The reworked Beatmap Spotlights are there!
The very first test run of the new system is currently underway and along with that a new collection of beatmaps to enjoy!

Did you know that the Top 10 of each lobby earn 1 week of osu!supporter?
You can also earn a unique profile badge, reflecting your performance amongst all others, too! And we update it weekly everytime you participate!



You can learn more about the Beatmap Spotlights and the Seasonal League on our wiki article!

With the new-and-improved Beatmap Spotlights system come a lot of changes, features and rewards that are yet to be implemented and up to discussion.

You can leave your impressions, feedback and criticism in this thread, so we can shape this system into the best it can ever be.

I'll be the first to say that I really like this idea and it's cool to see a sort of spiritual successor to the monthly charts.

There's a few things that feel a little weird:

The lobby only being open for 2 days out of the week seems kind of pointless. I don't really see a problem with leaving the lobby open all week since it is timeshift and people have different availabilities so opening it up some more would entice more players to join in. I'm just not really sure why this limit is placed on the lobbies to begin with.

To a much lesser extent only being able to play through lazer isn't ideal for the average player. Though I understand it's the only client that has the timeshift feature lazer is still lacking in the skinning and gameplay regard (barely any skinning elements work) which is going to turn off a lot of players from competing in this at all. I'm personally fine with playing in lazer even though the skins not being close to looking like they do in stable does mess me up every now and then but it makes it feel like I'm playing something unfinished and not in a competitive capacity.

Finally, after reading the wiki it seems like the badges being temporary or permanent is undecided. My input here is just that the idea of temporary badges kind of defeats the purpose of giving out badges at all and takes away the weight of the reward. It's also strange having a temporary fixture mixed in with the permanent sort of trophy case on someone's profile. If it does end up being temporary I think it's better left in it's own category rather than with the badges, maybe even change the theme of the user's profile (foreground colors) to correspond to their division for that season.

If I see anything further after playing this Friday I'll leave some feedback here again. I hope this catches on though, the more ways to play the better!

I have some problems with it

making it only available on Lazer is instead Is a BIG Problem

I understand your making it on Lazer in hopes that more people will enjoy Lazer, Skin's barely works on Lazer especially for other game modes besides STD (Ctb,taiko,Mania) And std already feeling much diffrent and working diffrently on how it is on stable , other gamemodes feel and play 10x worse than STD already does on lazer

The lobby being open for only 2 days a week is a BIG problem too,People have work/school/and other things to do even if you move the 2 days to the weekend some people will still have problems again I understand trying to build up hype around those two days and trying to get as much people to join in as possible in those two days to bring more attention to your event but in reality it's just gonna backfire and annoy people who want to participate but can't,I suggest opening it up for 1 - 2 week's 24/7 so everyone get's a chance to play

Last thing I have to say is MAKE THE PROFILE BADGES PERMANENT,Trust me It'll bring more hype and player's to your event and make player's more determanied to play and overall will give the community satisfaction than dissapointment plus making them temporary will defeat the whole purpose of trying to compete,A thing I think you shoul add to the whole profile badge thing is the option to remove them,Let's say you have a newer/bad player if they compete and get the iron badge or in general any rank/amount of skill a player has might not be satisfied with there preformance and would not want a giant badge telling the community there skill level per say at that tournament

Overall seems like if you keep the event like this it will fail and bring negitive feedback

Giving badge to every participants kinda makes the badges less unique, I'd suggest allowing it from Gold or Platinum to really make it stand out. Also having the lobby being open only 2 days make it less accessible to everyone... Beside that I really like the idea of Playlists.

Reforms Expert wrote:

Skin's barely works on Lazer especially for other game modes besides STD (Ctb,taiko,Mania)

From testing during initial playlist run-through, skinning for mania at least is in a really good spot, only needing minor adjustments to my current skin to match stable in terms of playability.

Really like the concept and how it will give more credit to the beatmaps spotlight, but to me giving badge to everyone could ruin some part of the tournament scene (I'm thinking of std's BWS that is used now pretty much anywhere)

An idea that I have for this is to limit who gets a badge (copper to gold imo don't really need it) but however make the top 50 badge permanent. Or if there's a way that the badge doesn't really count as one you get via tournaments it would be best for those organizers that use osu!'s API to get the BWS rank, thus I guess it wouldn't really matter if everyone who played is getting one or not.

Mirthille wrote:

giving badge to everyone could ruin some part of the tournament scene (I'm thinking of std's BWS that is used now pretty much anywhere)

its not automated so just disregard it when inputting your badges

Hydria wrote:

Reforms Expert wrote:

Skin's barely works on Lazer especially for other game modes besides STD (Ctb,taiko,Mania)

From testing during initial playlist run-through, skinning for mania at least is in a really good spot, only needing minor adjustments to my current skin to match stable in terms of playability.

Damn sure not the same for CTB I can't even use my own personal skin

Me personally I think that people should be able to keep their badges once they have received them. It's cool how badges are given out for this season, but I think everyone should be able to keep their badge to show their accomplishments. Overall it's a cool concept but there should be some changes for players to have a permanent badge.

We are seeking for a solution that allows you to decorate your profile permanently with your achievements. Whether or not we use badges, medals or a whole new thing for that is still not decided.

For now, the badges will remain temporary, simply because to avoid overbloating the current space on the profile page. However, we will backup all results and retrospectively award your profile decoration once we have found an appropriate solution to provide such.

On other news: Playlist B can now be found on the wiki page!

I wasn't really sure how spotlight like this will work but i'm really enjoying it right now. However, it still need some work. First, overall score and score from choosen map should be available for player, because right now there isn't any way to chceck it (only top 50). There are some problems with lazer too. I feel like it isn't optimalised well. Game isn't running smooth as std and it is laggy sometimes (my computer shouldn't have any problems with it).
Good luck with further work on this project
It's really great that there are still some interesting events happening in osu.

The Playlist B lobbies are now available for play! Check out the opening post to learn more!

We are also excited to tell you that we are already preparing the next season's selection. With that, we are also actively following your feedback and take it into consideration when developing this project onwards. Keep the feedback, opinions, suggestions and criticism coming, so we can improve this project further and further!

The Playlist C lobbies are now available for play! Check out the opening post to learn more!

Moreover, we have added the Seasonal Top 50 leaderboard for each game mode into the opening post. Also during the week, we have been distributing the supporter tags and the profile badges accordingly.

Let us know your opinion about the rewards, the beatmaps and the current league system!

When i select Spotlight like shown on the Original Post, it doesn't show the lobby but it's there like a normal lobby if i search the word spotlight.

Alright, i'm going to be blunt and say the way this first season has been conducted so far is abysmal and we're only 3 weeks in. I agree this is to be expected from a 'test run', however bringing long-term and permanent rewards into this 'test season' should not have happened.

The main issue I want to address, and quite possibly the biggest issue, is the fact the playing field is not even fair anymore. On 24th July, 'gaining bonus scores from spinning a spinner' was implemented to the lazer build. This changed the fundamental scoring mechanics, meaning any scores set in the spotlight before this build are set on a different score system to the current build. This causes an array of issues, most notably the score no longer being capped at 1 million points. This means that if someone is only able to play the first round of playlist A in the spotlight, they are at a huge disadvantage as even if they SS'd every map and got the highest possible score at the time (5 million), someone in a later week can easily beat this score without even needing to SS every map. This also works in reverse, if the score system is changed again making it no longer possible to achieve the scores from a previous week, it becomes literally impossible to get #1 for a certain playlist.

A potential solution to this could be: if you want to change and test mechanics, keep them exclusive to each playlist. For example, only having spinner bonus score on playlist C, or only removing sliderend judgement on playlist A etc. However I think changing any mechanics at all mid-season is a bad idea for non test-runs.

I also want to address some things that have been said in reply to people being frustrated at the recent changes.

'do people just forget this is being run as a test trial for the new client' - no. we understand fully that this is a 'test run' however you've decided to bring permanent rewards into it, inherently making it much more competitive whether you want it to be. If you want it to not be competitive, don't use permanent rewards, offer supporter or something other similar.

'how does it differ from i.e. buffs/nerfs in a moba' - in situations like this, the results of previous matches arent changed by the new buffs/nerfs. With this situation, the scores people set in previous builds can be beaten by overwritten by scores set in the new builds, so these arent comparable.

To sum it all up, I think having permanent rewards for this current test season should not be a thing, especially after all the changes that have happened after the start. I think all the points i've mentioned should be taken into consideration for the next seasons so that stuff like this does not happen again.

If anyone from the osu team wants to discuss this further with me in a place more convenient than the forum, im more than happy to explain anything in more detail, although I think I explained it well enough already.

Kingling, I don't think anyone can go back and play in playlist A and/or B again, so whoever got the 5 million scores are safe from this new spinner bonus. Their score cannot be beaten since you can't submit plays for it.

For playlist C, even though the change is sudden, it is still fair game in my opinion since everyone have to deal with the spinner bonus whether they like it or not.

Hopefully, I'm not mistaken, but it seems like you are upset that someone can take your previous score, so I just wanted to clear that up.

No comments on the badges.

I dont think you understand how the spotlights work, each playlist is played 3 times. So yes, people can play playlist A/B again. I'm not bothered that people can take my previous scores, what I am bothered by is that people can beat them on a score system which is much easier to get a higher score in than the one that was previously used.

With regards to playlist C, if every single playlist C was played on this score system and game mechanics then I agree its fair game. But peppy/the dev team have made it very clear that they intend to keep changing things since its a 'test run' and playlist C is played 3 times over the course of the season (about 3 months long).

Thanks for the information. You are rigth and I was wrong, I did not fully understand how spotlights work.

After seeing what you said, I read the wiki and saw the spotlights schedule. I take back what said and now agree with you that it is unfair to those who have tried to SS previously. I'm not going to say much else because you pretty much said it all. Hopefully they listen.

It's all good, sorry if I come across as agitated, people have really been getting under my skin today. Glad you understand.

A potential solution to this could be: if you want to change and test mechanics, keep them exclusive to each playlist. For example, only having spinner bonus score on playlist C, or only removing sliderend judgement on playlist A etc. However I think changing any mechanics at all mid-season is a bad idea for non test-runs.

this.

Yea, I agree that it is a bad idea to have two even slightly different score systems on the same playlist leaderboard.

Also, these spinners give WAY too much score. In my opinion, spinners should only really give enough score to differentiate between plays with basically the same accuracy. Except in outlier cases, they should never really place a non-SS significantly above an SS. Dividing the amount of score spinners give by 10 or even 100 would do this. This way spin pros can still show off by being at the top of leaderboards, but without undermining the importance of rhythmic accuracy.

If we are on the topic of testing score mechanics, why not give a no-combo score system a try to see how people react. Combo holds back the competitive side of osu by such a dramatic amount, in my opinion. Something like, 300s, 100s, and 50s give a flat amount and misses take away like 5 times as much as 300s give (so that people won't complain that it isn't an aim game anymore). Doing this would help fight the misconception that combo in any way measures aim accurately. Miss count is the real indicator for aim. You could even have the first miss be worth a bunch and the subsequent misses be worth less and less (to a point) to simulate the feel of breaking combo that people are so used to. Although, this decreasing miss weighting idea isn't something I would prefer, just something that I would accept if people really wanted it.

Sorry if this isn't the place to suggest this. I just think this kind of score system would benefit the game tremendously (although, I'm obviously in the minority of people who think that at the moment), and I'm not sure if I'll ever get another chance to promote it like this. Although, I fully understand and accept that you guys might be against trying this, or that it is beyond the scope of this test run. That's fine.

I'm back! After posting my initial thoughts here (#7548890) before the season had started I have returned to tell you my thoughts after playing in three of the weeks on three different playlists. This is in addition to what I said originally since I didn't feel like repeating myself too much. I have a lot of criticism since this is a test run but I hope you understand that I have been playing this game for nearly 7 years and that most of this isn't coming from nowhere. Many of the complaints I mention aren't just something that bothered me but are echoed by many top players who have played in the spotlights.

1. Lazer

As I've said in my original post I understand that timeshift lobbies are only available through lazer but for many players I've talked to including myself lazer is on the verge of being unplayable due to random stuttering, random doubletapping, and at least for myself [url]terrible screentearing[/url]. I'm not here to talk about that though because of course with the client still in development all of these are likely to be fixed in the future.

1.1. Skinning
What I am here to talk about is skinning. Some elements are currently unskinable that actually do effect the gameplay, one major one being spinners. Spinners in lazer are a massive distraction and some spinners make it impossible to see the next note. Here's an example taken from a map in Playlist C:

Now you may be able to actually see this note behind this spinner because I had to capture this in the editor, but in game playing this AR9 map it's nearly impossible to see until the spinner is gone 1/4 beat before the note due to it's negligible transparency which every modern skin has taken care of. This is not to mention some of the other major skinning problems like sliderborders are much thicker on lazer than they should be and immediately disappearing circles don't work. I just don't think it's a good idea to hold a semi-official competition on a client where skinning isn't fully supported yet.

1.2. Functionality
On top of this but unrelated to skinning it almost seems like I am constantly at ends with lazer. Since I now have to play in fullscreen I have begun to notice how lazer really wants to be the focus. Trying to Alt+Tab to a different window from lazer is a struggle and lazer will actually often steal focus from what I was tabbing to. Yes, if you try to Alt+Tab in lazer it will tab you right back in to the game. That and I have had stuggles multiple time trying to move my lazer install from C: to D: where is causes infinite recursion in the copied folders (will report if it happens again). My point through all of this is that lazer is less than ideal for players now and by holding this competition all of the flaws in lazer are on full display rather than the features.

TLDR: Lazer is missing essential skinning features and is very annoying to run.

2. Scoring

One major thing that is almost universally accepted for years is that osu! has a very combo-centric score system which favors not breaking combo over tapping to the rhythm... in a rhythm game. This is very obvious in Score (V1) but was somewhat improved upon by the percentage of accuracy score in ScoreV2. I'm not exactly sure how Standardized scoring works but I can tell you personally that it is somehow even more combo weighted than before. In the first week of playing (when scores were capped at 1M) a near FC with very high accuracy could net you say 900k points where I saw a 90% FC which was 970k and even a 75% FC that was 940k. This makes absolutely no sense. Here is actually a screenshot taken by someone else this week who got a 92% FC that landed over the 1M score boundary.

Why are scores where someone is tapping off-rhythm constantly giving more score than someone who got 99% and misaimed a single sliderhead. I would say that this needs to be changed but this isn't even the least of my concerns related to scoring as you will see in the next section.

TLDR: Scoring in lazer makes absolutely no sense.

3. Updates

Possibly the biggest turn off to players who are engaged in playing the Beatmap Spotlights is when updates to gameplay are made that invalidate all of their previous work. One such update just so happened to occur before this week started where for the first two weeks all scores were hardcapped at 1M points and spinners contributed to nothing other than accuracy. With this mechanic many dedicated top players spent hours playing the maps to perfection (especially in the first week) since all SS scores would net them the perfect 1M score that was the max possible. Suddenly spinners are now able to give bonus score for this week and seemingly for the foreseeable future. This means that everyone's work is now meaningless and they will have to replay everything. Not exactly the ideal situation to be in as a player. I can understand that this is a test run but the update made here was to a core mechanic of gameplay that completely changes everything. There was an update to gameplay which removed sliderends from the game before the first week in preparation for Britney Spears - Toxic and has stayed throughout the season so far which makes sense. Consistency here is key because without some sort of consistency you're going to make players not want to play and make this less and less of a competition than it is just getting lucky with which update you play on. If only Playlist C or C and D are played with spinner bonus then I think this is fine but it seems that that is not the case and word has not been given on the future of spotlights from this point.

TLDR: Updating core gameplay during the season is bad.

4. Structure

The state that Beatmap Spotlights lives in is very confusing. It is an officially supported competition that is just a test run but for some reason gives official rewards.

4.1. Test run?
I don't understand why this test run (and don't you forget that this is a test run!) for some reason gives a badge at the end of the season. My point here is that first time tournaments aren't allowed to be badged and surely not one that's using an experimental idea so why the test run of Beatmap Spotlights. In that thread from above Ephemeral said that it's to bring interest to lazer and that everything is marketed as a test run but the way most players actually see it since it is badged that makes it the real deal. This and lazer itself are going to turn many players off.

4.2. Badges/Divisions
One thing that confused me from the start was seeing how each division is tiered. I'm not sure why this needs to be a thing since there's not tens of thousands of players. Just having the first badge from each division would be more than enough to cover everyone and maybe adding tiers in future editions would be good.

I have looked into rankings solutions many times in the past and I currently am doing ratings dev for osu! matchmaking (oma.hwc.hr) and realized that there's far too few players to warrant having tiered divisions and our numbers of activity are comparable to the spotlights. This and I'm a little upset that Rhythm Incarnate was posthumously changed from top 50 to top 10 (which kind of makes me feel cheated out of a badge since I was around ~#25) I suggest that if you have something stick to it. If you want the top 50 to be the highest division and the top x% to have diamond then take the (N-50)*x% to achieve that instead of falling back on your word and leaving even more players disinterested in continuing to play.

TLDR: While it is constantly called a "test run" that is not the message given to player, and the divisions should be fixed.

Final thoughts...

Beatmap Spotlights so far has been messy and there's no unified voice up top telling the players what is happening or how the future of spotlights will go. Despite all the problems I am still happy that a unique sort of competition can exist like this in current day and hope that you take this feedback and are able to improve upon the current and next iteration. With all that said many of these points are things that very much need to be fixed soon or you'll begin losing even more interest. Although those higher up may believe that bringing badges as rewards for the season may make people interested in lazer and excited for other competitions like this but in reality it has only made the players who care the most like myself disapointed in lazer and disenfranchised from competitions of this sort. I've found myself this week legitimately asking if I even want to continue to play spotlights because the reasons above. I think the future holds great things though, I do still have hope but only if you keep improving on the things that actually need improvement.

1. spinner skinning is coming this week, was hoping to get it in last week, but alas. this is the only remaining non-skinnable gameplay element (you mention there are others so please fill us in so we don't miss them, because we are unaware of any!).

2. borderless doesn't perform differently, that's just how borderless works. it may be specific to your drivers (each driver handles this as they want). you should always be playing fullscreen if you care about latency at all.

lazer will NOT steal focus. there is no code for this. it may again be an issue with your drivers so please report it as a bug with a video and specs of your driver and hardware versions so we can look into it (we've not had a single report of this yet).

3. please see the lazer disclaimer. please also see that this whole spotlight is a test and it is DUE TO THE SPOTLIGHT that we are quickly adding / changing game mechanics. if you aren't a fan of this, wait for things to stabilise, maybe in a few months? each week, everyone is on a level playing field. this means you have to replay a previous map? okay. if that annoys you, maybe it's time to take a break from the game (or at very least this kind of experimental system).

4. the badges are there to incentivise and to let us gather feedback from players that otherwise wouldn't bother. if it turns you off that's fine; we have so much positive feedback coming from others who have participated.

Even beyond the fact that changing mechanics mid season is questionable (but yes, somewhat understandable for a test run), the fact remains that with spinners giving so much score, the importance of acc is just gone. And that was the sole appeal of having no mods and a capped scoring system to begin with. Spinners giving any bonus score at all in a competitive setting is pretty questionable, and when the score they give completely overshadows acc, there's very little incentive to compete.

It being a test run isn't a valid excuse to remove whatever credibility the scoring system had.

And while we're at this, I'm not entirely sure what the point of a capped, scaled down scoring system like this even is when combo still has such massive weighing compared to acc or even miss count. This is especially noticeable on playlist A, where for anyone remotely competitive there's only 1 difficult map, rendering scores on maps 1-4 mostly useless except for the very upper end of the leaderboard who can FC map 5. For everyone else it just becomes a game of trying to squeeze out max combo on map 5 and not much else.

I'm not sure that we quite understood each other here peppy so I just want to take a minute to explain myself through your response. Sorry if I come across as rude or anything I'm just trying to translate the experiences of a player who has sunk 12+ hours into spotlights already.

peppy wrote:

1. spinner skinning is coming this week, was hoping to get it in last week, but alas. this is the only remaining non-skinnable gameplay element (you mention there are others so please fill us in so we don't miss them, because we are unaware of any!).

Good to hear that spinners are going to be skinnable, I hope more things will be skinnable soon. I did mention some things very briefly that need fixing though in my post: "This is not to mention some of the other major skinning problems like sliderborders are much thicker on lazer than they should be and immediately disappearing circles don't work."

peppy wrote:

2. borderless doesn't perform differently, that's just how borderless works. it may be specific to your drivers (each driver handles this as they want). you should always be playing fullscreen if you care about latency at all.

I've been down this road before but it was just a quick mention for something that I have had trouble with.

peppy wrote:

lazer will NOT steal focus. there is no code for this. it may again be an issue with your drivers so please report it as a bug with a video and specs of your driver and hardware versions so we can look into it (we've not had a single report of this yet).

Actually this has been reported before and I've just replied to it with a video of lazer stealing focus. If you'd like further information and specifics I'd be glad to help!

Try to look at these two things from my perspective though. The drivers may be the sole cause of everything I've experienced but just imagine you're in this position. I am the average user. I have never had a problem with any other game or program stealing focus before. Stable with borderless works absolutely fine. When I play lazer though I have problems and when I report them I'm just told that it's my drivers. The drivers that have not cause an issue for anything on my computer ever before but just suddenly don't work with lazer and lazer only. It may indeed be the drivers, but nothing else on my PC shows it.

peppy wrote:

3. please see the lazer disclaimer. please also see that this whole spotlight is a test and it is DUE TO THE SPOTLIGHT that we are quickly adding / changing game mechanics. if you aren't a fan of this, wait for things to stabilise, maybe in a few months?

That's fine but then why are you holding a competition in official capacity. Again please imagine yourself as one of the competitors in a competition where every week the rules are changed. You say in the next line that the badge is the reward to draw people in but you should realize that people are going to treat this like a real competition because a badge is an official reward. How do players get badges? Winning tournaments, and that's the mindset they carry over.

peppy wrote:

each week, everyone is on a level playing field.

Now that this change is pushed people who play in week 5 and 6 are biased over week 1 and 2. Not exactly the most even playing field I can imagine but I understand that within a week everyone is equal.

peppy wrote:

this means you have to replay a previous map? okay. if that annoys you, maybe it's time to take a break from the game (or at very least this kind of experimental system).

This means that EVERYONE has to replay EVERY map. It's not just me upset. If you don't think I'm credible then take a look at the posts by Kingling or Sleepteiner. That last sentence though is true and it has been something I've been thinking about.

peppy wrote:

4. the badges are there to incentivise and to let us gather feedback from players that otherwise wouldn't bother. if it turns you off that's fine; we have so much positive feedback coming from others who have participated.

All of this happens because people are expecting a normal competition from a badged event even if it is branded as a test run. I will be the first to say that I think competitions of this format are great and I am happy that this is being explored and tested. I just think that the idea of a "test run" where rules are constantly changing doesn't meet the criteria for a badge. Would you let a first time tournament host have a badge for their experimental tournament idea?

I personally think that beatmap spotlights should have a custom reward not like any other to not be confused in this way. Imagine each division colors your profile a different way instead of using the default pink, I think that would be a reward many people would be interested in and would go for not expecting an official competition in the test run. Here's a simple example of what I mean:

That or putting a little division icon near your name on profile or something else unique to signify it.

I hope some of my points are a little more clear now, thank you for taking the time to respond! I really do hope that spotlights is able to run smoothly and find its footing here, I wouldn't be leaving all these paragraphs if I didn't.

I can sort of understand why people are against badges for a test run, however, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these badges going to go away at the end of the season? Personally, I don't see too much of an issue with a temporary badge for a test run. And, if it helps the spotlight team test how badges will work with this new system in the future, then I'm completely fine with it.

Although, I'm too not big into the tournament scene, so my view of badges may differ from people who have worked really hard to get them normally.

From what we've been told, the highest tier badges will stay permanently. If all badges were temporary then I also wouldn't have an issue.

Keep in mind that sticking to "Top 50 gets Rhythm Incarnate" requires us to have enough participants, so we don't have overlaps (~2500 participants are required for that)

On other news, the Playlist D is now available on the wiki! The badges will be updated under the week and supporters are being distributed today.

Yeah I kinda assumed this, when the first week happened and there was only 100~ Mania participants. It would be weird to have 50 (half) of them all get rhythm incarnate, making the next "top 3%" kinda overlap into that.

Kingling wrote:

From what we've been told, the highest tier badges will stay permanently. If all badges were temporary then I also wouldn't have an issue.

The rhythm incarnate badges are meant to stay (for now). We are currently exploring options for an alternative way to reflect your tier. Badges overally are an interim solution that won't stay forever.

Once we have explored a proper spotlight-specific solution to reflect your tier, everyone will be able to keep their tier permanently on their profile (as a medal or as something entirely else, depends on what we settle down with).

Generally, badges are only utilized and temporary for now because we do not have an own spotlight-specific system for that part, yet. That being said, once we have a solution in place, even the permanent rhythm incarnate badges will be converted into the system and the "temporary badges" that may have disappeared already will be ported into the system, too, effectively restoring it.

Loctav wrote:

That being said, once we have a solution in place, even the permanent rhythm incarnate badges will be converted into the system and the "temporary badges" that may have disappeared already will be ported into the system, too, effectively restoring it.

this is exactly what Kingling and Willy and most people concerned about the future of spotlights don't want -- all of the rewards from this test run should be temporary, because it's a test run. they should be gone by the time the first non-test season starts and never "restored" later

peppy wrote:

this means you have to replay a previous map? okay. if that annoys you, maybe it's time to take a break from the game (or at very least this kind of experimental system).

you want people to not participate if they're annoyed by the unstable nature of a "test run", but also advertise permanent rewards that can never be earned again without participating in the test run. really mixed message here. as a player annoyed by a lot of the choices made for spotlights and lazer scoring now, I'm still keeping up with the lobbies anyway because I don't want to miss out on an exclusive permanent reward.

It has been common practice for years in online multiplayer games that early playtesters (alpha, beta, what have you) are given exclusive cosmetic rewards to show their participation. In-game user titles, character skins and so on. I don't see how these spotlight medals (that temporarily are showing up as badges) are functionally different from a beta-tester cape in an MMO or an exclusive skin in a MOBA.

I'd be on board with some small token of participation like that.

they are functionally different because these badges (and whatever comes to replace them) are rating your performance in spotlights, not only your participation. they don't say "I was there!", they say "this is how I performed", which is unfortunate given all the hiccups with lazer that are making it feel unsuitable as a competitive environment, for now at least

open to suggestions about how to proceed with the enduring prize element - noting that any sort of base participation badge awarded to all people in the program would easily be >1k+ profile badges at this point

limiting the rewards to RI was kind of a compromise between having prizes and not flooding the system with tons of them, 1k badges is not a small number by any means

Ephemeral wrote:

open to suggestions about how to proceed with the enduring prize element - noting that any sort of base participation badge awarded to all people in the program would easily be >1k+ profile badges at this point

limiting the rewards to RI was kind of a compromise between having prizes and not flooding the system with tons of them, 1k badges is not a small number by any means

small? certainly not. But what is the cost of awarding a badge to a lot of people? even if a few thousand people get that easy badge, theres still well over a million people whom don't have that badge. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intended purpose of badges, but I don't see the harm in awarding them slightly more liberally than past ones have been.

hi! I would like to write some suggestion about some issues on osu!catch spotlight!

Current problems in the scoring system:
1. Bananas
2. Acc (droplets)
3. Combo weighting

Playability
Horrible lag of freezes mid gameplay - imagine you're hitting a slow long slider in standard and you miss in the middle of it -> makes hitting consecutive hyperdashes very diffifcult
big droplets do not gain hyperdashes regardless of distance, they should
huge lag spikes before the spinner

Because of said scoring/playability problems, there are some key balance issues as well
If the mappool is easy (without mods currently they are) the leaderboards depend more on spinners than misses
For example, you can make up for missing once or twice on difficult maps by simply spinning better on say, the 6 minute platter.

Some solutions:
Right now with said problems, it's almost meaningless to give badges solely depending on who is top 3% or dividing up rank divisions.

1) Don't give out badges period - this is simple but people might get mad
2) Come up with a more flexible badge threshold, like giving everyone who is within 1% of the final score of the top finisher gets the badge which is something already suggested. (just an example as I said on discord)
3) Give everyone a test run badge
4) As said at the beginning, give the entire top 50 the rhythm incarnate badge or to a simliar degree. Players are discouraged from playing because they know that only 4~5 top players who fc every map with near max spinners will get the badge, thus giving up before trying. By giving people badges, they will play more and the feedback will help make the gameplay smoother.

thanks to my secret friend translating

I think an ideal reward would just be a medal (similar to the beatmap pack and hush hush medals) that is given to everyone who played in the spotlights simply saying 'I participated in the test run'. No sign of rank, no sign of anything to do with how well they performed.

agree

The timeshift lobbies for this weekend are now available with Playlist A. This is the first time a playlist re-runs. It's your first opportunity to set a score for this playlist if you joined the competition later than others. For those who have already played in a Playlist A lobby, you sure can participate as well. Remember that only the best lobby scores of a playlist counts into the current season.
This means that if you have already played on Playlist A and perform better this time, your worse lobby score of this playlist is replaced with the better one.

The lobbies will close on August 10th 2020, 19:00 UTC.

Given that osu!lazer has underwent several changes in scoring across all game modes, we would like to assure you that we do our best to normalize the scores, leveling out the variations that were created between the first run of the spotlights and the first re-run. We try our best to maintain the comparability between the weeks as much as remotely possible.

As always, the top 10 of every lobby participant is being awarded 1 week of osu!supporter independently.

limited time medals are ass for anyone who wants 100% completion and are very unlikely to happen for precisely that reason

I didn't think it specifically being a medal was the focus there but, yeah I don't think it should be a medal for that reason. wherever spotlights rewards are displayed in the future, the "medals"/"badges" should go there. the main argument from ppl like Kingling and I is that the test run should not show what rank you achieved and only be a reward for participation.

to me this is still just a compromise with Lefafel's comment and the people running spotlights, who are not hearing out the suggestion to have no permanent rewards at all for test run(s). I don't see any issue with this, especially given the rocky road with lazer and scoring. peppy says "the badges are there to incentivise and to let us gather feedback from players that otherwise wouldn't bother", but I can't see why this wouldn't equally apply with the temporary rank badges that everyone is happy with as-is

hello not updating?

The first re-run of the Playlist B lobbies are now available!

We are currently preparing the next season (Autumn 2020), implementing a plethora of changes on how the Spotlight curation and playlist design is going to work. We will keep you posted as soon as we have details about that.

Playlist A and B are now open again for all gamemodes!

If you have already set scores in those playlists, you can always play them again and try to beat your own highest scores! Only the best lobby scores count for this season, so do not worry, your previous scores will not be overpassed by the newest ones if they happen to be lower.

Also, a small peek on the possible future upcoming changes to our system on the next season (Autumn 2020):

• - Lobbies in the new season are going to run for a full week.
  - Lobbies are going to be repeated only once.
  - We will include modded beatmaps into the playlists of the future seasons.
  - We will make a more distinct differentation between the curation and map spotlight part and the league part. Therefore, we will establish a dedicated showcase for all beatmaps selected at the beginning of the season and directly awarding the best mappers of recent creations alongside. We want to give the creators the spotlight here and not revolve absolutely everything around the league thereafter.

Feel free to discuss about them here or throw us new suggestions!

any update on the final results?