Hello all,

With the expansion of keymodes on mania and the increase of higher keymodes getting ranked (10k in specifics), I have gone through the criteria to find that there is one rule that stood out to me.

Ranking Criteria wrote:

There must not be more than 6 notes pressed at any given moment in Insane or lower difficulties. Using more than 6 notes must also follow a reasonable spread to the next lower difficulty. This rule does not apply to ends of long notes, as they are released, not pressed.

This in specific can be broken on any number of occasions and is very limited to the trajectory of insanes and lower. This would help if there was a 10k guideline sheet that would help us with this, however there is not.

I would simply reword it like this:

Chords with 6 or more notes pressed at any given moment in Insane and lower difficulties are discouraged. If such chords are used, they must make sense in context of the difficulty spread, and have strong justification in the music. This rule does not apply to ends of long notes, as they are released, not pressed.

An example of this is a map that is currently going for ranked.
-> Hugged's Spider's Blood (10k)
-> Hugged's Tear You Up (10k)



As seen in this map, the top difficulty uses a 10-note Chord in the top diff, whilst the INSANE uses an 8-note chord that is reasonable, however base on Ranking Criteria it is breaking rules. I suggest for keymodes like this, that it shouldn't be a rule, however.

This also goes into the ways we hit notes, for example, depending on how long we are waiting, some notes can be seen as easy to hit, compared to others. For example:



Looking at the left, we see a quad in 4k, compared the right which has one less note, now they might look easier on the left, but the right smashes meaning it is easier to hit. However, this should only be applied during a very long pause (typically 3 seconds or longer, which can be understandable given to its counterparts of notes).

Arguably, quads or filling in any column notes creates no feedback on readability, and means that you can see there are all notes present, which means they are easier to hit, compared to the right side which shows one note missing, and that you have to think about what fingers are needed to be pressed.

So possibly adding an extra quote such as:

Chords that use all the columns of the stage are easier to read.

meaning the entire chord could be something such as:

Chords with 6 or more notes pressed at any given moment in Insane and lower difficulties are discouraged. If such chords are used, they must make sense in context of the difficulty spread, and have strong justification in the music. This rule does not apply to ends of long notes, as they are released, not pressed. Chords that use all the columns of the stage are easier to read.

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At least some rough ideas pulled across, it may be a bit of a bad one, but a creative one I believe should be addressed with the recent additions of newer keymodes + trial 12,14,16 and 18.

Hope you enjoy a read :3

To add up:
"Chords that use all the columns of the beatmap are exempt, because these are easier to read."

A 1- or even 2-off chords are arguably harder to hit accurately, especially when done consecutively while the empty columns are keep changing. While full mash is obviously has more density, it's incredibly easier to execute with reasonable accuracy compared with the previous option.

From what I remember, the presence of this rule was because during the moment osu!mania was released on 2012(?), there are not so many players using keyboards that supports 7+ key rollover, so there was a hard rule for Ranked maps. However, this was waived and simply become a rule for whatever reason I don't understand. Given that currently keyboards with at least 10 key rollover is affordable at this point, and additionally for the future 12K+ beatmaps will be ranked where each players are expected to not have keyboard ghosting due to high amount of key combinations in these keyboard scheme, lowering this to guideline is a plausible idea.

Additionally can we allow full keyboard mash to be exempt from all difficulties guidelines?

good change, just buy better keyboard

The main reason for this rule is because we dont want there to be a an entry barrier into playing mania so up to extra you will not have to buy a keyboard that can press more than 6 keys at once until you are actually very into the game.

I dont see that big of an issue with how it currently is I think its very rare where you on an insane or lower are in need of making a 7 note+ chord.

I think as long as laptop/normal keyboards are still limited this wont be something we are looking to change right now

I don’t think this change will affect everyone. As an introductory thing, it may be fine to help people restrict, however it shouldn’t just be restricted to just those certain few people. Should be making sure it follows the entire community of people rather in my opinion.

I have to agree with Tails here. This was discussed a day ago in the hub, but osu! should first and foremost focus on accessibility.

Even when mechanical and NKRO keyboards are as accessible as ever, the entry point to those is still something not a lot of people can reach. The userbase with access to this hardware is not a majority by any means. It would not be affecting "just a few people". Do remember that this game is majoritarily played by casuals.

The most I could see happening is having it as a rule for Hard and below, and as a guideline for Insane for 10k and + Keymodes.

That sounds like a better trade off.

By the time players would reach skill level of Insane, I can imagine they will start experimenting with key bindings, and as well as finding binds that does not ghost or roll over.

I was going to ask if this rule should be exclusive to single play mode (4-10K), but this is not the time to discuss future keycounts yet (12K, 14K, 16K, 18K).

Personally I think that we should've waited for the 10+k testflight to conclude before discussing these. More than likely the data that would be gathered could've helped better shaping the rules and guidelines that affect it.

The best course of action right now is waiting for those to go up, see how they go, and from there making better informed deductions and suggestions. Community input on that will be important, specially from those who do not have the most optimal hardware.

I feel like adding a rule to any modes above that of 9k should relay first and foremost to not using more than 8 keys. This is because there is a general guideline to how things work.

I am super open minded about it not being a huge thing due to accessibility reasons, however believe that it should be questioned as of now, considering 10k+ Has only restricted playability. There is not much you can do there.

Will close this proposal for now since we need to planned this further if we want to allow this. hardware limitation is still valid concern if the player population are big enough to justify it and we do prioritize accessibility for people who want to enjoy the gamemode as a whole. For now the rule should stay as it is.