Kawawa wrote:

i think we'll need another discussion if mania decided to having a specific spread rule.

I'm not sure if it's what you're referring to and I'm pretty sure you've seen this already, but there's already a mania-specific thread, it would be great if you could share your thoughts there.

VINXIS wrote:

most players that play for more than 5 maps play [Normal] level difficulties for like a week or so at most before moving on to [Hard] for the next month or so (though I could be wrong, mainly from what I've observed from players who I knew before osu who joined after me, and players that I randomly stumbled upon that were just starting out)

It's bad enough IMO that Easy diffs basically don't even get mapped anymore. While the above^ is pretty much spot on, there are many players (not even just score farmers) who enjoy playing through low diffs and full spreads, while at a higher skill level. Not all of osu! is pushing skill/getting better. Playing at a level you are already proficient at or lower is perfectly enjoyable (at least with the right mindset I suppose).

VINXIS wrote:

theres actually a ridiculous amount of [Normal] level diffs and this diff range has the highest density of all difficulty ranges in standard, to where u could might as well equal the amount of content to the equivalence of like 17 other paywalled games similar to osu

VINXIS wrote:

most if not all song tastes have essentially more than enough low diffs from the past 14 years already to get players good enough to move on to the next difficulty level

Yeah I'm pretty sure 50% of all ranked o!std maps are 0-3.99* from what I've seen, however that doesn't mean that players don't want new low diffs, to keep things fresh, or on new songs/genres that come out etc. For example, my music taste has really only been mapped in the past year or so, there hasn't been much of it around until now, meaning there's not many low diffs for them either.

vernonlim wrote:

Kawawa wrote:

i think we'll need another discussion if mania decided to having a specific spread rule.

I'm not sure if it's what you're referring to and I'm pretty sure you've seen this already, but there's already a mania-specific thread, it would be great if you could share your thoughts there.

oh thank you so much i forgot this link

I disagree

VINXIS wrote:

most if not all song tastes have essentially more than enough low diffs from the past 14 years already to get players good enough to move on to the next difficulty level

Removing low diff requirements from ranking criteria would remove innovation from low diffs since only old normals are available.

Mapsets are supposed to provide a coherent package of content to the ranked section. There is no need to change the ranking criteria to handhold mappers who can't be arsed to make low diffs or ask 3 friends to make low diffs for them.

I don't see arguments why the ranked section would improve with relaxing of the spread requirements. Difficulties that can be ranked with relaxed spread requirements can also be ranked with the current system, provided that proper low diffs are added.

Even doing a trial period harms the ranked section forever because some mapsets will get ranked that do not form a coherent package of content just like the instarank mapsets from 2007.

Castagne wrote:

Removing low diff requirements from ranking criteria would remove innovation from low diffs since only old normals are available.

people who were never interested in mapping low diffs would stop mapping them, and people who are would continue. does that not leave a higher portion of low diff mappers left who could "innovate"? where r u seeing "innovation" done by ppl who wouldn't make these maps in the first place without a rule requiring it?

Castagne wrote:

Mapsets are supposed to provide a coherent package of content to the ranked section.

I'm also curious where you find many "coherent" mapsets spanning down to low diffs these days, part of the reason I'm very supportive of this change is that the default minimum-effort low diffs made due to requirement hardly ever feel belonging in their mapsets to me to begin with

Castagne wrote:

There is no need to change the ranking criteria to handhold mappers who can't be arsed to make low diffs or ask 3 friends to make low diffs for them.

nobody is saying it's so much effort and they want to escape some responsibility like this. the point of these threads is to reconsider the pros and cons of these rules that have been with osu for so long that the scene has almost entirely changed. you're never going to be open minded about changes if your reaction is to attack views of the discussion that aren't even present

Castagne wrote:

I don't see arguments why the ranked section would improve with relaxing of the spread requirements.

my argument about that is that it'd do away with the bottom denominator of low diff maps that are made with min. effort for the requirement alone, other ppl said things too though, it's all in this thread and some in mania one

Castagne wrote:

Difficulties that can be ranked with relaxed spread requirements can also be ranked with the current system, provided that proper low diffs are added.

that second part is the topic o_o

Disagree with the proposal but cba discussing why lol

whay song taste hasnt been mapped until the past year i can only really think of hyperpop (and that already has a shitton of low diffs too),

i Did say that players usually move on after like a week or so from normal level difficulty so dunno, thats still a shitload of content for hyperpoop consoomers

low diff innovation???? i dontr understand this one its not like low diffs can be innovative aside for in the perspective of spread progression/theming and even then ur not gonna see it from ppl that just get random ppl to gd low diffs cuz they r lazy asf, not like the people that are going to map low diffs are going to stop either

the reasons i was listing were about why i think the rule isnt doing shit not why the rule is breaking shit, removing it doesnt improve or damage ranked from how i see it, and juet having a low diff generator is best i think

easies are still mapped to a decent extent too, iduno why we're assuming spreads just wont exist doesnt seem like the right assumption to make

One of the reasons of low diffs is to demonstrate mapping and modding expertise (at least in standard). Most new mappers don't map low diffs since it's much easier to map a difficulty where you don't have to be aware of the ranking criteria. Experienced mappers can create amazing high diffs, but new mappers just have to make something playable.

From a nominating point of view, a set without low diffs means that the nominating BNs were not tested on their ability to mod low diffs. From a mapping point of view, this means that the mapper is able to create maps without limitations but may not understand the nature of low diffs.

Since higher diffs allow for more freedom, the quality of higher diffs tend to be lower than lower diffs. BNs are more willing to nominate lower quality high diffs due to the effort required to make them (object count, complexity, etc.).

Project Railgun wrote:

From a nominating point of view, a set without low diffs means that the nominating BNs were not tested on their ability to mod low diffs. From a mapping point of view, this means that the mapper is able to create maps without limitations but may not understand the nature of low diffs.

there is a thing called the 'bn application process' that goes over this, don't worry! you wont be added to the bng without understanding of lower difficulties!

lol

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...an insane, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...an extra, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...an Extreme, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

or

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...4.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...5.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...6.5, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

this approach to having bracketed spreads is a much better approach and helps tackle most qualms people have with it now, with this you are able to have a ranged audience access your maps, whilst appealing to that specific audience, this will help push forward the agenda of mapping higher difficulties as maps slowly progess into becoming harder and harder, this will make the burden on both BNs and mappers for mapping higher diffuclties much less.

Some maps are targetted generally at higher levels of expertise, this is fine. Can we stop breaking the mappers intention by forcing them to adhere to lower levels of play? if for example, we had a 9* map going for ranked, and there would be a difficulty for each star up to normal, that would require the map to have 8 difficulties. With my proposed change, we would only need to see such map with a 4-5* lowest, which better targets this set at higher levels of play whilst encouraging and removing the burden for those who want to push harder maps that test the limits.

Are you really for keeping normal maps to hinder the progression of higher-difficulty mapping and a higher level of play?

I see a lot of misconceptions from people who think requiring low diffs isn't necessary, it probably comes from the belief that low diffs are not as valuable as higher diffs but this is fundamentally wrong and I'll explain why.

1. Low diffs do not only exist to satisfy beginners' needs. Believe it or not, but there are a lot of highly skilled players who enjoy playing Easy, Normal and Hard diffs. If spreads no longer require these difficulties, a large portion of players will have less content to enjoy. Only catering to those who mainly play Insane/Extra diffs isn't fair, maps should be made for as many people as possible to be enjoyed.

2. Low diffs are crucial for the growth and longevity of the game. I feel like many people are underestimating the importance of players' experience when they first start playing osu!. Having a big variety of maps and songs to choose from is essential so that everyone can find something they like. And no, just because thousands of ranked low diffs exist already, doesn't mean that we don't need more. A decreasing number of newly ranked difficulties in this range would result in stagnating variety and an even bigger discrepancy between song choice for low diffs and high diffs than there already is. And despite what people are saying, many genres and/or languages are underrepresented in the ranked section. There might be some maps for almost any music taste, but having more is definitely preferable. Also, new songs would have a much lower chance to have low diffs included in the mapset and this is a big deal because most people are hyped about new songs from their favorite artists or TV series. Another thing to keep in mind is that the number of new players who join is constantly growing, making them an increasingly important demographic. Let's also not forget that not everyone progresses past the Easy/Normal/Hard skill level as not everyone will continue playing the game for weeks or months or years, so even if it only takes a short amount of time to move on to Insane+, many never get there, meaning that these Easy/Normal/Hard diffs shaped their entire experience of the game.

3. Mappers having no time/energy/motivation to map low diffs is not a good reason for removing the spead rules. Outsourcing this "work" by getting guest difficulties is usually not a problem because there are more than enough mappers willing to map them (at least in standard, this might be different in other game modes like mania). Any map can get a rankable spread without much extra effort. But I think assuming that mappers view spreads as only extra work is not right to begin with, for many it's enjoyable to map several diffs or working with other mappers on a set.

4. Low diffs aren't necessarily lower quality just because people don't put as much effort into mapping them. Quality mostly comes down to understanding the concepts of mapping these diffs and having the necessary skills/experience. Effort may also have an impact but if someone is good at mapping they can still create a good map without trying, the same applies to higher diffs though. The main reason why low diffs are often not very good is because many mappers never develop the skills required to make a good map and because there's little to no quality control from modders and BNs, it's a whole different issue.

5. It's not necessary to make a trial period without spread rules. Just make a poll to ask mappers if they would continue to make spreads and one to ask BNs if they would nominate maps that don't have spreads.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

5. It's not necessary to make a trial period without spread rules. Just make a poll to ask mappers if they would continue to make spreads and one to ask BNs if they would nominate maps that don't have spreads.

Such poll would demonstrate intentions from a select sample size at the current moment, but that would not be completely indicative of what will actually happen with time passed. Polls are great to gauge thoughts and opinions, but not great to predict how entire dynamic systems will function.

I definitely think this is a good idea for mania as the reason it was brought up is because charters from other games werent able to get their stuff uploaded on osu due to upload limitations, as they werent ranking stuff to expand it, mainly because they'd have to add to a project they already considered finished to make rankable here. Allowing these charts to get ranked would expand the amount and types of content people would have access to and put more good maps into ranked.

In the other modes completly removing this is probably not a great idea as many have pointed out, however maybe consider discussing if relaxing the time cutoffs a bit would be at all beneficial, like was proposed at first in the mania thread. Im sure alot of people have been turned off of ranking some 3:30 songs because they'd have to map like 8 difficulties to rank their top diff idea. Though I think the issue there is the rule about diff gaps, why do we need so many high diffs to bridge anyway, they often just end up really similar, and most of the reasons we need low diffs dont really apply to the second extra in a set, peoole who can play that are already very invested in the game.

Also call me antisocial but I dont really agree with the whole just get GD's sentiment, since the effort required to do that can be very high for some people, especially if their song is difficult to map low diffs for. Not everybody is a social butterfly and it seems the beatmap projects forum isnt very reliable.

abraker wrote:

Such poll would demonstrate intentions from a select sample size at the current moment, but that would not be completely indicative of what will actually happen with time passed. Polls are great to gauge thoughts and opinions, but not great to predict how entire dynamic systems will function.

i find a poll to still be more feasible than a trial period because of the issue noffy previously brought up. this is exacerbated by the fact that maps aimed for rank probably take longer to rank in mania compared to standard (don't have data to back this up but i don't think it's too unreasonable to think this). i think a poll would be a good compromise between the insight it'd provide and how quickly it can be done in comparison. at the very least this could be done to ask BNs if they'd nominate maps without full spreads considering it's not too hard to do.

Scotty wrote:

at the very least this could be done to ask BNs if they'd nominate maps without full spreads considering it's not too hard to do.

isn't this a meaningless poll though, since the idea is to let mappers and BNs choose when they feel a spread is necessary?

---

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

and an even bigger discrepancy between song choice for low diffs and high diffs than there already is

just lol, this is all backwards. there are currently way more mapsets including low diffs than high diffs. even if we want to make a (probably baseless) assumption that something abt the nature of mapping high diffs yields more song variety for the same amt of mapsets, it's not enough to cast aside the data here:

just looking at osu! mode, Ranked, # of mapsets including these difficulty ranges:

SR range | Name  | Count
---------+-------+------
   < 2   | E     | 12906
   < 2.7 | (E)N  | 18076
   < 4   | (EN)H | 19118
  >= 4   | I(X+) | 14571
  >= 5.3 | X+    |  6441
  >= 6   |       |  2679
  >= 6.5 |       |  1118

and the median SR included in mapsets is about 3.36.

so I call BS on that "discrepancy" you're feeling, that actually goes the opposite way.

---

I don't know if I want to spend time responding to rest of Serizawa post cuz it'd just be repeating my earlier post... try to respond to what ppl r saying instead of proposing words like new argument and waiting for others to repeat themselves

You do realize that the reason why so many ranked low diffs exist is because of all the older maps that don't have Insane/Extra diffs because they weren't really a thing back then (and if Insane diffs were included in a set, they were typically less difficult than nowadays due to difficulty inflation)? Also, a lot of Insane diffs for slow songs are below 4* so keep in mind that star rating alone isn't reliable.

You need to look at more recent data, but that's not even necessary because the current spread rules already tell you that such a discrepancy does in fact exist *nowadays* for longer songs as they don't require Normal/Hard diffs for songs above 3:30 and 4:15 respectively. It might not be a big deal now, but if the spread rules are relaxed further or removed entirely this would worsen the situation significantly as it would extend to shorter songs too.

Also I didn't quote any specific posts because I wanted to address the most common arguments used by several people.

I dont get it is the point about there being more higher diffs than lower diffs recently because thats not true either when u look at 2019 + 2020 https://i.imgur.com/ohHbdX2.png


WHYY is accessibility even sitll a talking poiint i doint undwerstand

it's very easy for me to imagine a scenario in which a new player finds a map of a recent op they liked & reacts negatively when they can't find a mapset that includes low difficulties for them

this is fine from time to time (marathons, over 3:30 songs, etc.) but it feels unreasonable if a decent portion of new tv size maps won't have low diffs

i don't think we can rely on the tons and tons of beginner content we already have here because a lot of the appeal in osu's ranked section is that it has a nearly constant stream of new songs and maps (largely) made for the whole playerbase. even if i'm not super involved in that space, having a lot of the op's from each anime season mapped and ranked is really fun and cool! and it's cool that new players can also take part in this!

however i am in full support of relaxing (or removing altogether) spread requirements for songs that already have ranked sets - forcing new renditions of songs to have another set of low diffs seems pointless to me

i wish there was a way to know how much of an effect axing spread requirements would actually have - i may be overestimating its importance idk

general quality of low diffs will increase if only the people who want to map them map them, out of interest for it rather than a necessity. I saw some random point about innovation and you're not gonna get innovation by forcing people to map low diffs as FILLER. because that's what forced spread mapping typically results in - FILLER.

looking into data relevant to the prior spread changes (with the flexible lengths), and assuming the same will apply for a "no spread requirements" rule, YES the quantity of these diffs is going to drop (by about half), but nowhere near as much as some of the people in this thread are trying to tell you

Solitaire wrote:

it's very easy for me to imagine a scenario in which a new player finds a map of a recent op they liked & reacts negatively when they can't find a mapset that includes low difficulties for them

although tbf a player is only in this stage for like,, 2 weeks

i think something similar to this already exists but as long as there's an easy way for players to get a whole bunch of mapsets that have low diffs through the site or the client (maybe highlighting the "recommended difficulty" option the first time a user enters the beatmap search page) people will find enough recent content that interests them and fits their difficulty level

like when i play a rhythm game in an arcade i'm never mad that my favorite song isn't on there lol

Not everyone can proceed to Insane+ in a few weeks. We should keep in mind that most players posting here are much more than just regular players. We have devoted a lot of time to improving our skills.

Many people who have never played other rhythm games (or other video games in general) typically need weeks just to understand the very basics of the game, and many people just don't have enough time to practice. I know many of my friends who still can't play Hard diffs properly after years of occasional playing. Removing spread rules means all of these players now have to play very old maps with old songs only. There are more than enough 'regular' players like that.

Do we want to let many potential new players feel ignored and quit, and think that this game is only for talented players?

I also highly doubt if there are even a few mappers who are willing to map lower diffs "when they feel necessary", like for most of the songs. Of course, there are very calm songs that many people do consider lower diffs proper, but we don't want new players to play such songs only, right?

Doyak wrote:

Do we want to let many potential new players feel ignored and quit, and think that this game is only for talented players?

I also highly doubt if there are even a few mappers who are willing to map lower diffs "when they feel necessary", like for most of the songs. Of course, there are very calm songs that many people do consider lower diffs proper, but we don't want new players to play such songs only, right?

no and no, stop doomposting

see community/forums/posts/8313322 too. and viewed a different way, this is more of a potential benefit for new players than anything, said in other posts.

VINXIS wrote:

WHYY is accessibility even sitll a talking poiint i doint undwerstand

4real it's not relevant to this at all, i regret entertaining it in my own arguments

---

readin through more of the thread again I can see the argument of like "well it's not causing any problems", since I think it's true the existence of spread req hasn't been a hot topic for a long time and it can't be easily proven that lots of mappers r avoiding ranking maps due to it alone (unlike, in mania) (but its also big assumption to say it isn't happening).

I'm curious abt these things i said earlier still though, which don't seem to have any response (basically the "other thoughts" part at the bottom of community/forums/posts/8311690)

1. does it make sense that RC is telling you to make more maps in this case, rather than just set criteria for the maps you already made or plan to make?
2. assuming we do want a way to force the creation of low diff maps, does it make sense that the people tasked for the job are the ones who are already offering to contribute (otherwise-)rankable maps of higher diffs? why specifically them, out of all who are capable?

this situation just feels so dumb when you step away from it all and think abt the complete nonsensicality of who is required to do what. imagine if i set awesome sudokus, went to upload them to logic masters deutschland, and they told me I couldn't submit them because I didn't also set unrelated easier sudokus too or some shit. it's ridiculous for a community-driven content system

if some of y'all really cannot be convinced that the accessibility argument is BS and don't want to personally take responsibility for what u think helps the game, can't we at least let the main part of ranked be more organic and move the Content Requirements crap to something like mappersguild that has already proven ppl will go out of their way to do "work" mapping lol

agree w/ clayton

what is the doom posting. the data we looked at show that about 10-15% of mappers don't do the bare minimum. which means that if spread rules are loosened about 10% of mappers will map spreads and the rest will map their single diff insane / extra on all their songs and rank it that way. it's not doom posting to acknowledge that new songs should have easy difficulties for new players.

to your points about doing more work - yes, it makes sense for rc to tell you to make more maps. rc sets a bare minimum standard for a ranked section that contributes to the overall health of the game. low diffs are included in that overall health as a game with a greatly reduced amount of lower difficulties will fail to attract new players as songs they want to play are not mapped for their level or maps at their level are sparse enough that they can't find new content (relevant for taiko and ctb, not as much standard).
yes, it makes sense to task people who want to rank their sets with adhering to the ranking criteria. should we also be complaining about requiring hitsounds, or the inexorable burden of finding a background and combo colors, or having to get the correct artist? anyone capable can make a low diff - that's why many people make low diff gds! no mapper is required to spend the requisite 30 minutes making a compliant low diff themselves as they can find gds for them. however, including low diffs on sets is, as i previously mentioned, important for the long term health of the game.

what i don't understand is why you guys are arguing from the position that the ranked section is currently being stifled due to spread limitations as that is very blatantly not the case in non-mania modes, which is also why nobody (relevant) complains about spread. you can see that the number of sets and number of high difficulty sets both are extremely high compared to prior years due to the already-loosened-to-reasonable-levels spread requirements.

to your point about only voluntary normals being made somehow being better for new players - i challenge you to point out ways in which the average normal or hard somehow stands out from current "unneeded" normals. since they're compliance diffs, they should be noticeably worse? but they aren't because normals and hards are so limited in their song representation ability that realistically, a normal that complies with RC and that BNs are willing to nominate (aka isn't so awful that it can't be ranked, which is extremely easy to do) is completely indistinguishable whether or not the mapper "actually wanted to make it" or is just doing it to rank their map. the main factor to evaluate its quality, then, is whether or not it exists in an RC-compliant manner at all - which obviously, compliance difficulties do. and even if voluntary normals were a bit better (which i strongly dispute), there's no way that a 80% drop in the rate of normals getting ranked could possibly be overall beneficial.

one should analyze the benefits spread requirements similarly to something like environmental regulations - they prevent negative externalities (few or no new low difficulties (logical outcome of removing spread rules, shown by drop in low diffs mapped on long songs after spread rule changes) = long term decay of gamemode because less new players get to play new songs they want to). those regulations have to be set in a manner that doesn't prohibit businesses from operating (= mappers from ranking sets) but still prevent pollution (no low diffs + tons of *amazing* 6* tv size anime single diff sets). i strongly believe, as do many of my colleagues, that the current level of regulation is adequate. additionally, the biggest threshold for ranking is not making a set. it's finding bns. if the goal of these changes is to boost the number of ranked maps (which is already at an all time high) then targeting the modding and feedback process is a better avenue than simply removing low diffs from being required because some people are vehemently opposed to making them.

to sum it up in a concise political analogy - what we currently have is a taxpayer funded public transport system available to all to use. what you are suggesting is to cut that tax to instead require everyone to have a car and rely on charities to provide shuttle services to places the charities like going to, then pretending that those charity shuttles perform the same function and provide the same societal good as the public transport system previously in place. i'm sure you can appreciate why i and others firmly oppose that suggestion.

clayton wrote:

Doyak wrote:

Do we want to let many potential new players feel ignored and quit, and think that this game is only for talented players?

I also highly doubt if there are even a few mappers who are willing to map lower diffs "when they feel necessary", like for most of the songs. Of course, there are very calm songs that many people do consider lower diffs proper, but we don't want new players to play such songs only, right?

no and no, stop doomposting

see community/forums/posts/8313322 too. and viewed a different way, this is more of a potential benefit for new players than anything, said in other posts.

There's no way to prove how beneficial / disadvantageous to remove the rule since it hasn't happened yet. Yes, that could be a little extreme assumption, but it's totally a possible scenario which we should take in consideration when discussing a huge change in RC like this. I think Nao's post explains this point pretty well. Calling it a doompost and just telling me to stop doesn't help.

I'm strongly against dropping spread requirements altogether (or a trial period for that matter) but I think relaxing some requirements would be beneficial (at least for o!m). I'll focus more on the dropping part with my perspective as someone well acquainted with the mapping/charting scene of o!m equivalent games that never had spread requirements (or some equivalent rule to force the creation of easier content), and share some quick thoughts about potentially relaxing some requirements.



Lastly, as some extra comments. I won't pretend to not be biased on this matter, I have always been a fierce proponent of mappers/charters putting more effort into making more good accessible content for the playerbase at large and this also shows in the work I put forward myself in all the games I've contributed to. That being said, I'm also someone who values very hard stuff (in fact, people in the o!m community have known me more due to my hard maps featured in various o!m tournaments), and I know firsthand how painful it'd be to rank those due to existing RC.

Additionally, I don't think OP makes a good case for what is the so called consensus of the original o!m specific thread, a lot of posts in there were advocating for just relaxing spread requirements but were against dropping it altogether.

wafer wrote:

Hold on, have an idea here

What if we further reduced spread requirements based off drain time?

Purely hypothetically (literally just throwing random draintimes out there), 0:00-1:59 could be Normal minimum, 2:00-3:29 could be hard minimum, 3:30-4:14 could be insane minimum, and 4:15+ could be any diff

Something along these lines would still keep a steady supply of lower diffs, but would help alleviate some of the pressure for making lower difficulties.

Finding the right drain times for each minimum required diff is a bit of work but pretty sure we can just tweak what we have right now.

imo, i think 1:45, 2:45, and 3:30 for minimum ranges would work better

based on what i know:
rhythm game songs are around 2:00 but can deviate a bit, lower or higher
the shorter full-length songs seem to be around 3:00, can also deviate
the regular or longer full length songs are generally 3:30 and above

so i think the ranges of <1:45 for normal minimum, <2:45 for hard minimum, <3:30 for insane minimum, and no limits above 3:30 are more fitting

Doyak wrote:

There's no way to prove how beneficial / disadvantageous to remove the rule since it hasn't happened yet. Yes, that could be a little extreme assumption, but it's totally a possible scenario which we should take in consideration when discussing a huge change in RC like this. I think Nao's post explains this point pretty well. Calling it a doompost and just telling me to stop doesn't help.

it's a shame nobody in this same thread mentioned what related data we could look to to help predict what would happen! -_-

we can use beatmapset search as a good visual aid for some stuff. let's look at all the mapsets with non-required diffs people made since the last time spread rules were updated:

EN over 3:30 beatmapsets?q=ranked%3E2018-07-29%20length%3E%3D210%20stars%3C2.7&s=ranked
ENH over 4:15 beatmapsets?q=ranked%3E2018-07-29%20length%3E%3D255%20stars%3C4&s=ranked
ENHI over 5:00 beatmapsets?q=ranked%3E2018-07-29%20length%3E%3D300%20stars%3C5.3&s=ranked (this one isn't as relevant to discussion but included cuz u can see that requirement and song type alone is not dictating the difficulties ppl choose to map)

I'm showing annoyance in my posts because you skipped over or discarded what people are saying. don't mean to be (that much of) an ass but it's annoying to have to re-explain what others already said just because you think there was no counterargument or something.

---

kinda unrelated because different context and ranking process setup but in poking around I stumbled across community/forums/topics/131288 again, has some opinions not included in this thread yet, good thinkers

Compare EN over 3:30 to just over 3:30 beatmapsets?q=ranked%3E2018-07-29%20length%3E%3D210&s=ranked

Counting since July, there are around 70 EN over 3:30 mapsets, while the total number of over 3:30 mapsets is around 450. This means only around 16% of mappers have made unrequired diffs for such songs. We can expect that this rate would be a little higher for shorter songs, but that's still going to be a huge drop.

Nao Tomori wrote:

to your points about doing more work - yes, it makes sense for rc to tell you to make more maps. rc sets a bare minimum standard for a ranked section that contributes to the overall health of the game. low diffs are included in that overall health as a game with a greatly reduced amount of lower difficulties will fail to attract new players as songs they want to play are not mapped for their level or maps at their level are sparse enough that they can't find new content (relevant for taiko and ctb, not as much standard).

^ is my main point of view. I'm not saying there will be no maps new players can enjoy at all. However, it still highly limits what these people can enjoy. Even the current rules do limit player experiences at some extent (like a set with a single 8* difficulty which only a few thousand players can try). And in the long run, we lose potential "skilled" players who can become good enough to play these harder diffs as well, who would keep playing if they had been able to enjoy the game early in their experience in osu!.

I can see people's point of filler difficulties having lower quality but honestly the difference isn't that huge and newer players tend to care less about quality, instead they want more contents and want to be able to play while listening to their favorite songs.

mrowswares wrote:

general quality of low diffs will increase if only the people who want to map them map them, out of interest for it rather than a necessity. I saw some random point about innovation and you're not gonna get innovation by forcing people to map low diffs as FILLER. because that's what forced spread mapping typically results in - FILLER.

looking into data relevant to the prior spread changes (with the flexible lengths), and assuming the same will apply for a "no spread requirements" rule, YES the quantity of these diffs is going to drop (by about half), but nowhere near as much as some of the people in this thread are trying to tell you

preach

agree with clayton again, also refer back to my previous point as i feel like this thread overlooked it a bit

Mokobe wrote:

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...an insane, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...an extra, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...an Extreme, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

or

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...4.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...5.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...6.5, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

this approach to having bracketed spreads is a much better approach and helps tackle most qualms people have with it now, with this you are able to have a ranged audience access your maps, whilst appealing to that specific audience, this will help push forward the agenda of mapping higher difficulties as maps slowly progess into becoming harder and harder, this will make the burden on both BNs and mappers for mapping higher diffuclties much less.

Some maps are targetted generally at higher levels of expertise, this is fine. Can we stop breaking the mappers intention by forcing them to adhere to lower levels of play? if for example, we had a 9* map going for ranked, and there would be a difficulty for each star up to normal, that would require the map to have 8 difficulties. With my proposed change, we would only need to see such map with a 4-5* lowest, which better targets this set at higher levels of play whilst encouraging and removing the burden for those who want to push harder maps that test the limits.

Are you really for keeping normal maps to hinder the progression of higher-difficulty mapping and a higher level of play?

One of the main arguments in favor of this proposal is that the spread requirements are forcing mappers to make more than one diff or get GDs for a song. But the discussion has shifted specifically towards the topic of high diffs vs. low diffs, with the general assumption being that a mapper creates an Insane/Extra diff and then proceeds to make a spread for the sake of rankability, and with these requirements being removed, they would no longer need to do so and could simply rank their single diff regardless of length.

But let's consider a hypothetical scenario where a lot of mappers would start doing the opposite - only map an Easy/Normal diff and rank it. Would the discussion still be the same and would the people supporting this change still have the same views on the topic? I'm quite confident that the answer is probably no. Many (if not most) people seemed to be against this type of maps being ranked because they "provide no actual content". But purely from a content perspective, a single Normal diff and a single Extra diff are equal if they have the same length. So if the ranked section hypothetically saw a significant increase in this type of maps along with a decrease of higher diffs, many people wouldn't be satisfied with it because these maps are not interesting for them as they have a higher playing skill and no interest in playing easier maps. The exact same argument can be made the other way around though - a significant increase in single Insane/Extra diffs along with a decrease in lower diffs would make many players feel excluded from new content, and not only beginners would be affected because they are not the only ones playing ENH maps.

This makes me inclined to think that it's not so much about providing more content for players or making it easier to rank maps for mappers, but rather about a personal lack of interest in low diffs and the people who play them. But this opinion should not be projected onto everyone else and should not be a reason to change the type of content being added to the ranked section so drastically.

And to counter the commonly used argument that low diffs don't represent a song fully and are therefore not comparable to a higher diff - this is irrelevant to the discussion because the main reason to implement this proposal is so that mappers can create a map and rank it without having to go through the extra effort of making a spread. So if someone wanted to do that with an Easy or Normal diff, they should be able to, just like someone who is doing the same thing with an Extra. If you don't agree with this logic, it would prove my point that the actual reason for supporting this proposal is the belief that low diffs have little to no value, not that mappers should have more freedom and less work to do.

As you can see, having a disproportionate difficulty distribution in either direction could affect the game's development negatively. This is why the ranking criteria tries to find a balance between all types of difficulty. And the current rules are already a compromise to make it a bit easier for mappers to create spreads for longer songs. You could argue that it's still too much work but in reality you don't have to map more than one diff for a song at all, as stated previously guest diffs are extremely prevalent and an easy way to get a rankable spread.

As a mapper I can respect high quality high diffs (the ones that win contests), but as a player I just want to chill and play easy maps of songs I like. Usually the songs I like are also those that support low diffs (vocal music) but mappers don't map those diffs since it's not a requirement.

Lower diffs allow players to focus on the song more since only the most important sounds are mapped. Since mappers are expected to make high diffs, it doesn't matter how good your low diff is unless your set also has high diffs. One of the main reasons I started mapping high diffs was to push my low diffs, although I enjoy appealing to a larger audience now.

Generally disagree with this, as many others already said having low difficulties is quite important for maintaining the game in a good state and to introduce new players to the game. As others have said tho, not only beginners play lower difficulties as many more experienced players play them as well, be it of pure enjoyment or to maybe farm a #1 on the leaderboard who knows.

Also, lower difficulties are played a lot. Looking at my most recent ranked set, the combined playcount of the easy, normal and hard accounted to about 35% of the total playcount. Not that plays technically matter, it just shows that they are actually pretty popular. Similar results happen when comparing a randomly picked newer ranked map (https://old.ppy.sh/s/1476172), the lower difficulty playcount is about ~40%.

And doesn't it seem much better when you have a consize package of content with hitsounds etc. Idk it just appeals to me more as a whole spread.

Mokobe wrote:

mrowswares wrote:

general quality of low diffs will increase if only the people who want to map them map them, out of interest for it rather than a necessity. I saw some random point about innovation and you're not gonna get innovation by forcing people to map low diffs as FILLER. because that's what forced spread mapping typically results in - FILLER.

looking into data relevant to the prior spread changes (with the flexible lengths), and assuming the same will apply for a "no spread requirements" rule, YES the quantity of these diffs is going to drop (by about half), but nowhere near as much as some of the people in this thread are trying to tell you

preach

agree with clayton again, also refer back to my previous point as i feel like this thread overlooked it a bit

Mokobe wrote:

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...an insane, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...an extra, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...an Extreme, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

or

proposed RC wrote:

If the highest difficulty within a set is...

...4.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...5.5~, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...6.5, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

this approach to having bracketed spreads is a much better approach and helps tackle most qualms people have with it now, with this you are able to have a ranged audience access your maps, whilst appealing to that specific audience, this will help push forward the agenda of mapping higher difficulties as maps slowly progess into becoming harder and harder, this will make the burden on both BNs and mappers for mapping higher diffuclties much less.

Some maps are targetted generally at higher levels of expertise, this is fine. Can we stop breaking the mappers intention by forcing them to adhere to lower levels of play? if for example, we had a 9* map going for ranked, and there would be a difficulty for each star up to normal, that would require the map to have 8 difficulties. With my proposed change, we would only need to see such map with a 4-5* lowest, which better targets this set at higher levels of play whilst encouraging and removing the burden for those who want to push harder maps that test the limits.

Are you really for keeping normal maps to hinder the progression of higher-difficulty mapping and a higher level of play?

I'm not entirey sure if this would work out this easily.

First of all, I could see people purposely making harder diffs. To elaborate: Imagine mapping a 170 BPM song, it being around 5.4* and the mapper is thinking: "Hm let me just increase the spacing of everything even tho it doesn't fit so I reach the needed SR limit to not map a hard etc."

Also, making a cut between when you are allowed to not map a (e.g.) Normal etc. would be really hard, as SR isn't representive of the actual difficulty. I could see a lot of unncessary discussion being created through this, whether something is an insane or maybe a low extra and so on. Would generally come out with inconsistent sets imo.

Bumping this cus again I think its a very good idea (with proper tweaking) that allows extra content to be pushed while not changing our current system drastically

wafer wrote:

Hold on, have an idea here

What if we further reduced spread requirements based off drain time?

Purely hypothetically (literally just throwing random draintimes out there), 0:00-1:59 could be Normal minimum, 2:00-3:29 could be hard minimum, 3:30-4:14 could be insane minimum, and 4:15+ could be any diff

Something along these lines would still keep a steady supply of lower diffs, but would help alleviate some of the pressure for making lower difficulties.

Finding the right drain times for each minimum required diff is a bit of work but pretty sure we can just tweak what we have right now.

Nao said something about the current system being fine & that we have the most amount of ranked maps ever, and while the latter is true, this is partially due to an influx of new users, therefore new mappers. However, the influx of users & maps doesn't mean our system works perfectly.

We can fuel the content in this game for many more months and years by loosening spread rules further, not completely removing them.

of course this definitely helps other game modes a lot more than standard, as standard is the most saturated mode, but I think it would still be a nice addition for standard + it would keep confusion for spread rules between modes at a minimum

fwiw community/forums/topics/1145030 is still open and may serve similar purpose if you are in support of relaxing spread requirements, but not removing them.

personally I don't have a strong opinion about that; my main issues with spread requirements wouldn't be solved with leniency. seems logical enough though if the argument is focused on the current rules being unnecessarily strict (?)

I've been trying to squeeze in another post here with my actual thoughts on removing spread requirements
but I kinda hate how fundamentally much there is to say and consider when aiming to abolish these requirements entirely
I still wrote a shitton this topic is impossible

---

so I'll start here, suppose "ranked is meant to immortalize maps that players enjoy" and maps shouldn't be missing out on that right to get immortalized because of hindrances
immortalize is a good word because that's what happens, most maps quickly grow into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of plays (unique player count when) and some of those players will remember the map as enjoyable, as seen in newly ranked maps seeming to hit up to 100 favorites decently often

it's when you consider what it takes to get to those milestones a different platform, like idk youtube or soundcloud, that you really realize the significance of those numbers. These platforms are more competitive settings where what it takes to get any amount of traction is building and maintaining an audience, putting out regular content and potentially playing into the algorithm

in other words, if someone wants to "immortalize" their own content that'll take some degree of effort and longterm time investment. Simply uploading vs gaining the spotlight are just not the same thing.

And for me it's there that spread requirements stop seeming like this unnecessary roadblock but kindof hidden gem of a balancing system that holds together a lot of the things that make ranked what it is right now.

The effort required to make a spread is rewarded by gaining a notable amount of attention - without really needing to go through the struggles of a creator out in the wild. This makes ranking maps really cool and accessible for newer mappers, they don't have to feel like they're up against some giants.

This is supported by that yes, spread requirements are in some way a hurdle needing to be crossed to enter the "official" content stream. By slowing down the amount of content released, maps that do get ranked get appropriate attention.
On the flipside, spike it up as I mentioned before and it'll become this competitive environment where even after finding BNs your map likely still won't get played unless you've made a name for yourself.
This especially so if the ranking queue is uncapped to cover the much larger availability of rankable content.

From there it's a choice between this competitive environment and spread requirements .. personally I prefer the latter, because the give-and-take nature of it fits the community/volunteer-ran nature of the game really well. We can all enjoy our hobbies and learn how to map rather than purposefully trying to build an entire career or accepting that your content won't see the light of day.

---

There's another line of thinking that I went through quite a bit which I'll call "The TUYU Problem".
TUYU is an artist that has been absolutely booming on osu! throughout 2020-2021, with multiple mapsets that have millions of plays. This alone is aimed to offset VINXIS' "all genres have coverage", because ideally players have the right to be excited about new artists (not genres) and live alongside their releases just like mappers do.

The real issue in The TUYU Problem is that a lot of top diffs of these sets are 6-7* - completely inaccessible to large portions of the playerbase. And like, honestly .. if I were to map any of these bangers without spread requirements .. I'd just stop at that and try rank them as the solo 6-7* diffs they are.

Mappers fearing that low diffs will be underrepresented because of this kind of approach isn't really doomsaying, but more-so these mappers acknowledging that they know themselves and/or their peers well enough. They'd like to avoid this scenario alltogether because locking out a few million plays and potentially making a banger artist unnecessarily high-difficulty exclusive is kinda bad.

Ideally, any approach to the ranking system is "TUYU-complete" (hah) to prevent this from happening at all.

---

In the end removing a balancing tool like this without a constructed plan just causes imbalance, it throws things into chaos. I think it's kindof obvious why people don't want to step into a system with so many uncertainties, they just don't see it work out for the better.

For what it's worth, it's not like the people pushing for this actually care about the spread requirements. They just want to see cool maps have leaderboards and this "hurdle" for ranked is just another target of that frustration. I'd agree on that much, but extending from the "immortalize" thing:
If the community wants to immortalize content it's up to them to put in that effort. This is what Loved does really well and maybe all we need is other systems that fill in niches Loved doesn't. I'd personally be all up for the Tournament community getting their own system in any case, since it naturally answers the custom mapping trend and mania OWC relying graveyarded so much.

So, yeah, if I have any say in this, we're not removing spread requirements.

i dont really follow the first part as a reason to keeping spread requirements because if we are considering it as a stopping mechanism/a tool to slower the flow rate of content, then while there would be a higher flow rate of ranked content, it would be perceived as negligible to most due to the content rate currently being very high as it is already, or in essence, that the increased difference would be minimal compared to the amount that there was and would be

but the second point i can see yea thats fair, i think lower diffs would very unlikely happen otherwise for them (icdd for ex)

interesting that you think the increase would be negligible, I'd more or less expect an exponential increase based on ranked mappers already uploading individual diffs very regularly, see osusearch. Let alone if other mappers didn't take time to plan and finish their spreads because they're not needed.