[General]
The combo colors are pretty uneven in terms of brightness. You should set their luminosity values to be the same.
It looks like you're going for bright colors so I recommend 120 for luminosity.
You already know this but you'll need to find a Creative Commons background for the map. It also has to look decent. If you're having trouble try interpreting the song's meaning and look for something that resembles your interpretation.
Right now Insane is a lower star rating than Hard. While star rating is getting overhauled in the future, some adjustments should be made to fix it up before then.
[Hitsounds]
00:00:000 - The drum finishes in this intro section are very overused, it sounds extremely cartoony and gets annoying very fast. Try something else for the hitsounds here.
00:22:605 - Normal hits combined with drum finishes is probably the loudest thing I've ever heard come from default samples. It really hurts to listen to this entire section.
01:55:781 - The kiai has massive whistle abuse. peppy has stated that he hates whistle spam like this (see MBC #2 for more information). You should definitely not use this many whistles for this part.
02:40:958 - There go the drum finishes again, these really hurt.
[Normal]
Tickrate 2 is overkill for this difficulty.
00:05:664 (1) - The slider would feel better if the slider changed direction precisely at that red dot. Move the red dot to the left until the tick is on top of it.
00:08:487 (2) - Do the same for this one.
00:45:281 (1) - Don't start this spinner so close to the other object. Give the player some time to see the spinner and start spinning. It'd be better to start it on the red or white tick after.
00:45:281 (1) - This ends at a very strange place. It'd be better to end it on the red or blue tick that come before it.
01:01:428 (1) - Delete this object. It will give the player more time to stop spinning and focus on the next objects.
01:43:075 (1,2) - It looks like the 1 is meant to be pointing directly at the 2, but it isn't doing that very well. Change the angle of the 1 so it is pointing properly.
01:54:369 (1,2,1) - Woah that's confusing. It's introducing 1/2 right here right now AND making it a confusing stack. It's also close to the top of the screen so it's hard to see the approach circles. Redesign this whole part, it's way too confusing.
02:18:016 (4) - Avoid avoid avoid 1/2 sliders on easier difficulties. They are super hard to read and are often mistaken for two circles.
02:29:311 (4) - Avoid these please. Remember, this may be the very first map people ever play.
02:34:958 (4,1,2) - I'd avoid having a slider end where a circle used to be, the hitburst might make it hard to see.
02:40:605 (4) - Avoid these.
[Hard]
The OD on this difficulty is ridiculously low. Set it to 6.
00:40:605 (6,1) - This is a nice jump, so there should also be one 00:42:016 (5,1) - here to follow it up.
00:45:281 (1) - The spinner ends well here, but you may end up moving it to the previous blue if you do it for the other difficulties.
00:56:531 - You're using a 5% section to try to silence the ticks and the slider end. If you find yourself actively silencing parts of objects then chances are those objects shouldn't be there in the first place. In this scenario the slider doesn't fit the music because there's nowhere for the slider to end.
00:59:355 - Silencing ticks just isn't cool.
01:58:605 (1,2,3) - 3/4 beat spacing is always risky as players are often conditioned to 1/1, 1/2, and 1/4 between objects. It would be much safer to avoid strange rhythms like this, especially when using circles.
02:05:664 (1,2,3,4,5) - Again this is very very risky. Every other part of this difficulty has been super intuitive, but it has gotten very confusing now.
02:09:899 (1,2,3) - Again, avoid this weird rhythm.
02:21:193 (1,2,3) - Again.
02:22:605 (1,2,3) - Again.
02:28:252 (1,2,3) - Again.
02:32:487 (1,2,3) - Again.
02:33:899 (1,2,3) - Again.
02:39:546 (1,2,3) - Again. Especially important because it goes into a stream right after.
[Insane]
Your difficulty focuses primarily on variable spacing and jumps rather than streams.
Because of that, it's very strange to see CS5 used instead of CS4. CS4 supports jumping much more than CS5 does.
Set your OD to 8. This will fix the star rating problem and is better for map longevity.
00:00:017 (1) - I pointed this out in one of your ranked maps and offered you to fix it then (which you declined), which is a circle that starts off the map with no audio before it whatsoever. This basically means clicking this circle on time is a massive guessing game and doesn't relate to rhythm at all. It's common practice to start with a slider in cases like this.
00:00:193 (2,3,4) - Starting off your map with variable spacing like this isn't a good idea. The player doesn't know that the music is constant 1/2 here yet, so 00:00:369 (3,4) - looks like it's going to be 1/1.
00:00:017 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) - The pattern itself is strangely put together, it looks like you're grouping the circles into pairs that move down and to the right (1,3), (2,5) (6,4), but (7,8) suddenly isn't. Also the groups of circles aren't moving the same distances so the pattern isn't symmetrical (stacking them all looks like this
http://puu.sh/7aHhU.jpg)
00:03:016 (2,3) - In the previous 1/2 jump portion (the one the map started with) you increased spacing from 3 to 4. Changing it to 2 to 3 doesn't fit the emphasis you set up before (three beats then a jump). Please note in the next 1/2 jumping section you go back to making the jump at 3 to 4.
00:06:193 (4,1) - It looks like you were trying to have the slider end where the circle was, but didn't quite make it there.
00:12:899 - It looks like you're trying to make the sliderends very quiet by changing them to soft. It sounds really weird and makes the sliders feel empty. Change the sliderends to auto or just use a circle if the sliderend isn't important.
00:13:252 - Same as the above.
00:16:428 - Same.
00:16:781 - Same.
00:45:281 (1) - The place that this spinner ends sounds strange. Try the red tick before (or even the blue tick before that)
00:56:531 - You're using a 5% section to try to silence the ticks and the slider end. If you find yourself actively silencing parts of objects then chances are those objects shouldn't be there in the first place. In this scenario the slider doesn't fit the music because there's nowhere for the slider to end.
00:59:355 - Silencing ticks just isn't cool.
01:14:664 (5,3,4) - These sliders start on red ticks instead of white like the other ones. This means the emphasis of the hitsound is on the end of the slider. This is bad emphasis as the player isn't clicking the most important parts of the music. It also messed up the comboing.
01:27:899 (2,3) - This is a visual problem as it looks like the 2 is supposed to be pointing at the 3 but is at the wrong angle.
01:31:958 (2,3) - So this combo changes spacing every two circles..
01:34:605 (1,2,3) - This one every three...
01:37:428 (1,2,3,4) - And this every four? It's the same parts in the music, why is the emphasis changing?
It honestly looks like the circles are being placed with random spacing. They loosely form triangles and structured patterns but playing it feels awkward with the random switches in spacing. The changing emphasis makes no sense.
01:32:487 (5,6,7) - It looks like the 7 was meant to be going in the opposite direction of 5 and 6, which it isn't.
01:33:193 (1,2,3,4) - Antijumps like this are pretty troll as their spacing implies that they are streams. If you want to slow down the player's movement it's a good idea to have this combo perfectly stacked. That way the player can easily read the 1/1 and know that the other unstacked combos will be 1/1.
01:50:840 (4,5,6) - Why did movement suddenly come to a grinding halt when 01:50:134 (1,2,3) - is highly spaced? If anything the 6 should be much farther away from the 5 and the 4,5 should be unstacked. If you dramatically increase spacing in a combo for emphasis, the emphasis is lost if you don't keep it that way!
01:52:958 (1,2,1,2,1,2) - This is the introduction of slider stream jumps into the map. Whenever a map uses slider stream jumps it changes how the rest of the map is read. This will make sliders close to other objects appear as 1/4 instead of 1/2. This causes problems immediately in the map.
01:55:781 (1,2) - Due to the fact that slider stream jumps were used immediately before this and that there is now kiai (which adds hype), 1 to 2 looks like it's going to be a slider stream jump. In reality, it's simply 1/2. You can avoid this readability problem by increasing the spacing between 1 and 2 significantly.
01:56:487 (5,6) - This is bad emphasis. Notice how the hitsound is placed on the end of the 5 slider. This is a hint that the objects are set up wrong. The 5 should be 1/2 long and the 6 should be 3/4 long, that way the player clicks on the beat.
01:57:193 (1,2) - Again, this looks like 1/4.
01:58:781 (2,3) - Again it looks like 1/4 but at this point the player will probably assume that slider stream jumps are no longer present. This will cause a problem again when they are re-introduced.
02:00:016 (1,2,3,1,2,3) - 3/4 beat spacing is always risky as players are often conditioned to 1/1, 1/2, and 1/4 between objects. It would be much safer to avoid strange rhythms like this, especially when using circles.
02:10:164 (3,4,5) - The player had been conditioned to see slider stream jumps, then conditioned to ignore them shortly after. Now they are yet again reintroduced, making spacing even more confusing.
If you're going to use slider stream jumps use them a lot. If you're not going to use them a lot then never use them. Otherwise it makes it a giant guessing game.
02:11:311 (1,2,3,1,2,3) - Again, beware using strange rhythms with circles.
02:13:428 (3,4) - Player is conditioned to treat sliders as stream jumps at this point. It looks like 1/4, not 1/2.
02:14:134 (1,2) - This switches the player from using slider stream jumps to not using them. Again, these changes in how spacing works only serves to make the map hard to read.
02:21:458 (3,4,5) - Reintroduction of slider stream jumps. Again changing how spacing works in the map.
02:22:869 (2,3) - Looks like 1/4, it's 1/2, player learns to ignore slider stream jumps again.
02:30:546 (6,7,8) - This combo looks like it's trying to be a curve but got cramped at the top of the screen. I'd redesign this pattern.
02:32:752 (3,4,5) - Reintroduction of slider stream jumps.
02:34:164 (2,3) - Stops using slider stream jumps. This is unnecessarily confusing.
02:39:281 - There should be a beat here. All other instances have a beat here so not having one is really confusing and sounds bad.
02:39:546 (1,2,3) - Beware confusing rhythms with circles, this pattern especially because of how close together the circles are.
Starting from 02:52:252 - to 03:00:634 - has some of the most bizarre spacing in the map. I can't wrap my head around what you were going for here. There's no emphasis because it's far too random so some parts are just... harder for some reason. Why is the spacing like that?
03:13:252 (4,1,2) - Bad spacing contrast, 2x into 1x, only thing stopping this from being horribly confusing is the fact that there is a new combo. This happens a lot in the map and this instance in particular is very confusing.
03:26:134 (1) - Why is there a circle here? None of the other difficulties have that, the bass in the music at the end of the spinner signifies an ending better than this circle ever could. Stop the map at the end of the spinner, it's ten times better if it does that.
In order to keep the mod shorter I've left out many individual instances of these issues in hopes that pointing out individual ones will help you fix the rest.
This really needs work. The map is going to be bundled with the game's download so it's extremely important to get it all right.
It's going to be the first thing new players and mappers see.
Congratz
