As D33d and some other people in the client said, this isn't dedicated to taiko, so we should leave it osu! based for now.
I just missunderstood something at the beginning. So it's cool.

Will do. Hope this comes into place in some form or another in osu!standard though.

Considering the following as a guideline:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

Thoughts?

Ephemeral wrote:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

Thoughts?

This looks good. That's how it should've been from the start.

How would one account for slider ends then?

those wrote:

How would one account for slider ends then?

would you just stop with the slider ends plz
since you don't need to "hit" there there's no need to put the slider end on something if it makes sense
you always say "weird 3/4s" whenever anyone puts a certain slider but those play well cause the slider is more about the hold feeling from the note

Then you can hold it until a suitable place in the song which beats. What's so hard about that? The responses to my query have never been more than answering "Why are you throwing a tantrum?" with "Why can't a I throw a tantrum?". If you don't care for slider ends you may as well not care for any of the objects at all. You wouldn't even need to use any music, either!

those wrote:

Then you can hold it until a suitable place in the song which beats. What's so hard about that?

okay no if a slider is following a vocal hold then it makes no sense to make it follow the beats instead suddenly for no reason
those sliders that you always complain about feel good explicitly because they follow the song, they follow the vocal and the vocal is part of the song. also it's good to use for variation sometimes

You're mistaken. Sliders follow beats; a vocal passage just so happens to be behind it.
Also there's a fine line between variation and inconsistency, and many mappers don't know the difference, but that's not the topic of discussion here.

People follow whatever they want from the songs wtf

[Luanny] wrote:

People follow whatever they want from the songs wtf

This. As long as it makes sense, it doesn't need to follow any extremely-strict rules. If the mapper can't tell what's supposed to be mapped and what isn't, it's obviously gonna end in a low-quality map. We already have an advice to avoid that, so making it more complicated will just confuse new mappers.

^ what everyone besides those said.
just don't put anything about slider ends in there and it should work out fine imo

I'm not a fan of "extended" sliders, I agree sometimes they may fit with vocals like you said, but many others they just sounds and play quite horrible as it has nothing to do with the song itself and sounds pretty bad.

If such a guideline will be made, I think slider ends should be there too.

They fit pretty well for wubs tho

Here is why slider ends are fine:
You can SS sliders without understanding their timing perfectly.
Had sliders had the same accuracy system as circles, I'd say that slider ends need not be overmapped, or else it'd be impossible to play them by following the music. But with how osu works right now, the extension of a slider can be interpreted in ways that are not strict to the music - this provides for a variation in mapping that does not feel overmapped (even if it really is) and plays in an enjoyable and not frustrating way when done right (as opposed to having to click on timings that lack a beat).

tldr you can SS sliders by just reading whether they're 1/4 or 1/2 or 3/4 or 1/1 without actually having to snap the let-go timing to a beat in the song. That's why it's fine.

Please finalize as no change.

Well... I think it really depends on music. Overmaping is bad, true, if you're mapping speedcore or something where is always a lot of stuff to map, I would say it could be unrankable. While at slower songs I think only circles shouldn't be overmapping the map, because they're always harder to hit, while if slider overmaps the map like with one note on it, it could be rankable. I obviously don't mean that you will add million repeats on a 1/4 slider.

Simply I think rule could look like this:

Do not overmap the map using a high amount of the circles or slider repeats. Overmapping is allowed only if it does not afflict the difficulty so much and it is still easy to hit. Definitely do not overmap the streams and do not add the streams to deaf places in music.

I haven't read the entire thread - I apologize if I'm repeating things that have been previously said please don't kill me.

The definition Charles gave in the first post sounds fine to me. However, a valid point has been raised about streams. Lots of people use streams to lead into emphasized parts of the song, and these play well and are intuitive (although they tend to be overdone), yet objectively overmapped, and unrankable by that rule - without going into mythologia levels.

Second problem is for maps like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/102371 which sound like 157 BPM, but in fact there is a constant 1/4 guitar riff. So would mapping it at a constant 1/4 rhythm be overmapping because it doesn't feel right or would it be acceptable ?

Third is: 3/4 sliders. Some mappers abuse the fuck out of these and their maps are horribly unintuitive because of that. We need control over this.

Shiro wrote:

However, a valid point has been raised about streams. Lots of people use streams to lead into emphasized parts of the song, and these play well and are intuitive (although they tend to be overdone), yet objectively overmapped, and unrankable by that rule - without going into mythologia levels.

Second problem is for maps like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/102371 which sound like 157 BPM, but in fact there is a constant 1/4 guitar riff. So would mapping it at a constant 1/4 rhythm be overmapping because it doesn't feel right or would it be acceptable ?

Third is: 3/4 sliders. Some mappers abuse the fuck out of these and their maps are horribly unintuitive because of that. We need control over this.

This is all specifical cases what can be judged over quality rule, isnt it?

I would prefer end of slider on a sound as a guideline because this make o!m conversion far more better

But this is osu! discussion, right?

/me escape

Haven't read all thread and forgot if I had replied it before...

nvm just saying imo, this will be good as a guideline because many people love spamming notes everywhere, it will be good to remind them purpose of mapping. However, it will be absolutely nonsense to set is as a rule since we have tons of example that "overmapping and well" maps.

Thank you for reading broken English with messy mind.

deepsea wrote:

Haven't read all thread and forgot if I had replied it before...

nvm just saying imo, this will be good as a guideline because many people love spamming notes everywhere, it will be good to remind them purpose of mapping. However, it will be absolutely nonsense to set is as a rule since we have tons of example that "overmapping and well" maps.

Thank you for reading broken English with messy mind.

I can only agree with this. I can't see any way in which this could not limit creativity as a rule, but as a guideline, it will force mappers (and BATs) to think about overmapping without blindly accepting it.

Ephemeral wrote:

Considering the following as a guideline:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

Thoughts?

Taking last thoughts on the quoted amendment and the OP before considering for finalization/denial.

It needs to be reworded slightly.

All hitcircles and the starting point of sliders should be snapped to a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

I like mapped rather than snapped, but snapped is more directly referencing what is actually happening. I agree fully with the above definition.

As it's a guideline, you can add that slider ends should be snapped to beats or ends of mantained beats/notes ( since hitcircles and slider starts have been included, you could include slider ends too )

I disagree about slider ends. Players dont need to hit them, and its also allowed to have them completely silent - slider may follow long note what ends in silence (this for example).

more than anything, sliderends are usually snapped to the end of a sound ( sometime not a beat ), so the problem would be actually to find a decent wording.
Though still, the most generic it could get is " Hit Objects should be following a sound in the music. .... "

I haven't read the entire thread so forgive me if I say something that's already been said, but I got a gist of it from the first few pages. My thoughts on overmapping are that it's fine, as long as the rhythm is intuitive and consistent with the song. If you would make a rule that states "Hitcircles and slider starts should all be snapped to a beat in the song", then a map which is perfect and plays right, but has one note that doesn't follow a beat in the song - which is placed there for the sake of consistency - can't be ranked because it's overmapped. However, BATs would obviously not see the problem with this and rank it anyway, disregarding that rule because it would ruin an otherwise great map.

So the rule itself would have to be about as grey as the concept it addresses and the opinions on them. I do agree that there should be a rule on overmapping, but saying "Overmapping is forbidden in all cases" would severely restrict a mapper's creativity, and possibly even detract from the quality of a map, rather than add to it. Ranked maps are supposed to be enjoyable for all players, but "enjoyable" is something subjective, so the rules regarding ranked maps will have to allow room for subjectivity, or else all maps will feel the same and eventually bore the players, because of the restrictions on a mapper's creativity that objective rules will place.

I'd say a good rule would be to forbid excessive and unintuitive overmapping - this would include overdoing the distance spacing (i.e. random fullscreen jumps or those horrible jump-stream-jump-stream-jump maps), however if the overmapping fits the song and is consistent with the flow of the map, I don't see why it shouldn't get a map ranked just because there's an extra hit circle in there that doesn't represent any sound in the song.

In music there are things called ghost notes, which are notes that the musician plays very softly to be able to stay consistent in their playing, but that the listener doesn't hear. When a mapper places extra notes in a similar way to how ghost notes are used, I'd see no point in deeming it unrankable. Yes, whether this is "good" or not is subjective - but isn't that why maps need to go through the process of getting modded by several players, then a few BATs, and then still need 2 BATs to approve of the map for it to get ranked - with any other BATs who noticed a well-hidden and unacceptable mistake still having the authority to unrank it so said mistake can be fixed?

People are just making a way bigger deal out of this than it really is, and BATs shouldn't worry about mappers calling them on their decision, they aren't BATs for nothing.

Hey man, if a particular pattern you want to use isn't featured in a song, use a different song. Nothing is stopping anyone from being creative while being within the bounds of what the song allows. If only this simple concept could be so easily understood...

If a song uses ghost notes go ahead and use them in your map, but you better be able to prove they are there. You can hear ghost notes, you just need to listen closely, and that defeats the purpose of their existence.

Either way, if you can't establish the rhythm properly and need to use ghost notes as an excuse, you are mapping wrong.

Oh come on Zerer, you should know that "but muh creativity" isn't an excuse, since it takes creativity to work with what's there. Ghost notes are all well and good in actual music, but in a map, this sort of thing usually implies tactility without actually delivering it. Still, that effect can be achieved pretty well with the right hitsounds on overmapped sliderends, but it's much harder to express "barely there" when tapping and clicking are involved. Hitsounds don't really offset that.

The fact is that mappers will pull all kinds of excuses out of their backsides and blithely ignore a point if it's not in official writing. It's what some people do. Stipulating conditions such as this, to any degree of severity, helps to keep people to produce higher-quality maps and gives the staff a much easier time. I like the proposed guideline as it is, but it might be worth mentioning sliderends as well. They still have some tactility--the end explodes with the hitburst and the action and animation of a slider's kind of a tension and release thing. Moreover, overmapped sliderends can feel horrible, especially with the wrong hitsounds.

actually, there should be a category of recommendation for not experienced mapper, with things that people with no experience should rarely try.
Examples:
-Overmapping, you should be able to know if your patterns is intuitive ( with logical/musical guessing ) ( so, being able to know if other could try it )
-SVM ( on the other discussion ), same thing, being able to know if what you've done is playable by others

I thought that there was already a recommendations category, but guidelines satisfy this by being guidelines.

Could we get back on track and discuss ephemeral's proposed version? I think it is loosely phrased enough to be included into guidelines. Other types of overmapping are too subjective to clearly specify.

I think Ephemeral's version is pretty good to go.
I myself try to not overmap at all, but I realize other mappers can do it, and can do it well, without breaking consistency or playability, so I don't have a problem with it. I mean, this is a rhythm game, so the map needs to fit the rhythm, but it's not a music visualizer, so as long as it's not random 1/6s where the map doesn't even have 1/4s, but only a small stream as pickup before a strong kiai transition? why not? You can use hitsounding to make it sound right without killing anything. And I'd say such a kiai transition (e.g. chorus starts) is already a "musical cue" and the stream would just emphasize it

I'd think that version makes sure to prevent a certain kind of stupidity but still allows for rhythmically logical stuff

Zarerion wrote:

random 1/6s where the map doesn't even have 1/4s

This is wrongly snapped notes (kind of already unrankable issue).

I agree with Haku, we need to explain this guideline more for not experienced mappers. Ephemeral's wording is good already, but some more recommendations would be useful too.

Zarerion wrote:

I myself try to not overmap at all, but I realize other mappers can do it, and can do it well, without breaking consistency or playability, so I don't have a problem with it.

This is what I meant with my post. If you can do it, and can do it well, then a perfectly fine map might be disregarded because there will be a strict rule against overmapping. It's not that I think it should be done, but if the mapper can do it without subtracting from the map's quality, I don't see the issue. I agree with D33d that it requires creativity to work with what you've got, rather than slapping random notes onto the song and using "muh creativity" as an excuse, but sometimes adding something that isn't there can make a map feel more complete. With this I don't mean a deathstream where there's only 1/2 stuff going on, I mean some additional notes to help the player keep rhythm in places where they fit.

tl;dr saying overmapping should always be allowed isn't smart, but completely forbidding all overmapping won't be smart either.

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

I'm suggesting this All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.
Thoughts lets get this wrapped up and shipped out.

But Charles already explained why ends of sliders should be exceptions:

Charles445 wrote:

The reasoning behind this is, hitcircles and the starts of sliders are the objects in the game that require the player to press down on time. Spinners and the end of sliders don't require a knowledge of the beat beforehand as they both involve keeping the already pressed button held down.

ztrot wrote:

All hitcircles and the starting point of any sliders should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.

I'm suggesting this All hitcircles and sliders including ends should be snapped to be a beat in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in poor quality maps.
Thoughts lets get this wrapped up and shipped out.

This will be cool as guideline. Overmap parts can be quite enjoyable if done well so I think this should be decided from case to case.