Before yesterday it never even once crossed my mind that people are treating the "consecutive diff order" as not skipping web icons for difficulties. This is beyond stupid. Who started treating it like this?
Let me show you something:
This is the range that decides which
WEB ICONS are used depending on the star rating of any given map. This does, in most cases, NOT indicate a good diff spread.
See the small window to achieve a "Normal" rating? Some songs make it almost impossible to achieve the E N H spread while properly utilizing the respective gameplay elements in each difficulty bracket. You can end up with either E E H or E H H depending on the BPM of the song but the difficulties themselves are actually a perfect spread.
The quality of a diff spread can only be measured by checking gameplay elements used in each diff.
A nice even SR curve without huge jumps is also good to have. There have been guidelines for years and they have been consistent for the lower difficulties. I gathered most of the stuff that has been the "norm" but it is by no means complete. This only covers the lower spread as changes and new trends in mapping will steadily evolve the Insane and Extra tiers of beatmapping.
[Easy]
Generally following the baseline and the most distinctive features of a song. Leave some recovery times and use sliders to avoid monotonous 1/1 spam. Following the vocals or melody is a possibility. Consistent spacing is required to teach beginners the correlation between timing and distance.
Difficulty setup should include a low slider velocity, generous drain rate, low to medium hit accuracy, and a big circle size. Approach rate should be set to match the BPM and slider velocity of the map and allow enough time to plan the next move without cluttering the screen with too many hit objects.
Avoid stacked notes
Avoid overlapping notes
Avoid kick sliders
[Normal]
Generally following the most distinctive features of a song. Recovery times should be plenty but less than in the related Easy map. Use of 1/2 notes is encouraged as well as the developement of more interesting beat placements if the song allows it. Spacing should be mostly consistent to teach beginners the correlation between timing and distance.
Difficulty setup should use a low to medium slider velocity, medium drain rate, medium hit accuracy, and a big circle size that is the same or smaller than in the related Easy map. Approach rate should match the higher slider velocity and pacing of the map while leaving enough reaction and planning time without cluttering the screen.
Avoid triplets/streams (1/4 notes)
Avoid spacing inconsistencies
[Hard]
Following mostly "what you can hear". Try to capture the essence of the song and don't leave out too much. Interesting patterns and beat placements are encouraged along with jumps and short streams/triplets. If your mapset features a Normal and an Insane make sure your Hard map is a reasonable stepping stone between them.
Difficulty setup should include a BPM appropriate slider velocity that captures the pacing of the song. Use multiple slider velocities if needed. Drain rate and hit accuracy should balance the difficulty of your patterns and the frequency of streams and other 1/4 notes. Approach rate should match the BPM and slider velocity.
Avoid extremely long streams
Avoid full screen jump patterns
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Now that this is covered:
The "rule" will stay. The mis-interpretation will probably result in a rewording and the addition of a set of guidelines that will have to be worked on before they will be included.
We want to avoid spreads like
N I I I. We also never intended to rely on web icons to evaluate the qualitiy of a diff spread. Depending on the BPM and nature of a song the SR completely fails to capture the actual difficulty of beginner or medium maps. Things like beat placement, readability, and usage of established gameplay elements will always be judged by the modding community and the BAT (or equivalent).
