Henlo.

The existing rule in question is this:

All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties

My concern is with the last line "There cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between two difficulties."

I believe this requirement is unnecessary in 2025 given the abundance of low difficulties for newer players to practice on, and every year this requirement becomes more and more "relaxed" as BNs and mappers continually push the difficulties of the average hard and normal map higher and higher. Additionally, I see many mappers/modders (including BNs) miss excessively large spread gaps in their modding. Unlike something like missnaps that affect the gameplay experience, large difficulty gaps in between low diffs don't affect the players due to there being abundant alternative maps.

My proposal is as such: Remove the rule preventing large difficulty gaps so that as long as the map has the difficulties required for a given spread, it's rankable, regardless of the jump in difficulty between those difficulties

For example, under this new rule, (using star rating as an easy way to make the example, obviously determining spread gaps is map specific) 2* normal->3.6* hard->4.4* insane spread gaps would be acceptable because the spread requirement for a Normal, Hard, and Insane were met.

EDIT: After discussing this with Okoayu, for higher diffs (extra+) we suggest adopting the TnT method of doing spread. Basically, as long as you have something you can call a proper extra, anything beyond that is outside of the spread. This would prevent the need for bridging the gap between a 6* and a 10* diff where the target audience is too small to warrant the extremely high effort required to make the spread. That effort would be better spent on more songs being mapped.

I'm in support of this. I've always found the ideas of having a smooth difficulty spread within a set to be silly.

No other rhythm game does this.

I hit the arcade and play some jubeat and each song has 3 charts of it. There is no expectation of an "even difficulty spread without any gaps too large".


I genuinely do not believe more than 4 new players have ever expected this in osu! either. I support the idea of retaining spread requirements, but needing an "advanced" difficulty because the gap between a normal and a hard is "too great" is ridiculous and needs to end.

I support this proposal.

I think the term drastically large difficulty gap is quite ambiguous, since everyone seems to have their own interpretation of where that line should be drawn.

From my own experience, I've had many discussions with other mappers/modders about difficulty gaps, and often mappers end up compromising on their intended design just to satisfy this RC. Personally, I doubt such compromises genuinely improve the player's experience.

As for higher difficulties, cases like the example the OP mentioned (e.g. 4.4* → 9*) would obviously be considered a gap by common sense. However, as the current RC doesn't really define such gaps in high-end difficulties (EX and above). I feel it's better for the mentioned RC be adjusted to apply only from EX+ onward, while being relaxed (removed) for lower difficulties. (As the OP's proposal)

I believe current spreads are already bad, don't see why make them worse.
I genuinely do not believe more than 4 new players have ever expected this in osu! either.
comments/3642636
From what I see around me with new people who try the game, there's a genuine HUGE gap between a normal and a hard already. But that's just my opinion.

i agree as well. personally i never got why close progression between diffs of the same set is even important, as if players are only going to be playing this one set.

i think it becomes even less relevant the higher you go, because once you get better at the game you will be better at seeking out other maps to develop skillsets on on your own.

i support this, this has been a rule which has only made ranking maps more convoluted without any tangible benefits.

That rule is only applied to difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level.

For example, you can have a spread of 5* -> 6* -> 7* -> 8* and basically anything below it. So I don't really see how this change affects anything in a positive way.

Spreads that only have lower diffs to begin with should still have reasonable gaps imo. It's beneficial for the players who really love the song and want to replay it until they can reach a higher diff. I think that's a very important part of gameplay which is only made possible by keeping the reasonable gaps.

In my personal opinion
1* 2* 3* 4* 5* -> 8* 9* √
1* 2* -> 5* 6* 7* 8* 9* ×

i had a stroke reading this title

i think ur example for 4.4->9 is excessive, instead define whereabouts an expert+ starts and clarify that as long as you have an expert, the expert+ does not need even spread or something

yea for spread diffs this would be nice. i distinctly remember grinding other mapsets to be able to play the next difficulty in line on beatmapsets/28107#osu/93842 and it felt so rewarding when you got there -- having smooth difficulty progression is definitely not needed when there are plethora of low diffs ranked anyways

I think some people are misunderstanding what the purpose of a balanced spread is to begin with. It's not so that a player can move from one diff to the next without a huge jump in difficulty, it's to ensure that the mapset is accessible to as many people as possible and caters to a wide range of skill levels. Having a set wih a 2.0* Normal and a 4.0* Hard isn't good because it means players in the 3* range don't have an appropriate diff to play, as the Normal is too easy and the Hard is too difficult for them. It doesn't matter how many other maps there are because they're different songs, each mapset has to be viewed individually to judge its suitability for ranked.
Also, the number of ranked Insane and Extra diffs is getting very close to that of Normal and Hard diffs, so the argument to only apply this to lower diffs isn't really valid.
I don't get how relaxing this rule would be beneficial regarding difficulty inflation when this would make the problem even worse by being even more lenient than now with spreads and I don't think high end Normals and Hards should be normalized or even pushed further than they already are.

Okoayu wrote:

i think ur example for 4.4->9 is excessive, instead define whereabouts an expert+ starts and clarify that as long as you have an expert, the expert+ does not need even spread or something

I was saying that a 4.4->9* gap is too much and wouldn't be acceptable. However, I think we can define "Extra" and "Extra+" difficulties, so if the highest difficulty is a "Extra+" on a 90 second song, you would need a E+, E, I, H, N.

I am not proposing we allow E+, I, H, N spreads since that would skip a difficulty level.

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

Having a set wih a 2.0* Normal and a 4.0* Hard isn't good because it means players in the 3* range don't have an appropriate diff to play, as the Normal is too easy and the Hard is too difficult for them.

I don't get how relaxing this rule would be beneficial regarding difficulty inflation when this would make the problem even worse by being even more lenient than now with spreads and I don't think high end Normals and Hards should be normalized or even pushed further than they already are.

I don't think existing rules prevent there from being players that get marginalized either, and it is becoming worse and worse every year. I don't think the community wants to require more difficulties on each set, so committing to making spread management easier will allow for more difficulties to get ranked and will incentivize more lower difficulty Normal and Hard diffs to get made since a lot of the difficulty of them is being pushed up by the necessity of bridging the gap to a higher difficulty insane. Ultimately, I think by implementing this we will see more difficulty diversity in ranked.

Kurisu Makise wrote:

Spreads that only have lower diffs to begin with should still have reasonable gaps imo. It's beneficial for the players who really love the song and want to replay it until they can reach a higher diff. I think that's a very important part of gameplay which is only made possible by keeping the reasonable gaps.

I don't see how anyone is going from playing the normal on this to playing the hard diff, but this was seen as a reasonable gap by the nominating BNs. The issue with the existing rule is that it's too vague and leaves it up to individual interpretation. Maybe it works for mania/catch/taiko but in standard, evaluating difficulty is extremely subjective. I think removing this for standard (again, maybe it doesn't apply to mania/catch/taiko) is going to significantly help difficulty diversity across the entire ranked section.

Neto wrote:

I believe current spreads are already bad, don't see why make them worse.
I genuinely do not believe more than 4 new players have ever expected this in osu! either.
comments/3642636
From what I see around me with new people who try the game, there's a genuine HUGE gap between a normal and a hard already. But that's just my opinion.

100% I agree with this. I don't see people being in favor of making them more strict, though. Making spreads more relaxed in this way will actually help the overall diversity of difficulties across the entire ranked section because people won't be scared to make a 2* normal because they'd have to make an advanced difficulty to make their spread work. In particular, I think we'd see more lower diff hards, because right now if you have a normal, your hard has to be in the mid-upper range of difficulty to bridge a higher insane gap, which leaves the low 3* range lacking in maps.

-White wrote:

I was saying that a 4.4->9* gap is too much and wouldn't be acceptable. However, I think we can define "Extra" and "Extra+" difficulties, so if the highest difficulty is a "Extra+" on a 90 second song, you would need a E+, E, I, H, N.

yeah i'm all for this, no idea how others feel about it but to me personally the worst part about making the spread is not making multiple low diffs, it's getting all of the filler extras to bridge the difficulty properly, and it usually feels like just mapping the same thing again but with slightly lower spacing which is like, why
i also don't think this would hurt the ranked section at all since p much everyone wants to rank high difficulties, making it easier only will incentivize more sets to be pushed i think

Crazy, I was just bringing up this discussion with a few BN's and NAT's recently.

From a strict reading of the RC, the Rule itself is honestly ambiguous. I will try and break it down here by sentence fragment:

For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties

1. "For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level..."

The rule begins by defining the domain or range for which the rule is applicable. Here, the rule is applicable to difficulties above the lowest required difficulty. I've highlighted the word above because this suggests the rule is not applicable to the required difficulty itself, just difficulties above. Obviously, this means difficulties below the lowest required difficulty are not necessary to fulfill spread requirements. See: beatmapsets/987998#osu/2066894 for example.

2. "...the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels"

The rule then states that difficulty levels cannot be skipped. By "levels" we can reasonable interpret this to mean things like Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane, Extra as the Ranking Criteria explicitly recognizes these distinct difficulty levels. Thus, if the lowest required difficulty is a Normal, I think everyone would agree that a Normal > Insane > Extra spread is unrankable as it skips a Hard.

However, if we define difficulty levels by the letter of the Ranking Criteria, the RC only recognizes five distinct levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane, and Extra. By that virtue, a 6.00 star Extra and a 8.00 star Extra would both be classified as an Extra for the purposes of this Rule.

From interpretation of the rule thus far the rule has merely established that difficulty levels cannot be skipped if those difficulty levels are higher than the required level. Thus: NHX, NIX, NI, NX, and HX spreads are unrankable. I think that covers every spread possibility that can fall under this rule actually...

3. "...and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties."

This secondary restriction establishes that large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties is not permissible. I highlight the words "any two difficulties" because this suggests an applicability only where 2 or more difficulties are present. However, from our earlier discussion, we've established that this rule only applies to difficulties above the lowest required difficulty.

On Stand By Me (beatmapsets/987998#osu/2066894) for example, there is evidently a "drastically large difficulty gap" between a 2.3 star Normal and a 5.1 star Insane. But this rule does not apply because neither the Normal nor the Insane are above the lowest required difficulty.

-----

Having established the rule, or at my reading of the rule. I now present what I believe to be a presently rankable spread and my explanation. I'm curious how others view this interpretation in light of my discussion above.

Song drain: 4:45
BPM: 450
Spread: I > X
Insane is 5.00 stars
Extra is 14.00 stars

Since the drain time is 4:45, an Insane is required to fulfill spread requirements. The 5.00 Insane is the "lowest required difficulty level" for this song. An Extra is not required.

The 14.00 star Extra is classified as an Extra for the purpose of the Ranking Criteria. It has 450 bpm streams and 450 bpm Sotarks jumps. It cannot be classified as Easy, Normal, Hard, or Insane.

The spread fulfills the first part of the Rule's requirement. The spread cannot skip any difficulty levels. Because the Ranking Criteria itself does not define any difficulties between Insane and Extra, a spread of "I > X" is within the bounds of this rule.

The spread actually fulfills the second part of the Rule's requirement as well by virtue of the rule not applying at all. As we've established, the rule only applies to "gaps between any two difficulties" but you will recall, the Insane does not count as it is a lowest required difficulty level and the rule only applies to difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level. Essentially, there is no gap because there is only one applicable difficulty.

From a purely linguistic approach, there are two ways to read how the sentence fragment of "...and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties" should be interpreted.

1. The fragment is an additional modifier to the original defining domain (this only applies to difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level).

2. The fragment is separate from the defining domain (this applies to all difficulties). In which case, it should be its own sentence if not a separate Rule Statement itself to avoid confusion.

I believe the first interpretation is how most people approach this rule. The second interpretation would imply that even on mapsets beyond 5:00 drain time, there cannot be large difficulty gaps.

-----

That is all to say, I am in agreement with this proposal, but believe that within its current reading, the rule is already ambiguous.

I would be against establishing additional difficulties like "Extra+" because while I agree that something beyond say 7.00 stars is probably deserving of a separate classification, an additional difficulty will unnecessarily complicate spread discussion in the future. I'd rather we keep it simple and permit mappers and BN's to exercise discretion in mapping and nominating mapsets that reflect the intensity of songs.

i fully agree with this

I think I'm going to agree with Monstrata here; the current rule is ambiguous, but certainly provides the possibility of doing exactly what OP wishes to happen (rank high sr without 7 extras for "spread")

Not to say that I don't agree with the proposal, just the current rule actually technically does allow for this already

Yours- wrote:

Not to say that I don't agree with the proposal, just the current rule actually technically does allow for this already

Saying that a 5*->14* spread isn't breaking the RC is ignoring the case law of over a decade of mapping where it wasn't allowed, even if the written rule could theoretically be interpreted as allowing it. I've seen zero instance of this rule being interpreted in this way, much less actually seen a spread ranked under it.

I know this sound like a tangent, apologies for that. But I do believe a lot of the spread rules proposals and mapset spread gaps proposals come from the same issue. The huge drain time a mapset needs when certain conditions are met (drain time, star rating of top diff, etc).

I believe the core issue is not that a mapset requires more effort in being made compared to others, but the logistics of ranking a big mapset.

Historically speaking, most BNs prefer to nominate mapsets with smaller drain time compared to a huge one. After all, nominations are counted per mapset not total drain time. Which limits a lot of the times who you can ask to nominate a rhythm game song in which the top diff is 10* and song is like 2 minutes long or long thematic or album marathons.

Simply put, even without changing any spread rules or mapset spread gap rules, we can already save ourselves effort. We do that by making maps that require more effort in being made translate to equal effort from the BN that is nominating such maps. Which is this proposal here; community/forums/topics/2051225?n=1

Therefore, even without any changes to the current systems of spread rules and mapset spread gaps, we could see improvements where making a mapset that requires more effort spread wise being rewarded with more attention from potential BNs that would prefer nominating less maps with more substancial content without sacrificing their activity to do so.

I do see merit in this discussion about diff gaps, I just want this lens to be also considered.

Neto wrote:

I do see merit in this discussion about diff gaps, I just want this lens to be also considered.

I also can see merit in BNs getting credit for more drain time, but I think that comes down to technical capabilities to accurately track that data automatically, which is where the discussion stalled last time. Ultimately, it is outside of the scope of this proposal.

-White wrote:

Yours- wrote:

Not to say that I don't agree with the proposal, just the current rule actually technically does allow for this already

Saying that a 5*->14* spread isn't breaking the RC is ignoring the case law of over a decade of mapping where it wasn't allowed, even if the written rule could theoretically be interpreted as allowing it. I've seen zero instance of this rule being interpreted in this way, much less actually seen a spread ranked under it.

Lack of case law is not case law, it's just lack of precedent, unless you can refer to a mapset that actually attempted a 5.00 > 10.00 type of spread and was rejected. I certainly cannot recall any mapset that has attempted this, mainly because I don't think people generally push these sorts of spreads forward anyways.

Sometimes, rules can remain ambiguous for decades, before a situation finally shows up that calls into question the ambiguity of the rule.

I can't talk about standard, but I will say these kinds of spreads do exist in taiko, with a very noticable gap between a top difficulty extra and an insane below it. They aren't common, but they do exist.

beatmapsets/1984610#taiko/4121975 - probably most extreme example
beatmapsets/1063324#taiko/2226451 - not quite as extreme
beatmapsets/1006568#taiko/2107788 - oni is required, but large gap to inner oni and then extra

These are ones where the lower difficulty is required, but it's more common in cases where it's not part of the required spread.

beatmapsets/2077793#taiko/4350689 - inner oni and top difficulty are both "extra" difficulties
beatmapsets/2194042#taiko/4641645
beatmapsets/2173670#taiko/4588780

There's plenty more with similar spacing to the top difficulty.

So, in the end this really is up to the nominators. It's ended up being relatively normalized in taiko, at least.

sounds good i miss when players have to learn to play video games instead of the video game providing trivial content in the name of accessibility that is not fun to make for creators nor rewarding to conquer for the players which feels like a chore for both parties

edit: leaderboard players play maps for "free top xx placements" to decorate their accounts with does not necessarily actually enjoy the content they are playing for what it is. trust me, the actual "target audience" of such trivial intermediate difficulties are much lower than people seem to think

me feels...


The case where large SR rating gaps in a set that meet the difficulties counts to meet the various levels of skills that any player that may approach the set can play (something like hard 3.5* -> insane 5.1* or )

I really think there needs to be an emphasis that there shouldn't be a significant leap where large swaths of the player base cant play the set due to the difficulty of the latter half of the diffs and wont play the former half do to them not being "engaging" enough due to it no being too easy (e.g. hard 3.5* -> Extra+ 7.3*, i understand that this is a extreme scenario, but something that we should take into consideration, even a more realistic example expert 5.5* -> 8.8* Extra+)

I know i am just engaging in snowballing here, but i think that there is a need to be an explicit mention to not skip such important portions of the player base.

That's just my opinion and I think I wanted to chime in to share it

TL;DR: I agree to allow leniency in SR gaps, but not to skip entire difficulties/cut half a set

There are two separate issues at hand in this post and we may not be able to solve both of them at the same time or with the same solution. 1: Providing leniency for too-large gaps between lowdiffs. 2: Allowing HUGE gaps on spreads with a high sr topdiff

1 - Overall I'd be fine with adding lowdiff gap leniency. If a novice Hard player can't play this specific Hard diff, oh well, there are plenty of other Hards to practice on for the time being. It sounds reasonable to want to sync with other rhythm games that don't do such smooth bridging between diffs.
1 - Do consider that having smooth spreads could just be an osu signature thing atp? Since we've been doing it so long it's become iconic? I'd welcome change, myself. Just want to throw that out there

2 - Being one second below 5 minutes meaning the difference between having a solo 10* map and needing an IXXXXXX spread is ridiculous. But a 4:59 4* > 10* IX spread being required for rank is gonna look goofy af too. If a mapper wants to map a 10* marathon and include a marathon Insane in the spread, that's funny cause they went out of their way to do something extra. If they do the Insane because they were forced to, that's just weird. I figure the current draintime/spread rules are meant to ease the burden of players mapping long songs. It's a kind gesture but it falls apart when entering high SR territory. The time saved from not needing to map NHI diffs is practically negligible when you need to map a bunch of bridge Experts because lowdiffs are easier to map. Plenty of mappers can throw together a decent ENH with just a couple hours spent on each. But even skilled mappers will need several hours - potentially days spent on each bridge diff, which makes their time saved from skipping the Normal feel like nothing. So I'm saying the current draintime/spread requirements don't offer sufficient grace for all kinds of sets - only sets with a 5-6ish* topdiff before it stops being worth imo. If we're going to resolve the issue of IXXXXX spreads, we need an spread rules overhaul, not a patch fix
2 - One suggestion I have is to define new RC for Expert+ diffs. If a topdiff qualifies as Expert+, it can have different spread requriements - or potentially be rankable on its own, regardless of draintime. It's a topic for another thread though
2 - A point in favor of retaining spread rules that require a million Expert bridge diffs is that it encourages community building. IXXXXX...X spread mappers are faced with a task that would be incredibly draining to put together solo. So they seek out GDs and have a community project which is healthy for the game, no?

TLDR i agree to remove the 'drastic difficulty gaps' rule between lowdiffs. I'm undecided on allowing huge spread gaps of experts for high SR maps. I don't think both problems should be resolved in the same way

Scorf wrote:

So I'm saying the current draintime/spread requirements don't offer sufficient grace for all kinds of sets - only sets with a 5-6ish* topdiff before it stops being worth imo. If we're going to resolve the issue of IXXXXX spreads, we need an spread rules overhaul, not a patch fix

We have to define specific numbers because more vagueness is not a good thing. I think the current length requirements are fine and already quite lenient compared to where they were a few years ago. I also think that some of your comments/concerns are outside of the scope of this proposal, but they're still quite valid points for us to discuss.

I agree with the proposal's intention but I would suggest having a limit as to how far the gaps can be after a desired extra range. That way we could prevent something like having a 5* -> 12* map gaps.

FelixJumper wrote:

I agree with the proposal's intention but I would suggest having a limit as to how far the gaps can be after a desired extra range. That way we could prevent something like having a 5* -> 12* map gaps.

Do you have a suggestion on how you'd like to see this done specifically?

Monstrata wrote:

I would be against establishing additional difficulties like "Extra+" because while I agree that something beyond say 7.00 stars is probably deserving of a separate classification, an additional difficulty will unnecessarily complicate spread discussion in the future. I'd rather we keep it simple and permit mappers and BN's to exercise discretion in mapping and nominating mapsets that reflect the intensity of songs.

Why not say the first extra in spread follows the gaps from previous and any other extra is extra+ (as in additional, not strictly linked to their difficulty)

that would remove the ambiguity where it starts and drastically cut down the filler extras u need to make and not really try to define what level of difficulty it is at

Okoayu wrote:

Monstrata wrote:

I would be against establishing additional difficulties like "Extra+" because while I agree that something beyond say 7.00 stars is probably deserving of a separate classification, an additional difficulty will unnecessarily complicate spread discussion in the future. I'd rather we keep it simple and permit mappers and BN's to exercise discretion in mapping and nominating mapsets that reflect the intensity of songs.

Why not say the first extra in spread follows the gaps from previous and any other extra is extra+ (as in additional, not strictly linked to their difficulty)

that would remove the ambiguity where it starts and drastically cut down the filler extras u need to make and not really try to define what level of difficulty it is at

This is a band-aid solution. As others have pointed out, the root issue is that the current RC spread requirements force mappers to make arbitrary "filler" difficulties to satisfy a spread. Of course, 5.00 > 6.00 > 14.00 is a nice way to drastically cut down the filler extra's needed. But think about it this way, if the song was 4:59 and you honestly believed the song deserved to be mapped at a 9.00 star level (idk it's 350 BPM) you are required to map an additional 9:58 worth of drain time for the 9.00 difficulty to be rankable.

Mappers have tolerated this for lower difficulties because let's be honest, Normal and Hard diffs are very easy to brainlessly pump out while remaining relatively high quality and unproblematic. And there's honestly a bit of disdain towards these sorts of "filler" maps because there is little to no inspiration behind mapping these difficulties. Their existence is primarily for the purpose of satisfying the Ranking Criteria. And if anyone disagrees, I'm going to look at your profile and ask why you didn't map E/N/H difficulties on 5:00+ songs you've ranked lol.

The goal of the N/H/I spread-draintime requirements was to cut down on the need for mappers to create filler difficulties on songs past a certain length. We're trying to reduce the burden on mappers when they pursue optional and additional difficulties. If you think about it, you could just map an Easy difficulty on a random 180 bpm anime song and call it a day. Mappers choose to map Normals, Hards, Insanes and Extras, but those difficulties are all optional. If mappers decide to map an optional Insane difficulty, the RC demands that they include a reasonable spread, with deference depending on song length. The RC acknowledges that the longer the song, the greater the mapper's burden, and thus responds by reducing the number of filler difficulties necessary for a set to be rankable.

However, we would be quashing that goal if we were to force spread requirements on mapsets that wish to include optional Extra difficulties past a certain star rating. Like I said, the difference between a 4:59 and 5:00 song could literally be 9:58 worth of filler mapping.

My personal opinion is that spread considerations should only be relevant from Easy through Insane. Past Insane, players are clearly experienced enough in the game to find mapsets themselves and don't need the mapper holding their hands and providing them with a spread of Extra difficulties.

I would rather we do away with Insane-Extra spreads entirely. It seems Taiko has already started going down this path from the examples Alchyr gave.

the examples alchyr gave are like Extra - Extra+ though

i dont see how the suggestion i made is a band-aid lol

Monstrata wrote:

This is a band-aid solution. As others have pointed out, the root issue is that the current RC spread requirements force mappers to make arbitrary "filler" difficulties to satisfy a spread. Of course, 5.00 > 6.00 > 14.00 is a nice way to drastically cut down the filler extra's needed. But think about it this way, if the song was 4:59 and you honestly believed the song deserved to be mapped at a 9.00 star level (idk it's 350 BPM) you are required to map an additional 9:58 worth of drain time for the 9.00 difficulty to be rankable.

not really, it goes in pretty much the smae direction alchyr was going i think?

Monstrata wrote:

Mappers have tolerated this for lower difficulties because let's be honest, Normal and Hard diffs are very easy to brainlessly pump out while remaining relatively high quality and unproblematic. And there's honestly a bit of disdain towards these sorts of "filler" maps because there is little to no inspiration behind mapping these difficulties. Their existence is primarily for the purpose of satisfying the Ranking Criteria. And if anyone disagrees, I'm going to look at your profile and ask why you didn't map E/N/H difficulties on 5:00+ songs you've ranked lol.

little inspiration is a mapper propblem. The other point just feels like a rly pointless jab, i think (?) i'm on ur side of the argument here mostly

Monstrata wrote:

The goal of the N/H/I spread-draintime requirements was to cut down on the need for mappers to create filler difficulties on songs past a certain length. We're trying to reduce the burden on mappers when they pursue optional and additional difficulties. If you think about it, you could just map an Easy difficulty on a random 180 bpm anime song and call it a day.

This is untrue, the top difficulty should at least be a hard if the song permits one, there's a guideline about this

Monstrata wrote:

Mappers choose to map Normals, Hards, Insanes and Extras, but those difficulties are all optional.

This is untrue
The highest difficulty of a beatmap should correspond to the general feel of the song. Easy/Normal difficulties can be used as a lone difficulty of a beatmap if their rhythms are not oversimplified. A Hard difficulty or beyond should be included otherwise.

Monstrata wrote:

I would rather we do away with Insane-Extra spreads entirely. It seems Taiko has already started going down this path from the examples Alchyr gave.

I think this is a step too far and the taiko examples provided are more like extra - extra + and closer to what i was suggesting anyways

I understand there are Guidelines in place to ensure the map corresponds to the general feel of the song, but like I said, they are Guidelines which imo means a sufficient number of essays could potentially allow the map to be rankable. I just wanted to deal with hard, objective Rules when suggesting difficulties above Normal are not mandatory.

In any case, I call it a band-aid solution because sure it might fix I > X > X+ spreads, but it would still be ambiguous regarding I > X(?) spreads. I think 5.4 > 8.3 is a pretty sizable jump from Alchyr's example (beatmapsets/1984610#taiko/4121975). If we're doing away with restrictions on large gaps in difficulty, could you generally accept 5.00 > 8.00 > 10.00 as a reasonable I > X > X+ spread on standard?

Anyways, my point is that your and White's solution is inventing a distinction between X and X+ maps which is going to be arbitrary. It solves 5.00 > 6.00 > 14.00 spreads yes, because those are clear-cut. But it causes consternation regarding X maps between say 7.00-8.00 difficulties. It's unclear whether there needs to be an in-between difficulty or whether by virtue of song characteristics, the 8.00 is still just an X and not an X+. Do you intend to define an X+ within the RC to get rid of this ambiguity then? Because if so, I think that's the wrong direction and just adds more convolution to the RC rather than cleaning it up.

I support loosening up rules on "spread gaps" between low difficulties. I don't think spread gap issues like, for example, a Hard having high 1/4 usage when the Normal's density is on the lower side, pose any meaningful effect on players when fixed, because nobody plays by going up the difficulties of a single mapset expecting some kind of even progression anyway. The difference between Normal and Hard is already huge.

Natural differences in song tempo, energy, rhythms, etc. already ensure there's maps filling all ranges of each low difficulty, so having these even gaps on a per-mapset level doesn't really affect that. Loosening this won't result in anything lost for players, but would make modding less annoying, so it sounds like a net positive.

---

I'm against removing the need for bridging extras between 6* and 10* difficulties. I think this proposal is too extreme and would result in a worse player experience.

As I see it, the main purpose of requiring full spreads is for all difficulty levels, up to the hardest maps in the game, to have a big enough stream of content for players at that skill level. This is important at every difficulty level, low and high. Doesn't make sense to require it at the low level and suddenly not require it after crossing 6*.

Like, the current spread rules cause a natural map count decrease as difficulty gets higher, which matches the decrease of player count as skill gets higher. So there are already way less 7* maps than there are lower difficulties, why discourage them even more and throw off the balance we have? You can say "energy would be better spent mapping more songs" for the issue about lower difficulties, because more spreads = more lower difficulties, but not for removing bridge diffs imo. Those gaps can be bypassed indefinitely.

---

As some others have said in the thread, if the motivation for this comes from large spreads being difficult to rank, then this is better tackled at a logistical level rather than making a change that would be at the expense of players. Basing activity requirements off of drain time sounds like a nice idea.

Purplegaze wrote:

I'm against removing the need for bridging extras between 6* and 10* difficulties. I think this proposal is too extreme and would result in a worse player experience.

When considering this, please consider how many players actually exist in this range. For example, Okoayu is #27,517 and his recommended map difficulty is 6.8*. The number of players who actually play beyond ~7-8* becomes extremely small the higher you go, and forcing a spread for such a small audience seems excessive to me. Let's not forget that filler extras tend to be of lower quality as well.

I personally do agree that 6-7* maps should still be included, hence the suggestion to create a new difficulty category for a ~6-7* extra, and then anything beyond that is optional.

-White wrote:

When considering this, please consider how many players actually exist in this range. For example, Okoayu is #27,517 and his recommended map difficulty is 6.8*. The number of players who actually play beyond ~7-8* becomes extremely small the higher you go, and forcing a spread for such a small audience seems excessive to me. Let's not forget that filler extras tend to be of lower quality as well.

I personally do agree that 6-7* maps should still be included, hence the suggestion to create a new difficulty category for a ~6-7* extra, and then anything beyond that is optional.

"filler extras are low quality" I don't see how this is true, nor why it means they should not be required or would even be a relevant thing to suggest here? You could just as easily argue "low difficulties are low effort" too

20k players is not a small audience, sure it's smaller than the amount of players who can pass 5* maps but there are much fewer 7* maps than 5* maps already. My point is that the balance of audience size vs map count already exists and is good, there's no need to disrupt it on the higher end for the sake of making it very slightly easier to rank 10* maps

Purplegaze wrote:

"filler extras are low quality"

I said "tend to be lower quality" which is true because filler diffs do not tend to have the same level of effort put into them as top diffs. Quality matters more with insane and extra diffs than low diffs.

Purplegaze wrote:

You could just as easily argue "low difficulties are low effort" too

They are usually very low effort, and even the 'high effort' ones require significantly less effort than an insane or extra diff. But quality doesn't matter as much with low diffs since the difference between low and high quality is not nearly as significant, and players do not play these diffs for a long time so dumping tons of effort into a normal is not seen as high return-on-investment by most mappers.

Purplegaze wrote:

20k players is not a small audience, sure it's smaller than the amount of players who can pass 5* maps but there are much fewer 7* maps than 5* maps already. My point is that the balance of audience size vs map count already exists and is good, there's no need to disrupt it on the higher end for the sake of making it very slightly easier to rank 10* maps

Fair enough!

-White wrote:

FelixJumper wrote:

I agree with the proposal's intention but I would suggest having a limit as to how far the gaps can be after a desired extra range. That way we could prevent something like having a 5* -> 12* map gaps.

Do you have a suggestion on how you'd like to see this done specifically?

Any gap between the expert diff and top diff that is 4* or under shouldn't require a map diff in between the two imo.

If the gap IS 4.01*+ between the expert diff, I think that there should have be a map that lands between 40%-60% of the gap size.

Suppose the range for a supposed 5 minute+ map for ranked is 2* - 11.07* with 5.85* being the appropriate expert diff SR. For anywhere below the 5.85* (ENHI), I personally believe there should be at least one diff in account of calling it that difficulty (2-3* for normal, 3-4* for hard, etc). The gaps here shouldn't matter, there's a lot of current ranked maps with gaps in them anyway that are relatively large. As an example: 3.64* -> 5.02* for hard to insane shouldn't be flagged as issue. With my example of 5.85* - 11.07*, with my way of seeing it, there would be a map diff 7.94* to 8.98* (calculated via 0.4(11.07-5.85) + 5.85 and 0.6(11.07-5.85) + 5.85, both rounded to the nearest hundredth, respectively).

While I know this may seem to defeat the purpose of the proposal, I think its a good balance to prevent wild diff jumps as I mentioned of 5* -> 14* immediately. This also just lets the mapper build one diff instead of needing multiple, which can be tiring on long maps I assume. Because realistically, any map that's raw 10* is probably getting played by a small amount of players as a whole, let alone those who can pass without using NF.

a few thoughts:

There is not and has not been any articulable reason for the "drastically large gap" rule since at least 2016. The ranked section is now home to countless spreads, covering nearly every articulable genre of music. The only even remotely sensible purpose or justification for this rule is avoiding creating a range of difficulty level where there are so few maps that a player will feel limited in their choices of what to play. There was a time when such a concern mattered, and such an argument could be made. Now is not that time, and this rule no longer serves a purpose.

Normal->Hard can reasonably be construed as inherently a "large gap" within the meaning of the RC. The jump in rhythm density from primarily 1/1 with infrequent 1/2 to primarily 1/2 with infrequent 1/4 is a huge filter for new players, and introduces players to the first major "skill wall" they encounter, where if they have not yet, they must learn to use both buttons effectively and start reading much faster approach rates as they do so. In service of overcoming this wall, players have access to a huge range of maps of varying difficulty and tempo between Normal and Hard to help them acclimate to the new challenge. However, it is unrealistic if not absurd to expect a player to directly "graduate" from playing a Normal near-perfectly to playing the Hard on the same set passably. Even if we held such an expectation, what would be the point? Surely we aren't under some delusion that players will just play the same set over and over again from first downloading the game all the way to 5 digit. Players have other options, and the ranking process wouldn't be impractical to operate under the assumption that players will exercise their free will and download at least two mapsets from the ranked section. Since such an expectation doesn't make any sense, why would we allow two difficulties that each independently satisfy all RC requirements for their respective places in the spread to become unrankable because of their relationship to each other?

Since spread difficulties are usually made to satisfy the rules for the sake of ranking higher difficulties, mappers will necessarily look for the path of least resistance when making spread difficulties. Of course, people just make lowdiffs to rank their topdiffs. Since mappers generally have little or no interest in the contributions that their lower difficulties make to the ranked section, the creative choices (or lack thereof) that they make in formulating lower difficulties will likely be focused on nonoffensiveness, rather than effectiveness or distinctiveness.

The path of least resistance when making spread difficulties makes little effort to introduce new players to novel and distinctive skillsets and themes. It's extremely convenient to approach a Hard difficulty as simply "take the normal and add 1/4 to it." This is also far and away the most common approach, and the least likely to be subject to contest or disqualification for spread gap.

A healthy base of lower-difficulty content for new players would try to maximize early exposure to different skillsets, rather than minimize it. Less rhythm density inherently means that lower difficulty maps are less representative of the music they're mapped to. One way of getting over this is to make lower difficulties more distinctive, which creates a stronger relationship between the map and the song. This is more engaging for the player and makes a map a more memorable experience. This also encourages players to broaden their horizons and develop different skillsets, rather than returning to the same Wonderbread experience over and over again because it's seemingly all that they can find.

The RC's "drastically large difficulty gaps" language counterproductively reduces the variety of content that new players have access to, via its chilling effect on innovative approaches to lower difficulty mapping. For the reasons outlined above, mappers have little or no compelling motivation to get edgy with their lower difficulty mapping, since making such a decision would mean risking creating a spread gap which, at worst, would require them to make the very same mindless and bland spread difficulty they had originally decided against making. This being the case, making a spread difficulty that does not fit into the oceans of the exact same spread diff mapped over thousands of different songs in the ranked section is pointless at best and counterproductive at worst, and the ranking process actively punishes those who decide to push the status quo in this way.

The nebulous language used by the RC to define this unnecessary and redundant requirement does little to serve the ranking process aside from create room for bad-faith actors to create endless arguments surrounding the permissibility of a spread gap--an issue that has little, if any, painless mechanism for resolution. There is no objective standard by which "drastically large difficulty gap" can be measured. Star rating has long been understood not to be dispositive to the inquiry, and there is precious little else for mappers to go off of when predicting whether modders or BNs will point out issues in the spread. There's a broad intuitive understanding of what "clearly too big" and "clearly acceptable" spread gaps are, and then a huge gray area in between the two. Entering this gray area has the potential to become extremely punishing. Bad-faith actors can decide at any point to block a mapper's set indefinitely on the basis of spread, and the only mechanisms to resolve this dispute are an absolute root canal for the mapper to go through. The mapper either has to create an additional spread difficulty to fill the gap, seek a gd for someone to do the same, or fight the issue to mediation, where the mapper may still just end up being told they have to make another spread difficulty. Who would willingly go through this sort of procedural punishment just for the sake of introducing 3* players to a difficulty element they may not have seen in other Hard difficulties?

Obviously, I support removing the "drastically large difficulty gaps" rule from the RC. This change is close to a decade overdue. Our new players and our mappers all deserve better than this outdated, nebulous, inconsistent, burdensome, unnecessary rule and its injurious consequences.

I encourage others in this thread to carefully consider how much of their arguments are based on "but that's different to how it is now."

am in support of the proposal and think that initially only implementing it for ENHI would be awesome if defining thresholds above that proves to be a major hurdle/source of delay. we should allow ourselves to have a nice meal now instead of starving ourselves until the chefs figure out the recipe for one of the side dishes, so to speak.

Purplegaze wrote:

the balance of audience size vs map count already exists and is good, there's no need to disrupt it on the higher end for the sake of making it very slightly easier to rank 10* maps

"very slightly easier"? that's a wild underestimation of how cooked it is to make spreads for hard maps, especially on longer songs. also, counterpoint: it'd be easier to rank 9* maps and 8* maps, too, and even maps in the mid-high 7* range would no longer need either a very high insane diff and a foray into the grey area of "fingers crossed that nobody questions the gaps" (see Mun's post) or 2 filler experts. depending on how the X+ threshold ends up being defined, mid-high 6* maps could easily benefit from the proposal, too.

Purplegaze wrote:

a natural map count decrease as difficulty gets higher

this isn't primarily caused by spread rules — or at least I really really hope so, because if it is, then holy shit we really need to get this proposal merged ASAP to remove that artificial roadblock for ranking harder maps. nah, I think it's much more likely that the natural part of the decrease comes from other sources: the limited number of players at those skill levels demonstrably leads to a limited number of mappers with the confidence, competence and will to create and rank such hard maps. the selection of songs most mappers can imagine supporting maps of that level also gets more and more limited the higher you go in difficulty.

current spread rules are simply an additional limitation on the number of mappers willing to go much higher than 6* with their top diffs.

and that's kind of the crux of why I don't think your argument makes sense: 9* maps are more commonly made than 10* ones, 8* maps even more so, and 7* maps yet more still, even just as fun projects with no destination but the graveyard in mind. making it more feasible to rank all these harder maps is just a win across the board. the availability of, say, 7* or 8* maps isn't going to take a hit just because a tiny handful of 10* maps can get ranked without diffs of those levels, because 7-8* maps are significantly more common and will be reaping the benefits as well.

So it does seem to me that there is a pretty strong consensus that low difficulties should not have the existing "no large difficulty gaps" restriction. There will need to be further discussion on what to do regarding higher difficulties.

That being said, I think we should go forward with removing the requirement for low difficulties, as it will help us better judge and discuss the possible effects of removing it for higher difficulties as well.

My proposed amendment to the RC is as follows:

Current RC wrote:

All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels and there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties.

New RC wrote:

All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time.

1. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels.
2. Additionally, there cannot be any drastically large difficulty gaps between any two difficulties. This rule does not apply to difficulties below the highest required difficulty level.

The way to think about the "highest required difficulty level" is to look at the top difficulty of a given mapset, and work backwards. On a 90 second song with a 9* top diff, the lowest required difficulty is a normal. Given the top diff is an extra, this creates a requirement for an insane and a hard difficulty. The insane is the highest of the required difficulties. Starting from the insane, any difficulty below it (the 3* hard, for example) does not have to avoid large difficulty gaps. An example would be a spread of a 2*, 3*, 5*, and 10*, which would require filler difficulties to bridge the gap between the 5* insane and 10* extra.

Another example would be a 4 minute song with a 2* normal, 3* hard and a 5* insane. Because of the song's drain, the hard difficulty is the lowest required difficulty, and the normal difficulty can be disregarded in terms of the spread requirements (this is no different than it currently is). Because the insane is the highest difficulty on the mapset, there are no skipped difficulty levels, which makes the hard the highest required difficulty as well. As such, if we are to judge starting from the highest required difficulty (the hard), we would likely judge that a 3*-5* jump in difficulty is excessive and requires a lower insane to bridge that gap.

-White wrote:

Another example would be a 4 minute song with a 2* normal, 3* hard and a 5* insane. Because of the song's drain, the hard difficulty is the lowest required difficulty, and the normal difficulty can be disregarded in terms of the spread requirements (this is no different than it currently is). Because the insane is the highest difficulty on the mapset, there are no skipped difficulty levels, which makes the hard the highest required difficulty as well. As such, if we are to judge starting from the highest required difficulty (the hard), we would likely judge that a 3*-5* jump in difficulty is excessive and requires a lower insane to bridge that gap.

wait hold up I thought this was something we didn't want

While I like the direction this is going in for lower diffs, the proposed new RC doesn't really address Extra difficulties. In any case White, I think we can get rid of the double-negative in your proposal. Maybe something like:

New RC wrote:

All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time.

1. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels.
2. Additionally, difficulties above the highest required difficulty level cannot have drastically large difficulty gaps.

I think having something small to define "drastically large difficulty gaps" would at least resolve some grievances regarding potential I > X spreads. For example like 4.00 stars. Arbitrary number of course, but considering we're using both "drastically" and "large" I would expect that large gaps like 5 > 7.5 are still not considered "drastic." What do you guys think?

1. Additionally, difficulties above the highest required difficulty level cannot have drastically large (greater than 4.00 stars) difficulty gaps.

Monstrata wrote:

While I like the direction this is going in for lower diffs, the proposed new RC doesn't really address Extra difficulties. In any case White, I think we can get rid of the double-negative in your proposal. Maybe something like:

New RC wrote:

All game modes within a beatmap must form a spread starting from the lowest difficulty level dictated by the song's drain time.

1. For difficulties above the lowest required difficulty level, the spread cannot skip any difficulty levels.
2. Additionally, difficulties above the highest required difficulty level cannot have drastically large difficulty gaps.

I think having something small to define "drastically large difficulty gaps" would at least resolve some grievances regarding potential I > X spreads. For example like 4.00 stars. Arbitrary number of course, but considering we're using both "drastically" and "large" I would expect that large gaps like 5 > 7.5 are still not considered "drastic." What do you guys think?

1. Additionally, difficulties above the highest required difficulty level cannot have drastically large (greater than 4.00 stars) difficulty gaps.

yea i had the double negative because I was concerned that people would view a 3-4-5-8* spread as acceptable because the insane is the highest required difficulty, and I would prefer to start the "no large difficulty gaps" at the point of the highest required difficulty. You'd be able to advise better on the specifics of the language given your legal background, but that's the intent I am trying to convey.

We do not ever use star rating in the RC for spread related reasons because it's unreliable and can easily change, so I don't think it's appropriate to do so now. I think most people today would consider 2.5* gaps to be pretty drastic, though, and we (the BNG) typically require filler diffs for that.

I agree with Monstrata that the rule could be reformulated to be clearer, right now people understand how it's supposed to work but the way it's written itself doesn't fully explain it correctly.

-White wrote:

Serizawa Haruki wrote:

Having a set wih a 2.0* Normal and a 4.0* Hard isn't good because it means players in the 3* range don't have an appropriate diff to play, as the Normal is too easy and the Hard is too difficult for them.

I don't get how relaxing this rule would be beneficial regarding difficulty inflation when this would make the problem even worse by being even more lenient than now with spreads and I don't think high end Normals and Hards should be normalized or even pushed further than they already are.

I don't think existing rules prevent there from being players that get marginalized either, and it is becoming worse and worse every year. I don't think the community wants to require more difficulties on each set, so committing to making spread management easier will allow for more difficulties to get ranked and will incentivize more lower difficulty Normal and Hard diffs to get made since a lot of the difficulty of them is being pushed up by the necessity of bridging the gap to a higher difficulty insane. Ultimately, I think by implementing this we will see more difficulty diversity in ranked.

The current rules only allow marginalization because spread requirements are based on map length, so yes, for longer songs this can be the case due to the lack of lower difficulties, but unless the spread rules are reverted, it's not really possible to fix this. I genuinely don't see how the proposed change would improve the situation since people would still not map diffs that aren't required if they wouldn't have done so before anyway. It would actually make things worse by allowing heavily unbalanced spreads which again is bad in terms of official content that is supposed to be accessible to various types of players.
And the question is, why differentiate between Easy/Normal/Hard diffs and Insane/Extra? Why is it okay for high end Insanes to be almost the norm nowadays? I think difficulty inflation is equally problematic for Insanes (and by extension, Extras) than it is for lower diffs. The only way I can see this promoting diversity is if mappers suddenly change the way the map which realistically won't happen just like that.

Deppyforce wrote:

sounds good i miss when players have to learn to play video games instead of the video game providing trivial content in the name of accessibility that is not fun to make for creators nor rewarding to conquer for the players which feels like a chore for both parties

edit: leaderboard players play maps for "free top xx placements" to decorate their accounts with does not necessarily actually enjoy the content they are playing for what it is. trust me, the actual "target audience" of such trivial intermediate difficulties are much lower than people seem to think

This may be your personal view on the matter but it absolutely doesn't reflect reality. Low diffs are not "trivial content" and while many mappers don't particularly enjoy making them, some do. As for players, I don't think you can speak on behalf of everyone by saying they don't feel rewarding, because they certainly do for anyone who can't play harder maps or for those that simply enjoy playing them. Similarly, the claim that "leaderboard players" don't actually enjoy this type of content is not true, and while they may not necessarily be the target audience, they are still an equally important part of the community that deserves recognition.

Purplegaze wrote:

I support loosening up rules on "spread gaps" between low difficulties. I don't think spread gap issues like, for example, a Hard having high 1/4 usage when the Normal's density is on the lower side, pose any meaningful effect on players when fixed, because nobody plays by going up the difficulties of a single mapset expecting some kind of even progression anyway. The difference between Normal and Hard is already huge.

Natural differences in song tempo, energy, rhythms, etc. already ensure there's maps filling all ranges of each low difficulty, so having these even gaps on a per-mapset level doesn't really affect that. Loosening this won't result in anything lost for players, but would make modding less annoying, so it sounds like a net positive.

Again, this is not the point of having a spread without big gaps. Yes, players can go to other maps, but if they want to play a specific song, there should ideally be a difficulty that suits their skill level. In an extreme example, this change would allow a spread with a 2.5* Advanced (which technically counts as a lower end Hard) and a 5.3* Insane, which obviously excludes a large portion of the playerbase.
The logic of "there are many other maps of all kinds of difficulty" is ultimately irrelevant because it can be applied to any diff level, not just lower ones, and it would mean we don't need to rank anything at all or that spreads wouldn't have to exist anymore.

-White wrote:

Purplegaze wrote:

"filler extras are low quality"

I said "tend to be lower quality" which is true because filler diffs do not tend to have the same level of effort put into them as top diffs. Quality matters more with insane and extra diffs than low diffs.

This is not true, or at least there is no actual evidence for it. And even if it were true, that's a behavioural problem with mappers/BNs and has nothing to do with how spread rules should function.

-White wrote:

Purplegaze wrote:

You could just as easily argue "low difficulties are low effort" too

They are usually very low effort, and even the 'high effort' ones require significantly less effort than an insane or extra diff. But quality doesn't matter as much with low diffs since the difference between low and high quality is not nearly as significant, and players do not play these diffs for a long time so dumping tons of effort into a normal is not seen as high return-on-investment by most mappers.

The statement that quality doesn't matter as much for low diffs is very concerning coming from a BN. Just because they may not be the preferred level range for many mappers and BNs, doesn't mean they matter less or that it's okay to brush them off as "low effort" and insignificant. They are actually crucial to the game's longevity and to ensure content is as accessible and diverse as possible, which is what the ranked section should be for. Therefore it's absolutely important and worth it to put effort in if you care about the game/community as a whole, and players definitely notice the difference betweeen a well mapped and a poorly mapped difficulty, no matter the level.

Mun wrote:

There is not and has not been any articulable reason for the "drastically large gap" rule since at least 2016. The ranked section is now home to countless spreads, covering nearly every articulable genre of music. The only even remotely sensible purpose or justification for this rule is avoiding creating a range of difficulty level where there are so few maps that a player will feel limited in their choices of what to play. There was a time when such a concern mattered, and such an argument could be made. Now is not that time, and this rule no longer serves a purpose.

Normal->Hard can reasonably be construed as inherently a "large gap" within the meaning of the RC. The jump in rhythm density from primarily 1/1 with infrequent 1/2 to primarily 1/2 with infrequent 1/4 is a huge filter for new players, and introduces players to the first major "skill wall" they encounter, where if they have not yet, they must learn to use both buttons effectively and start reading much faster approach rates as they do so. In service of overcoming this wall, players have access to a huge range of maps of varying difficulty and tempo between Normal and Hard to help them acclimate to the new challenge. However, it is unrealistic if not absurd to expect a player to directly "graduate" from playing a Normal near-perfectly to playing the Hard on the same set passably. Even if we held such an expectation, what would be the point? Surely we aren't under some delusion that players will just play the same set over and over again from first downloading the game all the way to 5 digit. Players have other options, and the ranking process wouldn't be impractical to operate under the assumption that players will exercise their free will and download at least two mapsets from the ranked section. Since such an expectation doesn't make any sense, why would we allow two difficulties that each independently satisfy all RC requirements for their respective places in the spread to become unrankable because of their relationship to each other?

I explained the reasoning behind balanced spreads in my responses above so I won't repeat myself here.
Also, the gap from Normal to Hard is indeed quite big but there aren't that many maps that typically fall between them, but this problem isn't solved by removing this spread rule because mappers won't have any reason to make an Advanced diff or make their Hard diff a lot easier than usual. Difficulty inflation has caused mappers to grow accustomed to a certain way of how a Normal or Hard is typically mapped and unless the requirements force them or the meta drastically changes, it won't change how they approach low diffs.

Mun wrote:

Since spread difficulties are usually made to satisfy the rules for the sake of ranking higher difficulties, mappers will necessarily look for the path of least resistance when making spread difficulties. Of course, people just make lowdiffs to rank their topdiffs. Since mappers generally have little or no interest in the contributions that their lower difficulties make to the ranked section, the creative choices (or lack thereof) that they make in formulating lower difficulties will likely be focused on nonoffensiveness, rather than effectiveness or distinctiveness.

The path of least resistance when making spread difficulties makes little effort to introduce new players to novel and distinctive skillsets and themes. It's extremely convenient to approach a Hard difficulty as simply "take the normal and add 1/4 to it." This is also far and away the most common approach, and the least likely to be subject to contest or disqualification for spread gap.

That's not really how it works, each difficulty level has very distinct characteristics in terms of rhythm, placement, pattern, spacing etc. so it's not just "taking a Normal and adding 1/4 to it".

Mun wrote:

A healthy base of lower-difficulty content for new players would try to maximize early exposure to different skillsets, rather than minimize it. Less rhythm density inherently means that lower difficulty maps are less representative of the music they're mapped to. One way of getting over this is to make lower difficulties more distinctive, which creates a stronger relationship between the map and the song. This is more engaging for the player and makes a map a more memorable experience. This also encourages players to broaden their horizons and develop different skillsets, rather than returning to the same Wonderbread experience over and over again because it's seemingly all that they can find.

The RC's "drastically large difficulty gaps" language counterproductively reduces the variety of content that new players have access to, via its chilling effect on innovative approaches to lower difficulty mapping. For the reasons outlined above, mappers have little or no compelling motivation to get edgy with their lower difficulty mapping, since making such a decision would mean risking creating a spread gap which, at worst, would require them to make the very same mindless and bland spread difficulty they had originally decided against making. This being the case, making a spread difficulty that does not fit into the oceans of the exact same spread diff mapped over thousands of different songs in the ranked section is pointless at best and counterproductive at worst, and the ranking process actively punishes those who decide to push the status quo in this way.

I don't necessarily disagree that it would be interesting to incorporate more diverse ideas, concepts and skillsets into low diffs, but this isn't related to the spread rule in question. It's an issue caused by the limitations and regulations of the difficulties themselves if anything, and it's hard to change them without affecting the suitability of a map with a certain skill range, for example adding reading challenges to a Normal is probably not a good idea when new players are already struggling at reading in many cases.

Mun wrote:

The nebulous language used by the RC to define this unnecessary and redundant requirement does little to serve the ranking process aside from create room for bad-faith actors to create endless arguments surrounding the permissibility of a spread gap--an issue that has little, if any, painless mechanism for resolution. There is no objective standard by which "drastically large difficulty gap" can be measured. Star rating has long been understood not to be dispositive to the inquiry, and there is precious little else for mappers to go off of when predicting whether modders or BNs will point out issues in the spread. There's a broad intuitive understanding of what "clearly too big" and "clearly acceptable" spread gaps are, and then a huge gray area in between the two. Entering this gray area has the potential to become extremely punishing. Bad-faith actors can decide at any point to block a mapper's set indefinitely on the basis of spread, and the only mechanisms to resolve this dispute are an absolute root canal for the mapper to go through. The mapper either has to create an additional spread difficulty to fill the gap, seek a gd for someone to do the same, or fight the issue to mediation, where the mapper may still just end up being told they have to make another spread difficulty. Who would willingly go through this sort of procedural punishment just for the sake of introducing 3* players to a difficulty element they may not have seen in other Hard difficulties?

This is a pretty rare occurrence, and I genuinely don't think this is a situation that is especially prone to "bad actors". If someone wants to halt a mapset from getting ranked, there are many other ways to do so, usually easier and more effective ones. It might be true that there is no clear definition of what is too big of a gap, but just like many other aspects of mapping and modding, it's somewhat subjective and has to be determined by BNs on a case-by-case basis.