What is your proposal?

Original rule: osu! ranking criteria -- Overall -- General:

Hit objects must never be off-screen in 4:3 aspect ratios. Hit objects that are even partially off-screen can create reading difficulties. Test play your beatmap to confirm this.

Proposed Change:

Hit objects must never be off-screen in 4:3 aspect ratios. Hit objects that are even partially off-screen or overlapped with health bar can create reading difficulties. Test play your beatmap to confirm this.

Why propose this?

Mainly two reasons.

1. Theoretically as a ranked map, the map should be bug-free, while the objects are covered by health bar can be seen as a bug as the objects are the elements for clicking or dragging through, while health bars are informational content.
2. The overlapped health bar actually does not create a lot of reading difficulties, especially in the case of default skin:
   
   Example

   
   However, under custom skins or old styled skins, it will be similar to the issue of off-screen:
   
   Example

   
   I know that we never judge on the base of custom skins, which is true, but it is also a truth that a lot of people use them. For ranked maps, we should minimize the effects of non-musical and non-purposeful placements on the gameplay, and for this reason I would think this should be a rule.

What part of the Ranking Criteria does your proposal apply to?

I believe this should be a rule, but at least this worth some discussion as recent maps have objects frequently touch the health bar and not a lot of people are aware of that. This could also go to guideline, as it should be helpful in the overall quality of ranked mapsets. Hope this can intrigue some insight or thoughts.

This assumes the health bar is always going to be in one place, which is not going to be the case.

I think it's better to add rule relating to off-screen margins. That said, I have no idea how to go about defining those margins, and it can't be a specific amount; ensuring objects are at least "X pixels from the top" is not reasonable. Maybe halfway between grid border and off-screen?

abraker wrote:

This assumes the health bar is always going to be in one place, which is not going to be the case.

I think it's better to add rule relating to off-screen margins. That said, I have no idea how to go about defining those margins, and it can't be a specific amount; ensuring objects are at least "X pixels from the top" is not reasonable. Maybe halfway between grid border and off-screen?

CS value also need to be considered I guess~

abraker wrote:

This assumes the health bar is always going to be in one place, which is not going to be the case.

I think it's better to add rule relating to off-screen margins. That said, I have no idea how to go about defining those margins, and it can't be a specific amount; ensuring objects are at least "X pixels from the top" is not reasonable. Maybe halfway between grid border and off-screen?

Calculating a margin out should be an accurate way of defining this, however, I have several comments:

1. As bossandy addresses, this is a hard calculation and might need to be solved outside the mapping community.
2. If we assume that the default skin in any future version does not change where the health bar or other elements (scores) are in that specific version, visually checking would always work.
3. Visual checking also works even if each map has a different placement of the skin elements. We just need to testplay and check if the objects overlap with them or not.

Atrue wrote:

If we assume that the default skin in any future version does not change where the health bar or other elements (scores) are in that specific version, visually checking would always work.[/list]

osu!lazer is expected to have fully customizable skins, meaning players would get to choose where the HP bar is and how it's oriented.

abraker wrote:

osu!lazer is expected to have fully customizable skins, meaning players would get to choose where the HP bar is and how it's oriented.

Okay then I guess this would only apply to the current version..

uhhhhhh i'm genuinely not sure if this change is required

this "objects should not touch the hp bar" concern might be a common "issue" to point out in a mod post from osu!'s early days (pre-2012 or so), but as time went by this "issue" has almost never been mentioned again in the modern modding threads for a good number of reasons :

1. the predominant aspect ratio has changed gradually from 4:3 to 16:9.
2. a new Default skin was introduced during this time, with a less intrusive hp bar that covers a significantly smaller portion of the screen.
3. features such as background dim and the shift+tab button combination got implemented, which grew into the standard playing norm over time and effectively nullified the worry of having objects touching playfield elements (hp bar, leaderboard, etc).

while in theory this can still be enforced, in practice maps nowadays are expected to be played with super high background dim and shift+tab enabled and therefore removing the necessity for mappers to proactively avoid placing objects in the upper portions of the screen.

all in all i'm afraid this will only lead out to an unnecessary limitation, and will greatly hurt many maps and mapping approaches in the process esp. slider-heavy high sv mapping such as NeilPerry's Beggars or Acylica's Fluctuation for example; especially if it is to be amended as a "Rule" as you suggested.

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EDIT : since you're also bringing forward concerns about "readability" in your first post i'd also like to point out that in my 11+ years of playing/mapping in osu! i genuinely don't think i've ever seen (or experienced) a situation where an object is suffering from an actual proper readability issue simply because it's "touching the hp bar".

This is already a guideline for Easy and Normal difficulties:

Avoid overlapping hit objects with other elements of the default and beatmap-specific skins. This refers to all elements that are part of the interface and can be skinned.

I don't think it is a problem as long as the sliderball itself does not leave the playfield as this is mostly an "issue" on difficulties with big circles that are sufficiently indicated through their big size in higher difficulties where players have already learned to deal with overlaps of hitobjects.
That being said, I can't find a rule that prevents you from placing hitobjects outside of the playfield which seems pretty weird in itself but I might have just overlooked it or used the wrong search terms.

Niva wrote:

uhhhhhh i'm genuinely not sure if this change is required

this "objects should not touch the hp bar" concern might be a common "issue" to point out in a mod post from osu!'s early days (pre-2012 or so), but as time went by this "issue" has almost never been mentioned again in the modern modding threads for a good number of reasons :

1. the predominant aspect ratio has changed gradually from 4:3 to 16:9.
2. a new Default skin was introduced during this time, with a less intrusive hp bar that covers a significantly smaller portion of the screen.
3. features such as background dim and the shift+tab button combination got implemented, which grew into the standard playing norm over time and effectively nullified the worry of having objects touching playfield elements (hp bar, leaderboard, etc).

while in theory this can still be enforced, in practice maps nowadays are expected to be played with super high background dim and shift+tab enabled and therefore removing the necessity for mappers to proactively avoid placing objects in the upper portions of the screen.

all in all i'm afraid this will only lead out to an unnecessary limitation, and will greatly hurt many maps and mapping approaches in the process esp. slider-heavy high sv mapping such as NeilPerry's Beggars or Acylica's Fluctuation for example; especially if it is to be amended as a "Rule" as you suggested.

---

EDIT : since you're also bringing forward concerns about "readability" in your first post i'd also like to point out that in my 11+ years of playing/mapping in osu! i genuinely don't think i've ever seen (or experienced) a situation where an object is suffering from an actual proper readability issue simply because it's "touching the hp bar".

Great point and introduction of the history of the related background and thanks for the examples of creative maps that used the space of health bar for sliders. Let me summarize your points here:

1. This issue has been a common concern about 8 years ago, when the default skin is still opaque and HP bar is quite big there. The aspect ratio was mostly 4:3.
2. With background dim and shift+tab button implemented, there is no necessity for mappers to avoid touching the skin elements such as HP bar.
3. Enforcing this as a rule will hurt the creativity of the maps largely, some examples are: NeilPerry's Beggars or Acylica's Fluctuation.
4. The default skin elements have not been an actual proper readability issue simply because of touching the HP bar.

However, here are some points I would like to raise:

1. Thanks for the introduction of the history of changes on related items.
2. As my first reason in the original post states, I think the necessity comes from the bug-free requirement of Osu as a game, rather than the actual gameplay. The integrity of the game should be the base, then comes creativity. Making sure that in the default official scenery the game does not make any mistakes or get any bugs should at least be concerned.
3. I have checked the example maps you mentioned. They are very creative, but I did not find a case that touching HP bar is needed there. Here I will show the most severe cases of HP bar overlapping for both maps you mentioned and try to propose solutions that "should have been done". Please note that I don't intend to mod ranked maps and I sincerely appreciate all the efforts from mappers and modders of respective, just trying to bring some discussions to talk about how much creativity we will lose if we enforce the rule:
   
   Begger

   
   In this case, moving 01:59:134 (4,1,1) down a bit will not hurt the placement of the objects and the patterns are still there
   
   Maybe there are some more places that need minor adjustment as well though. I also acknowledge that even small changes will create a different flow or pattern, but in this case I think it should just be fine.
   Fluctuation

   
   I think the creativity does not change a lot if we move the 01:04:050 (1,2,3,4) notes a bit down.
   
   Note that what I am trying to say is that we can make it better by some simple changes. Basically what we are talking about is How much creativity we will lose if we make this change to enhance the game (ranked maps) integrity.
4. I fully agree that this does not decrease the readability (stated in my reason #2) in default skins, but one of my concern is that in the case that we are using a custom skin (see my example in reason #2), this will be very similar to the current rule: Hit objects must never be off-screen.

Endaris wrote:

This is already a guideline for Easy and Normal difficulties:

Avoid overlapping hit objects with other elements of the default and beatmap-specific skins. This refers to all elements that are part of the interface and can be skinned.

I don't think it is a problem as long as the sliderball itself does not leave the playfield as this is mostly an "issue" on difficulties with big circles that are sufficiently indicated through their big size in higher difficulties where players have already learned to deal with overlaps of hitobjects.
That being said, I can't find a rule that prevents you from placing hitobjects outside of the playfield which seems pretty weird in itself but I might have just overlooked it or used the wrong search terms.

Thanks for bring this point in! Currently this is just a guideline for lower diffs, which means that this can still show up in ranked maps. That is the point I want to raise or at least get more attention on.

Atrue wrote:

I have checked the example maps you mentioned. They are very creative, but I did not find a case that touching HP bar is needed there.

the thing here is based on your screenshot you're seeing the sliders as individual objects instead of a part of a sequence of pattern(s). for example, in Beggars, given wider context this is how the section builds up to the aforementioned slider :


as you can see, the entire pattern is being formed around (and is taking advantage of) all the vertical width osu! has to offer and therefore simply "moving it downwards so it doesn't touch the hp bar" is not a viable solution.

another case where you can't just simply drag the objects down that i'd like to brought up (that is becoming more and more common nowadays) is when there's a slider (or a sequence of connected sliders) that covers both the very top and the very bottom of the screen, such as the 00:21:924 (1) - slider that i have on my Blaze map here :


or this one from Let Me Hear :


or even this sliderart that i quoted from Zelzatter Zero's post here :


if this somehow got enforced there's... nothing you can do here instead of (quote-on-quote) "forcing" the mapper to redo or drastically adjust their slider(s) really, even without any urgent need to do so in the first place. this would all in all puts in an additional restriction on mappers' creativity, which on paper should ultimately be encouraged rather than suppressed.

apologies beforehand if this sounds harsh (i really do) but -- given everything that has been described in my two posts in this thread -- i think you're failing to see that the mapping and playing meta nowadays have transcended beyond the need of mappers worrying about whether their objects are touching the hp bar or not, even in regards of any custom skin elements present.

if you want to stick to the "osu! as a game, rather than the actual gameplay" viewpoint then i can simply play the devil's advocate here and ask for any maps that takes advantage of slider leniency to be banned from the game as well, but we should all know by now that by common sense it's already considered a common feature in mapping already and doing so would invalidate a good bunch of maps.

the only place where this is remotely applicable is arguably on the lower diffs (E/N) where a sizeable portion of the playerbase that these diffs are being aimed for are playing without high background dim or shift+tab enabled, but -- as Endaris also have mentioned above -- this has been there in the current Ranking Criteria all the time as a guideline :


enforcing this more strictly either as a rule or a guideline that covers all diffs, i'm afraid, is not a good step forward (esp. on higher diffs); it's a big step backwards if any.

Thanks Niva for the input here.

I agree that on your examples, there may not be easy ways to make a pattern change and this kind of change may pose threats to the creativity of the patterns. Just want to clarify, that my major point has never been targeting on these maps that intend to do so. There might be some sort of misunderstandings here, and I apologize if this rule proposal sounds harsh to these maps. Let me revisit the reason part of my first post:

For ranked maps, we should minimize the effects of non-musical and non-purposeful placements on the gameplay.

The target is still trying to address the issue of unintentional overlap with HP bar, when the patterns and placements are not specifically designed to use the area covered by the skin elements. Anyways, just trying to gather more thoughts and ideas around this to hopefully improve the quality of the ranked mapsets by avoiding some simple mistakes. It is true that this adds a limitation to mappers which I don't intend to propose, and thus I believe some sort of rewording is needed.

You raised the example of slider leniency as something similar to the hp bar overlapping, but I think slider leniency is a way of actual gameplay and suits perfectly to music when used. It would be very hard to think of a case that objects hitting hp bar is fitting the music simply because it hits the bar. Note that does not include your examples that the objects have good pattern design and there are literally no other placement available for the design, and as a result, hp bar is overlapped with the objects.

Concerning the comment about the weight between mapping+playing and keeping the map integrity, I just would like to discuss on this since I personally think that this is some bugs that worth an easy fix. If the community thinks that this object hitting HP bar bug is just a really tiny thing, the discussion may anyways not be very meaningful after all. Regarding your comment that the proposal is a step backwards, I think the proposal itself is something trying to fix some current bugs rather than moving the RC somewhere, especially considering osu!lazer will have customizable skins and the discussion will anyways be outdated.


tl;dr: You are proposing something like Begger, Fluctuation, while I am actually referring to situations of Further discussion on the necessity of the rule and rewording if available is needed if community cares about this issue. Sorry if there is some kind of misunderstanding and thanks for the posts again.

Atrue wrote:

tl;dr: You are proposing something like Begger, Fluctuation, while I am actually referring to situations of

unintentional placements that many other choices are available

so from what i understand, you are only concerned with certain maps, not all of them. dunno man, but it sounds more like a guideline proposal for me.

here's another point i will bring up.

Atrue wrote:

I know that we never judge on the base of custom skins, which is true, but it is also a truth that a lot of people use them.

so, do we take account the possibility of a comically large scorebar-bg? i know it seems like a dirty 30-second edit, which it is, but once we dive into the customizable area, things start to get pretty janky

To give my own line of thinking here:
I don't see overlapping with the HP-bar as an issue at all because players deal with overlapping hitobjects so often that a HP bar overlap would only be a minor inconvenience at most.

Starting at the highest levels of gameplay, you've got maps that are visually very complex like faithlessness, Pudding Funfair or Lindwurm. While these these aren't accessible to most people, it shows just what players can do.

When you work your way down, different kinds of overlaps and mixed rhythm gaps are acceptable on Insane difficulties. On Hard difficulties it is very normal to have consecutive stacks of 1/2 and 1/4. Something like this would be no issue.

Normal and Easy are the only difficulties where overlapping hitobjects are considered potentially difficult because players are still learning the game and its visuals.

The summary of this is that players learn to read, they can intuitively understand what goes on behind a HP bar overlap purely by their experience with the game alone.

Comparing to offscreen objects is not relevant, the issue with offscreen is that these objects are unfair or impossible to hit rather than lacking visibility ..

Another thought .. HUD elements having some overlap with gameplay is totally normal in pretty much all games I've ever played, how is this a bug? Is an enemy walking behind my HP bar in Dark Souls also a bug?
I'd argue not, informational displays are designed to -not- hide important gameplay aspects, this is true for osu! as well. It doesn't make sense to avoid HP bar overlaps when HP bars are designed in a way to make any overlaps a non-issue.

Atrue wrote:

Endaris wrote:

This is already a guideline for Easy and Normal difficulties:

Avoid overlapping hit objects with other elements of the default and beatmap-specific skins. This refers to all elements that are part of the interface and can be skinned.

I don't think it is a problem as long as the sliderball itself does not leave the playfield as this is mostly an "issue" on difficulties with big circles that are sufficiently indicated through their big size in higher difficulties where players have already learned to deal with overlaps of hitobjects.
That being said, I can't find a rule that prevents you from placing hitobjects outside of the playfield which seems pretty weird in itself but I might have just overlooked it or used the wrong search terms.

Thanks for bring this point in! Currently this is just a guideline for lower diffs, which means that this can still show up in ranked maps. That is the point I want to raise or at least get more attention on.

In my opinion this covers it completely as long as you don't ignore the nature of guidelines.
Remember that a hitobject overlapping the health bar can only be done

under exceptional circumstances [that] must be justified by an exhaustive explanation as of why the guideline has been ignored and why not ignoring it will interfere with the overall quality of the creation.

If there hasn't been an exhaustive explanation for your examples that's either because the ruleset used to be different or because the BNs were slacking on this which is kind of relatable but not ok.

Thanks AncuL, yaspo, and Endaris for the comment. Let me summarize your viewpoints here:

Summary wrote:

AncuL: This sounds like the guideline proposal, and we should probably only consider default skin since there is no control over custom ones.

yaspo:

1. HP bar overlap would only be a minor inconvenience at most. Overlapping is only considered difficult for E and N diffs. Players learn to read, they can intuitively understand what goes on behind a HP bar overlap purely by their experience.
2. Offscreen is different to the overlapping issue.
3. The skin now is designed to not hide the gameplay aspects.

Endaris: The nature of guideline already ensures that non-purposeful overlapping should be avoided in the ranking process.

At this point I pretty much agree with your points. I fully agree on the readability part on default skin brought by yaspo, and there is no point of discussing on custom skins. On lower diffs, guidelines already are in effect to make sure non-proposeful placement are avoided in the ranking process. As for considering it as potential "bugs", the current default skin is designed to minimize its presence when overlapped with gameplay objects, and thus it is already well solved by the skin.

Thanks for the discussion again and if there is no more thoughts around this, I think we can come to a conclusion that there is no need to have a rule or guideline changed for this.

UBKRC tidbit

We originally had this included in the ranking criteria draft but ultimately dropped it because the reading hazards that it potentially causes are very minor on the default skin.

I do agree it looks kinda bad but testing your beatmap on all dumbass resolutions where the healthbar is suddenly comparatively wide and large in relation to circles / sliders is unreasonable to me. last i checked the client drew the hp bar in different sizes based on what 4:3 resolution you're on and the 4:5 or 5:4 client just looked broken on any skin to start with s o i wouldn't include it in a rule that people have t otest

in the end we decided the inconvenience and overlap isn't worth the minor annoyance if i recall correctly

I think that reasoning still holds up

Everything in the Ranking Criteria is written to assume default skin is used to play the game to have a common ground for judging beatmaps introducing this back is somewhat of a moot point to me