As most of you already know by know, I was that guy stealing your top pp ranks going by the name of 'Tarantino'. I did this to find out how easy it is to gain ranks in the current pp system... well, it's really easy. I became rank #12 in only one and a half month time.

Most of the scores I gathered on this account were made with the Nightcore mod. At first I did it as a joke, to annoy people watching the replays or spectating me, but later on I noticed a big advantage in it as well. An advantage which really needs to get changed, or nightcore should simply be an unranked mod.


Let's talk about the 'bass' which sounds a bit like a soft finish hitsound. This sound pops up when the song starts and then it'll repeat it self every 5th 'big' white tick. It's a cool effect and all, the only problem is that when there's a timing switch (new red timing section) in the map, the bass sound will pop up again.

Just take a look at this map, Theme of Puella Magi. This song has a lot of timing switches and every single time one pops up, you'll hear the bass sound again.

This is a huge advantage compared to regular double time. I was able to Nightcore + Hidden this map with SS in only a few plays because of this. This map is very challenging if you look at the rhythm of it. The non-steady BPM makes it really hard and you'd have to focus on the song to know when there's a switch in timing.

With nightcore you don't have to focus on rhythm at all. You can have 0 rhythm and still follow it because every time there's a switch in rhythm, it'll let you know with a big loud bass sound. You don't have to memorise rhythm or simply be very good with rhythm to SS it now. All you have to do is play and it'll let you know when there's a switch in rhythm going on. This defies the complete nature of this game, which is rhythm.


Onto another flaw in the nightcore mod, the UHN TISS UHN TISS beat going even when there's no music playing at all. Again, this is a rhythm cheating way to gain a good score.

Take a look at this beatmap's [Hyper] difficulty.

Between 01:37:239 and 01:38:850 there's no music playing at all. Playing this with hidden on is really hard then, as you have to keep your rhythm steady while there being no music at all. But with Nightcore mod, you don't need to have steady rhythm. You'll just hear your UHN TISS UHN TISS UHN TISS beat going on and on and you can just easily continue with your rhythm without slowly drifting off from the original bpm.

That's why I had the only SS score on that map as well, because the rhythm in it makes it a challenging map. But rhythm is not required when you play with nightcore mod.


I can list up a lot of other beatmaps having these issues, but I simply cba to do so. I think my point is pretty clear even with only 2 beatmap examples supporting it. So yea, all I want to see is these things to get fixed around or simply make the nightcore mod an unranked 'fun only' mod. Just remember that osu! is a rhythm game...

Since Nightcore is working exactly as intended, this is more of a feature request than a bug report. Moved accordingly (and also bumping it - I don't see this happening and don't agree with it, but some discussion would be healthy)

That can be removed by checking this option:

it's a modding issue, so this is more fitting in general development.

It does seem like an "Advantage" but many people are distracted by it (as well as the high pitched stuff) and find it harder than DT (lolcubes, who is a pro accuracy player, does better on DT than NC). Also, some maps (1/3 style maps) sound strange on it (or ones with a lot of time signature changes) and make it much harder. Just use NC if you play better with it, and the ones who are worse at it can use DT. I don't see a problem with it really, since everybody is given the option to use it or not.

I agree that the backbeat makes it easier technically, but I do not think it makes it easier to the degree that it's not worth the same multiplier. The point of doubletime is to play faster, and nightcore allows you to play faster. I don't think how hard it is to read a song's beat is a valid reason to nerf a mod. In a perfect world, all songs would be equally readable and this mod allows that to be so.

The difference in readability could be large, but it's really only making less readable songs play more like the more readable songs. When all songs are equally readable, then a player wouldn't need to decide mod usage based on how awkward it is to play a song, but by how much they want to play a song in a different way. I would argue that this "advantage" is minor considering that all songs should be equally readable and that the initial aspects of a song that make playing more difficult should be cast away as anomalies of the song itself, rather than a potential point of failure.

The difference is probably so unimportant and non-emcompassing that only the pros (and haters of Nightcore) would acknowledge the benefit gained from a backbeat as being negative. Only the pros (and the Nightcore haters) are selfish enough to make such claims. I do not think anything drastic needs to be done as score is less important than entertainment value. osu! is pleasing more players by having Nightcore the way it is.

Also maybe I should complain that doubletime and hidden is often easier than just playing with hidden on certain songs. These players don't deserve the extra multiplier, because my score with just hidden requires a lot more effort. Is this not the same argument?

so it wasn't my imagination that nightcore makes maps certain easier

Nothing stops everyone from using NC rather than DT, and as such it's no unfair advantage at all.

boat wrote:

Nothing stops everyone from using NC rather than DT, and as such it's no unfair advantage at all.

This exactly. Same reason why I think AR should be user definable.

why not just make the beats' volume follow the song's volume? meaning, if there's no sound at all, you won't hear these beats as well.