My experience is mostly with mod requests to regular modders (non-BNs) and my own experience as a modder.
So here's what I got:
A big red flag I've found (and partially applied myself as modder) is
the map not being finished.
Sure, one can still ask for feedback on what's already there, but if one asks for a full mod on an unfinished map they often get a reply among the lines of "please finish the map first", get their request denied, or [1]get ignored completely.
Not being finished can include (but is not limited to):
- The map literally not being done (let's say less than 60% mapped).
- No metadata (Artist/Title)
- No background being present. (rarely though)
- Required amount of dicciulties not present in the beatmap set.
If the map is not done, it's often better to ask the modder directly (if they're onnline), if they could take a look, instead of making a mod request.
Just like "Hey, got a moment to look at a pattern? I don't know if it's good or not."
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Another red flag that
quickly leads to being ignored, is to ignore their "availability".
Often they have their availability, status, or even modding queue linked on their userpage, and if it says
they're not available ("closed" in case of modding queues/requests), one shouldn't "poke the bear"[3], cause the resulting answer is pretty obvious, a deny of your request.
(Doesn't have to be, but very often the case)
Here again like in the above point, one can ask if they could take a quick look at something, but don't expect them to spend more time than they have to.
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Having demanding/unrealistic expectations (Regarding BNs)
I've seen it quite often already, that especially "new mappers" come and have expectations of their map being ranked instantly, and lets face it, that's not gonna happen.
If you look far enough in the Mapping Discussion forum you can find threads that highlight literally this, they're expectations being unreasonable, given certain points. (listed individually)
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Being "too new"STD/CATCH: If someone goes asking for their map to be ranked, while only having been signed up to osu for a few months, that doesn't work out.
There is no real equivelant to osu/ctb out there, so new players should take their time before they starting making maps, and plan to get them ranked right away.
TAIKO/MANIA: If it comes to Taiko/Mania that's a different story, since there are tons of Mania style games, and Taiko has had their own game series (called Taiko no Tatsujin) long before osu added it as a gamemode (in 2009 I believe), so new players being experienced with those isn't exactly uncommon.
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Polishing/ModdingA map with zero mods from a new mapper is almost always ignored by BNs.
Withouth a map being modded, the mapper can't really know if the map works or is up to standard, and especially new mappers don't know what quality standards apply.
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"Shitting out maps"Don't get me wrong, if one can manage to make a lot of maps in a short amount of time, that's great,
but, (and I'm talking from experience here) they often tend to be poor quality, especially if they receive no modding.
If a mapper just keeps making maps without ever asking for feedback in any way, they essentially map to their own standards, which can be wrong.
As they say "Old habits die hard", so if a mapper has made the same mistake over and over again, it will be stuck in their memory.
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Not accapting reality/feedbackIf someone gets told over and over again that something is bad, then indeed, it likely is.
If the mapper doesn't accept the feedback/outright refuses to aknowledge their mistakes in the map, it is very bad.
One shouldn't ask for feedback if one throws it out the window anyway.
Here a little story (real) regarding this oneWe did have such a case here in the Mapping Discussion forum last year. (regulars will possibly know who I mean)
Mapper had only been signed up to osu for less than 2 months at that point ("too new"), yet claimed to have been making maps offline for over 5 years ("old habbits"/missing any form of feedback) and refused to aknowledge any given feedback.
The mapper complained about not getting any replies from BNs (see the above points), mapper got told to ask for mods.
Uppon receiving a single mod the mapper than exclaimed that the modding system is toxic / the modders are toxic, just because the modder outright told him that something in his map doesn't work out.
Multiple people checked the mod and found it was very reasonable, the mapper just refused to aknowledge the negative "this doesn't work, it should be changed" feedback as helpful and saw it as the modder being toxic.
The user had multiple threads in this forum, and got feedback and advice, yet decided to ignore it.
In the end the user did try to accept the feedback, but ultimately quit because his goals/expectations were still too unrealistic.
This behavior (ignoring feedback/advice) can quickly lead to one being avoided or being outright ignored.
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