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. SkinningWhat 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:
![](https://i.ppy.sh/747e999f653eaebd780b0b52c22599cc44056cf3/68747470733a2f2f7075752e73682f47615a73522f326465333735336162662e706e67)
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. FunctionalityOn 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.
![](https://i.ppy.sh/c3460b6d144af79abf14d2367baaf4c36b6ac7b7/68747470733a2f2f7062732e7477696d672e636f6d2f6d656469612f4564786b364a6d576b4151415637572e706e67)
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/DivisionsOne 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.
![](https://i.ppy.sh/2bc4412efc1c63a385c8a8c27d3a655a5b2a8836/68747470733a2f2f7075752e73682f4762304e372f306234306639396165632e706e67)
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.