I've had this idea for a while now. The idea is quite simple: the same way you can currently change the BPM for certain parts of a song, this would allow you to change the difficulty settings of the map for certain parts (cs, ar, od, hp).
I feel like the potential of current mapping is slowly running out - over the past few years there has been a lot of development on mapping styles etc. and right now we're at the point that a new map rarely comes up with something new - it's getting boring in a way. Looking at a recent addition to the map pool: Halozy - Sentimental Skyscraper went quite far with spacing, using the entire playfield and yet sticking to the rythm very well - despite its difficulty it was full-combo'd very quickly.
Point being the current top players are overskilled for most things that are possible with current mapping (exceptions being ridiculous BPM/difficulty settings) and even players like myself can handle high-end maps fairly well (without going overboard with mods that is).
Introducing variable difficulty settings throughout a map would enhance the gameplay by a lot - let me show you a couple examples:
During slow parts of a song the od and cs could increase - making for a more tense, richer experience than just tapping a few circles with 2 seconds in between each of them. This could really enhance the overall feeling and quality of the map and also add a new dimension to play with for mappers who might have been having trouble coming up with fitting patterns during slow parts.
Another example is a new pattern I came up with - imagine a low ar and cs circle - while its approach circle is slowly approaching a few other higher cs/ar circles appear around it in a square/pentagon pattern which you have to hit while waiting for the middle one to be hit. This pattern probably sounds like complete witchcraft at first but is actually very possible without breaking anything - having a later note appear first is simply a side-effect of the different ar levels.
This should hopefully give you an idea of the possibilities that arise just from such a small change (should be fairly easy to implement too, code-wise). It would put mapping in a new state of chaos and bring fresh air into the game and the community to probably keep everyone busy for a few years to develop new patterns, master them, master them with mods, ... essentially like what's happened the past few years, just on a new level.
These new maps would of course not be ranked if they're too ridiculous, just like the current ranking system - also they should probably get their own category. Talking about ranking.. it might be a little bit of work to get the current pp-system to rank them in a reasonable way but it shouldn't be too hard. Depending on how fleshed out the current system is, it might even already work.
So with that - discuss! Possible future of osu!standard? I really don't want to see everybody leaving in a couple years already because things aren't interesting enough.
I feel like the potential of current mapping is slowly running out - over the past few years there has been a lot of development on mapping styles etc. and right now we're at the point that a new map rarely comes up with something new - it's getting boring in a way. Looking at a recent addition to the map pool: Halozy - Sentimental Skyscraper went quite far with spacing, using the entire playfield and yet sticking to the rythm very well - despite its difficulty it was full-combo'd very quickly.
Point being the current top players are overskilled for most things that are possible with current mapping (exceptions being ridiculous BPM/difficulty settings) and even players like myself can handle high-end maps fairly well (without going overboard with mods that is).
Introducing variable difficulty settings throughout a map would enhance the gameplay by a lot - let me show you a couple examples:
During slow parts of a song the od and cs could increase - making for a more tense, richer experience than just tapping a few circles with 2 seconds in between each of them. This could really enhance the overall feeling and quality of the map and also add a new dimension to play with for mappers who might have been having trouble coming up with fitting patterns during slow parts.
Another example is a new pattern I came up with - imagine a low ar and cs circle - while its approach circle is slowly approaching a few other higher cs/ar circles appear around it in a square/pentagon pattern which you have to hit while waiting for the middle one to be hit. This pattern probably sounds like complete witchcraft at first but is actually very possible without breaking anything - having a later note appear first is simply a side-effect of the different ar levels.
This should hopefully give you an idea of the possibilities that arise just from such a small change (should be fairly easy to implement too, code-wise). It would put mapping in a new state of chaos and bring fresh air into the game and the community to probably keep everyone busy for a few years to develop new patterns, master them, master them with mods, ... essentially like what's happened the past few years, just on a new level.
These new maps would of course not be ranked if they're too ridiculous, just like the current ranking system - also they should probably get their own category. Talking about ranking.. it might be a little bit of work to get the current pp-system to rank them in a reasonable way but it shouldn't be too hard. Depending on how fleshed out the current system is, it might even already work.
So with that - discuss! Possible future of osu!standard? I really don't want to see everybody leaving in a couple years already because things aren't interesting enough.