Up until this point, the NAT regularly evaluated BNs for both objective metrics (activity, DQ rate, severity of issues) and subjective ones (map quality, behavior). However, this has resulted in two problems:

1. Subjective issues are only talked about after maps are ranked, blindsiding BNs who get warned for maps that get ranked without issue.
2. Enforced quality values align primarily with the NATs' opinions rather than the BNs' and the broader community's.

After receiving community and BN feedback, we are making the following changes to resolve the divergence in expectations held by the playerbase and the NAT for the ranked section, and a widespread perception that the maps promoted by the NAT (and by extension, the BNG) do not adequately reflect players' desires for ranked maps. The goal is to create a culture shift within the BNG to a more laissez-faire approach towards what enters the ranked section.

Effective immediately, the NAT will stop warning or punishing BNs for subjective map quality issues that did not result in nomination resets. The NAT will consider nomination resets for unrankables, vetoes, or significant improvements to map quality. BNs will be free to maintain their own personal standards as they see fit and will broadly be afforded more freedom to nominate maps they enjoy rather than conforming to unspoken guiderails set by the NAT. Evaluations will instead focus on more objective metrics such as activity, the reasons behind disqualifications, and behavior in modding threads.

We trust BNs will act in good faith in carrying out their nomination activities. While we will be monitoring how things turn out and may make further adjustments to the system (including to vetoes, involuntary DQs, and abusive actions), we will not move away from vesting more freedom and trust in BNs and the broader community to determine what kinds of maps make it into the ranked section.

TL;DR:

1. The NAT will no longer bring up new subjective concerns when evaluating, and will only focus on nomination resets.
2. As a direct consequence, if a map ranks without resets, the NAT won't warn the nominators for any related subjective issues.
3. The NAT will still treat unrankable issues, unranks, and other objective issues (i.e. online offset adjustments) as usual.
4. The NAT will be actively keeping an eye on how things turn out and make adjustments accordingly, however the direction of letting the community define their own standards will not change.

Thanks for reading, and happy nominating!

> We trust BNs will act in good faith in carrying out their nomination activities.

While I can respect the premise of trying to bridge the gap between the players and bns/nat/mappers, I fail to really understand the merit of stripping away any component or element of being an NAT down to fleshy button pushers hitting check boxes from the ranking criteria. While evals can be subjective in aspects of quality, they are subjective opinions born from years of expertise both in mapping/modding, often carrying solid reasoning for their stance.

This is quite a sad thing to see such a team that helped to shape up the BNG to its current size and diversity reduced to such a pitiful state where they are not even trusted to assess the quality and general areas of improvement a bn can do to better develop a better ranked section.

I mean really it just has me begging the question of why the community, of which the majority do not make maps, understand the process of ranking maps, understand the scope of maps outside of their own exposure, should be on equal grounds with qualified staff members? Surely the fans of a sports game don't get to call fouls and make the referee sit the bench on games?

I truly feel like if the intent is to realign the NAT/BNG with the Community that the community should at least be informed of the implications of these decisions and direction before imminent and drastic action. Hell, at this point, I am thoroughly questioning the intent and expertise of internal due to the lack of foresight and rash decision making the past few months which have left the current NAT to be swamped with work revamping whole systems and catering to their demands and still being further stripped of any respect they may have deserved...

I hope that in the aftermath of this process that the game I came to love and labor over will not be run by twitter posts and angry emails rather than its own teams.

BNs will be free to maintain their own personal standards as they see fit

this screams bns are free to have no standards if they want. the standards were already low enough I can't even believe they are going lower or not even existing anymore

So this changes mean that anyone can rank any map with 0 quality control as long as there's no objective issues?

That doesn't sound good

Kaly wrote:

So this changes mean that anyone can rank any map with 0 quality control as long as there's no objective issues?

That doesn't sound good

If people have issues with a map, they are still free to bring up a discussion, veto, disqualify as before. The change here is it's no longer retroactively punishing bns in cases when the map got ranked just fine.

It is up to the overall group or community members to moderate maps going through qualified, as before



I don't have thoughts formulated for the other concerns at this time, but I do understand, and they are valid and come from a place of protecting the ranked section's general ideas. I'm not a big fan of moving in this direction, but after speaking to many people over the course of my time as a mapper I feel this is more fair and predictable for BNs, even with it's downsides. If this turns out to be the wrong direction, then things would change again in turn.

Does this affect the standards to which BN applicants are being held?

BaRho80 wrote:

Does this affect the standards to which BN applicants are being held?

Not at this time but we also heavily rehauled the bn application system to better line up with the realities of BN work just a month or so ago already, as can be reviewed in this thread community/forums/topics/1898076?n=1

we're also working on a comprehensive changelog newspost so everyone can stay on top of those kinds of changes

more stream practices rank soon

So, in summary, we are joining at a relaxation era (again).

(there are times of enforcement of rules, and times of relaxation of rules... for sure the next drama would be about how quality feels lower and how avoid it etc).


I don't have any hard opinion about it tho, 🍿

I genuinely think this is what the game has needed for a long time.

Here’s to hoping bns & modders alike don’t abuse these more lenient rules through nominating very low quality maps, or vetoing maps for highly subjective reasoning.

I find it perplexing that no matter what change would've been made here, people will complain either way.

On the one hand, would you have said that subjective quality concerns are accountable for a BNs evaluation it would've lead to massive outlash.

On the other hand if you say that that doesn't apply, like you did here, it leads to an outlash by a sizeable amount of people as well.

Instead of immediately critiquing this decision and pushing back against it, I think it would better to just wait and see what happens.

I find this change quite exciting and want to see where this goes,
is this gonna lead to a bunch of objectively rankable slop getting ranked? Sure.
But it will also lead to more interesting maps with genuinely great ideas getting nominated, because those are also being held back by the fear of being punished for pushing something too out there

TLDR; I like this, people should just wait and see what happens

looks like they would need to expand the ranking criteria instead of relying on subjectivism now

Local Hero's post does feel a bit on the extreme side but I don't disagree with it, I guess for another reason.

The community didn't do QA much before, I don't think they will now even if this is indirectly trying to encourage it. There *should* be some form of subjectivity by the gatekeepers of the ranked section.

I do understand the motivation but it just feels like putting more work for the people who care about an already thankless job as NAT (will they just have to write vetoes for every map they think sucks? get flamed more by people on twitter?)

The standard NAT already lost a decent chunk of members from twitter flaming and we really don't need more of that to happen atp

Though as my final thought, this process will need time to prove itself, if QA will be more encouraged in other ways then I can see it working. Just pretty barebones rn

(Also see nekro's post)

this screams bns are free to have no standards if they want. the standards were already low enough I can't even believe they are going lower or not even existing anymore

Beyond whether the change is good or bad. BN application doesn't make much sense evaluating your "decision-making skills, judgment and understanding of standards for ranked maps", candidates will continue to be the subject of the most fussy comments from evaluators, even if the standards have changed.

This post reads incredibly strangely to me. On the surface level it seems like it is offering BNs more freedom, but in reality "not warning for subjective things after" makes it seem like the process is already offering too much freedom to control the maps going into ranked, only passively after the damage has been done.

Given the permanent (mostly) nature of ranked, should subjective issues not be rooted out during qualified, given that's literally the last defense? Otherwise, we're literally just letting maps with subjective issues fester in ranked until it eventually causes a decline in the overall map quality of ranked.

I'm glad that the discussion of subjective issues is no longer happening quietly behind the scenes, and clean ranks will not be counted against the nominating BNs, but this post makes it seem like quality control will also be relaxed on the qualified end.

I have a few questions regarding this immediate change:

1. What sorts of issues could you envision the NAT still enforcing? I imagine the issues leading directly up to this change such as spam jump maps will no longer face irrelevant issues like content bloat, but the way this post is worded makes it sound like a wide variety of things may no longer be checked for, for example, large diffspikes, low contrast between sections, etc. Does this mean a change in the ranking guidelines entirely?
2. What is the purpose of qualified going forward? I assume the reason subjective issues were only caught after the fact is because NATs would only review them during BN evaluations. In that case, qualified just becomes a 7 day waiting period where some maps may get checked but to my knowledge most maps will not.
3. Is there a timeline until the next time this system will be re-evaluated for changes? This change seems like a very sudden knee-jerk response to various drama and its solution hasn't been validated. Previously, most (at least public facing) changes like this have had some accompanying trial period. Monitoring has been mentioned but are we going to revisit this sometime soon?

I'm always excited about change but also rather skeptical of sudden changes like these

We should improve the visibility of the Qualified section. If a player has ranked maps, they should see Qualified maps (all, or a few) in the default "Has Leaderboard" category, in website, Lazer and maybe stable osu!direct. This should give enough visibility with minimal complaint from the general playerbase.

My thought is to make it an option named "Show Qualified maps in beatmap listing". Any player can check it to see Qualified maps when they open the beatmaps page. It is off by default but would turn itself on when a player first ranked a map.

I agree with giving more freedom to the BNG, it allows it to fester into a diverse group that nominates all sorts of maps while shunning none, without fear of repercussions for nominating what they see fit if it may not fit the subjective tastes of others, basically being able to nom what they think is worth nominating... which is in my opinion more befitting of their position in the first place.

Although the possibility of overcentralization from easily mass produced and generic maps with no objective issues is very real, something should be done if this becomes a problem, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. In my opinion, I would welcome those since I personally enjoy them, but this should not prevent BNs from choosing to nom/create more unique maps AT ALL, it only gives the freedom to others not to follow suit.

This should've been done sooner imo, now there is a clear divide between the "players" (people that just like simple maps with 0 regards for quality, be it because they are fun or for pp) and the "mappers" (people that consider the previously mentioned maps as slop which shouldn't be rankable again), any decision, even a neutral one which only grants freedom such as this one, will be met with backlash by either side as soon as the other gains any ground, so to speak... although personally I don't like there to be such a divide, there indisputably is one (note: some players may not fit in the players side, and vice versa, but this defines the conflict neatly).

I reckon practically IMMEDIATELY simple maps will get ranked by those that felt the most opposition from the restrictions, and harsh immediate backlash in turn, but I would call those growing pains to something better, let everyone rank and map as they want, do not talk down to what others enjoy, even if you personally disagree, whichever "team" you happen to fall upon, remember at the end of the day we are all on the same side of wanting to make le osu! game better.



tl;dr: More freedom for the group comprised of supposedly experienced mappers, whose jobs it is to help maps transition into ranked, is good imo.

Me is happy

Local Hero wrote:

While I can respect the premise of trying to bridge the gap between the players and bns/nat/mappers, I fail to really understand the merit of stripping away any component or element of being an NAT down to fleshy button pushers hitting check boxes from the ranking criteria. While evals can be subjective in aspects of quality, they are subjective opinions born from years of expertise both in mapping/modding, often carrying solid reasoning for their stance. ....

just wanna +1 local hero's views on this

and say, the idea that bns will uphold this quality standard is not realistic, the nat doing the job of managing and curating bns who act in bad faith / have no standards is a necessary evil, i can agree sometimes their choices of subjective issues is a bit benign, but as we've seen in the past with more then enough evidence BN's cannot be left to their own devices on "good faith" even if 90% of BN's do act this way, there will be people who come along and dont act accordingly.

I hope this change is going to turn out well, but it seems like there's ultimately no way to tell how it's going to go without putting it into practice for a few weeks/months.

There's no super concrete change so it's going to depend on how it's enforced.

To me it seemed like the NAT wasn't really that involved in the enforcement of subjective issues of qualified maps in the first place (with one or two exceptions a year maybe), but the part about being less punishing on BN mistakes seems promising to me.

Fewer BNs leaving and more joining is going to be healthy for the ranked section and maybe if the NAT is more lax they will be more able to keep up with a larger number of qualified maps.

I thought of replying with my criticism of the actual changes but it seems covered either by previous posters or departing NATs' opinions which I assume have been shared before they left, in short I guess I align most with Local Hero here

even the breakdown of the problems as stated in OP is a disappointing view of the situation (pretty much anything citing "broader community opinion" on this topic is easily susceptible to manipulation by malicious narratives on social media etc. and that clearly took a large role in the tension leading up to this)

most off-putting to me is the optimistic tone this is presented with as if it's not a knee-jerk response at the climax of various dramas. I'm feeling the lack of trust that others mentioned about this and preceding events. especially with all the NAT resigning -- it is absolutely not a good sign for this many of the most experienced and genuinely invested people to abandon their project like that. if that isn't a wake-up call to seriously reconsider course then I have little hope for what's to come

i do appreciate the change but i dont think total removal of subjectivity from evaluations is a good idea. there can be still major subjective issues, like map constantly switching between completely different ideas, flawed contrast, rhythms that don't represent the song at all. my point is there still should be some quality control with what gets ranked. it definitely should be loose (if map works with the song and within itself, it should be ranked, no matter what x or y group of mappers think about it), but it should still exist imo
and yeah i get that you want the community to purge those cases during qualifed but i really dont think we should gamble on that, mappers do not check every qualifed map usually just what picks up their interest when scrolling, so stuff can definitely still go through

@clayton i think criticising trying to be optimistic about this is kinda weird LOL

this is my own opinion not anything as a NAT or whatever

As BN not much changes for me, I can still just enforce whatever standard I wish to w/ the maps I accept. If other ppl have different ideas of what is and isn't cool here, I think that it's nice that they dont have to be like "will i get axed for pushing X". Though i guess the court of public opinion can't like just be turned off but it's kinda the next best thing

My personal solution to the "but is quality going to die" question has kinda always been just not playing or engaging with beatmaps i don't like. Idk. Havign a better tagging system to help ppl find styles of beatmaps i think is probably going to be good if it happens in a comparatively near future

I think the changes here are probably just going to free up a bunch of the team's time to do other cool stuff

as NAT:
I think it's fair to be concerned about how easy it'd be to "outrage witchhunt" beatmaps here now, especially for anyone with a following on whichever socials. But honestly this has already been the case anyways so I kinda wanna see if it immediately happens or if it's a "once a year/every few months" sorta thing as it has been anyways.

Obligatory disclaimer that this is my own opinion, and does not reflect the views of the whole team.

I am opposed as to completely throw out of the window all subjectivity and nuance in evaluations. I cannot speak fully for Taiko and Catch although their approach seems to be similar, but Mania has had no problems whatsoever relaying our feedback to Nominators without them needing to feel belittled or obligated to comply with our Point of View necessarily. In fact we've gone with a similar approach and hadn't had as much trouble. Though in our case, we've always tried our best to keep a steady bridge between us, the BNG, and the overall community to the best of our ability.

I still think the problem of subjectivity in evaluations wasn't so much that it was present, but rather how it was worded and enforced. I agree with the fact that punishing a BN for a map that has gone by without any trouble seems like a disservice. This does not mean that we should just sweep it under the rug. We can always provide feedback to the nominators in charge to keep it in mind for the next time.

The ultimate goal of an evaluation's feedback is to help a nominator's growth. Just clicking buttons won't do it. And while I genuinely think quality standards should be dictated by the community and how they react to the sets going up at any given time, we should still be able to convey our feedback in a non-punitive manner.

My summary would be that providing quality feedback to BNs and upholding the community's quality standards rather than exclusively our own aren't mutually exclusive.

Hivie wrote:

Subjective issues are only talked about after maps are ranked, blindsiding BNs who get warned for maps that get ranked without issue.

If this is a concern, wouldn't a better approach be to incentivise more quality checks, rather than effectively completely removing a part of modding that has shaped mapping for what it is since basically the start of the game?

To me this feels 100% counter intuitive, and just feels like we want to have a resolution by simply ignoring a problem, which I don't really believe is a good way for solving problems.

Hivie wrote:

Enforced quality values align primarily with the NATs' opinions rather than the BNs' and the broader community's.

Layers exist for ensuring quality. For publications proof readers / lectors exist, for mapping BNs and NAT exist. I don't see the issue with this sentiment whatsoever. In fact, I'd personally give more power to the NAT, rather than less. They should have the power to oversee what's happening, as they are well established part of the community who are supposed to know how things work and has been hand-picked to do exactly that.

Implementing this system in its current form will mean that everyone who is popular can just post to social media to influence the general perception to their favor. I wonder where have I seen this before.

For the rest, I pretty much agree with everything what Local Hero wrote.

Please reconsider.

IOE raises a pretty important point, it doesn't matter if you warn someone after the map was ranked because, oh well, the map will already stay ranked forever. I'd much prefer people to voice their concerns in map's discussions, on a public ground rather than silently enforce whatever standard they've got in their heads. Whether we'll see decrease of overall ranked quality or constant war in qualified maps' discussions, only time will tell.

Okoratu wrote:

@clayton i think criticising trying to be optimistic about this is kinda weird LOL

in that paragraph I'm criticising the optimism ("eagerness to implement the changes" if that's a better way to phrase) paired with lack of acknowledgement of highly concerning events leading up to this, using NAT resigning as a main example

I can't read your private discussions or your minds so to me it comes off as dismissive of what are clearly related issues surrounding this topic

---

also agree with Spkz pretty much

I literally think some of you miss the point. One of the core argument against this being “but the quality standards!” Forgets that an average player isn’t looking at structure or how much it represents The music, they just want something fun. I do not see an issue with having things cohabitate in the ranked section- it’s not like good maps are going away. I don’t think ranked should be this sacred thing only for the best maps, it already takes at least a year to get good at simple mapping, longer than that seems so unreasonable.

To me this is more of an un-alignment than a re-alignment. Effectively the NAT averts their eyes to anything quality-related rather than figuring out a better way to establish the middle ground. So, aside from it being rather irresponsible (imo), it's likely also ineffective.

The system remains mapper-centric, that has always been a given. Any ranking system ever has relied on selecting experienced modders and then relied on some variation of TWO of them deciding what enters ranked. This really doesn't change.

So if I have any hopes for this change, it's that we may find better channels to funnel player opinions than outrage on social media. The ranked system definitely needs an overhaul, but gutting the current system with nothing else to show for it is more of a temporary bandaid than anything.

The generally lacking prospects for proper feature development however really kills that mindset so I guess it is what it is. Maybe one day we'll be able to assign an actual purpose to ranked and review it from there.

I also echo the concern on "BNs acting in good faith". Most BNs are cool and wholesome people with genuine interest in contributing. But having spent too much time here has really shown me all the stupid and sometimes vile stunts that some people will pull to game the system and get their way. Giving them this much room to say "technically we're doing nothing wrong" sets up for a world of headaches.



P.S. Sotarks has his prints on the murder weapon, but he was not the killer

I always thought current bn evals are lenient (maybe, even too lenient) because it's almost impossible to face actual repercussions for nominating objectively/subjectively bad maps. Usually, if some of your nominations have notable but not too significant oversights, you get told off by the nat in your feedback and if the trend continues, only then you're given a warning, giving you 6 months in total to change anything before facing any repercussions in the form of getting kicked/probationed (I personally don't consider warnings as some form of a punishment as some people think it out to be). It's inevitable there will be controversial judgement from the nat sometimes, but if you're generally doing well you shouldn't be afraid of that because you will just pass your next eval without any problems; so I don't see any reason to be even more lenient since it's already very difficult to get "punished" unless you repeatedly keep making same mistakes for several months.

Hivie wrote:

Subjective issues are only talked about after maps are ranked, blindsiding BNs who get warned for maps that get ranked without issue

Does the issue become less of an issue if the map doesn't get reset though? There's absolutely no incentive for both mappers and players to post anything during qualified right now unless it's something gamebreaking. I don't think it's even remotely possible to avoid "blindsiding BNs" under the current system unless you a)change the qualified period to be 3 months, just enough to properly eval bns b)bring back qat checking all qualified by themselves c)change current eval systeam to a map-to-map based one, so that the bns will be evaluated after each of their nominations gets ranked right away.
And honestly "blindsiding BNs who get warned for maps that get ranked without issue" seems really overexaggerated since you're usually given 2 eval cycles to improve on your mistakes.

Hivie wrote:

Enforced quality values align primarily with the NATs' opinions rather than the BNs' and the broader community's.

This is debatable, but imo the nat hasn't been enforcing standards that much since like 2018 to the point where it would become an issue? Aside from experimental maps like spelunker, people seem to mostly complain about bns getting punished for nominating """player friendly maps""", missing the fact that whenever such maps get vetoed or whatever they usually have contrast/spacing/etc. related issues which the bns should've been proven their ability to spot in their bn app, so I don't see why they shouldn't be told off for overlooking such kind of issues even after they passed bn application?

Honestly I'm not against it
It will probably allow for more diversity in maps and make mapping a more accessible option for players
(To those who complain Abt quality if you don't like a map don't play it that simple)

leo1421534 wrote:

Honestly I'm not against it
It will probably allow for more diversity in maps and make mapping a more accessible option for players
(To those who complain Abt quality if you don't like a map don't play it that simple)

Diversity already exists, and therefore this is not an issue in the current context. If you think otherwise, it's likely because you don't know about such maps because of the fact that the state of mapping has been heavily favored towards popularity.

The previous statement is not meant to be gaslighting, but at the same time I think it gives a good idea as for why the new system in place will likely fail with its premise: because it will just favor popularity even more, so more nieche maps will just get burried even further, to a point where all maps being played are made for the masses to cater the masses. There's a contradiction here which I personally don't see how this new system is trying to resolve.

McEndu wrote:

We should improve the visibility of the Qualified section. If a player has ranked maps, they should see Qualified maps (all, or a few) in the default "Has Leaderboard" category, in website, Lazer and maybe stable osu!direct. This should give enough visibility with minimal complaint from the general playerbase.

This already happens when you select "Any" without searching for something or changing sorting method; since web beatmap search sorts by ranked date by default, it will only show qualified, ranked, approved, or loved maps.

McEndu wrote:

My thought is to make it an option named "Show Qualified maps in beatmap listing". Any player can check it to see Qualified maps when they open the beatmaps page. It is off by default but would turn itself on when a player first ranked a map.

Maybe to some extent, ranked mappers are better modders, but mapping ability != modding ability, which is what this would actually require. A kudosu threshold (I suggest 150 in any mode for consistency with BN requirements) or having Nominated Ranked maps would be good methods in addition to the presence of a Ranked map.

This is how we got here in the 1st place. Let me remind you in detail of how it went

Regarding self-regulating quality checks -

Here should be some part where i come up with solutions but tbh the state of ranked is already pretty cooked due to how players and mappers both see it, also yeah, playcounts. There is need for out-the-box solution, not just some bandaiding. If we talk about bandaiding - bring loctav back, disintegrate 30 second garbage from existence, maybe leave plays on it idk idc, embrace holding everything up to the best possible standard and not chicken out of your responsibilities as a highest instance of power in the mapping, and, subsequently, player community.

Take pride in what you do, in your well-earned position proving ultimate skill and competence, don't fall back because of something that should be just literally replied to with "skill issue"

Before i get prosecuted - farm doesnt always equal bad, noone has ever had a problem with lasse maps for example. There is a compromise that could be found if people just were able to be better mappers

I had originally written a more extreme version of this proposal, but it was watered down into what it is now. My thoughts are below:

1. It's beneficial for the game for popular maps to be ranked. Low engagement with ranked maps is bad for the game. In the past 3 or 4 years there has been a precipitous decline in the amount of plays and favorites most maps receive. Fundamentally this means that most maps that get ranked are not what the player base wants to play.

2. The NAT shouldn't be directly opposing the majority of the player base in a grand crusade against simple jump maps (any more). All the arguments for preventing a slippery slope of abusive pp maps are valid - people feel forced to play them, they have poor song expression, etc. etc. My view is that the cat is out of the bag, and has been out of the bag on this, for several years. Bashing our collective heads against the wall trying to stop it is ultimately futile, and in any case not beneficial to the player base who by and large want these types of maps ranked.

3. It isn't fair to allow a bunch of garbage pp maps into ranked but prevent more interesting but unpopular styles. If 85% of people want generic trash like Pika Girl ranked they should have to live with the Spelunkers and uncanny long arms as well. A lot of people are being made to turn a blind eye so those members get what they want, so they have to turn a blind eye sometimes too.

4. The unspoken standards for a ranked map are obscure and unintelligible to the player base, and this is bad because it creates a lot of friction and the enduring view that we are acting against the community's interests. This is simply because standards for a ranked map are much much higher than what the average player needs, which is for a map to be timed correctly, vaguely mapped to the same snapping as the song, and visually comprehensible.

5. Genuinely, non cynically, viewing this as a capitulation to Sotarks is the wrong way to think about it. A lot of people have vested a lot of time into getting the current state of things the way they are, and to put it bluntly, the current state is unsuccessful. Player engagement and community perception of the ranked system sucks. BNs and some mappers feel an obligation to the "quality" of the ranked section that hasn't existed since 2017. Other mappers feel like they're completely iced out of ranking maps solely because of their song choice or mapping style. So for everyone saying "this is a knee jerk change" - no, this was a long time coming, and a culmination of 8 or 9 years of drifting away from what the player base by and large wants to see more of on the basis of a very nebulous set of ideals that have been ruthlessly enforced on people with the "wrong" opinions on what's fun and good quality.

huge + for this change, really hoping to see some simplistic and not exactly 'double standard / primarily song representation-focused' maps getting ranked (sd_mango, i wish you the best of luck with your efforts and thanks for forming the subdivision) and BNs not fearing for their life when nominating these

it's really funny to see the complains coming almost exclusively from mappers mapping with 'art', 'originality', 'creativity' and 'giving the map a soul' in mind and expecting this to be a norm

I think this change is well-intentioned, but how does exclusively considering resets not incentivize BNs to argue in poor faith against quality improvements to the maps they nominate?

I find the use of subjectivity as the standard for validity of concerns at the highest level of review really disconcerting as well. This is just going to lead to twitter drama when some kicked BN complains on Twitter about the NAT "breaking their promise" and argues that their kick was for subjective reasons. When it comes down to it, everything past bare-basic functionality is subjective, and it was my understanding that the BNG and NAT's entire existence was in order to add the (subjective) perspectives of experienced modders to the quality control of ranked. If the intention is truly the realignment of nomination quality with community expectations, would it not be healthier to pair this with a broad expansion of who's allowed to nominate maps to include anyone who can be expected to check a map's functionality against the ranking criteria? Pretty much everyone who's able to pass a BN test can be taught to use Mapset Verifier.

It is also important to note that the NAT no longer operates in a community that cares enough about the broader output of ranked to actively seek out and mod other people's maps in qualified if the map is not uniquely unpalatable. The few times that someone does, this is often responded to by a certain individual with a large following on a certain single-letter-named social media platform brigading the thread. There is overlap worth mentioning between those who support such behavior and those you've committed to trusting to act in good faith.

The BN/NAT structure of the ranking process demonstrably breaks down as the community becomes broader. Adjustments like this do not help scale it properly, they are band-aid fixes that are designed to satisfy whatever subgroup of mappers is complaining the loudest at any given moment. All of the recent changes to the ranking process have not been the structural overhaul the process desperately needs, but instead effectively people-pleasing changes whose long-term impact is invisible at best and measurably negative at worst.

Frankly, this change as-is helps nobody except for those who intend to act in bad faith. I am concerned for the future of a community headed by people who are oblivious enough to believe that this can be called anything more than petty politics.

3 wrong assumptions being made by a lot of people:

"In recent years ranked maps are disconnected with the player base"

It has always been disconnected.

Ranked has always been about Modders/Mappers in charge of curation, applying their standards to the maps that go to ranked. Not even once ranked was about players (at least the ones who are not active modders/mappers themselves).

"osu! is dying in the past 4 years or so".

That is wrong. osu! is dying since 2016, and I have some data that hints that information.

But the only person who can assure the truth of that statement is peppy himself if he had saved all the data from bancho about the average online users. Everything else is just assumptions, including my own data.

"The fault is the NAT members"

Wrong. Blame the scenario, not the characters.

Things may change the name, but the problem has always been the system itself that pushes both nomination/quality control work for a group, when it's impossible to establish a standard of QA in the first place due to the very subjective nature of creating a game level in osu!

The issue at hand has always been BNs/NATs (and all permutations of MAT/BAT/QAT) that don't like certain types of maps, gatekeeping others who like by doing "QA" work.

The "baseline" of ranked quality will always be subjective to human bias and will always keep changing and being volatile depending on the people that belong to the group and their preferences. Not having a pixel perfect triangle was a veto mod post at some point in modding history. Just keep that in mind.
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Finally, complaining about individuals won't change the one at fault, which is the system itself. As long as it is a "volunteer" work environment, the personal gains of everyone involved will always be above any goals the game may have for ranked. If that person goal is nomination oriented or QA oriented is totally up to them, as some find fulfillment in mapping pvp, while others just want to rank their own maps using b4b or they simply want to push content they like.

In my OPINION,

All styles can co-exist in the same category of maps. I always pushed the point that ranked is for all genres and styles and instead of focusing on what you don't like, just work towards the things you like (therefore nomination > QA work). If no one in the group likes what you map, the only current solution is to join the group yourself and find people who also enjoy it to push the content preferred.

Current standards are less favorable for generic maps yes, but if we go back in time, it used to be the opposite. There was a gatekeeping hell if your map wasn't visual geometry structure and pp jump meta. Been there, never wish to go back to that.

Mun wrote:

I think this change is well-intentioned, but how does exclusively considering resets not incentivize BNs to argue in poor faith against quality improvements to the maps they nominate?

i think we'll still moderate and step in if it becomes ridiculous

Mun wrote:

If the intention is truly the realignment of nomination quality with community expectations, would it not be healthier to pair this with a broad expansion of who's allowed to nominate maps to include anyone who can be expected to check a map's functionality against the ranking criteria? Pretty much everyone who's able to pass a BN test can be taught to use Mapset Verifier.

i mean, maybe? Just that changing all of those steps at once without knowing if any of them will stick was a thing we didn't really like that much and thus "watered down" some more far-reaching changes to be able to keep looking at how this thing goes down

Mun wrote:

The BN/NAT structure of the ranking process demonstrably breaks down as the community becomes broader. Adjustments like this do not help scale it properly, they are band-aid fixes that are designed to satisfy whatever subgroup of mappers is complaining the loudest at any given moment. All of the recent changes to the ranking process have not been the structural overhaul the process desperately needs, but instead effectively people-pleasing changes whose long-term impact is invisible at best and measurably negative at worst.

In the absence of feature-realization band-aids are inevitable
That said we seem to be getting some more developer attention at some point soon so maybe being all doomer about this point is premature? No idea I look forward to it

Mun wrote:

Frankly, this change as-is helps nobody except for those who intend to act in bad faith. I am concerned for the future of a community headed by people who are oblivious enough to believe that this can be called anything more than petty politics.

IDK, no matter what happens i think people will be upset, it's because we care that we aren't all happy about this change. We also all don't really agree with what the problem or solution should be so no matter what is done I dont see how everyone will be happy

Okoratu wrote:

IDK, no matter what happens i think people will be upset, it's because we care that we aren't all happy about this change. We also all don't really agree with what the problem or solution should be so no matter what is done I dont see how everyone will be happy

While I don't necessarily disagree with this viewpoint, as it is very real and true that due to the rule of big numbers you just simply cannot please everyone, it kind of begs the question whether it is worth implementing a knee-jerk reaction.

Either the timing for these changes is unfortunately coincidential, or these changes were implemented based off of the recent events.

If the former is true, I'm not really sure what else there is I could add value-wise, but in my opinion these changes feel rushed.

I am in no way in a doomer-mindset, but if the latter is the case, one could ask the question: where would we be if we reacted to all "dramas" in a similar fashion?

Okoratu wrote:

In the absence of feature-realization band-aids are inevitable
That said we seem to be getting some more developer attention at some point soon so maybe being all doomer about this point is premature? No idea I look forward to it

If this is true, I'd personally be more happy to see you wait for this to happen in the first place, rather than implementing "band-aids" as a reaction, for problems which existed for a considerable amount time but suddenly reached their peak due to social media (again, if the timing wasn't coincidential).

Let me put it more directly. It's very easy to say "Wtf why aren't you guys sticking up for map quality more" when you aren't the target of very visible hate campaigns from all angles and also feel extremely unsupported by your higher ups. The rate of burn out among NATs was extremely high and the amount of stress taken on trying to "hold the floodgates closed" for something that feels increasingly futile was not sustainable. This isn't a one time thing. It has happened for many years now.

"Is it a rhythm game or is it an aim trainer?" might summarize the player-mapper split, imo.

Nao Tomori wrote:

It's very easy to say "Wtf why aren't you guys sticking up for map quality more"

(first of all, fwiw, I agree with your post, just taking this specific point brought up by people)

For me the way I see it is that "map quality" at this point should not matter as long as maps fit the basic criteria. As silly as it sounds, it doesn't feel like the concept of quality can even be quantized anymore. Many mappers and modders I see that advocate for a stricter quality check, including in this thread, have their own personal opinions on what a map should be like. If we start having doubts about whether a map should be ranked or not because a certain group of mappers rates it 0.5 on OMDB due to not catering to their own personal choices, why even have the ranked system in the first place?

Not speaking about farm maps here, but rather, the "maps that aren't good enough for rank" according to a lot of people. My personal experience is that I've shown my maps around a lot and I've gotten many comments about how the map is fine, yet at the same time, I've gotten many comments from BNs about how they would rather nominate something more interesting (or LESS interesting, due to the whole nomination anxiety thing that's been also talked about). So what's the point of making a decent-quality map for rank when it can't be ranked due to this intangible standard? Not only that, but what if these standards directly conflict with my mapping point of view? Am I not deserving of the ranked status because I have a different mapping perception, even when my map is objectively up to the ranking criteria?

Some posts here read to me as if mappers want to keep the ranked section as a selection of maps that fit the BN's tastes, rather than maps receiving leaderboards due to their objective quality according to the ranking criteria. What's the point of gatekeeping the ranked section like that? I imagine that farm/abuse maps are an issue, yes, and I agree that it shouldn't be a competition of who can break the game more. But the line that's being drawn here affects much more than these maps.

Sorry if this comes out as rather aggressive against the mapping ecosystem, but take this from someone who's constantly frustrated about the system because it involves me asking over 50 people for every map I want to rank, just to be rejected by people who I know don't like my maps, but they're the ones in charge of selecting them, so I have to hope I manage to please at least two of them. It feels like constant humiliation, and to see people stand in support of that makes me really upset.

As brought up by other people, the issue with the 2018-19 meta isn't that it had farm maps, but rather that farm maps were the norm and breaking away from "safe" mapping styles meant that you were in risk of a DQ/veto. So shouldn't we try to prioritize ALL kinds of maps? The change seems to focus on that, and I don't really see how that can be a bad thing.

Nao Tomori wrote:

Let me put it more directly. It's very easy to say "Wtf why aren't you guys sticking up for map quality more" when you aren't the target of very visible hate campaigns from all angles and also feel extremely unsupported by your higher ups. The rate of burn out among NATs was extremely high and the amount of stress taken on trying to "hold the floodgates closed" for something that feels increasingly futile was not sustainable. This isn't a one time thing. It has happened for many years now.

Let me put it more directly; for the sake of avoiding potential confusions. This might be solely my own personal belief, but I don't believe that this system is what the NAT as a whole would prefer to have, in confirmation of what you wrote here, because if you think about it, I don't think it would make much sense.

"Quality" as it stands here is subjective, and always has been, if you disregard the objective factors. I, in any shape or form am not trying to bash people, but for ticking checkboxes whether a map obeys the bare minimum objective criterias, you don't have to be a member of the NAT for. Every single beatmap is more than checkboxes though. Mapping is art, and with each beatmap there are people behind making it. In an ideal world, this is where you existing matters the most.

I'm questioning the system, and not you. I believe in and appreciate all your efforts, and I'd like to think that we are wishing for a better system together, which in my opinion this current system as it currently stands will not provide.

Pretty low effort solution (if its possible to call it that) for the small problem thats a part of very huge problem that is not being solved for years. You closed one door but other doors remain, for example NATs decide who joins BNG and who does not. All these problems come from the system. Of course if you have NATs that are very good mappers and modders that act respectivelly then you have a healthy ranked. In reallity tho you got average mappers and modders (even worse, to the point of having NATs that ENCOURAGE low effort mapping). Why is that? How do they even got there? And who evaluates NATs? How do you know that their points of view are correct? Even worse theres no force opposite to NAT. Players dont have a voice, and neither BNG/NAT represent them.
Its of course better then doing nothing. I'd suggest tho doing large steps without looking at some bns/nats opinions that are always unsatisfied in any change.

This seems like a step in the right direction, not only does it decentralize the definition of map quality from a small group of people to a wider part of the community, it also mitigates the problem of BNs not knowing whether their nominations align with the views of the NAT and therefore having to fear the consequences or holding back from nominating certain maps altogether. On top of that, it should speed up the evaluation process, reducing the team's workload at least a little.

Some problems still remain though, like the lack of a proper QA system during the qualified period (regardless of this change). Right now it relies on voluntary action by BNs or other people who sporadically look at qualified maps, but many if not most maps are not checked by anyone. The playcount is understandably low since there is no incentive to even play qualified maps at all, and players who are not part of the mapping and modding scene may also not have the necessary knowledge to recognize certain issues or may not know that reporting a problem is possible and how to do it, so the chance of issues going unnoticed is pretty big. A potential incentive to get more people to play could be to make plays on qualified maps carry over to ranked if the map is not disqualified.
There desperately needs to be a dedicated group of people responsible for checking qualified maps, with appropriate incentives/rewards for doing so. Otherwise the purpose of qualified is partially defeated if no quality control happens at this stage, and the situation of mistakes slipping through could potentially be worsened further by this change. Even just keeping objective issues out would be a great start, but there can often be more debatable problems that are not clearly unrankable but might violate RC guidelines without proper justification or other significant issues, which could also be looked out for. To counter the argument "that's basically just the same thing as the NAT enforcing their standards": not quite because
1) These users would not be allowed to disqualify/veto maps right away, they would only report them, maybe even discussing if it's a valid concern beforehand. The DQ would be carried out after confirmation from the BNG/NAT if it's clearly unrankable. In the case of less obvious issues, a voting among all BN/NAT members similar to vetoes could be done (unless the mapper agrees to make changes right away). This way, the opinion of the QA group can't be enforced.
2) They are not in charge of evaluating BNs or BN applicants so they have no control over who gets to nominate maps etc.

Vetoes would essentially remain the only way of stopping a map from getting ranked based on subjective issues, and the veto system is another one that should be revisited to make amendments. This would probably require its own discussion so I won't go into detail here but it's something important to consider.

Another point I'd like to bring up is how this affects the evaluation of BN applications. As of the most recent change, the decision-making on which maps to nominate or not nominate has become more significant, and this is directly related to the current topic. For example, if an applicant were to mark a map as "would nominate" which is not considered suitable by the evaluators, this would likely diminish their chances of succeeding. However, the same judgement would not be made if an existing BN were zu nominate the very same map according to this newspost, which seems contradictory. If this is the direction going forward, personal views (such as "this map is boring/repetitive") should be excluded from BN apps too.
I suppose the question is where subjectivity starts/ends, for example some guidelines are often considered optional and ignored without a second thought, while others are enforced more strictly, creating a grey zone that should be clarified. Which guidelines should be enforced and to what degree? When is a justification for breaking it valid and when is it not?

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

There desperately needs to be a dedicated group of people responsible for checking qualified maps, with appropriate incentives/rewards for doing so.

QAT and QAH sent their regards. We all know how that went down.

Without someone who's following the thread and condesing the various point of view being raised, this will be another forum thread of "we need to tackle the ranked section problem" but keep insisting in cycles of the same band-aids rebranded, because many people lack proper focus on what's the main issue at hand and not much is changed.

On the second thought it seems like there is no actual goal that ranked section has - there is no description of what it tries to achieve by existing. The only thing that i've found is this bit, which to be honest is worth nothing. Like yeah, official content? Reached or surpassed the standards of rc? This was a recipe for a disaster in the 1st place.

Lack of direction is the exact thing that creates this duality of several groups of people thinking at the same time that standards are too high and are not high enough - people are seeing things the way they like to see them, me, browiec, and everyone else in this thread included. And that's a really bad thing. Let people/mappers/staff/whoever define and come to at least some form of conclusion on what the category aims to achieve, with some actual interpretations which could be converted into practical application of binary logic to maps if they fit the category or not, and work your way down from there, with a vision. Because, honestly, current situation is unmanageable going any further. The dissonance between different groups is too high, and lack of clear regulations is not helping it in a slightest

Nao Tomori wrote:

1. It's beneficial for the game for popular maps to be ranked. Low engagement with ranked maps is bad for the game.

this is a dangerous view to apply to Ranked. I usually don't like to compare the two categories, but this type of thinking is better suited to Loved, where pure engagement is more clearly aligned with its presented purpose and goals. Ranked has no stated direction, but has always been curated by modders by design, and I feel that using metrics as a goal instead would leave it devoid of identity

Nao Tomori wrote:

2. [...] All the arguments for preventing a slippery slope of abusive pp maps are valid - people feel forced to play them, they have poor song expression, etc. etc. My view is that the cat is out of the bag, and has been out of the bag on this, for several years. Bashing our collective heads against the wall trying to stop it is ultimately futile, and in any case not beneficial to the player base who by and large want these types of maps ranked.

I imagine that pretty much everyone agrees with you regarding "the cat is out of the bag", but nothing about Ranked or ranked categories or any other feature has significantly innovated since then to provide good alternatives for what Ranked has at least tried to provide in the way of a curated stream of "quality" maps. I think some others in this thread said it in different words, I just don't see how this change & related attitude by itself is supposed to leave Ranked in a useful spot.

Nao Tomori wrote:

4. The unspoken standards for a ranked map are obscure and unintelligible to the player base, and this is bad because it creates a lot of friction and the enduring view that we are acting against the community's interests. This is simply because standards for a ranked map are much much higher than what the average player needs, which is for a map to be timed correctly, vaguely mapped to the same snapping as the song, and visually comprehensible.

okay this is the main point I was going to respond to from your post. for me this really misses the point of what standards are for. standards in this case are not "for the player" in the sense that the majority are literally asking for them or are directly protected by them or anything -- similar to what you said. standards as applied to the one highly promoted category of maps are for shaping mapping itself and directing the game. they can and should sometimes act "against the community's interests" (putting aside generalisation of "community" but w/e) because they are something like a game design tool and help keep the scene interesting/creative/diverse/etc, this game would have no soul if its main focus were on pleasing the masses

or at least that's how I feel about their role in the current system of ranked categories.

Nao Tomori wrote:

5. [...] BNs and some mappers feel an obligation to the "quality" of the ranked section that hasn't existed since 2017. Other mappers feel like they're completely iced out of ranking maps solely because of their song choice or mapping style. So for everyone saying "this is a knee jerk change" - no, this was a long time coming, and a culmination of 8 or 9 years of drifting away from what the player base by and large wants to see more of on the basis of a very nebulous set of ideals that have been ruthlessly enforced on people with the "wrong" opinions on what's fun and good quality.

(since I was one of the people writing "knee-jerk change") I don't mean that the issues are new, I mean that the changes outlined in this thread seem rushed and overreactive given recent drama. again I don't think anyone is really going to argue with you about the existence of something like a decade's worth of gripes about Ranked that ultimately tie into this conversation. I don't agree with your portrayal of that history but that may not be important

overall, for this whole post -- I can understand where a lot of these ideas come from and I would even support them when incorporated well into new systems supplementing or replacing ranked categories. but I can't see the benefit to just axing some QA ideology from Ranked and doing nothing else, which is why I find myself arguing here for the status quo instead (despite my lack of praise for that as well). I want to be clear that my responses above are about this particular thread, in opposition to these particular changes, and it's not necessarily how I would be thinking about these issues with a larger scope

in the end I'm just "you need to think bigger than this if you want to improve anything" guy which I know comes off as unhelpful because there are barriers to planning such things and getting dev time and everything else. I hold my opinion with confidence that I can actually contribute something in the way of design and development when this time comes. I have a lot of thoughts about this, especially from my experience with Loved where there are a whole related set of problems that I see as stemming from ranked categories just being a poor system in modern osu to achieve their various effects on maps (discoverability, leaderboards, pp, curation, "finalizing" by locking updates, ...). sorry this paragraph probably makes zero sense without elaborating but I'm trying to say I've been waiting for people to be open to more "big ideas" and really want them to be what responds to the mentioned decade of Ranked issues rather than repeating history by tweaking the details of QA in Ranked yet again

Nao Tomori wrote:

Let me put it more directly. It's very easy to say "Wtf why aren't you guys sticking up for map quality more" when you aren't the target of very visible hate campaigns from all angles and also feel extremely unsupported by your higher ups.

I'm surprised this is just a footnote in this thread because these are much more tangible and rectifiable issues than anything in OP. things fall apart when burden isn't matched with support. without insider info my specific comments on either issue would probably be misguided though

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I didn't mean for this post to be just replying to nao but he summarized most of the points the best so ya

clayton wrote:

there are barriers to planning such things and getting dev time and everything else

clayton wrote:

I've been waiting for people to be open to more "big ideas" and really want them to be what responds to the mentioned decade of Ranked issues rather than repeating history by tweaking the details of QA in Ranked yet again

probably kinda out of the blue but do u think there's anything average joe mappers like me can do to try and improve the situation wrt making it possible to make changes of the necessary scale

or is it just a matter of praying to my favourite deities that one day peppy will get interested in the topic