Coming from mania specific discussions and osu! wide discussions concerning this topic, the consensus is that removing spreads will only benefit the osu!mania game mode.

Why this is important:

1. Many good maps by various mappers are being left in graveyard because mappers refuse to map difficulties they don't feel like doing.
2. Graveyard was never intended to be permanent storage
3. Loved was never supposed to be a dump of maps that couldn't make it to ranked
4. There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why.

This aims to help solve those problems.

There are concerns that this may leave lower difficulties neglected. There is good reason to believe that will not happen due to the following reasons:

1. It's still easier to rank lower difficulties than harder difficulties due to complexity. Ranking easy diffs also offers new mappers a good entry point to get into ranked mapping.
2. There are BN that are concerned that easy diffs will be neglected. Then it begs to reason they would focus to nominate easy difficulties
3. If you go to beatmap listing, you will be able to find maps that have full spreads and have their highest difficulty something a player would be able to do within the first month.

Now this is meant to be a trial period. This will be a thing for 6 months or so to see how it plays out. If it becomes apparent that this is causing more harm than good, it will be reversed.
___

____

proposed RC wrote:

1. All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties.
   
   1. osu!mania beatmaps do not require spreads. This is to allow for easier approachability to osu!mania mappers of different upbringings.

1. If the drain time of each difficulty is...
   
   1. ...lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included applicable game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
   2. ...between 3:30 and 4:15, the lowest difficulty of each included applicable game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
   3. ...between 4:15 and 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each included applicable game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.

Please do. That would allow infinitely many more interesting charts to be ranked much smoother and quicker.

This won’t effect me or my maps but since I am a caring individual capable of empathy I agree! Honestly it’s long overdue.

(This is 100% shade btw, mapping discourse sucks and y’all know who you are)

yeah i agree with underjoy 1000000%

PLEASE YES

but my low effort obligatory throwaway lower diffs...!

personally i am still more in favor of relaxing the requirements rather than removing them entirely. besides the reasons mentioned in the original thread, i feel anti-meta keymodes would really suffer from this. anti meta keymodes have accessibility issues as is and i feel this would exacerbate this.

Scotty wrote:

personally i am still more in favor of relaxing the requirements rather than removing them entirely. besides the reasons mentioned in the original thread, i feel anti-meta keymodes would really suffer from this. anti meta keymodes have accessibility issues as is and i feel this would exacerbate this.

should this removal be a thing only for 4K (+ 7K i guess?) then? but still mandatory for others? We already treated separate keymodes as "individual game modes" anyway. The OP sentence should probably add the clause that the spread requirement are for all but 4K.

also there is this sentence in the RC for those unaware:

Beatmap

Note: Each of osu!mania's key counts are considered individual game modes throughout this section.

A change to spread requirements is more than due so this is highly welcomed.

Removing or relaxing spread requirements will lead to not only more quality higher-end ranked content, but also less throaway lower-end diffs in favor of more carefully crafted content in that part of the difficulty spectrum.

Nevertheless, I'd personally prefer a strong relaxation of the requirements rather than a straight up deletion. This allows to provide a more constant influx of maps that generally hook starting players into the game (anime TVSize, VSRG pools) and just like Scotty says, it helps keymodes that do suffer from more content starvation (anti-meta keymodes), something that does not happen in 4k and 7k. This last point could be solved by treating keymodes separately as Rivals says, though.

But of course, I prefer to remove the requirements completely than to keep them as they are now.

Scotty wrote:

personally i am still more in favor of relaxing the requirements rather than removing them entirely. besides the reasons mentioned in the original thread, i feel anti-meta keymodes would really suffer from this. anti meta keymodes have accessibility issues as is and i feel this would exacerbate this.

I will say this has some merit to it, but I think we should see how this goes first. It could benefit anti-meta keymodes overall cause we could see more anti-meta maps get ranked, or it could possibly harm it, with only harder anti-meta maps getting ranked. However, my opinion is that overall we are severely lacking anti-meta maps in general, and I feel like the spread criteria being removed would lead to an increase in interesting and anti-meta maps overall, which I think is a good thing regardless of the difficulty of the maps.

Overall, I believe in more freedom to rank what you want as long as it's good, and I don't think we should be forcing people to make ez diffs for like Laur songs. I think there's a place for easy and normal diffs, but it should depend on the song itself and the style, not the length. We'll probably see plenty of easy, normal, and hard diffs in anti-meta keymodes, as generally people love to rank short, easy stuff, as it's usually lower effort, so I believe we'll still see a fair amount of easy maps.

Sorry for rambleing lol, didn't really organize my thoughts here and probably repeated a few things. Might revise later ig

Gonna link to my post in the all modes discussion thread but yeah, I'm in favor of relaxing requirements but very against removing spread altogether as I don't see it leading to a net positive for the community at large.

My original and way more elaborated post: community/forums/posts/8313712

Even if we just remove spread requirements, there will always be some new ranked map like most of the anime TV size, Vtuber music that has 1~3* only for new players.

Requiring lower diff spread for even some intense music just because the drain time won't be enough to pass EZ/NM/HD diff is absolutely blocking the advantage, I'd say.

[LS]Ham wrote:

I will say this has some merit to it, but I think we should see how this goes first. It could benefit anti-meta keymodes overall cause we could see more anti-meta maps get ranked, or it could possibly harm it, with only harder anti-meta maps getting ranked. However, my opinion is that overall we are severely lacking anti-meta maps in general, and I feel like the spread criteria being removed would lead to an increase in interesting and anti-meta maps overall, which I think is a good thing regardless of the difficulty of the maps.

I don't fully agree with this. I think anti-meta won't have any difference considering it is already a norm (from what I've seen in 5k and 10k) to make spreads for the map. The problem with that is lack of BNs capable of checking but that's another topic.

Regarding more interests in anti-meta, sure. I think spread changes would give a little bit of an easier entry barrier / incentive.



About the spread proposal I am always neutral with this. However, I know for a fact that even lowering spread requirements will already encourage a lot more sets to be pushed to ranked.

(For starters we could round of the length - something like 3:00 or more you only need Hard as lowest diff, and then the one for Insane can be 4:00 or even 3:45)

The main problem is Normal diffs and below - which some people barely map them. However, Hard RC is free enough for most mappers to make a Hard diff to push their map in my opinion.

I don't particularly feel like removing it entirely will be a good idea. There will be some really wacky sets being ranked like an Expert/Insane with 1:30 length or something extreme which I think is too much disruption to the current ranking "meta" and to the community (both player and mapper) as a whole.

Dubstek wrote:

Even if we just remove spread requirements, there will always be some new ranked map like most of the anime TV size, Vtuber music that has 1~3* only for new players.

Requiring lower diff spread for even some intense music just because the drain time won't be enough to pass EZ/NM/HD diff is absolutely blocking the advantage, I'd say.

I agree with that, the drain time shouldn't define if the map should have lower difficulties or not because easy maps aren't fitting with some songs

wow i can speedrank all of my 280+ mania maps lol!

Scotty wrote:

personally i am still more in favor of relaxing the requirements rather than removing them entirely. besides the reasons mentioned in the original thread, i feel anti-meta keymodes would really suffer from this. anti meta keymodes have accessibility issues as is and i feel this would exacerbate this.

anti-meta keymodes have content issues. That's even worse than accessibility - it means that there are not enough maps for beginner and experienced players alike. Let the be at least something.

AutotelicBrown wrote:

I can compile concrete evidence from these games if needed but it's pretty clear the influx of new charts in both FFR and Etterna that would be playable for most of the o!m community is lacking in both quantity and quality. I mention the o!m community specifically because both FFR and Etterna nowadays have skewed demographics due to low influx of fresh beginners (lack of content is not the only reason but it's definitely a big one). On that note, I think even having the 'half-assed' lower level content some people mentioned as a potential negative from spread requirements is still better than the situation those games (FFR/Etterna) are in, not to mention I think any competent mapper who respects their own work would still try to make decent lower diffs even if it's out of obligation (if you disagree you should probably reread the sentence).

Returning to o!m specifically and together with what I mentioned about the general population's skill level**, I think there's strong evidence that difficulty spreads should still exist in some shape or form if ranking criteria wants to keep the general community best interests in mind. This is not to say I don't think there's an issue with good high-end content not being ranked (sorry for the triple negative), at least on o!m, but I think removing spread requirements is not the way to go about it.

Thing about FFR and Etterna is that the games themselves are not as accessible as osu!mania is. I am ofc talking about UI (at least in Etterna), and the fact that I find it hard to imagine someone new to VSRGs would come across Etterna or FFR before they come across DDR, Guitar Hero, osu!, or Friday night Funkin'. Even I searched for guitar hero like games back in late 00's I did not find anything, and wasn't until 2014 when I came across osu! by recommendation. My point is that a beginner would not find those games easily, and if they do it's not beginner friendly from the get go, therefore it makes sense they don't have many easy charts.

As for mania, I and others already debunked the fearmongering regarding easy diffs. Here is my arguement:

abraker wrote:

Here is a list of recent ranked mania mapsets that have diffs composed out of low skill maps. If there were no spread requirements what would have those mapsets become? I have a hard time believing they would have been maps a new player could not pass. Even less believable is that there wouldn't be a BN to nominate them.

beatmapsets/1110188#mania/2319892
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1465254#mania/3035623
beatmapsets/773502#mania/2458855
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1386044#mania/2863218
beatmapsets/1382018#mania/2855453
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/998152#mania/2087790
beatmapsets/1391279#mania/2872780
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1137177#mania/2374714
beatmapsets/1173757#mania/2832659
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/1376799#mania/2845539
beatmapsets/1356104#mania/2806609

These examples contradict what you believe will happen. Mappers already create full spread of low diff maps. They are not going away.

just want to point out that the point of low diffs is that players can play all sorts of songs at their level, not just 2 bpm piano songs. particularly popular rhythm game and anime songs. so to that end linking a bunch of r3-esque sets doesn't really address the issue.

Nao Tomori wrote:

just want to point out that the point of low diffs is that players can play all sorts of songs at their level, not just 2 bpm piano songs. particularly popular rhythm game and anime songs. so to that end linking a bunch of r3-esque sets doesn't really address the issue.

We already established that mania has disproportionate amounts of low diffs for players, in the osu! community meetings as well.

since we're considering rule relaxation, i'll copypaste my post from another spread thread because i think this is a good base level to start off with

original location: community/forums/posts/8313743

imo, i think 1:45, 2:45, and 3:30 for minimum ranges would work better

based on what i know:
rhythm game songs are around 2:00 but can deviate a bit, lower or higher
the shorter full-length songs seem to be around 3:00, can also deviate
the regular or longer full length songs are generally 3:30 and above

so i think the ranges of <1:45 for normal minimum, <2:45 for hard minimum, <3:30 for insane minimum, and no limits above 3:30 are more fitting

abraker wrote:

anti-meta keymodes have content issues. That's even worse than accessibility - it means that there are not enough maps for beginner and experienced players alike. Let the be at least something.

locking out newer players from playing these keymodes would make it impossible to become an experienced player to begin with (at least via ranked) and i don't think forcing people to play unranked or other games is something ranked should be trying to achieve.

abraker wrote:

We already established that mania has disproportionate amounts of low diffs for players, in the osu! community meetings as well.

this is something true for all modes, and i'm not sure how this is a problem because this is by design. not all songs support higher diffs while at the same time most higher diffs have to be accompanied by lower diffs. this also doesn't counter nao's point regarding song choice which is one of the major factors in attracting newer players to the game.

Relax, don't remove.

Spread availability for beginners is beneficial because there are more chances a new player will find music they like and they can actually play.

On the other hand, some sets only providing higher difficulties may also be encouragement for players to get better and actually be able to play those. This has been the case for myself at least.

As long as mappers and people recognize this and know the importance of spreads, I believe spreads will continue to get ranked regardless of whether they're required or just (strongly) recommended.

I've updated the first post with the issues this trying to solve. Reason I am pushing for spread removal over relaxation is because I highly doubt relaxing spreads will allow those problems be solved.

Again, this change can always be reverted later.

Scotty wrote:

this is something true for all modes, and i'm not sure how this is a problem because this is by design. not all songs support higher diffs while at the same time most higher diffs have to be accompanied by lower diffs.

That is not the problem. The problem is that many maps are locked out of ranked because mappers refuse to make filler diffs. This "design" is causing issues this proposal aims to fix.

Scotty wrote:

this also doesn't counter nao's point regarding song choice which is one of the major factors in attracting newer players to the game.

but there are already plenty of easy diffs to attract newer players to the game. There are plenty of ranked easy diffs that are mapped to songs of popular rhythm games and anime songs.

Patuurages wrote:

As long as mappers and people recognize this and know the importance of spreads, I believe spreads will continue to get ranked regardless of whether they're required or just (strongly) recommended.

Then how about moving the rule to guideline?

Agreed with _underjoy.

I personally can't agree on this. Easier diffs are necessary for new players. In my opinion having other similar games cannot be a reason to cancel the spread requirement in osu!mania cuz there're still players who just simply start playing rtythm games from osu, and those players will still need eaiser maps for them to play. It is really disappointing when u find a song u love but with no proper maps to play. If the current RC is more lenient for songs of longer duration because of the much exhausting works for the mapper, it should be fair to complete a full spread for shorter maps.

And I think it should be an issue of all modes, plz don't make mania so "unique".

Madoka2574 wrote:

I personally can't agree on this. Easier diffs are necessary for new players. In my opinion having other similar games cannot be a reason to cancel the spread requirement in osu!mania cuz there're still players who just simply start playing rtythm games from osu, and those players will still need eaiser maps for them to play. It is really disappointing when u find a song u love but with no proper maps to play.

Why so quickly assume there suddenly won't be any easy diffs being made? I gave reasons in the first post why that would not be the case.

1. It's still easier to rank lower difficulties than harder difficulties due to complexity. Ranking easy diffs also offers new mappers a good entry point to get into ranked mapping.
2. There are BN that are concerned that easy diffs will be neglected. Then it begs to reason they would focus to nominate easy difficulties
3. If you go to beatmap listing, you will be able to find maps that have full spreads and have their highest difficulty something a player would be able to do within the first month.

Madoka2574 wrote:

And I think it should be an issue of all modes, plz don't make mania so "unique".

This proposal was made only for mania because the discussion for applying this to other gamemodes failed.

abraker wrote:

Why so quickly assume there suddenly won't be any easy diffs being made? I gave reasons in the first post why that would not be the case.

1. It's still easier to rank lower difficulties than harder difficulties due to complexity. Ranking easy diffs also offers new mappers a good entry point to get into ranked mapping.
2. There are BN that are concerned that easy diffs will be neglected. Then it begs to reason they would focus to nominate easy difficulties
3. If you go to beatmap listing, you will be able to find maps that have full spreads and have their highest difficulty something a player would be able to do within the first month.

There are counter-reasons why those listed presumptions could go down into opposite outcomes. Having the spread requirements entirely removed inflict way too much leniency in a way we wouldn't be able to maintain the ranked flows within a fine margin we could expect.

Following your points, lower-end files would still be produced upon this condition yet the worst case of scenario needs to be anticipated. I believe a large amount of mappers and/or BNs, including me, don't think a mere set comprising of lower diffs (Easy-Normal primarily) would offer decent satisfaction to the ranked section. Depends on the song potential of how hard a map can be, Insane level has been the main product that mappers would introduce among the other files, it's where the highlights are at steep. At this point people would just neglect creating lower diffs since they'll end up at low profile anyway.

Secondly, I have no idea how many BNs are at your calculation whom genuinely would care about low diffs if the condition proposed is applied. We couldn't rely on blind data, or at least we should not. Most BNs surely have a long list of pending maps about to get worked on, there's no guarantee or predictable outcomes that mapsets consisting of full spread (or only low diffs) appear at decent numbers that the community needs. I myself would consider a full-spread would work better on a set rather just having tedious 1/2 jumpstreams while there's more to dig in. Ranking a low-level mapset would feel half-assed because the result doesn't compensate the effort both BNs and mappers pour on the process.

The last one looks somewhat over-confident to me. There are indeed some maps with full spread that have tight gaps between the difficulties where the top diff wouldn't be by far as the lower one, however that's very occasional and not in a large amount of numbers to see such product in regards where players (particularly beginners to novice players) could cope within a month or so. So it's not a very good reason either.

Spread requirements has been relaxed once for good reasons, I don't think we could afford another one by simply erasing them entirely.

abraker wrote:

post

My argument isn't really that "FFR and Etterna are dying due to lack of low diffs and the same would happen to o!m" or any type of doom posting, following from my original post I'll highlight my main points for ease of discussion:

- After many years interacting with charters/mappers from all 3 games (FFR, Etterna, and o!m), it's pretty clear to me that, left to their own devices, most competent charters/mappers will completely ignore lower level content (or more specifically, content they or their peers don't consume). Obviously there are still exceptions like myself (in fact, you included my own ranked map as an example).
- Playcount statistics on o!m show that the majority of the playerbase is consuming content at the range primarily covered by spread RC (normal~hard). This is actually also valid for FFR and Etterna, but I'll cover those afterwards as response to what you said.
- Completely removing spread RC would act against the best interests of the playerbase at large, and I believe that RC should prioritize acting in favor of those players.

Also some extra points to make my position clear:
- I'm not claiming things are completely fine as they are, which is why I support relaxation in the first place.
- I'm not claiming easy diffs will cease to exist or the game mode will die. I am claiming that removing spread RC completely without any other change will impact negatively both the quantity and quality of available lower diffs.
- This is not about making more content for some idealized new player/beginner, current spread RC doesn't even cover Easy which is what most players would start with. This is about making things better for the majority of the community who happens to be playing primarily maps in the normal~hard range.

Anyway, I think the argument that there's already enough content in that range (or even that, assuming an ideal scenario, the influx will stay the same compared to now) is misguided as data suggests that there should be even more if possible.

Considering the benefits of ranking for the mapper (immortalizing your work, leaderboards, exposure), I think the ranking process can and should require mappers to put in some extra potentially undesirable work for the sake of the community. The problem with the current situation is that the currently required extra work is too much for most mappers, which ends up hurting the ranked ecosystem even on the lower end of difficulty as mappers end up doing no extra work at all.

Also in regards to other things you mentioned:

Thing about FFR and Etterna is that the games themselves are not as accessible as osu!mania is.

The fact o!m is more accessible only makes it more important that there are systems in place to provide more content for this segment of the playerbase.

My point is that a beginner would not find those games easily, and if they do it's not beginner friendly from the get go, therefore it makes sense they don't have many easy charts.

Following from what I said in my earlier points, I'm not even talking about content for complete beginners, just what covers the bulk of the playerbase. Aside from scale, the core demographic in both Etterna and FFR actually isn't that different from what you observe in o!m, as I'll present next.


To conclude, if charters in those games aren't making enough content in the difficulty range we are interested for the o!m context, it has nothing to do with a lack of an audience that benefits from it.

And as an extra more off-topic matter:

At this point I think it should be fair to try drawing the attention more to the possibility a lot of us have repeated throughout the different discussions: relaxing the requirements instead of removing them, as it seems the middle ground where everyone wins: we maintain a staeady influx of easy content into the game, and mappers have a sensible, increased amount of freedom and can avoid having to make throwaway diffs to a big extent.

so, to put it simply, it's like this:

man, I'm so lazy to do hit sound for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove hit sound.

man, I'm so lazy to do a full spread for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove the spread.

very cool

========

"Many good maps by various mappers are being left in graveyard because mappers refuse to map difficulties they don't feel like doing."

=> Mapper is too lazy. Can always ask for GD from someone else.

"Graveyard was never intended to be permanent storage."

=> Just make a pack of your graveyarded map then. Can always update it for new map later.

"Loved was never supposed to be a dump of maps that couldn't make it to ranked"

=> You don't need to pass all the map to loved section. nobody ask you to pass all the map too.

"There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why."

=> I don't see any problem with this.

RiP46 wrote:

so, to put it simply, it's like this:

man, I'm so lazy to do hit sound for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove hit sound.

man, I'm so lazy to do a full spread for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove the spread.

very cool

it's not like the ranked section will become better with you posting something like that lol
+ do you really think your ranked ENHI sets require more effort than the one-diff maps currently staying in graveyard

AncuL wrote:

it's not like the ranked section will become better with you posting something like that lol
+ do you really think your ranked ENHI sets require more effort than the one-diff maps currently staying in graveyard

why even bother to compare my maps with other map. I push my map to fulfill my own pleasure to have a ranked map of the song that I like not for making the ranked section become better.

Also asking for GD doesn't require much effort. maybe everyone should start asking for one. *shrug*

abraker wrote:

There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why.

This is not really concerning, especially considering that there are maps made specifically for a tournament (this is true for any mode).

Also statistics:

1. Out of the 20 maps used in OWC 2020 Grand Finals, 19 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
2. Out of the 16 maps used in TWC 2021 Grand Finals, 13 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
3. Out of the 16 maps used in CWC 2021 Grand Finals, 12 maps were not ranked during the tournament, and the rest are converts from osu! (standard).
4. Out of the 17 maps used in MWC4K 2021 Finals series, all maps were not ranked during the tournament.

I'd go for relax instead of remove. The stake is quite high on both choices, but im slightly leaning toward relax.

Remove case: (speaking of inexperienced mapper)
Even though BN could reject any of nomination req but they still do brief check about the map. And seeing unpolished map with lot of general issues could be demotivating for them. I dont want it to be 2nd quaver (which is a lot of I - X content, sorry for mentioning), though that is not as worst as quaver ranking pool (again, this is just speaking about inexperienced mapper).

RiP46 wrote:

=> Mapper is too lazy. Can always ask for GD from someone else.

"Graveyard was never intended to be permanent storage."

=> Just make a pack of your graveyarded map then. Can always update it for new map later.

"Loved was never supposed to be a dump of maps that couldn't make it to ranked"

=> You don't need to pass all the map to loved section. nobody ask you to pass all the map too.

"There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why."

=> I don't see any problem with this.

These replies ignore the entirety of the conversation happened in this thread and this github post.

McEndu wrote:

This is not really concerning, especially considering that there are maps made specifically for a tournament (this is true for any mode).

Also statistics:
Out of the 20 maps used in OWC 2020 Grand Finals, 19 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in TWC 2021 Grand Finals, 13 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in CWC 2021 Grand Finals, 12 maps were not ranked during the tournament, and the rest are converts from osu! (standard).
Out of the 17 maps used in MWC4K 2021 Finals series, all maps were not ranked during the tournament.

How do these stats make this remotely ok? This is not ok. They are made specifically for tournaments, but they are barred from ranking because the mapper would never bother to make additional diffs to meet the criteria. Otherwise they are quality maps, and it's proven they are quality by being chosen to be used for osu! official tournament.

abraker wrote:

How do these stats make this remotely ok? This is not ok. They are made specifically for tournaments, but they are barred from ranking because the mapper would never bother to make additional diffs to meet the criteria. Otherwise they are quality maps, and it's proven they are quality by being chosen to be used for osu! official tournament.

tournament maps aren't ranked because the mappers simply aren't interested in pushing them for ranked. among these are maps that feature rates (unrankable due to multiple mp3s) and a lot of marathon maps that never got ranked (this has nothing to do with spread requirements either).

RiP46 wrote:

"There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why."

=> I don't see any problem with this.

The problem is not that tournament maps aren't ranked, it's that by wiping the graveyard we would essentially be wiping tournament content and be left with only the more recent stuff. Picking maps for a tournament is already hard enough as is, and also, willfully wiping quality content is not the right way to go imo.

And you can call mappers lazy, this is sometimes true, but for most of the quality content in unranked, the mappers simply don't share the same points of view as ranked criteria

Scotty wrote:

tournament maps aren't ranked because the mappers simply aren't interested in pushing them for ranked. among these are maps that feature rates (unrankable due to multiple mp3s) and a lot of marathon maps that never got ranked (this has nothing to do with spread requirements either).

Maybe these mappers add those rates and don't try to push it for ranked because they already know that in current circumstances their maps can't be ranked, so at tjis point they don't really care anymore about the RC.

RiP46 wrote:

so, to put it simply, it's like this:

man, I'm so lazy to do hit sound for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove hit sound.

man, I'm so lazy to do a full spread for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove the spread.

If mappers were lazy they wouldn't map at all.

RiP46 wrote:

so, to put it simply, it's like this:

man, I'm so lazy to do hit sound for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove hit sound.

man, I'm so lazy to do a full spread for this map. I know, let's propose RC to remove the spread.

very cool

========

"Many good maps by various mappers are being left in graveyard because mappers refuse to map difficulties they don't feel like doing."

=> Mapper is too lazy. Can always ask for GD from someone else.

"Graveyard was never intended to be permanent storage."

=> Just make a pack of your graveyarded map then. Can always update it for new map later.

"Loved was never supposed to be a dump of maps that couldn't make it to ranked"

=> You don't need to pass all the map to loved section. nobody ask you to pass all the map too.

"There is a concerning number of unranked maps being used in mania tournaments. See first bullet point as to why."

=> I don't see any problem with this.

ratio


edit: in all seriousness. stop assuming people are doing things in bad faith/"laziness". if people were actually lazy they would just not propose anything in RC lol. these proposals are being made with the benefit in mind for all.

"Mapper is too lazy. Can always ask for GD from someone else."

=> Not everyone is all that comfortable with getting and managing GDs for spread issues etc. Communication is often made to be somewhat consuming as well.

"Just make a pack of your graveyarded map then. Can always update it for new map later."

=> The process of making packs on osu! is made to be stupidly difficult and there are many roadblocks along the way that can break all of your files.

"You don't need to pass all the map to loved section. nobody ask you to pass all the map too."

=> There is a huge demand for loved maps, according to the survey that was put out recently. Claiming that "nobody" is asking is at worst an abhorrently bad faith claim, and at best incredulously ignorant to the collective conscience.

AncuL wrote:

do you really think your ranked ENHI sets require more effort than the one-diff maps currently staying in graveyard

while the lower diffs don't need as much effort as the top diff, they do need effort to be done

The issue of tournament maps closely relate to my first question on the discussion thread. afaik tournament maps don't get pushed to ranked not because of the lack of spread, but because of how disconnected (the mappers think) they are to the ranked section overall, especially on the higher ends of the tournament pools

Scotty wrote:

that feature rates

for now, you can just have a set that's just the diff without rates and the other one with rates. some people regularly do this

Just as a heads up, we have finally assembled a proper survey with the intention of determining the overall preferences of mappers, players and BNs/NATs. This should make as able to direct a bit the specifics of the final proposal.

We'd be grateful if everyone filled it out:

https://forms.gle/tCoVdkRRXzJgjqML6

abraker wrote:

McEndu wrote:

This is not really concerning, especially considering that there are maps made specifically for a tournament (this is true for any mode).

Also statistics:
Out of the 20 maps used in OWC 2020 Grand Finals, 19 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in TWC 2021 Grand Finals, 13 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in CWC 2021 Grand Finals, 12 maps were not ranked during the tournament, and the rest are converts from osu! (standard).
Out of the 17 maps used in MWC4K 2021 Finals series, all maps were not ranked during the tournament.

How do these stats make this remotely ok? This is not ok. They are made specifically for tournaments, but they are barred from ranking because the mapper would never bother to make additional diffs to meet the criteria. Otherwise they are quality maps, and it's proven they are quality by being chosen to be used for osu! official tournament.

Pretty sure McEndu was showing how tournament maps not being ranked is a problem not only for mania. However, it seems like other modes didn't want this change / it is not beneficial to them as much as ours.

AncuL wrote:

The issue of tournament maps closely relate to my first question on the discussion thread. afaik tournament maps don't get pushed to ranked not because of the lack of spread, but because of how disconnected (the mappers think) they are to the ranked section overall, especially on the higher ends of the tournament pools

Scotty wrote:

that feature rates

for now, you can just have a set that's just the diff without rates and the other one with rates. some people regularly do this

Also agree with this. I think spread is just a part of the problem (which we can decided on changes based on this discussion). Another part is that we have to show tournament mappers somehow that our environment is willing to help their maps in the ranking process (I think currently Komirin and RandomeLoL are doing a very good job at contacting the tournament mappers for pushing their sets to the ranked section. However, community effort is still really needed). But that's another issue to be discussed.

Apart from that regarding tournament maps, if one wants to keep the tournament version, they can have two sets on the site (though I don't think it is a very good idea in the long run still since it would be bad to the server storage) or host only the .osu diff file somewhere else (it's just a text file after all). The first way was already done with HowToPlayLN's Endless (Mameyudoufu Remix) as an example (like I mentioned though I think hosting the original diff files separately might be better for osu! structure).

[Ping] wrote:

abraker wrote:

McEndu wrote:

This is not really concerning, especially considering that there are maps made specifically for a tournament (this is true for any mode).

Also statistics:
Out of the 20 maps used in OWC 2020 Grand Finals, 19 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in TWC 2021 Grand Finals, 13 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in CWC 2021 Grand Finals, 12 maps were not ranked during the tournament, and the rest are converts from osu! (standard).
Out of the 17 maps used in MWC4K 2021 Finals series, all maps were not ranked during the tournament.

How do these stats make this remotely ok? This is not ok. They are made specifically for tournaments, but they are barred from ranking because the mapper would never bother to make additional diffs to meet the criteria. Otherwise they are quality maps, and it's proven they are quality by being chosen to be used for osu! official tournament.

Pretty sure McEndu was showing how tournament maps not being ranked is a problem not only for mania. However, it seems like other modes didn't want this change / it is not beneficial to them as much as ours.

"Not ranked during the tournament" is not "currently not ranked"; The stats also include maps that are ranked after the tournament concludes.

McEndu wrote:

[Ping] wrote:

abraker wrote:

McEndu wrote:

This is not really concerning, especially considering that there are maps made specifically for a tournament (this is true for any mode).

Also statistics:
Out of the 20 maps used in OWC 2020 Grand Finals, 19 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in TWC 2021 Grand Finals, 13 maps were not ranked during the tournament.
Out of the 16 maps used in CWC 2021 Grand Finals, 12 maps were not ranked during the tournament, and the rest are converts from osu! (standard).
Out of the 17 maps used in MWC4K 2021 Finals series, all maps were not ranked during the tournament.

How do these stats make this remotely ok? This is not ok. They are made specifically for tournaments, but they are barred from ranking because the mapper would never bother to make additional diffs to meet the criteria. Otherwise they are quality maps, and it's proven they are quality by being chosen to be used for osu! official tournament.

Pretty sure McEndu was showing how tournament maps not being ranked is a problem not only for mania. However, it seems like other modes didn't want this change / it is not beneficial to them as much as ours.

"Not ranked during the tournament" is not "currently not ranked"; The stats also include maps that are ranked after the tournament concludes.

It is understandable if the maps were not ranked for the tournament. The tragedy is for the maps to be left graveyarded way after the tournament. So here are the current stats, and I'm excluding maps that were loved since in this count:

OWC 2020: 11/20 still unrank
MWC4k 2021: 17/17 still unrank
CWC 2021: 10/16 still unrank
TWC 2021: 9/16 still unrank

One is not like the others.

uh its almost like mwc just finished

-mint- wrote:

uh its almost like mwc just finished

Oh had to check the dates oops. Let's use the 2020 one then

OWC 2020: 11/20 still unrank (55%)
MWC4k 2020: 11/17 still unrank (65%)
CWC 2021: 10/16 still unrank (63%)
TWC 2021: 9/16 still unrank (56%)

Not sure I can call 65% good, but it seems all gamemodes are in more or less the same camp.


edit: fixed totals

i dont think a map should be ranked strictly by nature of it being used in the world cup anyways, imo just let it naturally happen, BNs will have a slightly higher incentive to go for those maps anyways bc a lot of them will get popular via being known as a map in the world cup. and its not like a high percentage is bad exactly either, especially when the other modes have similar percentages

Here I want to deliver some of my ideas, having viewed just some of the posts.

osu! is widely played all over the world. Players can be newbies, noobs, skillers, etc. So thinking for the future, if the limiation doesn't exist any longer, the mappers may do what they like and make one single diff which can be as hard as possible at least for my watching of these days. So some of players may only see some easy maps which contain no music that they like, or just see there're some their favorite songs but they cannot play the maps, because of which, these players are not motivated and may have less activily in osu! or just quit. The advantages I can see just belong to mappers. They can do what they like but for players they cannot completely enjoy the game if so.

Rules are still rules and they're reasonable. If you change the reasonable rules for recent disadvantages, this may leave a hole on the road to future. So yes I mean this is reasonable for the spread rules. For some maps for long music, they are only fit for the players who have some skills even how easy it could be. Long maps require endurance which cannot be expressed on newbies. So making single diff for the long music is absolutely alright. And for some short music, there can be various diffs because they are short and friendly to players on different levels. You can see there must be spreads in some other music games such as Arcaea, Deemo, Cytus, Lanota, etc. And they all have one thing in common. That is the music is not so long. The length of most music is not more than 3 minutes. For example, in Arcaea, Tempestissimo is a cut verion actually but uncut version is over 4 minutes. You should understand this.

I don't care what BNs or mappers think (I'm also a mapper). I just speak objectively. Feel free to criticize me.

I may write more but for my personal reasons I want to leave it behind or just go away.

I feel like everyone here is theorizing about what would or wouldn't happen and the only way to really know is to have a test trial for a few months, if there's practically no easy diffs or whatever ranked during that time then we know we should reinstate some spread criteria, albeit likely more relaxed than the current ones, or maybe the trial goes well. I don't see any reason to be against just trying it out.

i don't feel easier difficulty would be neglected if the spread requirements in mania is removed, BN have the liberty to pick maps they feel like to nominate, its weird seeing people freaking out that there will be lack of easier diff if the spread is removed haha

i'm damn sure every map deserve equal amount of attention from players, mappers, and modders, regardless the keymode, duration, difficulty, etc. and i believe there's plenty good map out there that deserved to be ranked. however the current state of ranking criteria for osu!mania hinders certain maps to get that kind of attention & engagement from within the community, prevent certain mappers, players, and modders engage with one to each other.

if the goal is to increase the engagement of these kind of map, making those maps eligible for rank by removing the spread requirement is one good solution, but there should also be different kind of proposal and solution that will help kickstart a much richer, more engaging mapping/modding experience that will benefit more people.

what i wish is to not remove the 'engagement process' between the 3 elements of community (modders, mappers, and players) during the process of ranking a map.

meta maps won't be affected anyways