When osu! first started out, there were many maps where no one could score a perfect score on, etc., but now, there hardly exists any map that is too difficult to get a full combo (without making the map ridiculously insane). Now, obviously this happens as any game progresses because people inevitably get better, and we need ever more challenging difficulties to please their ever growing skill levels.

When do songs get hard enough? Do you think maps can ever become "too hard"? Should we be allowing maps that are so difficult that we would never have even imagined people playing them a year or two ago?

How much focus do we need on creating and ranking easier difficulties so that new players can play without feeling intimidated? Do we need some way to support new players?

Feel free to throw your own questions into the mix.

As much as I wish DJPop, Happy30, Lesjuh, and company should make more rape-tastic maps, I do worry a bit about this. I was in a MP room not too long ago when some people started a discussion similar to this, and there was definitely a feeling that harder maps were taking over.

I feel like there should be a starting point for newbies, instead of having to browse through the beatmap listings now knowing where to go (I remember thinking that "approved" were the good maps, and my first map ended up being Through the Fire and Flames). Perhaps a message, when osu! first opens, asking if the player would like to download a "newbie pack", including 10 or so songs appropriate for newbies, then guiding the player through how to look for skill-level appropriate songs in the actual beatmap list. I don't think there's a shortage of newbie songs, but rather, they ironically take experience to find, and it therefore seems intimidating when the first song a newbie downloads just happens to be StrangeProgram.


(Off-topic, but did the forum buttons get updated?)

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But if you noticed, for Easy there can be a lot of Easies and Normals out there that are actually so excruciatingly slow to play it's actually a torture to play the Easy instead. I know I inadvertently made sucky Easies in the past, just to "meet the criteria of being newbie-friendly".

That said, that doesn't mean one should avoid making Easies altogether, especially if the tune has an easily recognisable rhythm like in a progressive dance track, which is why music-game-based original tunes (e.g. DJ Max, DDR, Pump it Up) are usually the best bets for both getting Easy modes that the newbies can pass, or actually making maps with reasonably easy-to-make easies. If that's the case, and if Easy mode is easily within reach of a mapper, then he should take it upon himself to map it. Not a command, but just a "welcome-the-newbie" friendly gesture.

On the other hand, do we want to make easy maps just to pander to newbies? I don't know if "being very friendly with newbies by being lenient in difficulties" is the best way out. They can also search for Easy easies relatively easily through the beatmap searching function (whew).

Pokebis has Beginner Training. Redirect them there.
/thread

Ranking standards and beatmap creation abilities (kiai, claps, inherit timing, etc) have changed greatly over the past year or so. You're effectively saying that since we have enough easy maps from the stone age of mapping (no offense to anyone) for newbs to learn, we dont need to create maps for beginners anymore.

I STRONGLY DISAGREE.

There have been several times lately that I have had to tell a mapper that their lowest difficulty that is supposedly "Normal" is actually on par with very many Hards and some Insanes. Even on bubbled maps. For that matter, if you look at recently ranked maps and count the number that have "H/I" as their lowest difficulty according to the website, you'll be blown away by the numbers.

I don't have anything against really hard maps. They have their place. But so do the moderate and easy maps, and chances are that just because YOU think that "easy" is mind-numbingly slow doesn't mean that someone who has been playing for a week or so can even PASS that map.

I saw a map the other day labelled "Normal" that had a lot of notes in short 1/4 streams and the occasional 1/8, complete with two .25bpm changes (because i guess .5 wasnt slow enough).
THIS IS NOT NORMAL GUYS.
Normal is few or no jumps, no bpm changes unless the song itself changes bpm, no hidden notes, maybe the OCCASIONAL blue tick, especially if its on a slider end, but should consist of ~70% white ticks, 25% red ticks, and 5% blue ticks (assuming that its not a compound beat).

</vent>

anyways the point is that bad and mediocre players need to be able to play too, and its really frustraiting to find a map to a song you really like, only to find out that you cant even pass the first fifteen seconds of the lowest difficulty.

Personally, I'm fine with the upper end of the difficulty spectrum going wherever it wants to go. As long as the map is good, it can be as hard as the mapper wants. But I think there definitely is a lack of easier maps. It's probably because the active community members tend towards the harder maps. If anyone has a reasonable way to encourage mappers to make easier difficulties, I'd like to hear it.

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This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

Regarding the upper limit of challenge, difficulty is second to fun, anyway. That statement shouldn't hold a lot of water on its own (if you think it does, take a moment to stop and think it over before you proceed further) so it depends on the audience. Who is the particular map for? Are you making something for the die-hard rank-chasers that crave challenge and don't find easier maps any fun, or are you making something for the more casual-playing veterans that want something more reliably fun?

awp wrote:

Regarding the upper limit of challenge, difficulty is second to fun, anyway. That statement shouldn't hold a lot of water on its own (if you think it does, take a moment to stop and think it over before you proceed further) so it depends on the audience. Who is the particular map for? Are you making something for the die-hard rank-chasers that crave challenge and don't find easier maps any fun, or are you making something for the more casual-playing veterans that want something more reliably fun?

im pretty sure we're talking about making sure that there is always a difficulty that those of us who arent epic win at osu can still pass. I agree with you that fun should come before difficulty but you arent going to have any fun at all if you cant survive three seconds (with the exception of those masochists out there who love dying rapidly and repeatedly)

Saturos-fangirl wrote:

im pretty sure we're talking about making sure that there is always a difficulty that those of us who arent epic win at osu can still pass.

There's no need to talk about that, though. There must be a difficulty that low-capability players can pass/play. Debating that is similar to (though more subjective than) debating whether or not circles are allowed to be partially outside of the playing field.

awp wrote:

Saturos-fangirl wrote:

im pretty sure we're talking about making sure that there is always a difficulty that those of us who arent epic win at osu can still pass.

There's no need to talk about that, though. There must be a difficulty that low-capability players can pass/play. Debating that is similar to (though more subjective than) debating whether or not circles are allowed to be partially outside of the playing field.

you should really check out the recently ranked maps and count the number of H/I as the lowest difficulty.

Saturos-fangirl wrote:

awp wrote:

Saturos-fangirl wrote:

im pretty sure we're talking about making sure that there is always a difficulty that those of us who arent epic win at osu can still pass.

There's no need to talk about that, though. There must be a difficulty that low-capability players can pass/play. Debating that is similar to (though more subjective than) debating whether or not circles are allowed to be partially outside of the playing field.

you should really check out the recently ranked maps and count the number of H/I as the lowest difficulty.

I got 18 on the first too pages o.o.

The star rating is not very reliable.

I have to agree that mappers should try to reserve a difficulty for the less skilled players. I can definitely understand that some maps just don't fit a slow, easy difficulty, and that's just fine, but there should definitely be a selection of low-difficulty maps available all the same. Similar goes for more middle-range difficulties... I don't mind an easier map so long as it's plenty fun. Lots of fun, casual play.

I have to say that I've taken note that the average lowest difficulty for maps has been getting higher... That's not necessarily a good thing. Although harder, challenging maps are good, it's not good to leave a pit where our less experienced players are lined up and waiting.... Would be why I always attempt to make as easy a difficulty for each of my maps as my mapping sense will allow. I feel that it is partly the responsibility of the mappers to try and provide material for all players, not just a select group who's more experienced.

awp wrote:

The star rating is not very reliable.

ok then go download some of them and play them and see how reliable it is. In my experience, while it isnt 100% accurate by any means, its still more accurate than THAT.

the number of times i have had to pop a bubble or refuse to bubble on account of their "Normal" being too Hard recently is appalling.

Saturos-fangirl wrote:

ok then go download some of them and play them and see how reliable it is. In my experience, while it isnt 100% accurate by any means, its still more accurate than THAT.

I agree, THAT is terribly inaccurate

but nobody should be trusting NULLs in the first place

(note: while "it" can be referred to as the star rating, "THAT" lacks definition so I did what I could with the sentence)

I've been wanting an update for the star system for a long time, but my algorithm required modifying the way beatmaps were read by osu!, and peppy didn't want to change it back then.

Plus I have no idea how accurate my algorithm is.

I'm currently working on a project trying to stop the ever increasing difficulty of the lowest diff, basically making very elementary maps for any song that has noticable jumps and/or bpm changes, and/or simply is too fast-paced to make a good lowest difficulty.

That said, if you would like to either help map "lowest difficulty" maps or report them (as in I don't want you to give me your own map or really to tag team with your friend to yoink a free difficulty) it'd be nice if you could either post here or send me a forum pm with "Maps for Noobs" in the title somewhere ;o

Thnx~

oh EDIT: some guidelines for making lowest difficulties for this project!

- Your difficulty should only exceedingly rarely (perhaps three times per map) use timing spaces less than 1 beat long - if you DO use these, you should make sure that the gap is approached or contained by a slider, which has a greater margin of error. The exception here is maps with a very low bpm.
- You should not have any inherited bpm changes whatsoever in your difficulty
- You should not use any jumps, if possible. If you map yourself into a corner with tiny spacing and need to take a minijump out over the course of two beats or so, thats fine.
- Don't forget to change your difficulty settings according to your difficulty
- If the song is longer than three minutes, you may break off your difficulty halfway through, so long as it is at a convenient ending point

I think that we should have maps that go through all ranges of difficulties (granted, that's hard to do with some songs... but still.)

Easy difficulties should be just that. Easy. I should be able to grab a random person who doesn't do well at rythem games and have them play it, and they should pass. (After going through the tutorial.)

The difficulties I myself like to play, are those like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXe4xl6XSHM&feature=channel_page
There should be stuff inbetween too.

I get slightly annoyed when there's a map with no real "easy" difficulty, and I get annoyed when there's a map with no difficulty I find hard.

There's my morning sleepy thoughts. *goes to eat*

On related note, I lately see lots of Easy's of about 3:XX Minutes. This is really inconvenient for new players, as the songs in question are often repetitive and the repetition gets separated by really long breaks. I can imagine lots of new players growing bored and quitting.

That said, this is the part where everyone skips my message and either agrees with SFG or bash her opinion with theirs.

Wojjan wrote:

On related note, I lately see lots of Easy's of about 3:XX Minutes. This is really inconvenient for new players, as the songs in question are often repetitive and the repetition gets separated by really long breaks. I can imagine lots of new players growing bored and quitting.

That said, this is the part where everyone skips my message and either agrees with SFG or bash her opinion with theirs.

;o thats why the last comment is about shortening the map

i like to stick with a formula i made up. create a normal version, then from their, add notes to make harder, or reduce them for easiness using normal as a basis for the difficulties.

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hey if you want to head the project your way, feel free. im doing it the way im used to - sending myself and other people out to find stuff and then assigning myself and other people to take care of the stuff ive found. this is in no way connected to BAT - completely separate team of those of us who are sick of the overly hard lowest difficulties; that is to say the ones that arent quite bad enough to be withheld from ranking but are still pretty damn hard.

if the lowest diff is UNRANKABLY hard i generally just tell the mapper to fuck off and make a new lowest diff the right way next time.

Wow that was a terrible statement; I think my former post went right over your head.

Agreed.

Let's try making topics for projects instead of PMing difficulties randomly. For example, the Easy Series:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=16250

As far as difficulty goes? If your lowest difficulty isn't FCable by me in a few tries and you're going for rankage, you're probably doing it wrong. This has been the case lately, sad to say... Also, Hard =/= Insane and Normal =/= Hard, people. If your map has lots of 1/4s in it, it's probably an Insane (unless it's a slow song) and you should make a Hard (and a Normal) for those who aren't that good at this game.

All i care is whether a map fit the song well.
if yes, it's rankable/approvable imo
Overmapping. ridiculous large spacing and meaningless jumps are bad (which are common in recently ranked maps tho imo).

And also i think there'r no such sayin like 'maps are not hard enough to play'
good map = expressing the music well
We play music games for fun and feeling for the music, not aimed for improving our mouse/keyboard skillz
If proplayers would like to see some more challenging maps, just find some more interesting songs like UNOwenwasher, songs like these can't be mapped too easy.

tho we see there's a trend that nowadayz mappers like to make their map INSANE, ignoring playing-comfortability (i once heard somebody says 'oh i mapped it too easy, people will fc/pass that without effort, must raise difficulty!', feeling sad for those

mappers should stop competing on difficulty of their maps
try to make your maps good not try to make them insane

p.s. easier diffs should always be remained for new players

if there is an easy, normal difficulty for newers, I don't think there is any problem to make an extremely hard difficulty.

But I agree with darri, making maps extremely hard just for making people failed and rage is meaningless, I used to be that and I call my old maps like that craps.

If the music fit, there are easier difficulties for players, then why not?

awp wrote:

The star rating is not very reliable.

http://osu.ppy.sh/s/3545
yes look at the patient in osu! 4.5 stars

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I said something like this in another thread, but I'll be clearer this time.

Overall, osu! has gotten harder. However, the max difficulty was almost a while ago. I blame Reikin (sp?). Emerald map, Max Forever, and awp's SSII are the hardest I've seen. Two of those are old.

If you think osu! will get significantly harder than that, then FC all 3 of those, and do it multiple times to prove it wasn't a fluke, say, 3 times each. Then we'll talk about making maps harder than those. :P

P.S. Max difficulty =/= overall difficulty. Overall = average. Max = the hardest map on osu! (that is a real map and not like Phoenix Wright's Breakdown), whether it's approved, ranked, or unranked.

BTW, I mainly play maps that people are talking about being difficult. Play them a couple times, almost never submit my score. Also play them before they're ranked lots of the time (some are... INSANE!). Pause button abuse FTW (I'm such an accuracy whore)? Then I FC a random Normal to make myself feel better.

As long as mappers keep creating difficulties for all kinds of players and label them right, I think we are going in a good direction.

DaRRi MIx wrote:

All i care is whether a map fit the song well.
if yes, it's rankable/approvable imo
Overmapping. ridiculous large spacing and meaningless jumps are bad (which are common in recently ranked maps tho imo).

And also i think there'r no such sayin like 'maps are not hard enough to play'
good map = expressing the music well
We play music games for fun and feeling for the music, not aimed for improving our mouse/keyboard skillz
If proplayers would like to see some more challenging maps, just find some more interesting songs like UNOwenwasher, songs like these can't be mapped too easy.

tho we see there's a trend that nowadayz mappers like to make their map INSANE, ignoring playing-comfortability (i once heard somebody says 'oh i mapped it too easy, people will fc/pass that without effort, must raise difficulty!', feeling sad for those

mappers should stop competing on difficulty of their maps
try to make your maps good not try to make them insane

p.s. easier diffs should always be remained for new players

This pretty much sums it up for me.

General Discussion
Discuss your scores, strategies etc. Challenge people. Anything about playing osu!

srsly, if you're gonna nazi about general stuff getting posted elsewhere, then don't post osu!-related stuff here.

This isn't about scores and strategies.

This is "[t]he place where you don't post crap."

This topic fits here. Stop being an idiot neo@lex.

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Note: I did not read most of the posts in this topic, but I still want to comment on the original subject. I don't know and I don't care if the discussion has changed to something else already.



My view on the situation is quite simple. I think that the game has too few maps for completely new players. I remember how hard the game was to start and I've seen countless new players turned away from the game just because they can't find easy maps to play. If they download a random song pack it's possible that they don't get a single map that they could train on.

Also, to make the situation even worse, people tag maps as "beginner" or "super easy" or something like that when in reality the maps are such that even I have hard time SS:ing or even full comboing them. This further drives away players who think that the game is just too hard for them.

What I would like is:

* Most maps should have a very easy difficulty level. A very easy map is quick to do and quick to mod, so time is not a valid point against this. Even though a new player doesn't need too many maps to start getting better in the game, he needs to find those easy maps easily, so there needs to be a lot of them. Also, players like to play songs that they like music wise, so it's good to have a wide selection of different types of songs with easy difficulty levels.

* Map difficulty naming should be enforced better. Don't let maps be called "beginner" or "very easy" or even "easy" if the maps aren't maps that actually are easy for new players. Sadly a lot of players don't even realize anymore when a map is too hard for a new player, They think that "hey, this map is very easy for me so it must be a ood beginner map" but in reality certain things like overlapping notes and sliders are very hard for new players.

There is no reason to continue the current trend and drive new players away. I would personally even go so far as to enforce a mandatory rule that every map must have a beginner suitable difficulty level in it.

Gemi wrote:

Also, to make the situation even worse, people tag maps as "beginner" or "super easy" or something like that when in reality the maps are such that even I have hard time SS:ing or even full comboing them.

This is actually in violation of the ranking standards; maps that are like this are not suitable for ranking approval. It's unfortunate that you're correct, here.

Gemi wrote:

* Most maps should have a very easy difficulty level. A very easy map is quick to do and quick to mod, so time is not a valid point against this.

Easy maps are not actually all that quick to do. They're quick to mod, but in order to make an Easy map enjoyable, unique, and not repetitive, it actually takes quite a bit of patience. Easy maps typically take longer to do than Normal maps. Because you have less to work with, you need to be more careful with how you use it.

But apart from that, the point does stand on its own.

awp wrote:

Gemi wrote:

* Most maps should have a very easy difficulty level. A very easy map is quick to do and quick to mod, so time is not a valid point against this.

Easy maps are not actually all that quick to do. They're quick to mod, but in order to make an Easy map enjoyable, unique, and not repetitive, it actually takes quite a bit of patience. Easy maps typically take longer to do than Normal maps. Because you have less to work with, you need to be more careful with how you use it.

But apart from that, the point does stand on its own.

The point here being, beginner maps don't need to be "unique". Actually, making a "unique" beginner map would be quite hard since there is so little to work with, as you only have a note now and then. Actually, making a "unique" map would probably mean that it's not an easy map at all. The point is that these maps need to be easy and teach the basics, they shouldn't have special tricks and hart parts. So basically, if you take a lot of time doing an easy map then you're doing it wrong, or you are too perfectionist and I wonder how you get any more difficult maps done at all.

And yes, beginner/easy maps should still follow the actual music track that the map is made to, but you since you can basically just follow the main beat, it's fast to do. Following any weird rhythms just makes the map too hard for players new to rhythm games.


Let's use my "beginner" map for Rainspark as a reference point, since that is a map that I recall well. I actually think that this map would be more of an "easy" map and not a "beginner" one since it isn't so easy afterall.

* The time between notes could be doubled, effectively removing every other note.
* In the middle there is a part where the notes are actually middle beat, which is too hard for rhythm game noobs.
* There are no spinners, which is a good thing.
* There are sliders which are pretty slow, but long enough so that the player has time to notice that he needs to keep the mouse button pressed during the hold. This is good. A slower bpm song would be better in this case since it's easier to do longer but slower sliders.




Anyway, we agree on the major parts and I think that the easy difficulties should definitely get some love and attention starting from now. We all want osu! to grow, right?

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This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

DaRRi MIx wrote:

strager wrote:

I generally disagree with the idea that beginners have to play easier maps.

When I was a beginner, I went to Scatman, Cross Time (FFFanatic's), and others because they was fun to play.

Also, easier maps are not easily made for some songs, just as harder maps are not easily made for some songs.

i agree with that maps like cross time is definitely playable for new players
cross time is one of the earliest map i've played.
it can't be called easy, but i say it's playable for new player because FFFanatic made it awesome
i fc'd it when my osu! playcount didn't even reach 50, the every single beat he put is on just where i want to click.

Different players have different tastes for learning, and different players learn with different speeds. Yes, some players can learn better with harder maps and some players learn quick no matter what. But a lot of players learn through very easy maps, and I've seen a lot of players like that turn away from osu, which makes the game community smaller than it could be.

Maybe we should make a survey about it.

That doesn't sound necessary; a beatmap should contain difficulties to cover a broad range of player skills. The lowest difficulty needs to be easy enough for inexperienced/poor players to play.

That's not always possible with some songs, awp, as I have said.

I've yet to hear a song where an Easy difficulty isn't possible

except perhaps in the case of Jazz but that's not suitable for osu!, full stop