I'm currently, as I am told as of now, not ready for Ranked yet, and it is the only option I have now, since I pissed a couple of Project Loved captains and community members in the Discord server off by asking for help for my mentally unstable friend who was about to end it. For that reason, Loved is now seemingly impossible, since if I piss the captains off, they might not put my maps up for voting, ever.

So, since Ranked is the only one left, how do I confidently get my map ranked without it becoming as impossible as Loved currently is? I'm afraid of doing anymore that could ruin my dreams of being a mapper.

Beatmap Nominator and Loved Captain here, I can give my perspective on both accounts:

Ideally, in the aim for Ranked the best thing you can do is to keep mapping. You don't improve solely from feedback though it is crucial so I admire you reaching out to circles. Though being dismissive about people trying to help isn't the way to go, I used to have your mindset, but the truth is, deleting your maps restarts all progress you had, having the maps open and readily available increase their reach and can help others with their goal to help you.

If you have dreams of being a mapper, my advice to you, is to keep going. You've had an account for 2 months, you won't be a genius right away! I strongly believe that feedback that simply tells you "it's not ready for Ranked" won't get you anywhere so I encourage you to instead seek feedback about how to improve your map bit by bit, as you keep improving the quality will shock you.

Take time to listen to those who are giving up their time to give you the help and you will see insane progress, try to expand your own mindset, rather than limit yourself based on what little you currently know. There are mentorship cycles happening on a seasonly basis, I recommend looking to join in for the Fall cycle, you will learn a lot! Go in with a positive outlook, I believe you can make great things.

Loved is a different story, Loved aims to promote creativity without recognition, those maps the community truly enjoys and wants to see thrown into the spotlight. This is why aiming for Loved status is discouraged. It shouldn't be a goal, do you want to map a fun gimmick? Go ahead! Map it because it's fun to make or play, not because you seek to gain a benefit from it. Games should be fun, so make them enjoyable, that's a good thing to stand by.

If you need any insight or advice my DMs are open, let me know! Hopefully I gave you some good insight though.

seeing what you've written in the project loved server makes me feel like you're jumping into the social part of mapping/modding/ranking way too soon. all of your complaints center on struggling to connect with others about your mapping, which frankly is probably because it's just not at that baseline quality where people are able to constructively critique it. to be clear that's not something to feel bad about either; it's where everyone has to start from

strongly recommend just mapping for your own enjoyment, both in the sense of finding fun in that process and finding fun in playing your own maps. take inspiration from the maps you already enjoy and discover what works and what doesn't for you.

crucially, don't initially dream big about ranking maps or whatever. self-study for long enough will eventually yield results where nobody would doubt that your map is "ready for ranked", and from there the final steps of modding and ranking are no big deal. I would argue that if you can't find interest in mapping without the allure of eventually ranking, then the hobby isn't really for you.

just wanted to pitch in alternative perspective as this is pretty much the opposite advice of what aceticke said lol

clayton wrote:

seeing what you've written in the project loved server makes me feel like you're jumping into the social part of mapping/modding/ranking way too soon. all of your complaints center on struggling to connect with others about your mapping, which frankly is probably because it's just not at that baseline quality where people are able to constructively critique it. to be clear that's not something to feel bad about either; it's where everyone has to start from

strongly recommend just mapping for your own enjoyment, both in the sense of finding fun in that process and finding fun in playing your own maps. take inspiration from the maps you already enjoy and discover what works and what doesn't for you.

crucially, don't initially dream big about ranking maps or whatever. self-study for long enough will eventually yield results where nobody would doubt that your map is "ready for ranked", and from there the final steps of modding and ranking are no big deal. I would argue that if you can't find interest in mapping without the allure of eventually ranking, then the hobby isn't really for you.

just wanted to pitch in alternative perspective as this is pretty much the opposite advice of what aceticke said lol

I mean, just one ranked map shouldn't be much. I'm not going for like 50, lol. But yeah, I would get mods and nominators for maps, but I really don't have anywhere to go from here. I've improved on mapping, so I don't really have maps I enjoy anymore. Discovering what does and doesn't work for me when mapping would not go along the ranking criteria, most likely, so I'm confused on that one. I can't really go in depth about it on the server in question, since I was randomly banned. I know the message of me asking for help to save my friend was deleted, but I wasn't mad. I accepted it and moved on. The situation was resolved by then and I was going to move on with my day and interact with the Osu! servers I was in like how I usually would or want to. Like a distinguished gentleman. But I was banned before I knew what I did, because the message was deleted, and I accepted the fate of the message. I was fine with what they did to remove the message. The thing I am not really happy about is me getting banned before I could apologize for the inconvenience I caused. I apologized for ruining the integrity of the general chat by posting for help. I feel like the ban was rushed out of spite, but that is just me. I don't entirely hate you for it, but it rubs me the wrong way. Due to this information, I am afraid of if Loved would become impossible entirely for me, since I kind of pissed you all off by posting something you didn't want to see. As of now, one half of my dream is shattered. It's only a dream, so it is only a matter of time before Ranked becomes as impossible as Loved is standing currently. I don't really expect anything out of my maps. I don't even expect me to even get my stuff rankable. As it stands right now, I am literally an extremely small mapper with 5-6 years of offline experience compared to 2 months of online mapping experience who has no hopes of getting past Graveyard.

LaymooDR wrote:

clayton wrote:

seeing what you've written in the project loved server makes me feel like you're jumping into the social part of mapping/modding/ranking way too soon. all of your complaints center on struggling to connect with others about your mapping, which frankly is probably because it's just not at that baseline quality where people are able to constructively critique it. to be clear that's not something to feel bad about either; it's where everyone has to start from

strongly recommend just mapping for your own enjoyment, both in the sense of finding fun in that process and finding fun in playing your own maps. take inspiration from the maps you already enjoy and discover what works and what doesn't for you.

crucially, don't initially dream big about ranking maps or whatever. self-study for long enough will eventually yield results where nobody would doubt that your map is "ready for ranked", and from there the final steps of modding and ranking are no big deal. I would argue that if you can't find interest in mapping without the allure of eventually ranking, then the hobby isn't really for you.

just wanted to pitch in alternative perspective as this is pretty much the opposite advice of what aceticke said lol

I mean, just one ranked map shouldn't be much. I'm not going for like 50, lol. But yeah, I would get mods and nominators for maps, but I really don't have anywhere to go from here. I've improved on mapping, so I don't really have maps I enjoy anymore. Discovering what does and doesn't work for me when mapping would not go along the ranking criteria, most likely, so I'm confused on that one. I can't really go in depth about it on the server in question, since I was randomly banned. I know the message of me asking for help to save my friend was deleted, but I wasn't mad. I accepted it and moved on. The situation was resolved by then and I was going to move on with my day and interact with the Osu! servers I was in like how I usually would or want to. Like a distinguished gentleman. But I was banned before I knew what I did, because the message was deleted, and I accepted the fate of the message. I was fine with what they did to remove the message. The thing I am not really happy about is me getting banned before I could apologize for the inconvenience I caused. I apologized for ruining the integrity of the general chat by posting for help. I feel like the ban was rushed out of spite, but that is just me. I don't entirely hate you for it, but it rubs me the wrong way. Due to this information, I am afraid of if Loved would become impossible entirely for me, since I kind of pissed you all off by posting something you didn't want to see. As of now, one half of my dream is shattered. It's only a dream, so it is only a matter of time before Ranked becomes as impossible as Loved is standing currently. I don't really expect anything out of my maps. I don't even expect me to even get my stuff rankable. As it stands right now, I am literally an extremely small mapper with 5-6 years of offline experience compared to 2 months of online mapping experience who has no hopes of getting past Graveyard.

graveyard mapping is based though

what I'm trying to get at as that you should consider not aiming for ranked at all right now. it's way easier to get into when you've already developed yourself as a mapper, and by then, you may realise that ranking maps is only tangential to your goal of becoming a good mapper anyway. this is just my opinion ofc but backed up by watching a lot of mappers do this to great success

about loved I feel like you're a bit mislead as to how it works, there is no relationship with the captains required and there is also no practical way to "go for loved", other than just having popular maps under your name. it already is "impossible" for you until your maps get a lot of positive attention from the broader community

about loved server I'm not involved with its management at all and I didn't actually see what you said recently either. I kind of understand why they banned you though. this will come off as a bit rude from me but take as potential advice pls -- my personal opinion is that you come off as pretty self-centered, dramatic, and probably difficult to work with; I think it will be hard for you to socialize about mapping if you don't improve the way you communicate in that sense. in that loved server for example, I was annoyed by your long and repeating rants about your ranking difficulties that ultimately did not respect anyone's time (because no matter the advice given, you just come back later and say similar things). I am skeptical that you would fit into spaces like the mentorship program due to those issues and just very poor mindset in general. to be clear I'm no saint and have no right to criticize you as a person or anything, this is just me trying to be realistic about your situation...

that's all I've really got to say so hopefully at least some of it can help. good luck

clayton wrote:

what I'm trying to get at as that you should consider not aiming for ranked at all right now. it's way easier to get into when you've already developed yourself as a mapper, and by then, you may realise that ranking maps is only tangential to your goal of becoming a good mapper anyway. this is just my opinion ofc but backed up by watching a lot of mappers do this to great success

about loved I feel like you're a bit mislead as to how it works, there is no relationship with the captains required and there is also no practical way to "go for loved", other than just having popular maps under your name. it already is "impossible" for you until your maps get a lot of positive attention from the broader community

about loved server I'm not involved with its management at all and I didn't actually see what you said recently either. I kind of understand why they banned you though. this will come off as a bit rude from me but take as potential advice pls -- my personal opinion is that you come off as pretty self-centered, dramatic, and probably difficult to work with; I think it will be hard for you to socialize about mapping if you don't improve the way you communicate in that sense. in that loved server for example, I was annoyed by your long and repeating rants about your ranking difficulties that ultimately did not respect anyone's time (because no matter the advice given, you just come back later and say similar things). I am skeptical that you would fit into spaces like the mentorship program due to those issues and just very poor mindset in general. to be clear I'm no saint and have no right to criticize you as a person or anything, this is just me trying to be realistic about your situation...

that's all I've really got to say so hopefully at least some of it can help. good luck

But I was politely asking for some help. I also politely accepted the message being deleted, as they are the boss. I'm clearly not above authority, I know that. I don't think my maps will ever get popular enough to get into Loved, but I took lessons from ImproveMint and I understood all of the concepts he has taught. The one thing that I might not ever be able to fix up is spacing, but everything else is great. I might end up making a rankable map in the future, if I end up being ready to. That might not also happen until I somehow decide to start uploading again.

From someone in your position (someone actively mapping and trying to rank their first map). All you can do is map, get mods, and improve on that map / restart and make a new map until you create something that meets standards and is fun to play.

Now, let me get the expectation out of your head with ALL due respect. Getting a map loved is NOT easy. You need not only half of the people that play your map to not only like it but LOVE it. You need 85% of people to do so. Definitely shoot for a ranked map first. It's genuinely easier to shoot for a decent first ranked map then to go for a loved map.

Enjoy mapping, take things slow. It likely takes days for REALLY experienced mappers to rank a map. So, good luck!

i wouldnt say days,maybe months if we are being realistic here,but as everyone said best advice is to map and experiment alot and keep experimenting ALOT until you find the style that you like

Randomness64 wrote:

i wouldnt say days,maybe months if we are being realistic here,but as everyone said best advice is to map and experiment alot and keep experimenting ALOT until you find the style that you like

I've quit going for ranked. It was too much to even do for me, so I can't do it anymore. I now just want a map that will pass off as good and fun, but I know THAT won't happen.

I'm still off for now, but I feel like bringing the news here.