Currently spread rules go like so->
Under 3:30 - lowest difficulty required is a normal
3:30 to 4:15 - hard
4:15-5:00 insane
etc

However, in mania, taiko, and standard, there are additional "normal difficulty as the lowest difficulty" guidelines, which encourage easier normals if the set has no easy.

I think this causes a somewhat uneven progression in spread rules.

Over the years this has pushed the meta for Normal difficulties to be between what easy and normal would be, resulting in a lack of harder normals to help transition to hard difficulties. Advanced difficulties existing help a bit, but only just a bit.

Allowing harder lowest difficulty normals fitting with the current spread rules pattern seems fitting for both this and making the progression of what's allowed or not more even.

My proposal is this

If the drain time of each difficulty is between 2:45 and 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal, but Normal as lowest difficulty guidelines no longer apply.

nice

pretty good

sounds fine to me

i was gonna say it sounds oddly complicated but then I read what's already there and it's Already oddly complicated so /shrug

https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/4185

awesome

yes.

sounds nice

Not sure why this should be a thing cuz if the spread is not as balanced because of the original rule the mapper SHOULD map an easy to accommodate the spread being unbalanced. It simply just discourage people to play longer maps.

I have to disagree with this because it's just not true that harder Normals are rarely used. In fact, many lowest diff Normals have become more difficult in the past few years and even often break the guidelines for lowest diff Normals. The reason why some spreads are uneven is because of difficulty inflation in general and especially in Hard diffs. Mappers are often pushing the limits of what's acceptable according to the RC so naturally the gap between Normal and Hard becomes pretty big. Also 2:45 is just an arbitrary length, what's the point of trying to fix spreads for songs of that length but not shorter ones? It's easily possible to make balanced spreads without Easy diffs.

I don't think it's necessary to have more harder Normals as lowest difficulty. In my opinion, those guildlines aim to control the difficulty of Normals as lowest difficulty in an appropriate range to ensure beginners are able to play (pass) them. For beginners, their playing skill isn't enough to pass nowaday harder Normals. Without the limitation, less Normals as lowest difficulty have a proper difficulty that beginners can play, beginners' situation will be deteriorated even further.

Questionable spread between Normal and Hard is not only caused by easy Normals, but also caused by difficult Hards, just increasing the difficulty of the lowest diff cant resolve the basic problem. Since an additional Advanced diff can fill the gap easily, and it's not hard to make an Advanced difficulty, I don't think current spread rules are inconvenient.

Dored wrote:

Questionable spread between Normal and Hard is not only caused by easy Normals, but also caused by difficult Hards

isn't that the point of this change? between 2:45-3:30, this gives a new option for mappers to use not-super-easy Normals in their spreads with Hards that are either average or on the difficult side, without having to make another difficulty (Advanced) to join them together.

Dored wrote:

For beginners, their playing skill isn't enough to pass nowaday harder Normals. Without the limitation, less Normals as lowest difficulty have a proper difficulty that beginners can play, beginners' situation will be deteriorated even further.

if they can't pass Normal, there's thousands of Easy to download too (at least 8 of which are installed automatically). this whole set of minimum spread rules based on drain time exists because there's no need to design every mapset for absolute beginners, and I think it's natural that these rules can slowly become more lax over time due to higher volume of beginner-friendly mapsets in Ranked

clayton wrote:

Dored wrote:

For beginners, their playing skill isn't enough to pass nowaday harder Normals. Without the limitation, less Normals as lowest difficulty have a proper difficulty that beginners can play, beginners' situation will be deteriorated even further.

if they can't pass Normal, there's thousands of Easy to download too (at least 8 of which are installed automatically). this whole set of minimum spread rules based on drain time exists because there's no need to design every mapset for absolute beginners, and I think it's natural that these rules can slowly become more lax over time due to higher volume of beginner-friendly mapsets in Ranked

You miss the point of carrying out normal bottom diff guideline in the first place, why do beginners have to grind other easies of the songs they don't necessarily like just to pass a hard normal of a song that they favorited?

I think the proposal only further refrains beginners from playing longer songs in the long run so I'm personally against it. The current spread problem is not with the lack of harder normal but the hards being much too difficult nowadays, as someone who plays a lot of Hard HDDT for leaderboard grinds I can confirm it 100%. If one can't get their lazy ass to map an advanced when spread does not look good with an easy normal, nerf the hard please, don't sacrifice the gameplay experience of beginners instead.

Additionally it is kinda true what Serizawa Haruki said that normals are actually harder too, I have a friend of mine who actively plays normal for years and he recently complained a lot that normal nowadays are hella hard and beginner-unfriendly.

edit: was only talking about std, I dunno how it's like for other modes.

I don't know about other gamemodes but I don't think this should be a thing at all.

It is already annoying enough with the song length rule previously which I personally don't mind at all and not against, but I feel like this just makes things too lenient and doesn't even really solved much issues instead create more issues in the long run

Also normals as is kind of already really difficult and giving some form of leniency for it is kind of ? and I am 100% against having.

Personally am for this change mainly because I don't see it as a bad thing to lift the "easy" normal limitations at a certain point.

Garden wrote:

I think the proposal only further refrains beginners from playing longer songs

I can fully see what you mean here and I'd almost agree with it, but I don't think it takes very long for new players to get used to easy diffs and move on to more challenging normals so idk if i'd see it as too detrimental - if anything, it could be a nice way to incentivise new players to get better so they can play their favourite songs (at least that's how i'd see it)

I'm pretty sure every newer player ends up at a point where they think "wow hard diffs are impossible" (and I definitely was), so I feel this'd help bridge that gap too!

(honestly though, best thing would be if people made easy diffs along with with more "normal" normals but not everyone wants do put the time in to do that )

I think the normal personally should be at 2.50 but I definitely agree it should be higher.

hypercyte wrote:

I'm pretty sure every newer player ends up at a point where they think "wow hard diffs are impossible" (and I definitely was), so I feel this'd help bridge that gap too!

Hard diffs are impossible so why not try to make Hard diffs easier? Even if Normal diffs become harder, yea the gap is bridged superficially, most Hards are still impossible to them. Their playing skill improve little by little during trying and practicing more and more maps, the process is they play: (Easy)-"easy" Normal-"hard" Normal-(Advanced)-"easy" Hard-"hard" Hard, just increasing the the number of challenging Normals doesnt help they get with those Hard diffs, "easy" Hard diffs are still indispensible transition, it is also the reason I said this cant resolve basic problem. Nowadays challenging normals arent that rare, as this cant radically improve the situation of current low diffs spread, and there is possiblity it will harm more beginners who only just join the game, I dont think it's a good idea to change.

normal guidelines have been pretty intrusive for mania normals as they're enforced quite noticeably and so mappers are generally required to make a new normal, nerf layers, or shift all the diff names forward despite having a proper difficulty gap between NHI.

This should be fine in service of providing transition content to hard and by extension, transition content to insanes (where a spread allows for a higher end normal and a higher end hard in a spread)

seems to be a problematic addition for standard by which i understand but hm

clayton wrote:

i was gonna say it sounds oddly complicated but then I read what's already there and it's Already oddly complicated so /shrug

don't really have an opinion on this, but i wanted to say that if this change goes through, it would be helpful to have a graphic in the rc to show drain time difficulty progression

TypicalStep wrote:

I think the normal personally should be at 2.50 but I definitely agree it should be higher.

sr doesn't equal difficulty per se

sorry but this is terrible and if this is a requirement i will never rank any song under 3:00. this requires so many diffs that no one will ever really play or need but require large amounts of effort to get modded

it makes it easier to rank, not harder. rule is already that u need a normal under 3:30, this says that between 2:45-3:30 u can choose to ignore the extra guidelines for normal as lowest diff

"yes"

there is never going to be a good way to bridge the gap between normal and hard simply because the introduction of 1/4 creates such a massive spike in difficulty that people will always be stuck there. it doesn't matter how hard you make a normal diff, it is never going to be as linear a spread gap to insane because it is not possible to introduce having to use 2 fingers compared to 1 any easier than triples (unless people start using passive 1/4 a lot of adv. diff which i don't see happening). this is the fundamental problem with normal-hard spread.

at some point it has to be accepted that the game has a base level of difficulty and cannot cater to everyone. not that osu is a good parallel to dark souls, but the fact is that some level of coordination and finger control is necessary to play the game and mappers cannot or should not be made to map for people unable to achieve those skills.

i think this rule change is fine, since it's a logical extension of current spread rules.

Adam_S wrote:

don't really have an opinion on this, but i wanted to say that if this change goes through, it would be helpful to have a graphic in the rc to show drain time difficulty progression

will look into this, sounds like a good idea. there's probably a few other complicated rules that could benefit from some basic visual explanation too. pishifat worked on this in a few places a while ago, but I'm not sure how thorough it was across all RC

Garden wrote:

why do beginners have to grind other easies of the songs they don't necessarily like just to pass a hard normal of a song that they favorited?

I'm not following why this would be a priority over the many benefits of having limits to spread rules in the first place.

this might as well be a more generic question: "why do <players of some skill level> have to grind other <lower difficulty> maps just to pass <higher difficulty> maps of a song they like?" The clear answer to me is that it would be an absolute pain for mappers to be forced to create more difficulties that more likely than not will turn out as bland, uninspired, or rushed. in many cases it's a lose-lose scenario for mappers and players.

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think this rule change is fine, since it's a logical extension of current spread rules.

agreed!

+1

Addition for mania: currently mania has no "If a <insert difficulties> is required and used as the lowest difficulties it also follow these guidelines: <insert guidelines below>" (replying to lenpai's post)

Though if this rules gets implemented in the future, it would be leans toward negative side (reminder that this is for mania only)
-Less work or efforts on mapper side for doing spreads (or may choose the easy path such as going for rank on a single high normal or low hard diff)

At least (my personal) intentions there were, that if your normal doesn't fit in the lowest difficulty guidelines you should make an easy diff instead or make sure your spread accomodates for a lowest difficulty normal to start out with

nerfing the normal to fuck over the spread is just making your set worse if the gap from normal to hard was large to start with and letting it pass like this can be attributed to people not caring about spread

I don't know if i understood the problem correctly, but I don't see this proposed change solving the problem

I'd suggest to either include a quib about mapping an easy instead if your normal doesn't naturally fulfill the lowest diff normal guidelines or something among these lines

edit moved back to ranking criteria because there was no consensus reached

i think the intention is for a spread with a normal that breaks lowest difficulty normal guidelines to... not require an easy when the drain time of the top diff is above 2:45. therefore you wouldn't have to nerf down the normal or anything, as long as the top diff has the required drain time.

just a little bump because i think it would be a good addition

Yeah ugh vouch, i would like this not to die

Agree with others saying this is a logical extension of current spread rules. I don't see any arguments against this other than the sentiment that we need to baby new players even more than currently, but this is totally unnecessary because of how many low diff maps are already ranked + how quickly you're able to learn how to play the game, deeming these low diffs unnecessary for a majority of the playerbase after that point.

Forcing mappers to do even more work than they already do (mapping an easy/advanced) just to adhere to an arbitrary rule that doesn't even affect the quality of a map shouldn't happen.

Sure, it could improve the "quality" of a set. It'll be up to the BNs to decide whether they want to see another diff in a set or not.

Either way, this is such a niche change that all it'll do is make the lives of people mapping songs in this range a bit easier, but it should happen regardless. Low diffs will continue to be necessary, no content is going away.

Cynplytholowazy wrote:

Not sure why this should be a thing cuz if the spread is not as balanced because of the original rule the mapper SHOULD map an easy to accommodate the spread being unbalanced. It simply just discourage people to play longer maps.

No, it doesn't. It instead takes the idea that newer players tend to play short maps and builds upon it. This won't have any realistic impact on newbies playing longer maps.

Please keep in mind that the removal of a restriction DOES NOT MEAN that everyone will suddenly stop following it. There will be plenty of people mapping easies, advanced diffs, and low diff normals even with this change, long songs or otherwise. You can immediately tell this is the case by checking qualified. 9/50 qualified maps contain an easy diff, something that's almost always optional, and this has been happening for years (and will continue to happen as long as there are mappers that enjoy doing it!)

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

I have to disagree with this because it's just not true that harder Normals are rarely used. In fact, many lowest diff Normals have become more difficult in the past few years and even often break the guidelines for lowest diff Normals.

Whether harder normals are being used frequently or not, this proposal is trying to address exactly what you're pointing out: Normal diffs are breaking these guidelines because they're too restrictive. Have you seen anybody complaining about these guideline-breaking normals being too difficult..?

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

Also 2:45 is just an arbitrary length, what's the point of trying to fix spreads for songs of that length but not shorter ones?

As is 3:30, 4:15, and 5:00... As you may have noticed, it follows the 45 second intervals that we've had for years.

Okoratu wrote:

At least (my personal) intentions there were, that if your normal doesn't fit in the lowest difficulty guidelines you should make an easy diff instead or make sure your spread accomodates for a lowest difficulty normal to start out with

This'll still happen, just not for songs above 2:45. The same way a Normal isn't necessary for songs above 3:30 and a Hard isn't necessary for songs above 4:15.

probably a bit overdue on this one to poke some NAT and get a verdict. already lots of opinions expressed and activity is sparse now.

I've had this PR open, that can be reviewed for anything abt wording. let me know when it can be closed or merged

UberFazz wrote:

Agree with others saying this is a logical extension of current spread rules. I don't see any arguments against this other than the sentiment that we need to baby new players even more than currently, but this is totally unnecessary because of how many low diff maps are already ranked + how quickly you're able to learn how to play the game, deeming these low diffs unnecessary for a majority of the playerbase after that point.

It's actually not a logical extension of the current spread rules because Normals used as the lowest difficulty and Normals in a mapset that also has an Easy are not different difficulties. The extra clause for Normals as the lowest difficulty exists to make sure it's accessible for beginners, this doesn't equal "babying" players, it just means ensuring they have something they can reasonably play.
The other things mentioned are not good reasons either, just because there are a lot of ranked low diffs doesn't mean that they are no longer necessary or don't need to be as simple. Players usually want to play a certain song and not just any map that is easy enough. And even if most players learn how to play harder maps in a short amount of time, there is still always a influx of new players and also higher ranked players can enjoy playing low diffs.

UberFazz wrote:

Forcing mappers to do even more work than they already do (mapping an easy/advanced) just to adhere to an arbitrary rule that doesn't even affect the quality of a map shouldn't happen.

I think this is a misconception because being "forced" to do more work if the spread is not balanced is neither a bad thing nor is it exclusive to the gap between Normal and Hard. The same would apply if the gap between Hard and Insane is too large for example, it doesn't depend on any spread rules but rather how the individual difficulties were mapped.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

I have to disagree with this because it's just not true that harder Normals are rarely used. In fact, many lowest diff Normals have become more difficult in the past few years and even often break the guidelines for lowest diff Normals.

UberFazz wrote:

Whether harder normals are being used frequently or not, this proposal is trying to address exactly what you're pointing out: Normal diffs are breaking these guidelines because they're too restrictive. Have you seen anybody complaining about these guideline-breaking normals being too difficult..?

It's not because the guidelines are too restrictive, it's because the mapping meta has changed. Maps have become more difficult overall, including Normals. You don't see many people complaining because new players don't have enough experience to tell whether a map is too difficult or whether they are not good enough at playing. They don't know about balanced spreads etc. And most experienced players simply don't care about low diffs that much.

In conclusion, the problem I see with this change is the following:
If the goal is to mitigate the uneven transition between Normal and Hard, then it's not going to solve the problem because these rules only have a minor impact on how mappers map. Mappers are mostly influenced by what they see in other people's maps. Low diffs that don't adhere to their specific guidelines often get ranked without problems due to the lack of quality control. Spread gaps have always been an issue but the main cause are not these guidelines. But even if removing the extra guidelines altogether and making Normals less restricted caused a change in the mapping meta, increasing the average difficulty of Normals further would be problematic for beginner players. The only way to make that work would be making Easy diffs mandatory, which I personally think would be beneficial but most mappers probably don't see it that way as it takes more time to map.

I feel like you're ignoring a very important aspect of the change, which specifies that only maps length 2:45 and above will be affected. This doesn't involve "every normal diff" and won't affect the "average difficulty of normals."

Like I said earlier, this does not mean that all people will suddenly make harder normals, anyone will be free to make normals as easy as they like. This rule is one that gives more breathing room for mappers.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

The other things mentioned are not good reasons either, just because there are a lot of ranked low diffs doesn't mean that they are no longer necessary or don't need to be as simple. Players usually want to play a certain song and not just any map that is easy enough.

Are you saying all songs should have lowest-diff normals then? We've had length-based exceptions for years, I don't see how this is any different. If we tried to abide only by what players wanted and not take mappers into consideration at all, we'd have to have an E/N/H/I/X spread for every song because "there's an audience for it."

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

If the goal is to mitigate the uneven transition between Normal and Hard, then it's not going to solve the problem because these rules only have a minor impact on how mappers map. Mappers are mostly influenced by what they see in other people's maps. Low diffs that don't adhere to their specific guidelines often get ranked without problems due to the lack of quality control. Spread gaps have always been an issue but the main cause are not these guidelines.

Sure, it won't totally solve the problem, but I fail to see how it's more of a negative than a positive. Again, to reiterate, this ONLY affects songs past 2:45. Any new player can still play any ranked map, past, present or future that is shorter than 2:45 and do totally fine. They can then play maps that are slightly longer for what is likely slightly more difficult, and then move on to hard diffs. All this does is create a smoother difficulty progression.

The argument that "new players should be able to play any song they want" immediately falls apart once you realize how current spread rules work and how much effort it would require from mappers.

I'm well aware it only affects songs above 2:45 but that doesn't change anything because the logical flaw in this change is mixing up spread rules and difficulty gaps when in reality they are not interdependent. But even when only taking into account the "extension of the current spread rules" part of the reasoning, the only benefit that was mentioned was more breathing room for mappers but that doesn't seem necessary at all given how loose the guidelines are and how easy it is to make exceptions. From a mapper's perspective it might seem more comfortable to be able to essentially use an Advanced diff as the lowest one, but as several people have mentioned this could potentially deteriorate the problem of longer maps being less accessible to beginners. And yes, I know that this is already the case for songs above 3:30 but my point is that lowering the minimum length further could make this a bigger issue than it already is. Of course not everyone is going to take advantage of it, but it might contribute to additional difficulty inflation over time.

Just bumping to re-engage this thread

I do agree with some of the points Haruki/Garden brought up, e.g. that people are already making harder Normals (including lowest diff) and they usually get through because people are a bit more lax now, but this leads me to think that Noffy's proposal would not be a big problem to add (and would be a net positive even considering the current state of affairs already) and hence I'm fine with this.

On another note, having the rule apply to 2:45-3:30 also feels good to me since new players usually play shorter songs more, and hence implicitly directing the traffic of more advanced lowest diff Normals to be concentrated in the 2:45-3:30 area seems like it wouldn't deprive new players of enough content to get to that level as quickly as they already do due to plenty of shorter lowest diff Normals continuing to be made. I'm wondering if people think it would be beneficial for 2:45-3:30 lowest Normals which ignore lowest diff Normal guidelines to have to use a lower HP than usual?

----

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

From a mapper's perspective it might seem more comfortable to be able to essentially use an Advanced diff as the lowest one

This feels like a somewhat apt demonstration of how the proposal is actually a logical progression of the current rules already in place. I'm aware however, that Haruki disagrees with the current rules as well (i.e. all lengths should need full spread) so I guess that's the impasse there.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

It's actually not a logical extension of the current spread rules because Normals used as the lowest difficulty and Normals in a mapset that also has an Easy are not different difficulties.

While semantically true, in terms of the content these difficulties can provide the boundaries are very different (maybe less different than it seems due to the fact that people just ignore the guidelines anyways). So I'd still say it's a logical extension. It'd be like saying 2:45->3:30 = Advanced can be the lowest diff, but not quite.

Nao Tomori wrote:

i think this rule change is fine, since it's a logical extension of current spread rules.

Adam_S wrote:

i wanted to say that if this change goes through, it would be helpful to have a graphic in the rc to show drain time difficulty progression

I agree with both of these too.

AJT wrote:

I do agree with some of the points Haruki/Garden brought up, e.g. that people are already making harder Normals (including lowest diff) and they usually get through because people are a bit more lax now, but this leads me to think that Noffy's proposal would not be a big problem to add (and would be a net positive even considering the current state of affairs already) and hence I'm fine with this.

On another note, having the rule apply to 2:45-3:30 also feels good to me since new players usually play shorter songs more, and hence implicitly directing the traffic of more advanced lowest diff Normals to be concentrated in the 2:45-3:30 area seems like it wouldn't deprive new players of enough content to get to that level as quickly as they already do due to plenty of shorter lowest diff Normals continuing to be made. I'm wondering if people think it would be beneficial for 2:45-3:30 lowest Normals which ignore lowest diff Normal guidelines to have to use a lower HP than usual?

What exactly does "the current state of affairs" refer to?
And while this change might not cause major problems, I still couldn't figure out why it's necessary or advantageous.

AJT wrote:

While semantically true, in terms of the content these difficulties can provide the boundaries are very different (maybe less different than it seems due to the fact that people just ignore the guidelines anyways). So I'd still say it's a logical extension. It'd be like saying 2:45->3:30 = Advanced can be the lowest diff, but not quite.

Even if so, the question remains why the spread rules should be extended in the first place. If anything, I'd argue that it would be much more logical to change the spread rules so that Easy diffs are required for songs below 2:45 and that songs between 2:45 and 3:30 can have Normal as the lowest diff (while also removing the additional guidelines for lowest diff Normals). I know that most people would be against something like that, but from a purely logical perspective this would actually make more sense because there's a clear distinction between Easy and Normal as they are separate difficulties, the same principle used for the current spread rules.

would be nice to keep this discussion going, anyone have anything to add?

summary of points in favour:
- removes need for spread-filling advanceds
- shouldn't deprive new players too much since they gravitate towards shorter songs mostly
- encourages low diff innovation and inspires more content in the awkward gap between normal and hard that exists with a lot of songs
- logical extension of current spread rules (even in length - it's 45 seconds less than the next threshold, all gaps are 45s)

summary of points against:
- people already push boundaries of RC even with lowest diff rules so unneeded
- new players already find some current lowest diff normals too hard for them (garden anecdote)
- 2:45 is arbitrary (questionable whether this is valid due to the 45s pattern)
- it's already possible to make balanced spreads without easy diffs
- stops new players from being able to attempt longer songs

--

personally agree with the proposal:
- logical extension
- i think low diff innovation is cool, some newbies actually do improve faster than you'd think, i understand what garden said but i think that's partially including the playerbase that stays around normal diff levels and hence if people start ranking harder normals of course they will struggle with them if they're already comfy in their level of gameplay, i don't really think that's an issue
- these normals could already exist in sets with easies, so i don't think that much would actually change, especially if people are already ignoring certain lowest diff guidelines already allegedly

Noffy wrote:

"Over the years this has pushed the meta for Normal difficulties to be between what easy and normal would be, resulting in a lack of harder normals to help transition to hard difficulties. Advanced difficulties existing help a bit, but only just a bit."

Maybe it's just me, but some current Normals already feel like borderline Hards to me. This is probably attributed to me playing during a time where difficulty generally was a lot lower. I've tried to get a few people into osu recently and none of them could deal with most current Normals.
My point is: Those difficulties don't even succeed in being beginner friendly, even while already being more restricted. And at that point, why not change RC to accommadate for that?
At that point either re-add easy as being required (which no one wants), or remove the double-standards for Normal difficulties. I would probably even go as far as to not tie it to drain time.

Somewhat split on this, but I generally feel this would be an ok change to have.

I have to agree with stuff that Nao said tho, the general nature of introducing 1/4 rhythms as well as a few other core mechanics (such as more lenient spacing usage; no need to have everything DSed, generally high rhythm density due to longer 1/2 chains nowadays etc.) does make it feel a little unbalanced at times. I just don't see a lot of people breaking DS or using 1/4 in harder Normals / Advanced difficulties tbh so it would still seem unbalanced at times. Often stuff can be balanced a bit more by just either nerfing the Hard bit or buffing the Normal too.

To me 2:45 doesn't necessarily feel weird because of the time itself (as it makes sense with the 45s pattern) but more due to rules normally stating that you can have a hard as the lowest diff etc. but this one says that guidelines can be avoided. Not that it's important but just wanted to mention that here

AJT wrote:

would be nice to keep this discussion going, anyone have anything to add?

See my post above

AJT wrote:

summary of points in favour:
- removes need for spread-filling advanceds

This might be true but the need for spread-filling advanceds only exists if the spread is unbalanced in the first place. Spread gaps can exist between other difficulties too, for example Hard-Insane or Insane-Extra. It might be more common to have a bigger gap between Normal and Hard than between other diffs, but this change would still only potentially alleviate the problem for maps that are specifically 2:45-3:30 in length. It wouldn't solve the issue for maps below 2:45 so it doesn't seem to be an actual solution. As mentioned before, a better way to go about this would be decreasing the difficulty of Hards or adding an Easy diff to the mapset.

AJT wrote:

- shouldn't deprive new players too much since they gravitate towards shorter songs mostly

I don't disagree but this isn't really a point in favor. It's only a counterargument to one of the points against the proposal but doesn't explain why it's a beneficial change.

AJT wrote:

- encourages low diff innovation and inspires more content in the awkward gap between normal and hard that exists with a lot of songs

How exactly does it encourage low diff innovation? I really doubt that this change would lead to the creation of innovative content because it only affects the difficulty of Normals and not their mapping style. People could already make innovative Normals/Advanceds if they wanted to but most people don't because they only map these diffs for rankability.

AJT wrote:

- logical extension of current spread rules (even in length - it's 45 seconds less than the next threshold, all gaps are 45s)

I explained why this isn't the case in my previous post.

in the sense of reducing mapper requirements as drain time goes up it's a "logical extension", not in the sense of how it affects resulting spreads though, like Serizawa explained. not that it really matters to clarify this, we're just getting caught up in words

"low diff innovation" feels kinda meme to me, I really doubt this change would have a significant impact on anything 99% of the time. no reason to sugarcoat that the practical benefit here is mostly related to letting mappers be a little more lax with their Normals.

I support this change mainly bc there seems to be little difference either way and I think requirements should be defined minimally

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

AJT wrote:

- logical extension of current spread rules (even in length - it's 45 seconds less than the next threshold, all gaps are 45s)

I explained why this isn't the case in my previous post.

I agree that your proposal goes further to extend the current RC pattern. Honestly I could get behind your proposal as well because I can definitely see it being true that very new players are alienated by the increasing difficulty of Normals - I just doubt it would get much support for two reasons:
i) people don't want to put in extra effort to make an Easy diff when they already don't want to make a Normal diff but have to
ii) minority case, but, certain songs are so complex that they barely support a Normal in the first place without being useless and bad, and hence if this were to be added then some sort of guideline regarding song complexity and necessity of an Easy(/Normal) would need to be added simultaneously IMO.
Irregardless, I don't think that your proposal means that Noffy's proposal isn't also a logical extension. Basically what clayton said.

clayton wrote:

"low diff innovation" feels kinda meme to me, I really doubt this change would have a significant impact on anything 99% of the time. no reason to sugarcoat that the practical benefit here is mostly related to letting mappers be a little more lax with their Normals.

Low diff innovation is definitely a thing - if you think the change wouldn't have much of an effect the reasons for that would likely be due to the fact that people already semi-ignore guidelines (or take advantage of lack of legislation in certain areas) for low diff innovation and it slips by. I agree that only a minority of people actually care about ideas presented in low diffs as long as they're rankable, but regardless this change would still open up that avenue a bit more, at least officially.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

How exactly does it encourage low diff innovation? I really doubt that this change would lead to the creation of innovative content because it only affects the difficulty of Normals and not their mapping style. People could already make innovative Normals/Advanceds if they wanted to but most people don't because they only map these diffs for rankability.

I should clarify that I wasn't talking about mapping style, I was talking about this in regards to introduction of certain difficulty elements and patterns (not all of which are explicitly governed in RC but some of which are commonly discouraged in fear of accessibility), which relates moreso to the difficulty. There are a fair few "innovative" spreads in terms of mapping style that incorporate their ideas set-wide and get ranked without issue already.

clayton wrote:

I support this change mainly bc there seems to be little difference either way and I think requirements should be defined minimally

+1

o i also took that to mean mapping style, that makes more sense lol

op wrote:

Over the years this has pushed the meta for Normal difficulties to be between what easy and normal would be, resulting in a lack of harder normals to help transition to hard difficulties. Advanced difficulties existing help a bit, but only just a bit.

correct me if im wrong, but i think this has become kinda irrelevant in the 2 years since this proposal was made? as far as i can tell, lots of harder normals have been made (even as lowest diffs of sets), and many straight up ignore those lowest-diff guidelines lol

that said, i think it might be smarter to revise those lowest diff guidelines or remove them entirely to better suit how the community views lowest diff normals. if people are ok with that, it'd be better to do in another thread(?)

edit: this thread is too dead to be worth keeping around, make a new one for anything to happen