During the discussion of the AR setting of this mapset, proofs have been given that seemingly new players can barely tell the difference between an AR6 Normal diff and an AR7 one.

Such a phenomenon is not something new, as most Normal players apparently regard the high object density of a Normal diff as a major obstacle to finishing it. Visual density makes a map hard, especially for new players, who can barely subconsciously process the objects at a high level. The opinion that "putting HR on a conventional Normal diff makes it easier to play" also originated from this.

Based on such observation, to make Normal diff serve its target audiences better, I decided to generalize the proofs given to any Normal diffs, resulting in this proposal about rewriting Normal diff's difficulty setting guidelines.

Precisely, I would like to raise the recommended AR range for Normal diff from 4-6 to 5-7. This will improve the Normal diff's readability, and give new players who start playing Normal diffs a better playing experience.

That being said, I do agree that 5-7 may not be the optimal threshold for the majority, so suggestions are appreciated. Feedback for the general point is also welcome.

would like to put what i said in the veto for said mapset (as an aside) here, since it's relevant now...

tilda wrote:

> so perhaps we can revise the lower diff guidelines if the mediation turns out to be in ur favour.
interrupting this current argument to say i'd disagree with changing normal diff guidelines to suggest ar7 is possibly "accepted" @fuju

i don't disagree with the very idea of ar7 normals but they shouldn't just be done by anyone really - here there's some sort of justification for these diff settings by the mapper at least. a lot of people wouldn't think about doing set-wide concepts like this (especially applying it to the normal), but if ar7 is considered "acceptable" in rc we might see people who start just slapping on ar7 "because the rc says it's ok" even if it isn't needed

just my 2c, hope u can take this into consideration

thinking back on it i'm not really sure if that will happen (for example, bns that see unjustified usage of such ar will mod it out hopefully) but i feel like it's a point worth bringing up regardless.

I think the point being brought up here is that it's not just something about the vetoed map that makes AR7 more appropriate, it is possible we've just been blundering this whole time given how prevalent reading issues on normal diffs are for new players.

This is an intended outcome of this proposal, for people to just put AR7 without really having to think about it because it may benefit new players more

A counter-argument I would like to offer: When I started with osu, I always played more or less the same maps. I first played the easy difficulty, then the normal, and maybe I tried the hard difficulty if it was possible to me. If the Normal was too easy for me, but the Hard was too difficult, I tried the Easy with HR, then the Normal with HR. And maybe I would try either doubletime or play the hard difficulty when I was ready for it.

Please keep in mind I started in 2013 so it's a different era and Star Rating has changed a lot since then and so has mapping and playing for performance.

I'm afraid that when we raise the AR of Normal difficulties up to 5-7, the gap for Hards and Insanes with ar7-8 isn't that* big considering that the normal is around 2.25* and Hards/Ligh Insane are around 3.8*. I understand that density is an argument, but normals are still mapped on 1/2 rhythm while hards+ are dealing with a lot more 1/4.

Another reason why I think it's not an optimal idea is because nowadays most beatmaps don't even have easy difficulties at all. The minimum requirement is a normal difficulty which most mappers are following. As a result, many beatmaps no longer offer easier alternatives

So speaking about density, maybe that's what we should focus on. How many objects are on the screen at the same time? Can we generalize this for a normal difficulty? I don't think so. It still has to do with how dense the rhythm is AND how high the BPM is.

There are many factors that should be mentioned, so i think it's a bit difficult to apply it to normal difficulties in general.

One thing is, currently the bundled maps require easy difficulties to be mapped. So from a point of view of pure approachability, this is still satisfied. Of course, not all maps that they look for may have easy diffs, but empirically going from easy to normal level doesn't take people more than a day or two

Ryuusei Aika wrote:

During the discussion of the AR setting of this mapset, proofs have been given that seemingly new players can barely tell the difference between an AR6 Normal diff and an AR7 one.

you really need more research to draw this conclusion. These two players may be flukes and this is also not their first time player. I think the research should both include players who can consistently play Normals and people who just installed the game. (since the lowest diff is supposed to be playable for someone who just started)

The players you asked say that they don't feel a difference, so there is no need to go through the process of changing the rc to allow a gameplay experience that is not different from what was already rankable. I think a better test would be to show the player a scala of different ar values, from way too low to way too high and then ask them which is their favorite.

In my personal opinion I think low AR teaches players to not immediately click the circle when it appears which is more fitting for a rhythm game than higher ar which doesn't make players feel a difference.

I think AR 7 is a good entry point for beginners. If you analyze their replays, most of the time the low AR is only there to confuse them as too many objects are on the screen at the same time.

I had this opinion of changing the recommended AR range to max 7 for normals too.

Edit: I believe having lower AR to "teach newer players to not immediately click the circle" doesn't really work well... Because the AR being too low will most likely only turn them away from wanting to properly read it...
I feel like in the end most players will end up "reacting" to the circles rather than taking their time to read as if it's EZ mod. People will turn to normal + HR or hards soon enough, which kinda already shows there's a flaw in how normals had been constructed, which I believe depends a lot on readability issues due to low AR.

Throughout the years from various videos or streams where actual beginners play the game (that I've watched), all of them had issues with reading sliders. When there's too much things on the screen to keep track of you start to "panic" and mess up a lot more.
Then there's also that they can't read rhythm that's not really obvious like 3/4, 1/3. Often I believe it is precisely because of the low AR making the approach circles go way too slow to "feel" and that there's so much other things you see at the same time which just adds more distraction.

Once you move up to hard and above you'll rely mostly on reaction anyways. I don't see the relevancy in teaching them "to not immediately click the circle" because it still happens in low AR, and they just get note-locks, independent on AR used.

I believe the outcome doesn't really change, players will learn that objects are not supposed to be clicked to immediately independent on what AR, but that a reasonable higher AR can improve the overall learning experience into the game.

Raising the max AR guideline from 6 to 7 but keep the lower bound at 4 is good imo...
For those who say "normal is usually the lowest diff therefore you can't raise it to 7" I don't really understand why it would be a valid point. If it's the lowest diff and has no reason to be AR 7, then just say it's too high? Some arguments in the thread seem to be assuming normal diffs will enforce AR 7 or something...

i used to apply hr to everything i play when i started out so yeah agree

AR should be related to the spread to ensure there is a given scale for the needed "reaction time" which goes along with the rhythm that gets denser the harder the difficulties go. Usually this "jump" in difficulty happens between normals and hards. A solution would be adding a difficulty in between but only because Mappers Guild does so doesn't mean every other beatmap getting ranked does so as well. but another problem is that a lot of easy difficulties end up receiving the normal icon anyway. in other words, i would hate to see a normal on ar7 and a hard on ar8. Under certain circumstances this might make sense, especially on high BPM with many objects on screen or to simply avoid a massive overlapping difficulty/mapping style with too long patterns/chains, but I wouldn't generalize it on ar5-7 since it suggests that you can go higher then that. I personally don't mind raising the maximum to ar7, I wouldn't raise the minimum requirement though and I also wouldn't normalize ar7 because it's not always a good fit. Also as Castagne mentioned, understanding how to play the game (wait for the approachcircle to hit the hitobject) is part of the game. If you try to work around the problem by making people more comfortable with higher AR, the learning curve of the players will not increase in this regard. There's still the option to use HR which usually is easy to apply since the CS of lower difficulties are so big that it's an option for almost every player that starts the game.

I strongly disagree and I think the data is insufficient to be used as "proof". In order to make a generalized claim like this you would need to analyze player behavior in the context of many different maps with different BPM, rhythm density etc.

Even logically this doesn't make sense because it's like saying that most Hard diff players can read AR 9, which is likely true. Does that mean AR 9 should be used on a Hard? No because it's not in line with that kind of difficulty/rhythm density. Also, the AR ranges for Normal and Hard would be very similar (5-7 & 6-8) which doesn't add up because they are very different rhythmically and structurally.

It's ironic that on one hand people are arguing this AR setting on a Normal is an edge case justified by exceptional circumstances and that it's not going to set a precedent for other maps to do the same, but then on the other hand support the idea of applying this reasoning to all maps?

I agree fully with this. In general i think normal difficulties should be able to showcase difficulty elements that now appear in hards and above. When new difficulty elements are introduced in easier maps it'd make moving up a difficulty level much more enjoyable.

There wouldn't be as many frustrating moments when you find it next to impossible to to play some hard difficulties but normals feel way too easy.

I personally remember struggling on some high sv cs7 when i started but i think it laid a good foundation to learn more skills and finaly passing that stuff felt extremely satisfying.

tldr: more variety is always good

As a beginner myself, I'm strongly agree with this. We need something that is Normal but has fast enough AR so that I can't be overwhelmed by low approach rate. AR 7 should be a maximum instead of 6 when it comes to Normal difficulty, because, well, normal players. Not a complete beginner or better-than-Normal player.

The surveying done last night (newbs cant tell a difference and find AR7 comfortable) + the overwhelming sentiment of first-hand accounts from people recalling their early osu! days (needing HR, finding normal maps extremely dense) makes me think this is a no brainer. Strongly agree.

as long as there is evidence then it should be fine, but i think the guideline should be 4-7 instead of 5-7 to account for maps with low bpms/densities

Another ancient osu relic here. Normal difficulties have increased in density a whole lot in the last 10 years. When I rejoined the mapping community in 2021 i was absolutely baffled how todays Normal's were at this point of density and difficulty, with a lot of lower diffis having ~ double the ammount of objects on screen.

Increasing AR would def aid there, albeit I would like for it to be 4-7, since 4 still works on the lower end normals.

Strongly disagree. Not only is the evidence insufficient but also Normal has been upheld for a couple of years now as the new bottom diff of spreads - you need to account for the fact that players who are even newer than the "new players" that have been approached use this diff as their first experience with the game - having an AR that's far too fast for those players may just completely wall them off from the game.

Also this logic is extremely faulty - it reminds me a lot of the R. Kelly memes where it's like "Well it was AR3 but AR3 is almost like AR4 and AR4 is basically AR5 and you really can't tell the difference between AR5 and AR6 and actually AR6 is the new AR7 and rounding up we get AR8 so yeah officer I played an AR8 map" - you can inch a tiny bit higher every time it's applied. What stops me from coming in here after this is upheld and say "Well new players can barely tell the difference between AR7 and AR7.5 sooooo"

Furthermore, this ruins a lot of players' experience that enjoy playing these kinds of difficulties with HRDT - heck even AR6 already got me flame sometimes.

Your arguments are directly contradictory.

You say

'proofs have been given that seemingly new players can barely tell the difference between an AR6 Normal diff and an AR7 one.'

which is absolutely true, but then go on to say allowing AR7 allows 'Normal diff serve its target audiences better', but if there is overwhelming evidence to say they cannot tell any noticable difference, how exactly is it helping them?

Nothing is gained from making a normal diff AR7, it adds nothing to the map (except for extenuating circumstances in which case guidelines can be broken), yet screws over so many people needlessly.

Further to this, having an AR7 normal diff forces them to play a *minimum* of AR7 unless they add easy mod (which would make it AR3.5 which is wayyy too low). Lots of new players will not want to be forced into AR7, nor do lots of not new players. On the contrary, having for example an AR5 normal diff, players can choose to add HR which in turn would make it AR7, if they want it to be even higher they can add DT. It gives the player themself freedom to play how they want.

ALSO,
considering easy diffs are generally AR3 with the occasional AR4, players moving from easy to an AR7 normal is a jump that is unnecessarily large for no reason. If you want to claim that players in theory should start at easy diffs and work their way up therefore the high AR isnt an issue, having AR7 normals just makes this progression less linear and more complicated than it needs to be.

EDIT: I wrote this document outlining all my thoughts in detail in one place, so feel free to read: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hn1jxIQijq5Ss381Lq3zLNtM1gQlOhg42PCzDMlgPTg/edit#

im not necessarily agaisnt the ar 7 cap, but the evidence is not convincing nor sufficient to me.

because normal is the absolute lowest difficulty required for ranked set, i dont think the evidence is good enough. since normal is the entry level, to test the ar you shouldnt get just "new players" with several hundred plays to see if they can play the map or not. they are new, but you cant really call a player with bunch of hours of experience as an "entry level player." normal has to appeal also to first time players given how it is used as the introduction to the game. i think to accurately assess the appropriateness of some arbitray setting on a entry difficult you have to get people that have never played the game to see the maximum setting they are comfortable playing.

if you look at all they players that were used as evidence to support ar 7 they already have bunch of plays and many hours into the game, which means they would have been used to the basic enough to play higher difficulty setting than what they might have been used to. this in my opinion makes the sample not really valid for testing "entry level" difficulty. looking at the player used in this post beatmapsets/1919446/discussion/-/generalAll#/3518138/9463679 they are new to the game but they already have a bunch of plays and some ar 8 or 7 plays in their top plays. this suggests that they are already somewhat used to ar 7 and cannot really be used to represent the entry level player. i am pretty sure this applies to every player used to support ar 7 on the map. the evidence would be sufficient enough if the only purpose of normal was to appeal those players, but normal also has the purpose of serving as an introduction for the people with absolutely 0 experience in the game. therefore, with the current state of the game, all the samples used for the experiment only represents the half of the population intended by normals (relatively new players, but not entry level players) and they carry no statistical strength to support increasing the ar cap.

if normal wasnt the absolute lowest "entry level" difficulty required then i dont really think ar 7 cap is an issue, but that clearly isnt the case and im pretty sure a lot of people would not like having map something below normal

also im pretty sure nintendo made eba and ouendan ar for all the difficulties below insane 4-6 ish and im pretty sure those guys know about game design better than most of us. you can say songs are slower for those but 1/2 at 130 is clearly denser than 1/1 at 180. they probably had reason for such ar and im pretty people had similar reasoning when they chose 4-6 as the guideline

It would be makes more sense if the AR increase is correlated with the increase in note density too. It's not okay if a map has 'extremely' dense circles on Normal difficulty that even beginners need to use HR to overcome their reading issue.

My personal experience says even an AR 6 Normals still felt too slow due to the 'density' of the notes.

Maybe there is a way to compromise AR increase if the density is sufficient enough?

hello, mapper of the map that spawned this debate, although I agree with rsak's original post, I would like to remind people that the goal of my normal was not to change the guidelines, but to show why breaking said guidelines were justified due to the context of the song/mapset/lots of other reasons - please don't misunderstand or overlap the intentions here with the intention of my normal difficulty.

If you want to comment on the justification for me breaking guidelines, you can do so in the main veto thread on the map.

> "also im pretty sure nintendo made eba and ouendan ar for all the difficulties below insane 4-6 ish and im pretty sure those guys know about game design better than most of us."

lol - people who made an osu-like game know about osu level design better than people who have been specifically making osu levels for years on end. This just does not make any sense whatsoever.

Those "game designers" also made top difficulties like ar7 and had some of the worst rhythm ever - are you really going to make the point they are better at designing osu levels?

Mizunashi Akari wrote:

> "also im pretty sure nintendo made eba and ouendan ar for all the difficulties below insane 4-6 ish and im pretty sure those guys know about game design better than most of us."

lol - people who made an osu-like game know about osu level design better than people who have been specifically making osu levels for years on end. This just does not make any sense whatsoever.

Those "game designers" also made top difficulties like ar7 and had some of the worst rhythm ever - are you really going to make the point they are better at designing osu levels?

"an osu-like game" the game that literally spawned the concept of osu

"also made top difficulties like ar7 and had some of the worst rhythm ever" ok bro uve gone too far its ok to point out that the point made was nonsensical but ur just disrespectful here (and pretty much wrong by most accounts as someone who's actually played those games when they came out)

> "ok bro uve gone too far its ok to point out that the point made was nonsensical but ur just disrespectful here (and pretty much wrong by most accounts as someone who's actually played those games when they came out)"

mb I just very heavily disagree with their design choices and I think their design hoices are not and should not be a factor in the current discussion at all as it is outdated.

Strongly disagree, one of my strongest memories as a newer player is playing Flaklypa [Normal] with HD (the one that used to be bundled) and missing because I went too fast after the pause. While annoying it was definitely a learning experience where I knew I was at fault (cuz I literally clicked while no sound was playing), and therefore payed more attention to actually reading the circles.

I also agree that a conduct on players who are trying to move from Easy -> Normal would be necessary (Kingling and others have mentioned that the players who tested the Normal diffs were players with experience on Normals and were moving to Hards) before reaching a conclusion.

Also, since those two players both said they didn't really notice a difference then AR6 should be more accessible for even less experienced players, no? Additionally, it would be more friendly for HR/DT when those newer players start using mods. From my own experience, reading >AR9 was insanely difficult when going from Hard to Insane when I started (2015), so since HR change the AR7 to AR9.8, I would imagine that mods end up inaccessible for a longer period of time. I have not done any research into this, but I can imagine that most players around Normal/Hard would not be able to read between AR9.8 and AR10, despite probably being able to play a Normal (with AR4-AR6) with HR.

P_O wrote:

I agree fully with this. In general i think normal difficulties should be able to showcase difficulty elements that now appear in hards and above. When new difficulty elements are introduced in easier maps it'd make moving up a difficulty level much more enjoyable.

There wouldn't be as many frustrating moments when you find it next to impossible to to play some hard difficulties but normals feel way too easy.

I personally remember struggling on some high sv cs7 when i started but i think it laid a good foundation to learn more skills and finaly passing that stuff felt extremely satisfying.

tldr: more variety is always good

This is a post about guidelines though? If your set is good at introducing difficulty elements in higher difficulties while being possible for new players then I don't think you need the guidelines at all! Variety is good but variety does not come from guidelines. Mappers who just want to finish their sets aren't going to go "wow I can make a cool gimmick with AR7 on my Normal difficulty", they will simply put AR7 because it's on the guideline.

time for ukbrc 2

Is there really any point in making a map less accessible to newer players just based on the sentiment of the mapper? The only reason we have such strict rules and guidelines for lower difficulties is to make them as accessible as possible for newbie players. Modifying this guideline implies potentially impacting the new player experience, which I personally think it's a bad idea.

>Is there really any point in making a map less accessible to newer players just based on the sentiment of the mapper? The only reason we have such strict rules and guidelines for lower difficulties is to make them as accessible as possible for newbie players. Modifying this guideline implies potentially impacting the new player experience, which I personally think it's a bad idea.

you have misinterpreted the point; the main argument being made is that these new players can barely tell the difference between 6 and 7 as is, and therefore accessibility isn't affected.

In the old days when Normals were under 2.25* (even though we already had a lot of Normals above it), we used to think that Normals were supposed to be beginner-friendly. Let me clarify that the term 'beginner' here doesn't mean people who have a lot of experience in other rhythm games, or have good gerenal gaming sense. We wanted to make almost everyone who just started to be able to pass Normal difficulties. And we were even more careful about letting beginners to play at least one difficulty - we required the lowest diff to be under 2.0*. For these Normals, AR range 4-6 was pretty sufficient.

However, this hasn't been the case for many years now. Current star rating range for Normals (according to the wiki, although we don't really see the boundary anymore anywhere else) is 2.70*, which I think is already way too hard for a lot of beginners. We do have a guideline for lowest diff Normals, but it's not hard to follow it while keeping the intensity quite high. I wouldn't really call these difficulties beginner-friendly; they're just near-Hard difficulties. However, the recommended range of difficulty settings for Normal hasn't changed much.

One observation is that, if we just look at every ranked difficulties, we lack of maps between AR6-6.5 in general. We know that a generic mid-low bpm 2.7* Hard isn't likely to use AR6 or AR6.5 - it would still mostly go for AR7 or a little higher. However, many 200+bpm 2.7* Normals would still be capped to AR6 because of the guideline. These Normals are near-Hard difficulties and something like AR6.5-7 would fit better for them, but the RC is sticking to the idea that the difficulty is a "beginner-friendly" Normal difficulty, when in fact it's actually not.

People's thought on difficulty range of every difficulty naming has been shifting to higher range constantly. However, the skill level of beginners hasn't changed at all (beginners are new people after all.) Normal difficulties nowdays cannot serve as a beginner-friendly difficulty anymore. Therefore, let me suggest a few things:

- Currently, there is no overlapping range of AR between Normal and Hard (6 is the only single point), but we should allow more intense Normal have higher AR than sparse Hards. Having some resonable overlapping range would make more sense. I wouldn't say we should jump straight in allowing AR7, something like 6.5 could also work.
- We need a more specific and strict guideline for lowest difficulty, if we still want to keep the idea of having at least one beginner-friendly difficulty. For example, we can set a separate bound of AR for the lowest difficulty Normal, such as 5.5, and expect it to be not harder than 2.5* (even if we don't specify the actual SR, we can strengthen the requirements so that the difficulty cannot be that hard in the first place.) For now I really have doubt in having this guideline section at all, it seems to serve no purpose in real cases. Either strengthen it, or just remove it.

@doyak

just a reminder that star rating is not a very solid argument for difficulty as there are numerous ways a map can be overweight or underweight if mappers specifically create patterns that are meant to be misrepresented by sr, and sr algorithms have changed drastically over time since 'the old days'

Mizunashi Akari wrote:

@doyak

just a reminder that star rating is not a very solid argument for difficulty as there are numerous ways a map can be overweight or underweight if mappers specifically create patterns that are meant to be misrepresented by sr, and sr algorithms have changed drastically over time since 'the old days'

Sure, SR was just a vague representation. Though I don't think the SR algorithm has changed that drastically to inflate SR for most Normal difficulties to say "Normals nowadays aren't really harder than old Normals." I hope you get the point.

Mizunashi Akari wrote:

>Is there really any point in making a map less accessible to newer players just based on the sentiment of the mapper? The only reason we have such strict rules and guidelines for lower difficulties is to make them as accessible as possible for newbie players. Modifying this guideline implies potentially impacting the new player experience, which I personally think it's a bad idea.

you have misinterpreted the point; the main argument being made is that these new players can barely tell the difference between 6 and 7 as is, and therefore accessibility isn't affected.

I understand the feeling of wanting to update the guidelines to a more modern standard, but I disagree proposing something like this without some good hard proof. Even if we took into account 200 test plays, that would only account for 0.1% of the players between the rank 1M and 800k. For most newer players, higher AR is an increase in difficulty.

The sole reason lower difficulties exist in the first place is to give players of diverse skills an opportunity to enjoy the song.

just something that may have not been brought up yet:

if the point we're making here is that new players cant tell the difference between ar6 and 7 on a normal, yet the latter being a thing fucks over stuff like 3/4mod players of low diffs, then what exactly is the gain here?

what net gain is accomplished by making a normal ar7 even if the evidence isn't faulty? if they can't tell the difference, but one is much better for spread progression and overall freedom of choice (you can HR or DT (or both) and it doesnt become a very fast AR) meanwhile the other is just objectively more limited?

and there's no gain to be had in the mapping sense either - what person is going to alter their normal diff mapping because ar7 would now be possible within guidelines? people are still going to DS and do everything in exactly the same way

if the point here is that there is little difference between ar6 and ar7 to be felt by newer players then I'd argue that one is objectively better than the other one (and it's the former)

Strongly support this proposal. Most new players I have seen play (including those which I have introduced to the game) clearly have difficulty finding the rhythm often rushing through the map hitting way too early as a result of the unintuitive low AR.

Additionally I have observed that many new players quickly jump to playing HR (with little difficulty) until they reach a level where AR9 is the standard as AR7 simply isn't difficult in any circumstance for a new player and arguably easier in many situations.

The only relevant issue I can imagine is that new players may develop a "wack-a-mole" playstyle (As explored in Azer's now very famous video). However, I find this unlikely considering how quickly and comfortably many can progress to AR9 without ruining their rhythmic ability. In fact increasing the standard Normal difficulty AR to 5-7 may result in players not sticking to HR so early in development resulting in a very limited AR reading range when they get better, although this is just speculation.

What I do believe is that raising the standard will allow for newer players to have both an experience that is more enjoyable and more representative of how the game actually feels to play later on. As it stands new players basically spend like ~5-20 hours playing a different game.

A final thought I might add is that from what I have observed from other rhythm games with variable scroll speeds players that quickly become accustomed to the faster speeds required to play more dense charts also becoming better at other facets of the game quicker. I don't see why this wouldn't be applicable to osu! and honestly it is bizarre to me that we have been stuck with such an archaic perspective of new players needing snail pace AR for so long.

> "if the point we're making here is that new players cant tell the difference between ar6 and 7 on a normal, yet the latter being a thing fucks over stuff like 3/4mod players of low diffs, then what exactly is the gain here?"

dada makes a good point here, but I would like to rebut: why should mappers need go care for the map being played with difficulty increasing mods? In fact, hard rock and DT could actually make the experience worse and different from what the mapper originally intended (hr flips the map, dt/nc speeds up and ruins the song), and so wouldn't it be perfectly justifiable to build an experience specifically around making those not as accessible? As long as the map is accessible by the intended audience on nomod, it is perfectly fine. Mappers are not under obligation to account for difficulty increasing mods.

Furthermore, it could be good for new players to get used to nomod ar7 rather than hr/dt on AR5/6, as don't those end up being higher than ar7 anyway?

Mizunashi Akari wrote:

> "if the point we're making here is that new players cant tell the difference between ar6 and 7 on a normal, yet the latter being a thing fucks over stuff like 3/4mod players of low diffs, then what exactly is the gain here?"

dada makes a good point here, but I would like to rebut: why should mappers need go care for the map being played with difficulty increasing mods? In fact, hard rock and DT could actually make the experience worse and different from what the mapper originally intended (hr flips the map, dt/nc speeds up and ruins the song), and so wouldn't it be perfectly justifiable to build an experience specifically around making those not as accessible? As long as the map is accessible by the intended audience on nomod, it is perfectly fine. Mappers are not under obligation to account for difficulty increasing mods.

Furthermore, it could be good for new players to get used to nomod ar7 rather than hr/dt on AR5/6, as don't those end up being higher than ar7 anyway?

HR on AR5 is exactly AR7, and AR5 is the standard for normal diffs now so no it wouldnt end up being higher. (DT on AR5 is about AR7.7, but with DT the maps BPM also increases thus reducing the density, so the reading difficulty roughly would even out.) Also can you explain how outside of extenuating circumstances where they have legitimate reasons (your map for example and in these cases guidelines can be broken) a mapper would need to make a *normal* diff AR7? What exactly would the mapper accomplish? If there was genuine benefits to be gained from this it would be a valid point, but I have not been able to think of a single reason having AR7 on a very standard normal diff would benefit the playing experience over AR6. Also why would a mapper specifically want to make the experience of a normal diff *bad* for mods? Aren't these diffs supposed to be able to be used as an introduction and so specifically limiting what players can experiment on them seems wrong

Honestly when I was 7 digit I put HardRock on most maps that were AR6 so that they would become AR8.4, but if a map is AR7, and HardRock is applied, it becomes AR9.8, and that could be a little too fast for newer players, so I'm not really sure

When I started playing (March 2021), for a while I did not really play a rhythm game, I was just reading the approach circles (even despite the low ar of normals). I thought I was using the music, but I really wasn't at first... until I played kaneko's normal diff of this map beatmapsets/16489#osu/75069, which was unreadable to me at the time, with ar4 and many stacked notes, it clicked in my brain how the game really works. I don't think reducing the reading difficulty really does a favour to new players, and in my experience playing that (hard to read) map made me improve more than ar7 normal with no overlaps would. I still remember the first time I hit that stack .

A new player can probably "read" ar9 or even ar10, but they're not really reading it, they're just reacting to circles as fast as they can when the map is slow enough. Low ar on normals teaches you that you have to wait before clicking the circle, and the reading difficulty teaches you to rely on your ears. Don't think encouraging mappers to raise the ar of normals is a good idea.

Doyak wrote:

- Currently, there is no overlapping range of AR between Normal and Hard (6 is the only single point), but we should allow more intense Normal have higher AR than sparse Hards. Having some resonable overlapping range would make more sense. I wouldn't say we should jump straight in allowing AR7, something like 6.5 could also work.

Adding to my point, I think what determines the AR should be the map itself, not the target audience. If a map of which the target audience is beginners is intense enough that it plays better with AR7, but if beginners feel AR7 too fast, then it's likely the case that the map itself is not for beginners in the first place (therefore the target audience is wrong), regardless of the AR.

I think the current guidelines for Normal difficulties are pretty much supporting maps that are intense enough to let some AR6.5 in (not too sure about AR7 but yeah.)

agree. I personally think increasing ar makes the experience more enjoyable to beginners because object density is a far bigger deterrent to new players than reaction speed.

Doyak wrote:

Doyak wrote:

- Currently, there is no overlapping range of AR between Normal and Hard (6 is the only single point), but we should allow more intense Normal have higher AR than sparse Hards. Having some resonable overlapping range would make more sense. I wouldn't say we should jump straight in allowing AR7, something like 6.5 could also work.

Adding to my point, I think what determines the AR should be the map itself, not the target audience. If a map of which the target audience is beginners is intense enough that it plays better with AR7, but if beginners feel AR7 too fast, then it's likely the case that the map itself is not for beginners in the first place (therefore the target audience is wrong), regardless of the AR.

I think the current guidelines for Normal difficulties are pretty much supporting maps that are intense enough to let some AR6.5 in (not too sure about AR7 but yeah.)

I feel like people need remember that AR7 normals are still rankable under current ranking critera. The reality is 99% of normal diffs aren't 'intense' enough where AR7 is required and for the edge cases where they are then you can simply justify breaking guidelines. By allowing AR7 as a standard AR for normal difficulties in the guidelines implies that it is suitable for lots of normal diffs, which it just isn't.

From a lot of what I read people are speaking as if AR7 normals are unrankable under all circumstances, which isn't the case. Maybe i'm interpreting things wrong but a lot of people's issues by giving specific edge cases where AR7 would be suitable are pretty much all cases solved by just breaking guidelines...

The fear I have is just in that by adding AR7 to the guidelines, mappers will use it as an excuse to make lower quality normal diffs (as the emphasis on readability for new players would be less) and that it would be used on normal diffs when it has no reason to be used (random 160bpm normal diffs for ex).

(Also all the other reasons I gave as to why I dont think AR7 normals should be common in my document in my previous comment)

Breaking guidelines requires heavy justification, so it's not like people can casually use AR7 on Normals under current guideline and just be like "it's not a rule." In that perspective I think 99% isn't really a huge range a guideline should cover; it should cover nearly all cases so that mappers almost never need to break it. I agree that AR7 doesn't work very well on most of Normals but breaking the guideline by a solid 1 AR is a huge violation which I think should never happen. However, I think at least 5% of Normals out there can make AR6.5 work and I think that's definitely a range that we should consider to include with the guideline.

In case people think that guideline is merely a helping section...

Ranking Criteria wrote:

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

Doyak wrote:

Breaking guidelines requires heavy justification, so it's not like people can casually use AR7 on Normals under current guideline and just be like "it's not a rule." In that perspective I think 99% isn't really a huge range a guideline should cover; it should cover nearly all cases so that mappers almost never need to break it. I agree that AR7 doesn't work very well on most of Normals but breaking the guideline by a solid 1 AR is a huge violation which I think should never happen. However, I think at least 5% of Normals out there can make AR6.5 work and I think that's definitely a range that we should consider to include with the guideline.

In case people think that guideline is merely a helping section...

Ranking Criteria wrote:

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

Are you able to show many examples of normals you think would directly benefit from being moved from AR6 to AR6.5? Also, you talk about violating guidelines by a 'solid 1 AR' as being huge then use AR6.5 as an example which you think 5% would suit which is be significantly less than AR 7. Breaking the guidelines to allow AR6.5 would naturally require less justification than AR7. Lastly, guidelines are broken by over 1 point all the time so i'm not sure why you think it should *never* happen if you'd like to explain more, and if you agree that AR7 doesnt work well on most normals why should mappers be able to casually use it?

I'd support something like 'AR6.5+ can be used if BPM is over 220', or something to that effect about density but there is literally only like 450 normals at 220bpm or higher out of 18000 (and even then lots of them don't really use rhythms dense enough to justify the AR imo) so it just seems simpler to be slightly more lenient with the guidelines for these more dense maps since in practice I rarely see people provide 'exhaustive explanations' outside of very extreme maps. (Also if people actually followed what the RC said there about guidelines then i'm yet to see the mapper of the map that spawned this to provide reasons 'why not ignoring it will interfere with the overall quality of the creation' given the evidence we found from his target audience)

Lastly, guidelines are broken by over 1 point all the time

Maybe I'm too outdated. I'd like guidelines to be applied more strictly but I guess we have been more lenient on it these days.

and if you agree that AR7 doesnt work well on most normals why should mappers be able to casually use it?

Uhh, increasing it to AR6.5 still won't make AR7 something that can be casually used, at least that's what I thought. But judging by your reaction, maybe the impact of guideline nowadays is far weaker than my expectation.

in practice I rarely see people provide 'exhaustive explanations' outside of very extreme maps.

Yeah, like that, idk why in practice it has gone that lenient when the definition of guideline itself hasn't changed. But well, probably it's only that I'm just the one outdated.

Doyak wrote:

Maybe I'm too outdated. I'd like guidelines to be applied more strictly but I guess we have been more lenient on it these days.

The guidelines are just that: guidelines to help new mappers make something rankable. Experienced mappers have been breaking those guidelines for quite some years now, and mappers now have more freedom than ever before.

just make it ar 0 problem solved
then the 6 digits cant increase ar with HR!

Project Railgun wrote:

Doyak wrote:

Maybe I'm too outdated. I'd like guidelines to be applied more strictly but I guess we have been more lenient on it these days.

The guidelines are just that: guidelines to help new mappers make something rankable. Experienced mappers have been breaking those guidelines for quite some years now, and mappers now have more freedom than ever before.

Yeah this basically - I believe guidelines should be there so if someone is making their first full set, they know what is suitable for 99% of normal diffs. But if the mapper has other intentions and has genuine reasons for breaking them, then they can as long as they can provide a decent reason for needing to break them.

moving this since consensus was kinda all-over-the-place here, but we'll consider it in the rewrite 2