I'm bringing this topic up since this is a major issue lately.
Everything in this game revolves around maps. The maps ARE the game. The ranking process is supposed to support quality map creation and ensure that players get the best maps possible to play on.
However, right now there are rules that restrict map creation, and lower the quality of maps. Those rules need to be changed, and the active community who actually *plays the maps* should have a word on the matter.
For example, there is a rule that "an entire mapset has to use one tick rate". This rule, makes, no sense, at all. In nearly every single mapset EVER the most fitting tick rate for ES/NM diffs is 1 and for HD/IN/EX diffs it's 2. Why the hell does this restrictive rule exist? It serves no value and lowers the quality of maps.
Another rule is that mapsets with only one difficulty cannot be ranked, and a diff spread is required. The theory behind this rule is very good - to allow everybody to play their favorite songs regardless of their ability level as a player - in reality this rule is very BAD. As it stands right now, an ES/NM/HD spread for a TV-size 1:30 minute song is rankable, while a 5 minute stream map with complex 1/4 patterns isn't. The latter between those two takes about 10x the amount of time and effort to create and mod, and by forcing mappers to add lowdiffs to rank it you're basically discouraging mappers for trying to rank maps like that AT ALL since it will take nearly a year with how things work right now, especially considering most modders don't want to mod long maps. ( = no stars = no kd = no nothing. pending forever -> grave)
It's true that the vast majority of this game's community can barely play HD diffs, however they already have OVER 7000 maps with lowdiffs to play on with a huge selection of songs. Not adding lowdiffs for a song like freedom dive doesn't neglect anybody, since frankly there are very few people who would like to play that song on a lowdiff (chances are, even if somebody is a low level player and likes the song, he'd rather play the main map with NF than play a lowdiff that maps 7/8 of the song into long sliders). By forcing mappers to add lowdiffs for ranking, you're neglecting the part of the community in osu who play for challenging maps and not for songs - making it impossible for mappers to rank those types of maps makes them lose motivation in mapping them; it also means the mappers won't ever have pending slots to upload maps on since they can't rank anything.
What this thread boils down to is - the community should have a word on ranking rules. Right now, in practice, many of them do more harm than help, but people can't say anything because they know their opinion would be ignored. If they were large polls on such matters, you might see the opinions of many players on critical issues which would affect those rules.
EVERY single player that plays osu should have an opinion about map ranking rules, since those dictate what maps most mappers would want to create, and everybody who plays this game does it by playing maps.
Discuss.
Everything in this game revolves around maps. The maps ARE the game. The ranking process is supposed to support quality map creation and ensure that players get the best maps possible to play on.
However, right now there are rules that restrict map creation, and lower the quality of maps. Those rules need to be changed, and the active community who actually *plays the maps* should have a word on the matter.
For example, there is a rule that "an entire mapset has to use one tick rate". This rule, makes, no sense, at all. In nearly every single mapset EVER the most fitting tick rate for ES/NM diffs is 1 and for HD/IN/EX diffs it's 2. Why the hell does this restrictive rule exist? It serves no value and lowers the quality of maps.
Another rule is that mapsets with only one difficulty cannot be ranked, and a diff spread is required. The theory behind this rule is very good - to allow everybody to play their favorite songs regardless of their ability level as a player - in reality this rule is very BAD. As it stands right now, an ES/NM/HD spread for a TV-size 1:30 minute song is rankable, while a 5 minute stream map with complex 1/4 patterns isn't. The latter between those two takes about 10x the amount of time and effort to create and mod, and by forcing mappers to add lowdiffs to rank it you're basically discouraging mappers for trying to rank maps like that AT ALL since it will take nearly a year with how things work right now, especially considering most modders don't want to mod long maps. ( = no stars = no kd = no nothing. pending forever -> grave)
It's true that the vast majority of this game's community can barely play HD diffs, however they already have OVER 7000 maps with lowdiffs to play on with a huge selection of songs. Not adding lowdiffs for a song like freedom dive doesn't neglect anybody, since frankly there are very few people who would like to play that song on a lowdiff (chances are, even if somebody is a low level player and likes the song, he'd rather play the main map with NF than play a lowdiff that maps 7/8 of the song into long sliders). By forcing mappers to add lowdiffs for ranking, you're neglecting the part of the community in osu who play for challenging maps and not for songs - making it impossible for mappers to rank those types of maps makes them lose motivation in mapping them; it also means the mappers won't ever have pending slots to upload maps on since they can't rank anything.
What this thread boils down to is - the community should have a word on ranking rules. Right now, in practice, many of them do more harm than help, but people can't say anything because they know their opinion would be ignored. If they were large polls on such matters, you might see the opinions of many players on critical issues which would affect those rules.
EVERY single player that plays osu should have an opinion about map ranking rules, since those dictate what maps most mappers would want to create, and everybody who plays this game does it by playing maps.
Discuss.