¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keyboard discussion is over. And \/ Yes, like what you said, I already agreed with the 6key limit.

[Dellirium] wrote:

MMzz wrote:

I think you are missing the fact that this is not O2Jam/DJMAX/IIDX, this is osu!mania. We're not going to make it exactly like all the other games.

So if I'm gonna play o!m, I'll have nothing to play after 2 years because all diffs will be too easy for me and I'll have to go to other games, right?

Uhhh, how do you think all the pro's from osu! game modes feel? The only way they have fun is playing with mods, not the actual map it's self. So don't act like you are special because of osu!mania.

Charles445 wrote:

I don't see a reason to have rules against jackhammers. It's just hard to do, that's all. We have 300 bpm streams in osu! which is effectively a 150 bpm jackhammer on two fingers. As people get better there will be a greater need for jackhammering - putting a cap on that now will cause future issues.

+1

All these conflict of interests is getting annoying already.

Again for 6key thing.

I'm not here either to or against the rule, though I have to point out that no 6key at the same time != no usb key conflict.

These conflict keyboard can not play nyanyan...![collab], since in many case you didn't release a few keys but tend to press a few more keys causing conflict.

_o_o_o_
o_o_o_o

How about this. These are all up for debate and they are intentionally loose yet descriptive. Red = Rule, Green = Guideline

No pattern may interfere with a keyboard's hardware limitations, assuming the keyboard can press at least 5-6 keys at the same time without resorting to an unconventional key mapping (Tab-Ctrl-E-Space-P-Backspace-RightEnter would be considered unconventional for 7key).

Jackhammers (A pattern where a prolonged stream must be single tapped with one key) may not be included in any map except for harder insanes or harder.

When changing BPM and/or slider velocity in easier beatmaps, players should be given some time to see the speed change before the first note in the BPM change happens.

Avoid using difficulty spikes in your map. Slow intros and intense solos are allowed, but make sure the general difficulty stays in the map's indicated difficulty level.

Try not to make too much of the pattern focus on one hand. Most people play better with one hand over the other, so try not to make a song that will make them overuse their "bad" hand.


That's all I got right now. I think if we keep the rules slightly vague while still highlighting some key things, ranking might be easier.

Mithost wrote:

How about this. These are all up for debate and they are intentionally loose yet descriptive. Red = Rule, Green = Guideline

No pattern may interfere with a keyboard's hardware limitations, assuming the keyboard can press at least 5-6 keys at the same time without resorting to an unconventional key mapping (Tab-Ctrl-E-Space-P-Backspace-RightEnter would be considered unconventional for 7key).

Jackhammers (A pattern where a prolonged stream must be single tapped with one key) may not be included in any map except for harder insanes or harder.

When changing BPM and/or slider velocity in easier beatmaps, players should be given some time to see the speed change before the first note in the BPM change happens.

Avoid using difficulty spikes in your map. Slow intros and intense solos are allowed, but make sure the general difficulty stays in the map's indicated difficulty level.

Try not to make too much of the pattern focus on one hand. Most people play better with one hand over the other, so try not to make a song that will make them overuse their "bad" hand.


That's all I got right now. I think if we keep the rules slightly vague while still highlighting some key things, ranking might be easier.

The only thing I'd change is letting any insane use jackhammers, not just "harder" Insanes because that is not a very good descriptor to use (it's hard to say at what point something becomes a "harder" Insane).

That's fair. I said "harder insanes" because we are not exactly sure where insane lands on the osu!mania difficulty scale. In standard, the difficulty in insane maps are all over the place, and many of those insanes are not exactly... hard.

Mithost wrote:

That's fair. I said "harder insanes" because we are not exactly sure where insane lands on the osu!mania difficulty scale. In standard, the difficulty in insane maps are all over the place, and many of those insanes are not exactly... hard.

There are many hard diffs that are easier than easy diffs, and vice versa. So this phenomenon is existing in every place, don't worry.

And yeah, I would like to introduce harder insane into a separated category (For example, approved)

These "hard insane" (lv 60+) are incredibly hard comparing to normal maps. There are no such gap between osu! maps (e.g. FD[FD] and normal insane maps in osu!). They don't use jackhammers, but they are really hard, a few keyboard may fails at these songs due to too high apm. These songs are not intended to be played well (Though a few top ranked player can do AA to them , but not FC), but are asking player to just pass them. You may know that Cookiezi has FCed FDFD, that's it. But in osu!mania there's huge difference. No FC. No S,No A...Pass is God.

Though many of these songs are just nonsense, a few of them is still of high quality and are suitable to promote them to the community, yet it's too hard that it's only for crazy players, but not normal players. We could put them into app category to "hide" them in first contact then allowing crazy players to choose to play them. And we can use this as a warning to mappers: If you make crazy maps, whether it is good or reasonable, it is not able for ranking but only for approval. We don't have a good difficulty marking strategy for mania now, thus we can make an approval sign on that. Mania is mania, so we may try other symbol strategy for it.

I'm really concerning that osu!mania would become either current taiko community(Skilled player plays unranked maps) or outer mania world(Many crazy or even unplayable maps).

We don't have a good difficulty marking strategy for mania now

Right. I think we should discuss this first. o2jam's diffs names are not the same as in taiko or standard.

I'm really concerning that osu!mania would become either current taiko community(Skilled player plays unranked maps) or outer mania world(Many crazy or even unplayable maps).

And I'm really worried about that.

It's fairly hard to rank a map's difficulty without a benchmark for each. To get a benchmark, we need to discuss what the difficulties should represent, then find a pack of maps that represents it perfectly. Here is what I think about it.

Easy should be for people who are experimenting with the game. Maybe they play it at an arcade or a party, or just want to see what it's about. It should be basic enough for a newbie to understand, while still giving the feeling that they are playing to the music.

Normal should be for players who have decided that they are going to commit time into learning how to do harder difficulties. These maps should start teaching players the patterns and skills that build songs (ddd and ddk for taiko players) while still being fun. This should be a fairly large category because it needs to bridge the Hard difficulty gap that can be seen in pretty much every rhythm game (osu! included).

Hard should to introduce harder variations of the patterns seen in normal, and work on the general speed of those patterns. It shouldn't be too difficult, and should contain a bit of the same stuff seen in normal difficulties. This is to attempt to bridge the gap that makes people ragequit when they try hard mode. Players should not feel like there is a part missing in the map when they play them (guitar solos being simple 1/4s or hold notes), and the player should start feeling a bit of confidence.

Insanes are when things stop being held back. Patterns are in full force, with little to no simplification. The maps should not be impossible, but instead they should be accurate representations of the actual song's patterns. There will be a pretty big range here, but that is because it depends on the song. Slow songs will be easier than faster songs, but everything will FEEL right.

Experts (Also known as Impossibles, Extra, Oni, etc) would be for players looking for ridiculous maps. These would be songs that were not able to represent their rhythms and patterns in the insane difficulty without toning things down.

Thats about it.

And this is my point of difficulty.

Easy: (1-10 diff in o2jam)
In this diff, very few notes are introduced into the game. There may not be one fully noted rhythm line to prevent difficulty goes too high.

Normal: (11-20 diff in o2jam)
Now 1 main rhythm line would be fully noted, and there may be some beat notes besides main rhythm.

Hard: (21-40 diff in o2jam)
2 or even more rhythm line introduced, the most part of the song is played by player. (Both in key sound charts and non-key sound ones.)

Insane: (40+ diff in o2jam)
In this diff, nearly everything can be played would be present on the chart, regardless of how hard the pattern is. There may still be a few simplifications for the limit of 7 key, but still, main rhythm and side beats are easy to separate.


Anyway I don't think we should put "reasonable diff spread" on mania. We should allow mapsets which only have normal+,hard and insane or even hard and insane, for making certain song in easy diff may cause broken rhythm line. (Though 2 diff law would be there.)

I agree with post above.

Also I'd like to see 'leveled' diff names, but it requiers improving AiMod...

xxbidiao wrote:

And this is my point of difficulty.

Easy: (1-10 diff in o2jam)
In this diff, very few notes are introduced into the game. There may not be one fully noted rhythm line to prevent difficulty goes too high.

Normal: (11-20 diff in o2jam)
Now 1 main rhythm line would be fully noted, and there may be some beat notes besides main rhythm.

Hard: (21-40 diff in o2jam)
2 or even more rhythm line introduced, the most part of the song is played by player. (Both in key sound charts and non-key sound ones.)

Insane: (40+ diff in o2jam)
In this diff, nearly everything can be played would be present on the chart, regardless of how hard the pattern is. There may still be a few simplifications for the limit of 7 key, but still, main rhythm and side beats are easy to separate.


Anyway I don't think we should put "reasonable diff spread" on mania. We should allow mapsets which only have normal+,hard and insane or even hard and insane, for making certain song in easy diff may cause broken rhythm line. (Though 2 diff law would be there.)

I agree with your difficulty-o2jam level split, that sounds reasonable, but I think your description of what each difficulty represents is not quite right. I'd also really like to see AI-mod be better able to give o2jam-like difficulty levels. It gives you a finer grained sense of difficulty, even if it's not perfect (o2jam's system definitely wasn't, but it worked fairly well).

If you pay close attention to how easier maps are actually mapped in o2jam (listening to the hitsounds and such) you'll find that often how they do things is that for each "measure" they will often chose a sound or a few sounds that they want to introduce as notes. I could go farther in depth if you want (I could do an actual analysis on a few official notecharts) but my point is that they don't generally pick 1 rhythm line and stick with it. They pick out certain sounds or rhythms that are easily distinguishable for a section of the song and note those (sometimes using 1 note for something like a multiple note trill in easy difficulties). The only reason I'm pointing this out is to make sure everyone fully understands how o2jam mapping worked at lower levels as a reference point.

I agree with xxbidiao that we should have a bit more lax rules on difficulty spread. What we need now are more maps being produced, and the more open our rules are, the more maps would be available for people to play. I definitely understand the goal behind the "diff spread" rule, but I think the most important thing is to get people making maps whether they're for newcomers or for veterans of the mania style games. Even without the diff spread rule there will be people making maps for both newcomers and veterans, this would mean that someone mapping something for a veteran isn't required to map for a newcomer and vice versa. But it doesn't stop people from doing so if they want to.

As a side point, I think we need to set up an organized effort to get people into mania mapping. Tutorials and/or style guides, and possibly a few veterans who are willing to mod a lot of maps and really help newcomers out could do a lot to ensure that the quality of newer maps.

Slider velocity changes should never exceed 3x and if ever only for a short duration. For longer duration speed changes it must be justified by the music in tempo change. How does that sound for a rule?

More rules:
For easy dont put more than 3 notes at the same time
For normal dont put more than 5 notes at the same time
For normal dont make chord streams


About sliders and the necessary ability to play them while hitting notes:

If you make a slider in easy difficulty dont put other notes closer than in 2 beat intervals, dont put more than 3 slider at time.
Normal, if you are holding down more than two keys consider not putting streams while doing them unless they are sperated by hands and/or not that hard to hit

Dont put breaks unless it is for a recovery period after some really tough stuff, map the song as it goes.
letterbox during breaks must allways be enabled to hint when the song starts again.

Maps must be created with a thought behind it. Maps with random notes and no structure should not be rankable. Every note should be at least recognizeable or to be understood, or intuitive, hinted while playing. (i think this one counts as a comparison to distance snap in standard mode)

song information should follow as precise as possible and timing need to be spot on same as other modes.

Hitsounds are a need to be used. Even if it just a few claps or whistles throughout the song, or a timing section that changes the sample it can be a whole other experience when playing.

Difficulties required: at least 2 in each mode you wanna do. One Easier one harder. easy/normal normal/hard
For hard/insane a third easier (normal, easy) difficulty is required to not lock out the more less good players from your map with difficult stuff.
See Insane as an extra addition

BG is required, video is strong encouraged (at least by me lol)

---

The other thing i thought about is about the difficulties. If the map is mainly in one key mode lets say 4k and it has fine difficulties hard normal and maybe even easy. It should tell what the map is about. For other diffculties added into it with a different keymode i see it as an extra addition, and not necessary to have multiple difficulties for it but welcomed. Most osu! songs dont have multiple taiko difficulties aswell and only the most commonly played as reference.

Dont put breaks unless it is for a recovery period after some really tough stuff, map the song as it goes.
letterbox during breaks must allways be enabled to hint when the song starts again.

song information should follow as precise as possible and timing need to be spot on same as other modes.

Hitsounds are a need to be used. Even if it just a few claps or whistles throughout the song, or a timing section that changes the sample it can be a whole other experience when playing.

Difficulties required: at least 2 in each mode you wanna do. One Easier one harder. easy/normal normal/hard
For hard/insane a third easier (normal, easy) difficulty is required to not lock out the more less good players from your map with difficult stuff.
See Insane as an extra addition

BG is required, video is strong encouraged (at least by me lol)

There is no need in describing general ranking criteria rules which is applied to all game modes.

Bobbias wrote:

If you pay close attention to how easier maps are actually mapped in o2jam (listening to the hitsounds and such) you'll find that often how they do things is that for each "measure" they will often chose a sound or a few sounds that they want to introduce as notes. I could go farther in depth if you want (I could do an actual analysis on a few official notecharts) but my point is that they don't generally pick 1 rhythm line and stick with it. They pick out certain sounds or rhythms that are easily distinguishable for a section of the song and note those (sometimes using 1 note for something like a multiple note trill in easy difficulties). The only reason I'm pointing this out is to make sure everyone fully understands how o2jam mapping worked at lower levels as a reference point.

Yeah, I may made some mistakes in my description. The "one rhythm line" I mentioned is mainly about difficulty in a period - In easy diff, you may see one piano line and another drum line, but in most time they may not occur together in order to limit the difficulty.

Bobbias wrote:

As a side point, I think we need to set up an organized effort to get people into mania mapping. Tutorials and/or style guides, and possibly a few veterans who are willing to mod a lot of maps and really help newcomers out could do a lot to ensure that the quality of newer maps.

Thumb up for that!

I've already plays Mania maps,and they are crazy.If they could be more easy like an hard or medium level,it could be awesome.

I want to make mania free for all mapping styles, but the core idea is playable for 80% players.
This is my rules:
1.osu!optus must get full score(1M) in all diffs.
2.no more than 6 keys hold the same time.
3.keep notes of each column balance, not allowed empty column.
4.use jackhammer when it is really necessary(fit music, playable), and each line of notes must keep at least 100ms interval for rank, other interval for app.
5.use SV for visual effect.

Some suggestions/guidelines:
1.use one key set in all diffs is allowed
2.use break when it is really necessary(totally mute period, etc)

Some explanation:
1.why 100ms interval:
A: Only use jackhammer when fit music and bpm lower than 150bpm(100ms), as I said, playable for 80% players.

2.why only allow SV for effect:
A:If 2.0x is not large enough, i can increase it to 5.0x.

-------------------------------------------------
Do not discuss patterns or rhythm any more, we can't make rules against any patterns because they can't be measured.
Do not discuss all things that can't be measured.

i like it except the controversial jackhammer stuff. you know, since it's controversial

Agka wrote:

i like it except the controversial jackhammer stuff. you know, since it's controversial

Why you must use jackhammer patterns? If it fit music, rules allow you to use, if not, please use other patterns.

mmhm, alright.

woc2006 wrote:

2.why only allow SV for effect:
A:If 2.0x is not large enough, i can increase it to 5.0x.

Please make the range from 0.1x - 7.0x

5.0x will be enough

[Dellirium] wrote:

5.0x will be enough

I don't think so. I've used gimmicks with more than 5.0x and it's still 100% readable.

Effect is a vague term. Could someone clarify this for me? What does adjusting SV have to do with effect?

real song bpm change-> use bpm change
want to achieve some visual effect but song bpm doesn't change -> use sv

hi chonicle thanks for joining us in the discussion <3

So what's considered an improper use of slider velocity if that is considered a rule. Does one have to visually notice the slider velocity change for it to take effect? Can modders use this rule at all?

when it doesn't make sense to any of the playtesters or modders. good enough?

Agka wrote:

when it doesn't make sense to any of the playtesters or modders. good enough?

If this is a serious reply, then let it be known that it's way too vague to throw in the rules.

Jacob wrote:

Agka wrote:

when it doesn't make sense to any of the playtesters or modders. good enough?

If this is a serious reply, then let it be known that it's way too vague to throw in the rules.

"Not making sense" has been a criteria for being unrankable since at least 2008.

If we're talking about not making sense, then wouldn't the rule be addressing how well the SV change matches the tempo of the music.

SV changes must match tempo of music. <Better phrased than woc's rule.

I'm not saying "unrankable if it doesn't make sense". I'm saying "unrankable if pretty much everyone agrees on the SV change not making sense".

That's hardly vague. :3

TheVileOne wrote:

So what's considered an improper use of slider velocity if that is considered a rule. Does one have to visually notice the slider velocity change for it to take effect? Can modders use this rule at all?

There is no specific rules about what kind of speed change is rankable or not.

Just remember when the tempo of the song doesn't change, red lines should not be used

TheVileOne wrote:

So what's considered an improper use of slider velocity if that is considered a rule. Does one have to visually notice the slider velocity change for it to take effect? Can modders use this rule at all?

i think the best say it is about how it fits into the music. like you cant just do SV changes at random points in the song, they will make no effect at all. But if there is a minimal break you could kinda make a little stop effect or if it is hinted you can make a drop effect with a short speedup between notes. Its important the player should know why those things are used and the mapper to. The player should know what it is supposed to be even when first time playing. It just gotta fit the music, so yeah the rule dont do stupid things lol.

Making rules for SV use is a bad idea. It's hard to come up with a good rule that you can say 100% of the time makes sense. If the rule does not make sense 100% of the time, for every song, then it should not be a rule, but a guideline.

Limiting SV speeds and controlling SV usage should be a guideline.

If I was writing a rule for SV's, it would be this:

"You must be able to explain why you used an SV based on something in the music." That's it. If you want to emphasize a section of silence by teporarily stopping or nearly stopping notes, go ahead. If you want to emphasize the music creating a high-energy section by suddenly cranking up the SV, then you should be allowed to do that too. It's very difficult to have SV changes that are too extreme to read, and even if it's too hard to sightread the first time, making every map sightreadable 100% of the time is a bad idea. It makes maps boring.

Not every mapper will make use of SV changes, and not every mapper who will use SV changes will try to go to extremes. Modding with a guideline to back the modders up should be enough to deal with the times when someone makes something that is too extreme. When someone like Entozer, Chronicle, Hanyuu, Myself, Gon, Agka, or anyone else who has experience with mania and mapping says something is too much it probably is, and that should be enough.

Here are some numbers:
One of my favorite o2jam charts, Hishoku no Sora has a BPM range of 21-761 and a base BPM of 169. 21 BPM is 0.124xBPM and 761 is roughly 4.5x. Both of these values are perfectly readable, and come at times that make sense (there are a few aesthetic sections, like the speedup on the middle button hold partway through, and a slowdown before a middle button hold ends).

Celestial Rhapsody is 140 BPM and ranges from 10 BPM to 910 BPM, effectively 0.07x to 6.5x

Re-Sublimity ranges is 135 BPM and ranges from 67 to 945, or about 0.5x to 7x

Burst the Gravity is 148 BPM and ranges from 26 to 1850, or 0.17x to 12.5x. This is the only one where it is honestly impossible to play the speedup without learning it first. It's also more than 10x, which as I understand it is the maximum SV changes handle anyway, that's a moot point.

Every one of these is perfectly playable. The speed changes may sometimes make it very difficult to FC these songs, but FCing something SHOULD be very difficult. The wider the difference between a pass and an FC, but more it separates pros from average players, which is always a good thing. And yes, these maps are mostly aimed towards good players, but there is no rule that says speed changes like this need to apply to every difficulty. It would not be difficult to create an easier difficulty in a map that has lower SV changes than the more difficult diffs.

Bobbias wrote:

Making rules for SV use is a bad idea. It's hard to come up with a good rule that you can say 100% of the time makes sense. If the rule does not make sense 100% of the time, for every song, then it should not be a rule, but a guideline.

Limiting SV speeds and controlling SV usage should be a guideline.

If I was writing a rule for SV's, it would be this:

"You must be able to explain why you used an SV based on something in the music." That's it. If you want to emphasize a section of silence by teporarily stopping or nearly stopping notes, go ahead. If you want to emphasize the music creating a high-energy section by suddenly cranking up the SV, then you should be allowed to do that too. It's very difficult to have SV changes that are too extreme to read, and even if it's too hard to sightread the first time, making every map sightreadable 100% of the time is a bad idea. It makes maps boring.

Suddenly I agree with this.

Currently I don't want to add any rules against SV usage, left it free for mappers and let MATs to check if they should be uesd in some ways.

We're not making much progress with this.

woc I agree that it shouldn't have very many rules, but somethings are just nonsense. Perhaps there should be a guideline on unreadable speed changes. I'm sure taiko players hate songs that randomly have 2.0/0.5x changes in conversions. Similarly I would think that doing such things in osu!mania should be avoided, because they can disorient the player. Mania Speed changes must not be used to disorient the player. Sudden changes in speed must be sightreadable for the difficulty level being mapped.

I think the guideline for slider velocities counts here. I mean lets compare it to taiko. Taiko strongly recommends you use particular slider velocities and to keep the pace the same. I really don't know how many rhythm games have tracks that change speed. I know my knowledge is very limited, but I'm sure the ones that do and are professionally made use speed changes in ways that complement the music. If you're going to change the speed, it should complement the music.

This guideline should count especially for osu!mania

When including a slider velocity change, there should be a discernible change in the map's tempo. A spacing change, a short break in the map, or a slider containing at least one tick will help show the transition between them.

Correct me if I am wrong about this. I am at college and cannot check, but the track speed is similar to AR in standard. The lower it is, the longer notes stay on the screen and the higher it is, the less notes are visible on the screen. So wouldn't having no rules about it be the same as saying we should let players choose from AR 0 to AR 10+ in any of the other modes. Maniaspeed can get ridiculously fast, it has to be greater than AR 10 at some point. Does user adjusted mania speed settings stack on top of speed adjustments? If the user has it set to 16, and the SV increases, what happens? Clarify this so I will not be ignorant about it in the future.

Edit: We still need a comprehensive ruleset. I don't know when this will be finished, but we'll be discussion this stuff over and over if we do not have an easily accessible reference point for rules. What do mania players not want in their maps? I know it's going to be hard to sacrifice some of your creative freedom, but do you really want an anything goes kind of ruleset? What do mania players dislike and want to avoid in general? We're going to develop guidelines here, and hopefully we can compile those guidelines together. If you have one, try to put it into a guideline form with the main topic as bold and supporting details following after it.