Good morning,

Both privately and publicly, recent flashpoints have been used again and again as starting points for discussions, but, honestly, there’s so many discussions everywhere it gets hard to keep track of.

So I’d like to tackle issue one in an open forum:
Nomination Anxiety

Some people claim there are maps they like, or think are good, playable, etc, but won’t nominate because they live with the idea NAT would slap them for it. Maybe it’s true? Maybe it’s not? Maybe it was true 3 years ago but isn’t now?

Either way, I think we need to actively share these kinds of maps to actively re-align where we are, clear up any misunderstandings, or better understand where values should be adjusted to best suit a constantly changing world.

So I’d like anyone that’s willing to do a few things on this thread:
- Openly share any kinds of maps you think are fine, but don’t nominate because of external reasons
- Share maps you would have thought were fine before being a BN, but don’t nominate because you were trained otherwise (if you remember). Do you think being made to change your approach was fair if that was the case? why or why not

If, you are still worried that being honest about this would have repercussions (I really think this honesty shouldn’t), you may share it with myself (just mind I am slow at work, but I will get to it when I can) or someone else you trust privately to post under an anonymous label.

If, you feel there are other ways to address this kind of issue in osu!standard, please make another thread. It’d be a bit easier to follow multiple threads than 1 thread go into 7 different topics.

What exactly is done with this information is still up in the air, but imo, it's better than making assumptions about it or going off too little information

Thank you

noffy's editor note: any post i make only represents my own personal thoughts, im not a spokesperson nor am i serving as one. Also if anything I wrote makes 0 sense please tell me, I’ll rewrite it

Yay more open discussions

I will kick in with a very controversial pick: IOException's Spelunker
Although to be more precise, this is the map that "I want to nominate but am afraid of external reasons", instead of I didn't

This map got 2 vetoes (which both require a complete flip of its concept to be dismissed) and failed both and this definitely is the biggest reason why I am very hesitate on nominating it. Knowing its concept has been executed well, I am still in fear that I would go against the interest of the majority of the BNG, upon which the current democracy-based veto system relies. I personally found it contradicting because while statistic-based democracy is definitely needed on decision-making in management -- which is what the osu! team has been encouraging from my observation -- it seems as an invisible obstacle to promote controversial maps, as controversial maps will, statistically, have less support.

On that regard, to promote variety in the ranked section, I'd suggest revisiting the veto system and to build it in a way that gives more support to the nominating BNs' decision. I will refrain from going further there because I don't want to derail the topic, but I just want to give my honest thought on this specific map that I am hesitating on nominating and possible direction to solve it.

beatmapsets/2132035#osu/4484651

I know it may be stupid for me to post because I rejoined NAT, but I rejected this map because I was afraid of backlash/punishment. Even though I don't get evaled like BNs do (Hivie probably won't nuke me for this while evaluating me) I was fearful of community / other BNs' perception if I had nominated this, citing unfairness or things like that. Which is why I held off from it, but I still think this is really cool and has a rly niche target audience even though it may not be for everyone

beatmapsets/1540170#osu/4437056
I also got requested this back in 2022, I was down to nominate it initially but after facing backlash for lethal weapon as well as scub's other 10* map facing a lot of scrutiny at the time I chickened out and decided to drop it. As you can see it got ranked this year so this was another incident where I rejected a map due to such reasons

idk not 100% applicable for either category (have been around for too long) but here's a few cases that i remember being really annoying and i could see how it stresses most people involved with them out pointlessly

half the times i touched anything involving keysounds it either gets dq'd for them "not being good" / "being off-key" or something like that

and if they dont dq they sometimes show up in evaluations anyways as points that "could have been better" or get deleted because people dont want to put up with them (e.g. beatmapsets/1720462#osu/3515987 being mentioned in an eval or beatmapsets/1280853/discussion/-/generalAll#/3758398/10084162 where it gets dq'd to delete the whole keysounding)

i don't really know if i changed my approach aside from telling people that the pointless debates about which keysounds sound nice or optimal annoy me after these.

I think it may have stressed out some mappers or bns who worked alongside me because as a result of getting it pointed out repeatedly the only conclusion i've drawn for myself is that either keysounds are cursed or i really can't be bothered past some point of "good enough" to investigate them when they're present

Not sure if I'm meant to be able to type here, but beatmapsets/2113915#osu/4438596 this map got dq/veto for being too excessive jumpwise, would say this is probably an issue since no one really tries to rank this type of stuff anymore.

Some BN's don't like this type of mapping but some definitely do and would probably rank this style of map if there wasn't a worry about being DQ'd/veto'd etc for song representation or something similar.

edit: might have been a different mapset of the same song, but I'm pretty sure it was this one, either way my point still stands, this song has been dq'd for the reasons above & so no one really tries to rank this type of stuff anymore.

Yeah, anyone can type here that's intentional. Calling back to past stuff is really useful, the game has a lot of history so specific stuff can be hard to remember off the cuff, thank you Melae



Another opinion i received privately:

Hey Noffy, sharing my opinion about your forum post of "standard Nomination Anxiety "

The fact that you have to write a paragraph about people not feeling confortable to share their opinions without being anonymous in your post is already a sympton that something is wrong with voicing opinions about the game.

I'd say that, from the talks I had with some BNs/NATs in these past 5 years, people became more scared to risk their nominations, to the point they won't nominate things alone anymore, afraid of being targeted by resets and needing someone to share the risk of their nominations.

I think part of that comes from the difference between how some BNs are just modders who do it in their free time and others who are tryharding the social aspect of the mapping/modding community and it becomes a pvp environment for them. It makes it so that modding anything that is not safe for the regular BNs is just a bother, because anyone can appear and just force resets to appear as someone with higher standards. e.g Fuju and Kirishima case. Kirishima was nominating a map that was similar to other stream maps that were ranked in the past and FuJu applied his more strict standards forcing a reset. When Kirishima got the bad ending there, it's a sign that is never beneficial to be the one nominating compared to the one reseting and doing QA.

Some BN's don't like this type of mapping but some definitely do and would probably rank this style of map if there wasn't a worry about being DQ'd/veto'd etc for song representation or something similar.

Similar to what NATs said on Nozhomi's evaluation about LON same map for different songs: "this is a pretty bog-standard jump map, I can see some maybe questionable emphasis but nothing too bad, should be good", at this point you can rank whatever you want if you have 2 bns and votes to dismiss the veto.

The fact that you have to write a paragraph about people not feeling confortable to share their opinions without being anonymous in your post is already a sympton that something is wrong with voicing opinions about the game.

Insane community. Not being able to give your opinion without fear of repercussions and even make use of the system you are given and receive huge repercussions for its correct use.

It makes it so that modding anything that is not safe for the regular BNs is just a bother, because anyone can appear and just force resets to appear as someone with higher standards. e.g Fuju and Kirishima case. Kirishima was nominating a map that was similar to other stream maps that were ranked in the past and FuJu applied his more strict standards forcing a reset.

The truth is that the baseline is quite low nowdays and that takes away the sense of the BN App/Eval system where they expect for relatively high standards and then as BN you can nominate questionable maps or not even mod them.

Another anon send in I was asked to post

Hello BN and NAT members,
Even though I’m not a BN/NAT nor have any ranked maps, I’d like to share my thoughts
and experiences in this matter. One of my maps ended up with a massive DQ a while
back which ended up resulting in a massive backlash for the BNs who nominated the
map. One of them leaving the team partly because of it. I felt strongly guilty about
convincing the BNs who nominated said map for several months and wasn’t able to
push that map back to qualified again due to the issues presented, even after a full
remap of the entire set.
This guilt eventually slowed down my progress in mapping due to lack of motivation to
push any map to ranked status again as well as mapping anything in general for the
fear of putting 2 more BNs at risk of losing their positions and repeating what has
happened. Apart from that, I also spent several years trying to push my sets through
this system but failed every single time.
Given that all these sets nowadays were well received by players and some BN
members (who unfortunately didn't like the song choices). I find this process very
frustrating and becoming more of a waste of time than an enjoyable hobby.
As for a solution to this problem, I feel like giving little to no punishments to BN
members who nominate maps that are deemed to have quality/subjective issues
seems to be a good way forward. It allows BNs to take more risks and promote a wider
variety of maps while making sure that they won’t be punished for doing so and also
maintains the quality of the ranked section as maps they nominated can be
disqualified or vetoed. The mapper won’t also feel as guilty for being more creative as
well. Obviously, we can still punish BN who nominates maps with things against the
ranking criteria like usual.
Lastly, sorry if this is a long read but I hope it helps to give some perspective into the
minds of mappers who ended up in unfortunate situations because of the system.
Also, if you’re able to deduce who I am from this message, please respect my choice to
remain anonymous.

Yea let's just say I have a bit of experience with nominations and maps that have been vetoed for issues related to nomination anxiety. One such veto was on my ONE OK ROCK songs compilation back in 2020 beatmapsets/1292126/discussion/-/reviews#/2633991

The map has been since updated to be much higher quality. If I had to describe it before, the jumps were all very similar with very little variety throughout the map and this was deemed an issue by yaspo because the map was too long and thus the playing experience was very monotonous.

Mimari, one of the bns on the set left the bng after this got vetoed. He was a huge supporter of jump style maps and to this day the map still has not been re-qualified even though massive changes has been made.

Here are some more maps I was involved with that had similar vetos
beatmapsets/1576607/discussion/-/generalAll#/3001911
beatmapsets/1624874/discussion/3317511/general#/3002442

I have been struggling to figure out how to go about posting here so I'll TRY to make it organized.

> Being afraid to nominate maps due to getting vetoed or in "trouble"
This fear I have just comes from the various "low quality" maps I've nominated over all these years. Her's a list of all the ones with like vetoes or a bunch of subjective issues (theres more we all know theres more)

After Rain
Sotarks - Harumachi Clover
Will Stetson - Harumachi Clover
More One Night
Justadice
Justadice
Bass Slut
Kick Me
Relive
Overdrive
Guinea Pig christmas
Big Black
flower of Raison
torris rent a gf map
Throw A Fit (Theres nothing notable about this map it just deserved to be vetoed cuz C00l has bad song choice /s)
Smokes compilation
Blue Zenith
Ray
Huge W
That one astronic stream map

Most of thse ended up being vetoed or dqd for something like song representation or the dreaded content bloat. However all thse maps ended up being ranked in effectively their same state with minor changes making the entire process of vetoing to change what ends up being 10 objects meaningless.

I can say after the drama that was caused on a map like Big Black where I had a mental breakdown over nominating a map I PERSONALLY LIKED because everyone from mappers to players were hurling trash at each other and me. Since everyone involved must've been trying to ruin osu! This is on a map that was completely fine with its biggest crime being a boring map ona fmaous song (i didnt get in trouble for this or anything but its just something i wanna mention)


Justadice
Justadice
Justadice
Start Again
Guinea Pig christmas

Are examples of maps which had a billion diffs and then guinea pig. This killed my wanting to make or nominate these huge sets as its just going to lead to issues for stuff that is solved by the amazing solution of spliting a set into two for no real reason :>



Over these sets (and im sure i may have forgetten or missed some) I've come to the conclusion its just easier to stay out of trouble by nomming maps that mappers consider "good" or at least inoffensive which effectively boiled down to anything that doesn't give a bunch of pp.

bite you death ray vs kxlman ray I nominated kxlmans map because it reminded me of an old nevo map and i thought that was super cool! Which it turned out the nat felt the map was low quality and boring since "Top diff and Insane could have been improved further: on top diff, spacing within sections remains the same most of the time, which results in no emphasis for more important sounds in the song." which no one cared enough to mention in qualifed or the modding phase and I myself don;t consider an actual issue. I also nommed byd's set even tho I truthfully find it far less fun and annoying to play (love u byd) with all the 1/4th sliders but shrug since every map has its own target audeince why should I care and since its got some anti farmy stuff no ones going to care enough to make problem stamps.

I rather stay a bn and get to nominate maps and help people then stay constantly in and out of trouble since i already miss enough objective things as is :^ . I hope i made any sense as a bn it feels the best course of action is to "please the NAT" even if i disagree with what they find "good" or "correct". It's kinda like how a bn evaller may think being super strict will "impress" the nat. It may do nothing but it makes it FEELS correct? Why make ur boss angery when you can make them happy :^


Sidenote-
This is unfixable but I also wish there was a way to get less people to stuff that appears in reportfeed since truthfully if you want to get a map nuked and get a bunch of attention just post something among the lines of "this doesnt follow the song" on a qualifed map and everyone and their mother will spawn on it (this point prob should be in the other thread but meow)

To end my post of stuff heres a fun thing that kinda highlights my point of avoiding controversal maps

I just think people should allow people to enjoy what they enjoy and not judge and try to block them at every point.

In this particular instance I decided to take a risk and significantly lower my usual standards in order to help a friend out. Turns out it wasn't such a good idea.

Even though in my position I'm not really at risk from evaluations like BNs are, it's still a reputational hit to me personally (and indirectly the rest of the NAT).

Maybe it was a justified hit, in fact I'm almost inclined to agree it was, but this is still a point on how I'm not going to take such risks again.

in the past 1-2 years, i've had bns rejecting my maps stating reasons such as "im doing my best to push good maps but this is too risky", "i'd rather not have to explain myself everytime i nom a map", etc. so yeah, the politics in the bn/nat affecting ppls choice to select which maps to nominate is a real thing, and nongeneric mappers suffer for it.

also as a player, some of the vetoable offenses that i see nowadays are such bogus, like the recent achyoo idol cover: beatmapsets/2055168/discussion/-/generalAll#/4356135. apparently the reason is that its hard for players to follow the beat, which, as most players would agree, is the least true statement ever. the fact that you can just place vetoes on nothingburger issues like this (and even other points that are not real issues in the name of "quality") definitely make people get more and more paranoid to nominate anything contestable because if the veto persists it becomes a "quality concern" and will look bad for the bns who nominated it.

but what do i know about politics, im just a simple folk.

Hi guys.

Take this from the experience of a mapper who struggles to keep up with what is considered a 'technically optimal' map in the sense of song representation and mapping community tastes. I personally have had issues ranking most of my maps, not just because of song taste but mostly because of reasons such as "I'd rather not ruin my reputation nominating this" or "Opened the map, saw over 10 timing lines, sorry can't check this". This makes it so I have to purposefully find a simple song and map in a way other people want rather than to my own tastes, if I want to rank a map. Also, just the fact that people don't want to nominate maps because of a mapper's name is absurd to me, this one happened quite some time ago but I feel like it's still a thing. I've even had a mapper refuse my GD on a map because they consulted with the BNs and BNs wouldn't agree to ranking anything with me on it in fears of getting veto'd.

The timing issue is mostly what affects me nowadays. I consider myself pretty good at timing and I've never had players complain about timing in my maps. But just getting a map with multiple timing sections ranked is a pain because it pretty much requires the BN to be either proficient at timing, or who's brave enough to YOLO it (which almost never happens). And considering there are two or three BNs who are decent at timing, it becomes nearly impossible to rank anything with multiple timing sections unless you have connections.

Of course, 'connections' are another whole different aspect of the ranking system that needs changing but that's out of scope for this thread. Within this topic, I believe that nomination anxiety seems much less of a thing when a mapper is nominating something from a friend or a mapper they respect. This aggravates the issues I mentioned above.

Not really me Personally but I've talked to others who did not want to nominate stuff like beatmapsets/1267221#osu/2633626

i think the punishment for nomniating more Experimental stuff (even if the backlash is Large) that is executed well (also kinda hard to define but I think this map is done well) should Probably be lessened to Encourage others to nomninate cooler stuff . i think

tho this should also swing the other way if we're applying it to boundary pushing stuff

If it was like 2016, BNs would rather be more risk aversion because of unexpected last day DQ especially for controversial maps. I've been out of the scene for years, but personally, the more recent nomination anxiety came from Vetoes rather than NAT evaluation.

About "maps you would have thought were fine before being a BN, but don’t nominate because you were trained otherwise", it was mostly internal standard reasons for my case. Mapping community improved so much, and there're simply too many "okay" maps. Nominating all of them would result in 100+ noms in a month. So like if I had to rate a map in a scale of 10, 80-90% maps were around 7, but maps higher than 8 barely existed.