This is a mod request for osu!standard. It's a somewhat long and strung out request.
I plan to add some reference pictures and more details on why this makes approach more significant, but this covers the base idea for now.
Long Explanation
tl;dr osu's format of approach is different than the other game modesI wondered what exactly made the other game modes feel so different for me when I would play my favorite songs on game modes other than osu! Taiko and osu!mania I figured out quickly; the control schemes were something I had to get used to. CtB was different; I used the approach for something different, which was calculating when to NOT press the arrow keys while positioning myself under fruits. All of these game modes had something in common that distinguished themselves from osu.
I will try not to make myself sound like an expert at vision and muscle memory; I'm not. I will try to explain this mod the best I can.
Mania and Taiko are the most similar in this case. The keyboard is the only tool utilized, and one can expect the notes always coming from one part of the screen. The difficulty comes from coordination between colors and slight positioning between bars. CtB is a bit different than that; while you can expect that the fruits will always fall from top to bottom, the range of where the fruits can fall from varies enough for it to be a factor that you must always be aware of.
osu! does this differently. The entire screen is utilized as a factor where you must first locate beats during approach to place your cursor over it. The approach is placed right at the hit, and by using both the small approach visual and the music, you can hit the non-moving hit circle on time. Unlike the other difficulties, the approach played a much smaller role in osu! than it does in the other three difficulties. High AR is only difficult because of the APPEARANCE rate of the hit circles, not how fast the approach is moving. Approach is only really utilized in slow off-beat parts or right after a break in songs for osu. The rest is a stream of expectation and flow.
To prove how little approach affects us in an osu! game, I will switch to the topic of our current difficulty-increasing visual mods: Hidden and Flashlight. Hidden has often been made out to be an easy mod; it only really terrorizes us in the most jaggedly flowing of songs and certain single-point streams. In contrast, Flashlight is almost never used except on easy/normal and some hard songs. The approach doesn't help people go through the song; the sheer confusion of having to move the mouse to locate our hit circle is much much harder, and with harder songs, the appearance of the white dotted line can dictate whether we hit or completely miss a jump.
I will try not to make myself sound like an expert at vision and muscle memory; I'm not. I will try to explain this mod the best I can.
Mania and Taiko are the most similar in this case. The keyboard is the only tool utilized, and one can expect the notes always coming from one part of the screen. The difficulty comes from coordination between colors and slight positioning between bars. CtB is a bit different than that; while you can expect that the fruits will always fall from top to bottom, the range of where the fruits can fall from varies enough for it to be a factor that you must always be aware of.
osu! does this differently. The entire screen is utilized as a factor where you must first locate beats during approach to place your cursor over it. The approach is placed right at the hit, and by using both the small approach visual and the music, you can hit the non-moving hit circle on time. Unlike the other difficulties, the approach played a much smaller role in osu! than it does in the other three difficulties. High AR is only difficult because of the APPEARANCE rate of the hit circles, not how fast the approach is moving. Approach is only really utilized in slow off-beat parts or right after a break in songs for osu. The rest is a stream of expectation and flow.
To prove how little approach affects us in an osu! game, I will switch to the topic of our current difficulty-increasing visual mods: Hidden and Flashlight. Hidden has often been made out to be an easy mod; it only really terrorizes us in the most jaggedly flowing of songs and certain single-point streams. In contrast, Flashlight is almost never used except on easy/normal and some hard songs. The approach doesn't help people go through the song; the sheer confusion of having to move the mouse to locate our hit circle is much much harder, and with harder songs, the appearance of the white dotted line can dictate whether we hit or completely miss a jump.
The Mod
tl:dr the approach is done differently, will add pics that will describe the mod much betterI'm pretty sure I've been rambling up to this point. What does all of this mean to this feature request, named "Advanced Approach"?
"Advanced Approach" is a difficulty-increasing mod for osu! It focuses on bringing back the importance of the approach to the game, by changing the way approach works. Instead of using small circles that outline the location of the hit circle, the approach is a group of 3 to 4 slightly more translucent images of the hit circle, with the hit circle being completely invisible until the approach circles combine at the location of the hit circle. Based on the Approach Rate of the song, the images fly from scaled distances away from the actual position into the center, where they form a full image of the hit circle for the duration of the hit window, which scales on Overall Difficulty. Sliders act a bit differently under this mod. The slider start is exactly like hit circles, with around half (1/4 on long sliders) of the slider body visible until the slider ball begins moving, in which the full slider body length will be shown. Spinners remain unchanged by the mod.
There are two options for this mod: Advanced Approach and Advanced Approach With Easing (AA/AAE or A1/A2). The second option adds a non-linear easing to the speed of the approach circles, (it can either be starting fast then ending slow or vice versa). I would like to see that A1 would have a score multiplier similar to HD or HR, and that A2 would have a score multiplier slightly higher but less than FL.
With Hidden Mod, the approach circles remain the same way except the fact that they disappear shortly before the hit circle is hit, and no hit circle visual is formed when the approaches combine, similar to CtB on HD. The time when the invisibility triggers scales on Approach Rate.
"Advanced Approach" is a difficulty-increasing mod for osu! It focuses on bringing back the importance of the approach to the game, by changing the way approach works. Instead of using small circles that outline the location of the hit circle, the approach is a group of 3 to 4 slightly more translucent images of the hit circle, with the hit circle being completely invisible until the approach circles combine at the location of the hit circle. Based on the Approach Rate of the song, the images fly from scaled distances away from the actual position into the center, where they form a full image of the hit circle for the duration of the hit window, which scales on Overall Difficulty. Sliders act a bit differently under this mod. The slider start is exactly like hit circles, with around half (1/4 on long sliders) of the slider body visible until the slider ball begins moving, in which the full slider body length will be shown. Spinners remain unchanged by the mod.
There are two options for this mod: Advanced Approach and Advanced Approach With Easing (AA/AAE or A1/A2). The second option adds a non-linear easing to the speed of the approach circles, (it can either be starting fast then ending slow or vice versa). I would like to see that A1 would have a score multiplier similar to HD or HR, and that A2 would have a score multiplier slightly higher but less than FL.
With Hidden Mod, the approach circles remain the same way except the fact that they disappear shortly before the hit circle is hit, and no hit circle visual is formed when the approaches combine, similar to CtB on HD. The time when the invisibility triggers scales on Approach Rate.
I plan to add some reference pictures and more details on why this makes approach more significant, but this covers the base idea for now.