It would make sense. If you see a custom difficulty name, then you would know it's an Insane, because only Insanes can have special difficulty names. I would prefer this to upsetting mappers over trivial things.

And I really hate to be the devil's advocate here again, but only having Insane diff "special" about naming is something that's not that logical.

TheVileOne wrote:

It would make sense. If you see a custom difficulty name, then you would know it's an Insane, because only Insanes can have special difficulty names.

What if a highest diff is a hard? It's clearly not insane so it's not allowed to use the name, right? That's dumb.

TheVileOne wrote:

I would prefer this to upsetting mappers over trivial things.

Obviously not trivial when you have a huge shitstorm about this everywhere. I do agree with you though, I find this trivial.

Though, I really see no reason why would Insanes get special treatment here, when you could have all difficulties named different to the standard naming convention and still be recognizable. That's just the rule shooting itself in the foot because it's illogical.

I'm all for custom names though, but I really disagree about Insanes having the only special treatment here.

There is also one less significant underlying problem here and that is the difficulty people consider "extra", or "extreme". Now, people consider them as a new category, but they are also not Insane. Right?
We have no criteria for that kind of difficulty, and I would agree for them to be considered as "Insane" though, but for the purpose of the discussion, it's a valid question which might need an answer sometime.

A point that was not addressed the last time this was brought up for discussion: why are Insane difficulty maps the only ones with the special treatment? If the new (read: better) star system is to be implemented, "proper" difficulty naming will be obsolete. Why, then, are we limited to using custom difficulty names for Insane level maps only?

From a skilled player's point of view, you may see a high range of difficulty in 5 star rated maps (which is an inherent problem with the current star system), but perhaps you fail to see the potential range of difficulty in 4 or even 4.5 star rated maps, simply because you play them all with ease regardless. To advocate this further, if a song had 4 difficulties, but in terms of the star system, had a spread of ENNN, how would you go about resolving the issue regarding custom difficulty names for the upper of the two Normal difficulties?

Perhaps the abolition of difficulty names altogether can resolve this issue, if we were to actually get a star system that could accurately denote the difficulty of the map just by reading the .osu file.

Edit: dude do you have to ninja me everywhere?

Tom said he was working to add TP in star rating. If it gets added, diff names wouldn't be a problem anymore.

So do you guys think that this rule would be overturned completely if that happens?

I'd rather discuss it once it happens then.

I mean, with the current unclear proposal, what can stop me from naming my Insane "Normal+"? It's really stupid and obvious why it shouldn't be allowed, but the current rule would allow it haha.

I think naming an Insane "Normal+" would fall under the category of mislabelling a difficulty name, which has generally not been a problem so no specific rule has been created against it but it could be done if necessary.

As for the "why only Insane difficulties" question, this rule was created as a compromise between peppy's viewpoint and how difficulty naming has generally gone up to this point. I would also agree with allowing free difficulty naming again if the team agrees this would be a better proposal (even better if the new star system is accurate enough).

What we're trying to set here isn't a perfect situation: it's just so we get things with a standard while the new star system doesn't come out. Right now we're having a few maps unranked because of this and other maps get ranked with no problem and have the exact same issues. Double standards are unacceptable and we should get rid of them.

Haven't there been instances of maps where players have labelled the difficulty name while also indicating a numeric value? I've seen this in osu!mania a few times where someone will list difficulty name (LV. x) and difficulty name 2 (LV. x+1), (etc). The unfortunate issue is of values themselves lack coherency and are likely subjective.

I can't say that I fully agree with fully free difficulty naming, but yes, there should be some sort of consistent naming system. I imagine that it would be quite difficult to sort a group of maps by difficulty so that left is easiest and right is hardest (or vice versa)?

Why do you always have to wait until a map is ranked to realize this kind of stuff? Maps wouldn't have to be unranked if modders and BATs pointed out clearly unrankable points (i.e. difficulty naming). There should be no doubts when it comes to ranking imo, and that should apply to cases like this.

Lust wrote:

Why do you always have to wait until a map is ranked to realize this kind of stuff? Maps wouldn't have to be unranked if modders and BATs pointed out clearly unrankable points (i.e. difficulty naming). There should be no doubts when it comes to ranking imo, and that should apply to cases like this.

Because we currently don't have rules such as this one, so some BATs think it's fine and rank it.

A BAT should know full well if a difficulty name is appropriate or not. Even if he or she is even slightly unsure, there is an entire team of them to consult over it. or maybe im expecting too much idk probably hehe lol xddddd

We are straying a bit off topic, so as a reply to SG's rule amendment, I'm all for it as long as it doesn't muddle the waters too much. Clarity is nice and all (Extra and Extreme being very clear distinctions) but custom difficulties can work their way back in through this as well.

It gets a bit more messy with multiple difficulty names too, like if I have Normal/Hard/Insane/0108/Banana/xxSomeWordsxx. It might be good to limit it to one special difficulty name per set, representing the highest-difficulty Insane.

Lust wrote:

A BAT should know full well if a difficulty name is appropriate or not. Even if he or she is even slightly unsure, there is an entire team of them to consult over it. or maybe im expecting too much idk probably hehe lol xddddd

It's because we have a full team that people have different opinions and standards, so we need these discussions to make things consistent.

Actually, I don't mind a spread like this (Easy / Normal / Hard / RLC / Pokie / Rin / Skystar) because as long as it is clear that custom difficulty names indicate Insane, then it basically shows "These are four interpretations of an Insane from different mappers, and here are the lower difficulties as well." The difficulty naming guide in the beatmap description also helps differentiate the higher difficulties.

I have also added a deadline for finalisation in the first post and points of contention so that the discussion can reach an endpoint, and the proposed rule will be revised to reflect the general consensus reached in the thread.

Complete leniency would be quite silly imo. Supporting for the partial allowance in custom diff name though.

Let me elaborate my points better. I am not talking about that stuff because I want to nitpick, I am talking like this because it leaves loopholes in the system, and having something done on a case per case basis is not a standard and can only create problems (why is that map allowed to do this and map x isn't, drama, etc).

The main issue we are facing here is mainly what do we exactly agree with. While I personally really don't care how people call their diffs, from a more professional and logical view I can concur that leaving Insane diffs have special treatment only is not a good thing, nor a good compromise. Let me explain.

Situation 1:
A person has 3 diff mapset where a Hard is the highest diff. While it's completely clear which diff is hardest, even if easy and normals were labeled normally, would you really forbid the person to use a custom difficulty name? This is why this rule can be nonsense.

Situation 2:
Let's say a mapset has 4 diffs in the mapset, but 2 diffs are hards. This gets tricky because if you solved the unfairness above, you would allow it here as well. If you have one diff named Hard, the other one Bananas, which one is harder? Is Bananas an Insane? A workaround would be if one diff uses a standard name, the other one should have too. However, this is also mutual with Insanes, so if you have one diff have "Insane" in the name, others should have it too. This is where the rule gets complicated and shoots itself in the foot.

Situation 3:
A mapset has multiple hards or normals, or one is a collab, and it has an Insane diff. Is the Insane diff one really the one that should get special treatment here? While the collab can be like "collab hard" or "collab normal", what if there are multiple hards and a guest Insane? You would have, let's say lolcubes' Hard, but the insane can be called whatever, 0108, rlc, derpson, etc. Is this fair treatment? I don't really think so.

I could go on and on thinking of scenarios where there can be a loophole to be exploited, the fact is you just can't cover every single case in this rule properly. If you could, the rule would be way too long and way to exclusive to stay a rule, and would be a guideline noone would follow instead.

If you solve the situations on a case per case basis, you still don't have a rule because the system is unclear then. Why would someone's decision be valued higher than the concrete text we all have written? That's double standards.

While, as I said, don't really care about naming and actually support freestyle naming, the best thing to follow would definitely be:
p/2725713

This is clear and there are no exceptions.
Until the difficulty thing gets solved ofcourse.

Using custom difficulty names are fine as long as it's a synonym of said word - or if it's definitely clear enough. Using difficulty naming from games if not that clear enough is to disallow (Couch Potato - Contestant - Gladiator - Hero - Exterminator... Tell me if you understand.)
For example:

Easy/Medium/Difficult vs. Easy/Normal/Hard vs. Light/Standard/Heavy
However, lolcubes' point is not to ignore. Insane difficulties do not need special treatment.

A small question: Is mixing up the guestmapper's name and the difficulty name allowed under current conditions ? As in, puns or other neat naming.
for example, let a mapper called Noru-Da and he wants to make an hard. is Noru-Dhard allowed ? It gives hard, and his name. or, I make a Crazy diff (which could be allowed as Crazy is clear enough), and I call it CraZyoda. Is it ok ?

Using the native language's song to name difficulties for example, is it ok as well ?

There are countless situations where the area is unclear.

but we can agree that using diff names that show no clear increase are a no. mapsets that use a theme - say stuff like miya no tengoku to jigoku, where we have [Baka], [Ecchi], [Sukebe], [Hentai]... that makes almost no sense to what diff it is.

Blue Dragon wrote:

What we're trying to set here isn't a perfect situation: it's just so we get things with a standard while the new star system doesn't come out. Right now we're having a few maps unranked because of this and other maps get ranked with no problem and have the exact same issues. Double standards are unacceptable and we should get rid of them.

Score is connected with star as I know,If I get it right,New star system will make whole osu a mess.

Divide ENH with out Insane is enough I think,We can try,It likes
1~3 E
3~4 N
4~5 H
5~∞ I
I is too large._.
It should be divide to 2 parts

Oh well this topic again, okay: Since the amount of Non-Insane Difficulties with no clear Difficulty names increases this rule has been set. And with very good reason, because this is decided since two years ago. Many just ignored that. It's okay.. when the Expert is called individually, like on Lapfoxed Forever. This looks more as clean and logical to me. While I am not a real friend of Mapsets like Kakuzetsu Thanatos. With or without Beatmap description I wouldn't recommened such a Difficulty name setting.

lolcubes wrote:

I mean, with the current unclear proposal, what can stop me from naming my Insane "Normal+"? It's really stupid and obvious why it shouldn't be allowed, but the current rule would allow it haha.

Why should we allow such a inaccurate difficulty name? We should try to find a better solution instead this one. In the best case this never should have exist but the mapper of this difficulty should be pointed out of the issue that the Difficulty is too hard and complicated for the Normal Difficulty category.

[CSGA]Ar3sgice wrote:

Tom said he was working to add TP in star rating. If it gets added, diff names wouldn't be a problem anymore.

+1