So I'm sure a lot of people - mappers and players alike, have encountered Kiai flashes in maps at this point, or have even experimented with them themselves. They can make for cool effects in gameplay and allow for more room for artistic expression as a mapper, as sometimes a long Kiai or not using a Kiai at all simply doesn't feel like it does the trick. This begs the question - why aren't there any maps using Kiai flashes ranked?
Before we get to the answer, let's define the term "Kiai flash" first.
A Kiai flash occurs when the Kiai setting is being toggled only 1/4 of a beat, or shorter than that. (Or 1/3, if the map is in swing rhythm.)
To give you a quick example of what you could possily do with that:
Avenged Sevenfold - Remenissions by frukoyurdakul
The flash occurs fairly early into the map, where it emphasizes multiple singular kat notes to highlight the harsh vocals. At the time, the mapper wanted to rank this map (which I, as one of its potential BNs, was in complete support of). However, it was deemed unrankable due to the one Rule in the Ranking Criteria that doesn't allow Kiai flashes to be ranked altogether.
Obviously, there is a lot more you could possibly do with that. Similar to how a decent share of osu!standard maps handle emphasis by toggling Kiai for a single object, or multiple single objects happening frequently within one section. This is only one of the most basic applications of a Kiai flash.
With that out of the way, let's get to the point why this isn't allowed in Taiko.
The answer is simple - the Ranking Criteria uses the default skin as the base to judge whether or not something is fine in gameplay or can cause epilepsy or motion sickness, and symptoms that are associated with that.
Now, there is one major reason why that rule in and out of itself is flawed.
The default skin is heavily outdated.
I can count the amount of people who genuinely play using that skin on one hand. The skin's background colour is extremely bright, and during Kiais both the background and the playfield itself change colour drastically into an extremely bright colour, which of course, if you have everything flash between an already uncomfortable looking skin and a bright mess, it can easily induce epilepsy, headaches, and such. Heck, the skin even doesn't utilize the osu!taiko mascot that has been in the game since 2017.
You have to consider that over 90% of the active players and mappers already have moved on to all kinds of different skins - some with almost no extra visual effects in them to not distract players in the middle of the map, some skins with mild visuals like a customized pippidon, customized background theme, and such, and also maps with a lot of things going on, like a customized playfield colour during Kiais, comboburst audio cues (similar to comboburst images in osu!standard), et cetera.
What I'm getting at is that the default skin is almost universally agreed on to be awful for playing, with a good amount of players - jokingly or not - saying that they'd get a headache using this skin too. The Ranking Criteria is enforcing a rule based on something which doesn't even apply to the vast majority of players.
That rule alone limits mappers in their means of creative expression / interpretation of the song, because of something that in practice makes zero sense and is ultimately obsolete.
So, to actually get to the main point of this thread - the proposal:
- Get rid of the currently existing rule entirely. There is no practical reason to it, and it has been due for an overhaul since forever.
- Add a new point to the Oni / Inner Oni Guidelines, which goes as follows:
Kiai flashes may be used to emphasize a specific spot in the music, for which a regular Kiai would not emphasize it to its fullest potential.
This may or may not need some re-phrasing.
I specified this to be applicable for only Oni difficulties and upwards due to beginner and intermediate players still tending to use the default skin at times, simply because a decent share of them likely don't know any better. This may be changed in the future under the condition that the default skin as a whole gets receives a makeover.
Before we get to the answer, let's define the term "Kiai flash" first.
A Kiai flash occurs when the Kiai setting is being toggled only 1/4 of a beat, or shorter than that. (Or 1/3, if the map is in swing rhythm.)
To give you a quick example of what you could possily do with that:
Avenged Sevenfold - Remenissions by frukoyurdakul
The flash occurs fairly early into the map, where it emphasizes multiple singular kat notes to highlight the harsh vocals. At the time, the mapper wanted to rank this map (which I, as one of its potential BNs, was in complete support of). However, it was deemed unrankable due to the one Rule in the Ranking Criteria that doesn't allow Kiai flashes to be ranked altogether.
Obviously, there is a lot more you could possibly do with that. Similar to how a decent share of osu!standard maps handle emphasis by toggling Kiai for a single object, or multiple single objects happening frequently within one section. This is only one of the most basic applications of a Kiai flash.
With that out of the way, let's get to the point why this isn't allowed in Taiko.
The answer is simple - the Ranking Criteria uses the default skin as the base to judge whether or not something is fine in gameplay or can cause epilepsy or motion sickness, and symptoms that are associated with that.
Now, there is one major reason why that rule in and out of itself is flawed.
The default skin is heavily outdated.
I can count the amount of people who genuinely play using that skin on one hand. The skin's background colour is extremely bright, and during Kiais both the background and the playfield itself change colour drastically into an extremely bright colour, which of course, if you have everything flash between an already uncomfortable looking skin and a bright mess, it can easily induce epilepsy, headaches, and such. Heck, the skin even doesn't utilize the osu!taiko mascot that has been in the game since 2017.
You have to consider that over 90% of the active players and mappers already have moved on to all kinds of different skins - some with almost no extra visual effects in them to not distract players in the middle of the map, some skins with mild visuals like a customized pippidon, customized background theme, and such, and also maps with a lot of things going on, like a customized playfield colour during Kiais, comboburst audio cues (similar to comboburst images in osu!standard), et cetera.
What I'm getting at is that the default skin is almost universally agreed on to be awful for playing, with a good amount of players - jokingly or not - saying that they'd get a headache using this skin too. The Ranking Criteria is enforcing a rule based on something which doesn't even apply to the vast majority of players.
That rule alone limits mappers in their means of creative expression / interpretation of the song, because of something that in practice makes zero sense and is ultimately obsolete.
So, to actually get to the main point of this thread - the proposal:
- Get rid of the currently existing rule entirely. There is no practical reason to it, and it has been due for an overhaul since forever.
- Add a new point to the Oni / Inner Oni Guidelines, which goes as follows:
Kiai flashes may be used to emphasize a specific spot in the music, for which a regular Kiai would not emphasize it to its fullest potential.
This may or may not need some re-phrasing.
I specified this to be applicable for only Oni difficulties and upwards due to beginner and intermediate players still tending to use the default skin at times, simply because a decent share of them likely don't know any better. This may be changed in the future under the condition that the default skin as a whole gets receives a makeover.