Hi everyone,

I'm just wondering why the BN's and the mods and the whole community in general have to be so uptight about how a map should be for new mappers who want to get their foot in the door especially. I mean, I know the maps are supposed to be high quality or osu! wouldn't keep their reputation, but the fact that I needed to pretty much MASTER my mapping theories before having my first map ranked sound pretty over-the-top, don't you think? I mean especially when us mapping hobbyists are not paid to do this thing and osu! is another one of those games and games are supposed to be FUN, right? I mean, you can't just go ham on new mappers who just wanted to try something out for the first time and say their maps are "bad", just because they didn't follow the mapping theories you expect them to follow. Plus, even Pishifat put out the example of the "Hollow Wings" map and said that the mappers who rely TOO MUCH on the theories tended to make maps that were bland and appealed less to the general audience. Any yet you expect us to be creative with our maps before getting them ranked? Does this make sense to any of you, really?

This is why I'm going to have to take refuge into another game I bought called Geometry Dash for two weeks before coming back to osu! mapping, whose level making criteria is WAY more forgiving than osu!'s, because they just let the levels be put out to the public and see whether people want to play them or not, instead of what osu! does. The levels just get "Rated" by the developer of that game, instead of judged by BN's, who are just players themselves, for being the best or worst levels to be put on leaderboards. Isn't there some sort of discrepancy here, between the level-design expectations of both games? That one is more forgiving and the other is way too harsh to newer mappers, especially those who just want to do this as a hobby? Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Mario maker and Minecraft and even guitar hero were like this.

So in conclusion, should we really keep this up, or is this even remotely reasonable, especially for new hobbyist mappers like myself? That's all I ask, I'm not thinking of appealing or anything like that right now. This is why a lot of mappers are quitting, because these ranking expectations are over-the-top right now and very unclear to them, including myself. I just want to know if any of this makes any sense to anyone right now and if this should be kept up, that's all.

IMO this sounds like it's less about you being frustrated about ranking sets being hard for newer mappers and more about you showing your sets to some randoms and just getting told your maps are bad.

Most mappers/modders from my experience aren't great at actually providing good feedback to newer mappers - which mostly stems from (almost) every modder modding to get BN, and BN modding is everything BUT teaching you how to get better at mapping (since that isn't their job anyways).

If you want actually good advice get a mentor or try to get into the next mentorship cycle as a mentee.
Trying to learn stuff on your own works too (that's what I did), but a lot of stuff really isn't intuitive and way easier to grasp when someone just straight up tells you.


Also: Gurl you can literally upload whatever you want - people will play your sets even without you ranking them - assuming they are good and something the players actively want.

Fine by me, if that's how it is.

You've been playing for roughly 2 months, you cannot expect yourself to be rank ready unless you have dedicated some serious time outside of osu or have a mentor teaching you how to map.

It's difficult but you have to make connections and you have to have a good map, if either of those is not fulfilled it will always be hard to find people to genuinely look at your map and say they want to spend THEIR time looking at something that may never make it anywhere

Personally I think it’s nice to start out simple, and over time slowly develop your own mapping style.

Your first maps will be cringe when you look back at them so don’t worry.

Thank you all.

make trash first map with maybe the intend to rank trash map
may or may not get called out for trash map or whatever
map more, focus on mapping techs and such
have a somewhat acceptable map after remapping
remap the map you're trying to rank even more after more mods
get noms and get ranked


mapping your first ranked map



Honestly if it wasn't for my tournament and my motivation to help with mapping I would've never mapped in mania so just keep going! Even if people say your map is bad or you wont get anywhere keep going just to prove them wrong! (though people dont usually say your map sucks without good criticism).

I've had people legit sit in vc with me and help me with mapping/modding. So just keep playing/mapping, you'll get there.

I don't want to say it is easy to rank a map, but I don't think geometry dash does any better job at rating the levels. I played that game for many years but never got a rated level and i played this game for less than a year and had one ranked map already. if anything osu probably does better job at ranking maps than geometry does at rating levels.

you just need to place some circles and sliders in the editor and you will eventually be able to rank something. it takes time, but as long as you don't make bad habits it shouldn't take too long to make something rankable

it's because people tend to prefer playing better maps

GloriousSun250 wrote:

I needed to pretty much MASTER my mapping theories before having my first map ranked

you dont lol most ranked mappers havent mastered anything

GloriousSun250 wrote:

osu! is another one of those games and games are supposed to be FUN, right?

interacting with the community is not a game, no one is obligated to make sure you have fun just because the community formed around a game

GloriousSun250 wrote:

I mean, you can't just go ham on new mappers who just wanted to try something out for the first time and say their maps are "bad", just because they didn't follow the mapping theories you expect them to follow.

I can and will call out the flaws in their maps if they ask for it, if their expectations were unrealistic and my feedback crushes their dreams that's sad but ultimately their own problem

GloriousSun250 wrote:

Plus, even Pishifat put out the example of the "Hollow Wings" map and said that the mappers who rely TOO MUCH on the theories tended to make maps that were bland and appealed less to the general audience. Any yet you expect us to be creative with our maps before getting them ranked? Does this make sense to any of you, really?

overreliance on rigid and simplistic rules makes for bland maps -> try to be creative
makes perfect sense to me
but also I have no idea where you pulled this supposed expectation from because most of the ranked section is painfully bland

GloriousSun250 wrote:

I'm going to have to take refuge into another game I bought called Geometry Dash for two weeks before coming back to osu! mapping, whose level making criteria is WAY more forgiving than osu!'s, because they just let the levels be put out to the public and see whether people want to play them or not, instead of what osu! does.

there are no quality restrictions for uploading maps here either, what are you talking about?

GloriousSun250 wrote:

The levels just get "Rated" by the developer of [Geometry Dash], instead of judged by BN's, who are just players themselves, for being the best or worst levels to be put on leaderboards. Isn't there some sort of discrepancy here, between the level-design expectations of both games? That one is more forgiving and the other is way too harsh to newer mappers, especially those who just want to do this as a hobby?

what's so weird about two separate communities functioning differently?

GloriousSun250 wrote:

should we really keep this up, or is this even remotely reasonable, especially for new hobbyist mappers like myself?

yes
you are not entitled to anything

GloriousSun250 wrote:

This is why a lot of mappers are quitting

the vast majority of mappers quit before they get good, yes
but how in the world is that an issue?
the same can be said for any other skill like drawing, playing an instrument, pottery, archery, programming, anything
and those fields seem to be doing fine

most people who dabble in any given activity don't get invested enough to actually spend a lot of time on it because they have other things they happen to care about more
and that's completely fine

furthermore, there's no point in building these environments around people who aren't even invested in the activity, as long as the community isn't so unapproachable that it can't sustain itself long-term (and, for the record, osu! isn't dying at all)
in other words, it's completely reasonable to have standards for the higher-level stuff in a community

beginner athletes don't get into prestigious competitions
beginner artists don't get their works into art galleries
beginner musicians don't get record label contracts
beginner programmers don't get hired as software developers
beginner mappers don't get their maps labeled as official content

sure, you might have a bit more fun if your maps just got ranked from the get-go, but if you recognise that the quality of your work doesn't meet the standards of the community, surely you can also see that ranking maps of that level on a large scale would ultimately just hurt the game

I would say just face the reality. All you can do is map better and get better recognition, not just a recognition with no or bad value.

Speaking from experience, it's quite hard. Not just for the new mapper, old mappers like me also faced the similar truth of the community.

You can't expect your map to get ranked if you're stubborn. Sometimes things must change, and it can start from you.

Paino wrote:

make trash first map with maybe the intend to rank trash map
may or may not get called out for trash map or whatever
map more, focus on mapping techs and such
have a somewhat acceptable map after remapping
remap the map you're trying to rank even more after more mods
get noms and get ranked


mapping your first ranked map

thats kind of the story of the map im pushing for rank rn except i dont have noms and wasnt my first map


also yea its hard trying to get your first rank (speaking from someone trying to do that) my tip is to map simpler stuff and as you get better progress to more complex maps, the better you get at the game the better you get at mapping

GloriousSun250 wrote:

This is why I'm going to have to take refuge into another game I bought called Geometry Dash for two weeks before coming back to osu! mapping, whose level making criteria is WAY more forgiving than osu!'s, because they just let the levels be put out to the public and see whether people want to play them or not, instead of what osu! does. The levels just get "Rated" by the developer of that game, instead of judged by BN's, who are just players themselves, for being the best or worst levels to be put on leaderboards. Isn't there some sort of discrepancy here, between the level-design expectations of both games? That one is more forgiving and the other is way too harsh to newer mappers, especially those who just want to do this as a hobby? Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Mario maker and Minecraft and even guitar hero were like this.

about geometry dash (gd)... i've tried level creating in that game and it's a LOT harder to make a good gd level than to make a good osu! map. mainly because a good gd level requires both good gameplay and good 'decoration' (which is basically visuals, you can't just arrange blocks and stuff and call it finished), while a good osu! map just requires good gameplay (and you can argue that it does require good visuals but that's part of the gameplay itself). it's like creating a really good and detailed storyboard for each osu! map you make (like, this level of storyboard), so basically decoration in gd makes up the bulk of the work for level creation. it's not like people are gonna play your level anyways if it doesn't get rated, if you search up 'geometry dash recent tab' on youtube and compare those levels to rated levels, you'll see a clear difference in quality. there's like a new gd level uploaded to the servers like once every few seconds, so it's unlikely that many people would actually play your level. (i'm not saying that gd's a bad game, it's just harder being a level creator than being an osu!mapper)

there's also Stormfly's video about how the gd rating system is bad, (where he compares it to osu!), so i guess that's also a thing.

I understand now. Thank you for helping me get it everyone.