This allows more creative sliders in ranked

+1

was considering a different approach before making the github pr: putting the current rule under "Rules" section of per-difficulty rules for e/n/h and the updated rule under "Guidelines" for i/x

vs the other approach of just directly modifying the current rule

since this is only really an issue for top diffs, i believe the per-difficulty approach is the best one but want more opinions first

Good point on low diffs, those should certainly be categorically excluded

UberFazz wrote:

was considering a different approach before making the github pr: putting the current rule under "Rules" section of per-difficulty rules for e/n/h and the updated rule under "Guidelines" for i/x

vs the other approach of just directly modifying the current rule

since this is only really an issue for top diffs, i believe the per-difficulty approach is the best one but want more opinions first

just writing here that I Agree cus we already concluded this together in dms last night

+2. Also yes making this a difficulty-based guideline makes sense to me.

Let me paste the full sketch for clarity (draft)

Easy, Normal, Hard, under rules:

 Every slider must have a clear and visible path of movement to follow from start to end. Sliders that overlap themselves without straightforward slider borders and sliders whose individual sections are unreadable cannot be used. A slider's end position must be clear under the assumption that a player has a skin which makes slider end circles fully transparent.

i.e. the same rule as currently, but just applied to low diffs only.

Insane and up under guidelines:

 Every slider should have a clear and visible path of movement to follow from start to end. Sliders that overlap themselves without straightforward slider borders and sliders whose individual sections are unreadable should not be used. A slider's end position should be clear under the assumption that a player has a skin which makes slider end circles fully transparent. 

Sliders that do not require movement are exempt from this.

The idea here is that the wording change from “must” to “should” will tacitly allow for sensible cases like Mazzerin’s if there is a good enough reason to break the guideline, and the addendum at the end more explicitly clarifies that sliders where you don’t need to move at all are allowed to have unclear “paths” on Insane and up.

+1 but disagree with splitting up into diff-specific rules.

Technically a slider with a tiny tumor in it can be argued to have its "individual sections unreadable", and imo having a very small tumor slider in a hard diff is perfectly acceptable. Given that people taking specific wording in the most literal sense is the reason why this proposal is made, you can't rule out that that kind of rule would cause a similar problem and someone will try to argue this.

Regardless of if that happens, can't "in the context of their map" also imply in the context of map difficulty too? i.e. putting this kind of slider in a hard diff doesn't make sense in the context of its map because the map is too easy to use that kind of design without properly leading into it.

I feel like keeping it as the original proposal had it (and maybe adding something like "and its difficulty level") would be a better solution so BNs can decide what's acceptable in each case

Purplegaze wrote:

+1 but disagree with splitting up into diff-specific rules.

Technically a slider with a tiny tumor in it can be argued to have its "individual sections unreadable", and imo having a very small tumor slider in a hard diff is perfectly acceptable. Given that people taking specific wording in the most literal sense is the reason why this proposal is made, you can't rule out that that kind of rule would cause a similar problem and someone will try to argue this.

Regardless of if that happens, can't "in the context of their map" also imply in the context of map difficulty too? i.e. putting this kind of slider in a hard diff doesn't make sense in the context of its map because the map is too easy to use that kind of design without properly leading into it.

I feel like keeping it as the original proposal had it (and maybe adding something like "and its difficulty level") would be a better solution so BNs can decide what's acceptable in each case

I agree with your concern about people purposely taking things too literally, although I think splitting it into difficulty specific legislation actually helps clarify more. Perhaps the solution here would just be to add a brief line to state that minor cosmetic features in a slider that do not affect how someone would realistically read or play it would also be fine.

This does not apply to cosmetic features of sliders that do not realistically pose an unfair reading challenge, such as slider tumors.

Although I do question whether this is necessary because if someone is going to take RC THAT literally that they think stuff like this is a problem then they are likely trolling or lacking in BN-level discretion, and even with the current rule in place sliders like these haven’t really had an issue going through.

I feel like tumor sliders still do provide “a clear and visible path of movement” if you interpret it pragmatically, i.e. that you can just move normally down them. Sliders that use tumors in a way that unexpectedly slows down the movement at a certain part of them would be unsuitable for low diffs anyways so perhaps the proposed legislation is already clear enough.

nobody's ever complained about tumors being unreadable and i doubt anyone ever would, seems unnecessary to add anything relating to it to the rules

was under the impression that current ruling already implies that tumors are okay, or at least that's the common understanding

in any case

im gonna ignore proposal i) because it's really bad, historically this doesn't work as written ruling because it's wayyyyy too open for interpretation. If the rc could just say ""if it's done well"" and everyone agreed on what that means it'd have been written like that 10 years ago.

in general not against the hold sliders though, I think those can be read and thus be allowed. Diff-specific ruling is necessary yeah, we are not doing any of this on normal diffs lol ..

would be more tentative about allowing it for insane diffs. In principle what you're looking to allow defies how sliders are understood - suddenly sliders don't end when the sliderball reaches the visible end.
I'd argue that this in a very general sense requires much more experience reading different slidershapes than a 4* player has developed. It sounds very unlikely that they've learned "keep holding the slider because the next object hasn't appeared" thing at the same time they're learning to read more SV-heavy™ stuff and aim consecutive jumps.

ie. requires "expertise" -> "expert" level difficulty

you can technically create insanes where this kind of slider works, but the roadblock you're running into is the spectrum of
1) Can Read everything
2) Needs to Adapt to level's design
3) Needs to Memorize large sections

The RC is at 1) as it stands, 3) is something we don't want (arguably).
2) would be ideal, since allowing players to learn and adapt to the level is good level design! Though I get the impression this approach is hard to codify and relies more on testplays of the right target audience than anything.

Thus we're kinda stuck at 1) unless we aim to revise that side of the rc somehow.

Other considerations are
- should these sliders be shaped differently from the rest of the map as a sort of visual indicator?, enhancing readability/adaptability and moving away from seeming like pure memorization
- does "not require movement" cover our bases, or do we need to worry about certain sliders being more intuitive to follow than holding?
- similarly, does "not require movement" mean the cursor can stay on the head or does it mean there is a center-point where the cursor can sit?, the latter seems just as common
- the latest draft says "exempt from "this"", is it clear what "this" refers to exactly?, it's easy to say it's exempt from our current understanding now but that might become vague in the future

many many questions, good luck and don't rush

yaspo wrote:

a bunch of stuff

keeping it to experts only is fine by me and is likely the best compromise with the aforementioned issues

as for the considerations,
- optional, all depends on map design i. e. if all sliders are like that (see: dialtone) it's unnecessary
- im not totally sure which kind of sliders you're referring to but if those sliders are already "intuitive" they shouldn't be unreadable in the first place
- case by case. the difference between the two seems very minor but the proposed change implies the head. if this needs to be mentioned we can mention it
- this rule, as in all prior sentences. can be clarified but thought it was implied

thank you for the good luck wish

yaspo wrote:

im gonna ignore proposal i) because it's really bad,

> gonna ignore 😔
> gives constructive feedback 🤔

yaspo wrote:

was under the impression that current ruling already implies that tumors are okay, or at least that's the common understanding

I agree as per the end of my last post. The guy who brought it up wasn't wrong in a super-literal sense though so I felt it was worth replying to at least.

yaspo wrote:

historically this doesn't work as written ruling because it's wayyyyy too open for interpretation. If the rc could just say ""if it's done well"" and everyone agreed on what that means it'd have been written like that 10 years ago.

I don't think it would have due to drastically changed opinions on sliders in general over the years, although to respond to what you mean, the current rule already is overly open to interpretation and seems to actively be hurting things to at least some extent in my view.

yaspo wrote:

the stuff about insanes

Would be fine with whatever ends up happening being only used for Extras.

yaspo wrote:

Other considerations are
- should these sliders be shaped differently from the rest of the map as a sort of visual indicator?, enhancing readability/adaptability and moving away from seeming like pure memorization
- does "not require movement" cover our bases, or do we need to worry about certain sliders being more intuitive to follow than holding?
- similarly, does "not require movement" mean the cursor can stay on the head or does it mean there is a center-point where the cursor can sit?, the latter seems just as common

I had been thinking of some of these (specifically the second one). I do think it may be worth evaluating.

yaspo wrote:

- the latest draft says "exempt from "this"", is it clear what "this" refers to exactly?, it's easy to say it's exempt from our current understanding now but that might become vague in the future

Idk every time I suggested being more Specific I was hit with "nah it's implied/not necessary" but yea if you did ask me being sufficiently specific would be nice to at least future-proof the rule for a While compared to the current one which isn't holding up anymore

Appreciate the comprehensive response, definitely gives a lot to think about. I do still very much think that there should be some sort of change made so more discussion would be welcome. This is primarily why I named the thread using the "Discussion" tag instead of "Proposal" in the first instance.

yaspo wrote:

Gl

Ty

yaspo wrote:

historically this doesn't work as written ruling because it's wayyyyy too open for interpretation.

Interesting. Proposal 1 would solve maps getting veto'd (well, actually secretly DQ'd without telling the mapper) over how ambiguous the current slider rules are. I heavily doubt that from an "interpretation affecting maps" standpoint, moving this to a guideline and adding that addendum is a detriment.

Vetoes and disqualifications over this rule are typically not even done in the interest of gameplay. In the case of Dialtone - the vetoer explicitly says that the gameplay itself is completely fine, and the issue is just that the ranking criteria COULD be interpreted to be unrankable.

As AJT said:

AJT wrote:

the current rule already is overly open to interpretation and seems to actively be hurting things to at least some extent in my view.

The existing rule needs to change to allow more freedom with slider mapping and less pointless semantic debates over "path of movement" lmao

made a PR since there's overwhelming support for this https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/6263

after some discussion, made a slight change to the "rule e/n/h guideline i/x" idea. the rule is the same for e/n, but there's an exception for h. i/x has the exception but is a guideline rather than a rule. examples are shown in the PR

what
how is this a thing for hards all of the sudden?
what different exceptions does it being a guideline allow for insane and expert rather than the rule it is for hards?
this shit is infinitely unclear to me, did we forget that guidelines are supposed to be enforced as "rules with exceptions" or something?
edit: right, I guess it's "should not" vs "cannot" which is a very obscure way of adjusting wording lol, at least AJTs proposal had a clear rule and then the rule with the sole exception stated - not a 1 word change
and also implies we're suddenly doing a lot more than "slightly relaxing for one type of slider" ?? confuse

I don't remember these things being covered in the thread
rather I argued against insanes without counterargument but apparently we're going the opposite way from it?

issue being: where is this magical discussion and why is this thread (.. or any other channel) being left in the dark?, what conclusions did you draw and why

oops i messed up the link in the pr, this is the map that's supposed to be linked in the first paragraph beatmapsets/1541421#osu/3186141 (fixed now). anyway,


i made the pr because i didn't see this as needing of much discussion (especially with the lack of posts within the last few days and the overwhelming support shown on the thread) — nothing is really changing. the goal here is to adapt to mapping norms by changing outdated rules rather than the other way around and this is what i thought resembled those norms. if you disagree, i encourage you to review the pr be it wording or otherwise

apologies if it seems like im jumping the gun, that is not the goal at all — if you'd like to keep it to extras only as proposed earlier, we can make it happen, but we'd need to somehow specify that "unreadable" sliders can still be okay, even on hard diffs

waiting on peppy to see whether or not he'd even let a change like this go through lol

imean the issue with the wording currently is that it doesn't just allow for these triangles on hards, but that it also allows for these triangles to loop indefinitely - this still requires no movement thus is exempt from the rule
that's how it was intended in the first place I'm not sure how the fuck you missed this

rather than immediately adding the rule for hards what you could do first is watch replays cuz it's qualified - there's gonna be hardlvl players in there to observe actual gameplay of. Are these sliders really "okay" ? Now's your chance.

also if you dudes take the RC literally to go into debates over a "path of movement" then why would you go ahead and assume other BNs wouldn't do the same thing and "decipher it"
like the original "spirit of the rule" was to bar literally everything burai, these interpretations can change over time just as you guys prove by existing

+ it'd also be nice if actual mappers can understand the RC and that it's not just something you have to consult a BN that is in the know for, or getting vetoed for several people misunderstanding

---

what does "more leniency in general" even entail, does that just mean maps can do anything as long as it's justifiable™ ?
burai in general is really ambiguous to judge gameplay-wise because those who've seen the sliders are inherently biased to understand the sliders, and everyone is tied to their own skill-level when it comes to interpreting sliders
heck I wouldn't be able to identify "insane lvl burai" vs "expert lvl burai" consistently, we lack understanding and precedence for that
so you can welcome a lot of subjectivity debates and gradually more "allowance" in the sense that vetoers will grow demotivated eventually

at best I can call this part of the changes an experiment to make new observations, cuz the claims you're making are just beliefs that you pull out of thin air

---

imo it's partially an issue with the thread, it's a thread titled "slight relaxation" that talks about
- allowing everything conceivable if justifiable
- allowing one specific type of slider as an exception

these should be different discussions and you can do the math on which one appeared the most relevant here
and unfortunately only few of the overwhelming +1 upvoters (most of which only got here by being advertised the latter in skystar's chrono diver) specified which of these they were referring to

also the wording is the thread's responsibility, prs should ideally only do minor wording changes and not change the entire meaning of the rule
there's no reviewing happening - fix it
unlucky that i know how fucked wording sliderstuff is and that i'm also not particularly inspired

ive changed the pr to a draft for the time being. will keep discussion here

i believe this wording works better:

1. Every slider must have a clear and visible path of movement to follow from start to end. Sliders that overlap themselves without straightforward slider borders and sliders whose individual sections are unreadable cannot be used. A slider's end position must be clear under the assumption that a player has a skin which makes slider end circles fully transparent. Ambiguous sliders with follow circles that cover the whole slider path (i. e. small sliders where the slider head and tail fully overlap) are allowed, assuming the slider bodies do not fully overlap themselves.

(inspiration taken from Naxess' description in mv)

it's a bit wordy, but would cover our bases for sliders like the ones mentioned in the hard diff pretty directly, while still disallowing "infinitely looping" sliders

an even better option (yet slightly more complicated) would be to add a wiki page that shows an image of some of these "acceptable" sliders. this is something to consider for clarity's sake

my idea would be: keep current rule for e and n. use proposed rule for h and i. use proposed rule for x as well but as a guideline and slightly modified:

1. Every slider should have a clear and visible path of movement to follow from start to end. Sliders that overlap themselves without straightforward slider borders and sliders whose individual sections are unreadable should not be used. A slider's end position should be clear under the assumption that a player has a skin which makes slider end circles fully transparent. Ambiguous sliders with follow circles that cover the whole slider path (i. e. small sliders where the slider head and tail fully overlap) are allowed. assuming the slider bodies do not fully overlap themselves.

this would allow for dialtone sliders, but only in extras. if necessary, it can be a rule like the others

opinions needed. i hope this is clearer in what we're trying to accomplish

(and for the record, i went and watched multiple replays on that hard diff — the sliders were played as expected)

im not sure if this is dead now due to ppy's reply but will reply anyway

bless chad Naxess for having some kind of descriptor for this ahead of time
it's a bit wordy indeed, I'm mildly wondering if we can have something like the Allowances section exists for metadata but with references to specific difficulty levels
seems fine though I think

also yeah linking an image here would be great

so ye proposed for h and i seems good

still not entirely sure what the "should" for extras is about, cutting the "assuming the slider bodies do not fully overlap themselves" part should be okay by itself I'd think?, not sure what nuance im missing
if it's about the "more leniency in general", I would have proposed you make a new discussion thread for that tbh, it's rly pesky to discuss a specific slidertype at the same time as all slidertypes and their potential contexts
ofcourse peppymans is bound to not like it so there might be No Point in doing that

otherwise seems okayyy

since these are "rules with exception" these all could be guidelines ?, it's kinda whatever to me since the exception is clearly stated and not implied

yep we all love Naxess lol im glad i thought of that

allowances could be cool but don't think it's totally necessary for our purposes here

the "should" is necessary for guidelines. all guidelines use "should" instead of "must" — my idea is to allow burais that fit in the context of their maps but this is Highly Subjective:tm: so i'll just keep it a rule

i understand the concern about guidelines being "rules with exceptions" but that would force me to update the wording. rules have exceptions as well, so i'm sticking with it

adding images is a bit more complicated so i'll leave it without for now

i've applied your suggestion and updated the pr 👍

this went through so gonna close if i Figure out how