Every time I create a top difficulty for a song that I know I want to put a lot of SV on, I face a dilemma. Either drench the map in the SV ideas I have in my head and make something I think is cool and a niche of people might enjoy, or use simple/no SV and have the map be played and enjoyed by a much larger group of people.

I think many others who enjoy making difficult SV maps for ranked share the same idea, and as someone who has mapped and ranked a LOT of SV-heavy maps of my own, and even more of others', I have been thinking about this compromise for a long time; is there really any reason why we can't do both?

The way I have thought to fix this issue of picking sides is to allow maps with top difficulties that have extreme SVs to have a little to no SV difficulty ranked alongside it; same notes, same colors, just the SV changed. This way, those who enjoy SV maps can play the one they want to, and those who do not enjoy SV maps have another way to play the same difficulty instead of being left with the next best thing (usually the difficulty below, which is too easy if they were going to play the top difficulty). This would eliminate the worry that your map will be inaccessible to many people and provide an option for people who prefer one style over the other, instead of a mapper being cornered into ranking one style of top difficulty.

With that, my proposal would be in the taiko ranking criteria, in the “Overall” subject, as a new guideline next to the other SV guidelines that reads:

If the hardest difficulty in a set uses slider velocities that dramatically alter the playing experience, an identical difficulty with extremely simplified slider velocities may be ranked alongside it. This is to offer more playing choices to the community without the risk of bloating content.

It is not perfect, and honestly probably does not need to be added at all, but this is the best place to open discussion on this as opposed to forcing a map into rank under this idea and having it be veto'd/have a big argument on the thread like we usually do with questionable ranking practices.


Hopefully, I have provided a good explanation of why I think this guideline is necessary for the mode, and if I need to, I will elaborate in replies as to why I think this is an important thing to consider with the future of taiko. SV maps are pushing the limits more and more, and I would hate to see people who simply do not enjoy them to be left out of so many good songs and maps. I think many people appreciate simple maps, and it is understandable, so I do not want to block them from getting it because the mapper had to choose between making something niche that they thought was fun and making something more generally accessible that does not live up to their expectations.

As part of your consideration, please take this map as a reference to a practical application of this guideline: beatmapsets/1746556#taiko/3572483

I believe that this properly showcases what I mean when I say SV “dramatically alters” a map, and I think that anybody who plays these two difficulties would define them as uniquely different playing experiences, and that the SV map is much more difficult than the no-SV version (I go from 20x miss on the no-SV to 60x miss on the SV difficulty, as well as dropping 5% accuracy, and I literally mapped it). Under this guideline's acceptance, these difficulties would be viable to rank in a set.

Please respond with agreements and criticisms of this proposal and I will be happy to discuss it. I hope you can approach this idea with an open mind and consider the perspective of a SV-heavy mapper in this discussion, as I know this would not affect the majority of people ranking maps, which may cause others to think this is a useless change simply for that reason.

I think my biggest concern for something like this would be the potential of maps that use this getting abused as "free pp" for the non-sv difficulty, for the players who are already capable of playing the SV diff. The players who don't want to play the SV version are probably players who aren't comfortable with SVs, so they will likely only play the non-SV version, or if they do play the SV version, play significantly worse. However, players who are already capable of playing the SV difficulty are likely more than able to play the non-SV difficulty as well, and the map ends up providing twice the pp reward for essentially playing one map. pp isn't necessarily the be all end all of the game, but it certainly is a pretty important metric for a large section of the playerbase, so it's not something that can be ignored imo

As someone who enjoys a lot of SV maps and the songs/patterns in them alongside the SVs, I'd really like to see these maps become more accessible and popular, and in that sense this proposal is tempting. But because of the implications within the pp system, I feel like a suggestion like this carries more problems than solutions.

I agree with South Korea, I see this just being a major way for people to rank 2 same pp diffs. As someone who really doesn't enjoy heavy SV maps most of the time, I can't see this being viable for ranked really just due to that. I just imagine someone ranks like a 8* with insane sv, then they have a no sv diff, people are going to have 2 of the exact same maps in their tops lol

I wrote in regard to PP abuse in the post under the point about cheating, it kind of addresses it but not entirely, so I will elaborate:

If you are concerned about whether people will memorize the map to farm both difficulties (assuming it is SR bloated), therefore getting twice the PP for essentially one play, consider the fact that they literally memorized the entire map just to do that, something that is most likely more difficult than learning how to play it with the SV is.

If a map fits within the criteria of making it a substantially different playing experience, that means the SV map is unambiguously more difficult than the non SV map; I don't think anybody has a significantly easier time playing a SV map in comparison to a normal one. SV maps are difficult to farm, and if you think people are going to abuse this for PP, I would urge you to look at your top 50 and see how many extreme SV maps (such as the one I linked in the post) are in there. If certain people are more comfortable with SV maps than others, that isn't different from any other specialty such as speed or tech or stamina, which each have their respective farm maps, so I can't accept it as an argumentative basis. If there is a distinction between people who can play the SV map and people who can't then, the SV map is obviously not "the same map," these people just learned how to play the map and are capable of reaping the rewards that come with doing so, just like those who learned how to play any other specialty.

Consider if the SR system included SV in the calculation, the SV map would be higher SR and more PP, but would that validate the guideline any more than it currently stands? I don't think so. I personally care about improving the playing experience of the community more than I do making maps that center around balancing the PP system, because often the latter is inadvertent (and obvious if intentional).

I would go so far as to say that having a guest difficulty of similar difficulty and SV intensity is closer to validating this concern than creating a no-SV difficulty is. Usually, the gap between things like that is much smaller than the gap in challenge between a SV map and a no SV map, for example, I have the top 2 difficulties from this set in my top 20: beatmapsets/1194332#taiko/2961632 , as well as the top 2 difficulties from this set in my top 50: beatmapsets/563743#taiko/1538448 , and nobody seems to care about that. If you play the two difficulties I provided as an example, there is clearly a much larger gap in difficulty than there is between the top difficulties on these sets.

This is an interesting idea, but (i think you mentioned this in your post too) people can just make their own non sv difficulties of a map. It doesnt take very long and allows them to enjoy the map. I get that making people have to make another difficulty that isnt ranked is a huge deterrent from people actually playing it but if they actually wanted to play a non sv version they could very easily.

I also think that we should follow loved maps in the sense that "NSV" diffs arent loved but the actual SV diffs are.

And also as others already said this allows people to potentially farm the same map twice which could be problematic in its own way.

While I like the concept, I don't think this will be implemented for one simple reason: osu!mania has a "Constant Speed" mod in osu!lazer. I find it highly likely that osu!taiko will receive a facsimile that will allow for separate pp (and, based on survey results, possibly SR) calculations to occur without changing the original beatmap. This would avoid any duplicate content concerns while allowing those unfavorable to SV to enjoy these types of maps still.

How this type of a mod would affect mapping, I wouldn't know. I'm... not a mapper, simply a lazer enthusiast adding their two cents' worth.

Hi! I think that adding difficulty reduction game modifier like "No SV" with it's score multiplier for osu!taiko would be better solution for that, instead of difficulties spam.

A No SV mod would be counterintuitive to the proposal because the mapper still can put SV on the "No SV" difficulty, just significantly reduced SV. Something that completely wipes the SV will not account for equalizing variable timing or slight changes the mapper would want to include in the No SV difficulty. It's not difficulty spam any more than having guest difficulty inner onis is difficulty spam, it's literally one difficulty (as I already mentioned). Also, devs are not making big changes like that to stable, and this is a proposal for the current state of the game which ranks maps in stable, so taking that solution would be forcing people to wait until we can rank maps using lazer to implement it into their mapping, which is probably years from now.

Additionally, the issue with SV maps is that the star rating and pp awarded is the same as a map with no SV, despite the map being significantly more difficult. Saying that a No SV version of the map is easier than its current star rating is just incorrect, because the star rating is based only on the notes and patterns in the no SV difficulty. This kind of mod will only work if SV is factored into SR calculation, which it won't be.

Nifty wrote:

This kind of mod will only work if SV is factored into SR calculation, which it won't be.

It should be noted that based on these survey results, SV is planned to be included in both SR and pp calculations. Additionally, based on the discussion in #difficulty-taiko in the osu!dev Discord server, pp intends to incorporate this by the end of the year, with SR following shortly after.

While I generally would agree with your statement on "the current state of the game," after this survey and its subsequent results, we are likely to see lazer scores gain pp within the next year (there have already been plans to do so). Someone even opened a request for the Constant Speed mod for taiko entirely independently of this discussion.

However, your previous points of "a No SV mod would be counterintuitive to the proposal" are definitely valid. A simple removal or even a formula to "reduce" SV variability may not be the correct solution. So with all of that said, I'm curious to see how this conversation develops and will help guide lazer to the determination we reach here.

Honestly, as much as Lazer is cool and all, it has nothing to do with this proposal and shouldn't really be part of the discussion at all. Besides, the future of taiko in Lazer seems to support this proposal, if anything, since having different calculations for SV and no SV difficulties would eliminate what little concern there was over pp inflation.

That github request you linked is one of my friends who is following the discussion, and it's merely the sprout of an idea that will most likely be given little priority for over a year until it's implemented (update: 45 days later and the only reply is you). That suggestion isn't related to this proposal, though, as making all the SV the same is not simplifying SV (I think you got that, but making it clear for everybody).

I don't believe that SV by itself is enough of a factor to result in two difficulties being different enough to warrant needing separate leaderboards.

The only cases in which a NSV leaderboard could make sense would be maps where the SV is added purely as a difficulty bonus and takes excessive liberties with interpretation leading to a map that many would struggle to say represents the song.

pp abuse -
Your refutation of the pp abuse argument is a red herring. You merely state other instances where, in your opinion, pp abuse happens and then say that adding an extra optional instance isn't hurtful instead of arguing why allowing multiple difficulties with the exact same rhythm would not lead to pp abuse.

Dramatically altered -
Your proposed definition of drastically altered is vague and relies on strawmen community members and their skills in playing maps. Personally I'm uncomfortable defining a new aspect of the ranking criteria with such subjective criteria.

bloating content -
This relies on your assumption that a map can be significantly different enough with simply sv changes. Your argument holds no water if that assumption is taken out of the equation. If all interactions that a player does with the game (pressing buttons/moving mouse etc) are the exact same and the only differences are visual I personally struggle to think this is significant difference.

Why no extra diff -
One could use this argument to discredit the NSV diff idea entirely. If you cannot manage to map a diff differently from the way you did it initially in terms of note placements and coloring without making a second-rate version, how can you produce a version without SV that is equal in quality to the version with very intense sv usage?


Also for a recent case study of a very similar discussion to this: beatmapsets/1241481/discussion/-/generalAll#/2461978

i agree w nifty

ikin5050 wrote:

The only cases in which a NSV leaderboard could make sense would be maps where the SV is added purely as a difficulty bonus and takes excessive liberties with interpretation leading to a map that many would struggle to say represents the song.

As someone who has made dozens of SV maps and dozens of maps without SV, I can very safely say that this is an incorrect sweeping generalization of SV maps, and is intentionally misinterpreting this proposal. I'm sure you can think of many ranked maps with extreme SV that represent the song well and fit the criteria for this proposal, so trying to say that any map where this proposal would apply is simply not a good map is a biased and unfair argument.

pp abuse - The examples are not diverting the argument to a completely different subject, they directly correlate with my point against the criticism, so no red herring here. I'm not saying that pp abuse won't happen, I'm saying it doesn't matter. Judging the rankability of a map based on its pp value is fundamentally flawed, and this has been discussed extensively in the past. As the algorithm changes, what was once pp is no longer, and what will become pp can never be guessed, so why even bother when the only thing you're doing for sure is taking away enjoyment from people?

Dramatically altered - The number of people who are capable of judging SV maps is folds higher than the number adjudicating extremely hard maps, and we're fine with relying on a handful of skilled players to judge the rankability of those. I think we're more than capable of figuring it out. Plus, most of the RC is already subjective, that's the entire point; it's not a Bible, it's a guide.

Bloating content - The assumption that a map's playing experience is changed with SV is not an assumption, it's just a fact, and this is exactly why many SV maps don't get played by people who dislike the different playing experience that adding SV brings (and why mappers use SV in the first place). I implore you to play the example I linked and tell me that there is not a significant difference, it is about your skill level; I would be incredibly impressed if you can score similar in the SV version as the NSV version, as you would be performing better than many low 3-digit players. My score drops by 15%, which is substantial considering I played the SV diff after the NSV diff, which gives multiple advantages to scoring better.

Extra diff - This isn't a fair argument because changing the notes and changing the SV are completely different things. The NSV diff isn't necessarily second-rate to the mapper, but the same diff is most likely better than the SV diff to many other people. If you force someone to remap something, then whatever they make is most likely going to be not as good to the mapper, and that will come across to the players (idk if you've ever remapped something immediately after mapping it while being an experience mapper, but I know that I end up making basically the same exact thing because I know what I'm going to map at every point beforehand, only with minor changes).

Opium - This is not remotely similar to the situation I am describing in this proposal. I got access to the old difficulty and the kiais have the exact same SV usage. Here are the SV graphs of the difficulties in question (made using iojioji's SV visualizer): Old GRAVITY / EXHAUST. They are clearly the same exact effects, just with higher highs and lower lows in the GRAVITY, and this is not at all what this proposal is regarding. This proposal is about ranking NSV difficulties alongside difficulties with extreme SV, not justifying SV progression as the primary component of a map's spread.

talked with nifty, archiving because thread died + mixed opinions which makes it hard to go further with this

I agree!

with nifty!