. Heck I like Ash Like Snow because it is a good reading practice map. Meanwhile a huge number of players hate it.

I think the ranked section is hitting a point where people want maps in ranked many other people don't want to, and all of that is being gatekept by this vague concept called "quality". If ranked wants to appeal to the wide playerbase then this "quality" is not what the ranked section should be. On paper everyone has a different definition of it, and in practice everyone has their own opinion on what kind of maps ranked should have.

People complain they keep seeing maps in ranked that shouldn't be in ranked, so we get proposals like these to try and fix that by restricting maps that can go into rank. This what you call a "community used proposal - it hurt itself in confusion" moment. A map gets into ranked because a couple people specifically chosen to judge maps see it fit for ranked. So long as you let people use their judgement to decide what maps go into ranked, you will ALWAYS get maps you disagree with in ranked.

Trying to curb ranked to suit the majority of people's taste in maps is not what you want. You get a decreased variety of maps this way. What you want is a way to get the "bad maps" out of your ranked section feed. What the community needs is a better way to find maps they consider good. Think subcategories for ranked where people can find the 1-2 maps they want, the reading maps they want, or whatever map you think is bad but someone else does not.

tl;dr: Ranked section is not "quality" in practice, just on paper. People think they want "quality" in ranked but that's just a smoke screen.

Edit: I also stand by this alternative: community/forums/topics/1044458

I agree with the tl;dr, that is currently how the ranked section is and I'm pretty sure everyone already knows this and people that cry for "quality" is usually just want whatever type of shit they wanna eat themselves; HOWEVER, how many people like or dislike maps like ash like snow for example is Out of the Scope with regards to the stage of creating a definition of ranked and is something that is dealt with (or not) in a way later stage in such a process.

so at the very least, we need to sit down and collectively hash out a definition for what Ranked is/should be, and notarize it somewhere everyone can see. nevo's doc seems to be a good starting point for that

everything else listed so far while valid, is not a particularly new spin on things - we've had the "hands off" approach to beatmaps since the dissolution of the QAT, and the upset grumbling of players has only steadily risen over time. we can't ignore them forever... alternate curation/promotion methods have been discussed but all of them need significant dev time to come to any sort of meaningful fruition, Project Loved and the Spotlights are about as close as we have ever gotten albeit in two very different domains. i can't see that changing until lazer finally reaches the fore, and i know how tired people are of hearing that brought up every time the issue gets raised, but... it's sort of the truth.

the lack of external incentive in the modding process has also been an issue forever as well. kudosu was supposed to be the salve for this, but it too needs dev time and forethought to become meaningful. the only way anyone gets anything out of the ranking process is either by deriving satisfaction from it internally (helping others, pushing work they like, etc) or by the outward satisfaction of seeing the process driven to completion - something that admittedly both nukes and vetoes heavily undermine.

perhaps abraker's 'featured' idea is something we can explore. adding a new beatmap approval state/category does take some dev time, but should take less than the other options available. if that is done after we get a "good enough" agreement on what Ranked is and what Featured should be, that could be a viable way of moving forward with community-based curation.

abraker wrote:

What the community needs is a better way to find maps they consider good. Think subcategories for ranked where people can find the 1-2 maps they want, the reading maps they want, or whatever map you think is bad but someone else does not.

unironically think that adding a tag similar to genre/language of the song but for maps themselves might be a good idea: it allows players to filter maps and see only maps of the style they enjoy to play, be it, uh, Novelty stuff, hard tech or just simple maps. Something similar to what BN reqs site has when you request a map there.

Featured idea sounds pretty neat, the issue is:

abraker wrote:

but with BN and NAT deciding which maps go in there instead

which brings us back to status quo: some BNs and NATs think the map is good, some players think the map is shit. IMO, you need to have both players and mappers to decide on whether the map should be featured or not. Loved does it pretty well IMO, in this case something like BNs, NATs and prominent players and community members deciding on what goes up for vote, then use the same system as for Loved I guess. I'm heavily leaning towards favouring players here though, I do agree that maps with artistic merit should be promoted as well, I just don't know how to go about that.

Why don't we use spotlights for Featured stuff?

Late but got some 2cents to spare now

In a nutshell, yeah osu needs to be more "designed"
Giving things a purpose or meaning makes it easier to tackle them at a larger scale and also makes easier to communicate about them, so I'm definitely supporting the "define what Ranked is" idea. The community is likely capable to fill the gaps if Ranked is not all-encompassing, much like Loved did. Makes it less necessary for literally everyone to agree with the definition.

Not sure how I feel about a 'featured' maps section because spotlights2 will just be spotlights2 and end the same way if you don't change the formula enough.

Otherwise, you have to realize that players yelling about maps can have several root causes, and that trying to just outright nuke those from existence is a very player-like solution. Players are good at pointing out issues but not at fixing them.
Could be due to lack of filters, search options, recommendation systems, etc that players fail to find content they'd enjoy.
Or maybe that Ranked has a very lopsided distribution of types of gameplay, causing anything 'different' to stand out rather poorly.

So, an Idea I just (aka I haven't thought about it beyond making this post) had myself is to split of Ranked into 'Mainstream' and 'Variety' or something similar.
The intended purpose to create more clear expectations of what kinds of maps you'd find in either branch of Ranked. If you like simpler maps on popular songs then Mainstream is your thing, if you like unique challenges on niche genres then Variety is your place to be.
Ut seems rather easy to implement dev-wise because all you need to do is indicate where and how this split happens in the process.
You could even have interesting interactions like maps moving from Mainstream to Variety automatically if they go below a certain user rating and then reset that rating - recognizing that these maps weren't a hit with the wrong audience but maybe have a better place to be. Or, a map automatically goes from Variety to Mainstream when it has a high rate of play and matching user rating.
Haven't really considered the cons or details though so shrug.

fwiw I was mainly against the original proposal because there's simply no positive outcomes in the long run, making it rather pointless to invest into.
The only case where I'd consider a Nuke button useful is a My Movie type situation. Vetoes aren't really fit for it so being able to say "no, do not do the dumb" would be nicer than having to go kneedeep into someone else's bullshit. Then again we can just keep that in mind next time something similar happens.

yaspo wrote:

So, an Idea I just (aka I haven't thought about it beyond making this post) had myself is to split of Ranked into 'Mainstream' and 'Variety' or something similar.
The intended purpose to create more clear expectations of what kinds of maps you'd find in either branch of Ranked. If you like simpler maps on popular songs then Mainstream is your thing, if you like unique challenges on niche genres then Variety is your place to be.
Ut seems rather easy to implement dev-wise because all you need to do is indicate where and how this split happens in the process.
You could even have interesting interactions like maps moving from Mainstream to Variety automatically if they go below a certain user rating and then reset that rating - recognizing that these maps weren't a hit with the wrong audience but maybe have a better place to be. Or, a map automatically goes from Variety to Mainstream when it has a high rate of play and matching user rating.
Haven't really considered the cons or details though so shrug.

Should a variety section be implemented, I think can we actually revive approved section (not process) for this purpose? They are technically the same as ranked section for now.

hmm, I don't like the map let me nuke it! It's not like I could choose not to rank it or anything. Who cares about the time and effort someone put into the map, I don't like it, and I'm too lazy to bother checking it and I'm too dumb to just ignore the request!

Do you not realize how retarded this sounds?

I agree with adding new sections/categories.

After all, just what on earth do you all want to see on ranked?
Seriously; quality, levels, PP maps, artistry or whatever**. Just what is it?

I think adding categories panders to this question.

IOException wrote:

1. friction of dq is the big problem with what you were saying, it should be easier to requalify (maybe have some detection for small issues) so people aren't afraid to dq

In my opinion, a small change (ie: fixing a spelling error in tags, tweaking small parts of the map, NOT extending a map or a full remap) shouldn't require a full dq, nor should it require the BNs to have to stop the period or to re-nominate it. If a penalty needs to apply, make it be like a day or something and allow the mapper to make the decision instead of having to rely on a bn to do it, but the penalty is what discourages qualified maps from potentially improving.