1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

This rule is totally out-to-date and should be nuked. Nowadays converted CtB diffs (talking about the highest difficulty in an osu!standard beatmap) are a total disaster in most of the cases. Either they're boring to play or pretty uncorfortable or even "impossible" to FC due to the overuse of slider-jumps and other kind of spreaded 1/4 sliders. The rule was quite okay 1-2 years ago, but it's time to evolve and reword this rule:

...into something like this:

1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset if it isn't an Overdose level (or an Extra icon CtB difficulty), because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

According to this rule change, the allowed cases would be the following ones (correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Mapset with an osu!standard spread + mode specific difficulties: Not necessary to make a full spread of them. Having difficulties from the "Hard" level and on would be enough. e.g. std ENHI + Taiko HI / std ENHIX + CtB HIX.
2. Mapset with specific difficulties only: A full spread of each participant game mode is required, applying also the rule "The mapset must have a well-designed spread of difficulties, containing at least an Easy or a Normal difficulty". e.g. 7K ENHI + CtB NHI

Please discuss~

Going to voice my opinion as a convert-heavy player and a mode specific mapper here.

Deif wrote:

This rule is totally out-to-date and should be nuked. Nowadays converted CtB diffs (talking about the highest difficulty in an osu!standard beatmap) are a total disaster in most of the cases. Either they're boring to play or pretty uncorfortable or even "impossible" to FC due to the overuse of slider-jumps and other kind of spreaded 1/4 sliders.

I'm going to have to disagree with this. The level of convert quality for CtB is vastly superior to that of Taiko/Mania. Only a few maps actually fit with what you're saying here and I don't think that these exceptions should be made into the rule. I find lots of converts much more enjoyable than the current spread of CtB-specific difficulties we have.

We are also currently lacking in mode-specific difficulties when you compare us to the other modes, I think this rule would just widen this gap and make people less open to taking GDs then they already are.

Could offer more here but I can't really word it properly.

Riari wrote:

I find lots of converts much more enjoyable than the current spread of CtB-specific difficulties we have.

We are also currently lacking in mode-specific difficulties when you compare us to the other modes, I think this rule would just widen this gap and make people less open to taking GDs then they already are.

i really agree with these arguments...since im mainly a player my perspective is focused on the pure enjoyment i get out of converts/specifics
for me Specifics always had a feel of beeing "calculated", and while this is a interesting new perspective that hasn't been seen before it sometimes
changes into a feeling of "uncreative" stagnation. This doesn't mean i want to have a proper spread, since as Riari already said, getting CTB Diffs ranked is already hard enough with the few CTB Mappers that exist, so that would just stagnate the ranking of possible new interesting maps even more..
so im fine with the " 1 Specific is fine - Rule"

I agree with Riari here however there are cases where an extra CtB difficulty would be nice to be added. That is the case of X diffs. In a mixed set, standard difficulties gives sometime no challenge to fc them while the CtB is almost impossible for a casual player. Although it would be better to handle this on case by case basis that would make the whole system even more confusing since this gap mostly probably only recognizable at near qualified (if not qualified) status. So I think something like this would be nice to be added:

I can't really use pretty words but I think its easy enough to understand what I wanted to say. o.o

Edit: Btw I already said this once.

well i could say, if the highest difficulty in standard is Insane so CtB only allowed for Rain if the mapset only 1 CtB and if the highest difficulty in standard is Extra so CtB only allowed to get Overdose in the mapset has 1 CtB only

What I interpret to the rule is that CtB don't need easier diffs since converted maps of that level are mostly decent, so the bad conversion of the top standard diffs in the set shouldn't be affecting. Instead, as a solution to the bad conversion, how about something like:

1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset, but the highest difficulty should not be "far less challenging" (requesting clearer boundaries) than hardest standard conversion(s) in the set.

Heterozygous wrote:

What I interpret to the rule is that CtB don't need easier diffs since converted maps of that level are mostly decent, so the bad conversion of the top standard diffs in the set shouldn't be affecting. Instead, as a solution to the bad conversion, how about something like:

1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset, but the highest difficulty should not be "far less challenging" (requesting clearer boundaries) than hardest standard conversion(s) in the set.

You want the opposite here. The hardest CtB difficulty should not out-scale the standard one.

Xinely has the right idea here in my opinion, if the lowest CtB diff icon is above that of the highest standard difficulty, an extra and easier difficulty should be required to fix the spread.

I think this would be an acceptable variation as since the mapset would have Standard as it's main focus, it's not really logical to have a different gamemode with the hardest difficulty.

@Riari In fact what I'm trying to say is that CtB diffs shouldn't be way easier than the hardest standard conversions, so that the players don't have to play conversions just as a compromise to "outrageous" than "babyish". I'm not saying that CtB diffs need to go beyond the standard diffs, just mentioning that CtB mappers need to be aware of the possible gap.

Edit: Pretty much what Kurokami have said above, but if there's only one CtB diff, then this only diff should fill the gap if there is one.

Giving this a bump. Try and bring this discussion to a close within a week and we'll either bubble/flame depending on the outcome!

I've even seen mapsets with 2 ctb specific diffs on a standard mapset where the hardest convert barely plays like a Platter and then the ctb specific are relatively hard, and a 3rd diff would have really been good. But that's taking it too far, so I agree with Deif on the proposed change.

I still can just only say the same. With this change we force mappers to include an easier difficulty as well even though that Rain (for example) could be a really easy one. I still think this should only be applied if the easiest included CtB specific difficulty is on Extra level.

I find it maybe reasonable to add some "at least Platter" clause here. I find it weird to see only 1 CtB diff, which is mostly a Rain or even an Overdose at cases, whereas the conversions from the Insane are by far piss-easy and the spread suffers severely. Allowing 1 CtB diff per se is fine, imo. But if you only do 1, it should be a Platter or below. If you want to map Rain or Overdose, you should at least have a Platter.

That's my opinion. Keep discussing.

Kurokami wrote:

I still can just only say the same. With this change we force mappers to include an easier difficulty as well even though that Rain (for example) could be a really easy one. I still think this should only be applied if the easiest included CtB specific difficulty is on Extra level.

Even so, differences between specific and converts mainly start appearing on Platters, so it wouldn't hurt to add it, even if the Rain is easy.

Loctav wrote:

I find it maybe reasonable to add some "at least Platter" clause here. I find it weird to see only 1 CtB diff, which is mostly a Rain or even an Overdose at cases, whereas the conversions from the Insane are by far piss-easy and the spread suffers severely. Allowing 1 CtB diff per se is fine, imo. But if you only do 1, it should be a Platter or below. If you want to map Rain or Overdose, you should at least have a Platter.

That's my opinion. Keep discussing.

"At least Platter" also goes a bit too far because you'd need a Platter + Rain + Overdose (if you want an Overdose, that's it).

------

So, considering that (1) Most complicated cases occur when there's a Rain or Overdose (or both) in a standard mapsets where converts are easy and that (2) when specific diffs are Platter level or below spreads usually work fine, these rules should be changed to something like this (feel free to destroy wording)

A mapset cannot have just one Taiko, Catch the Beat or osu!mania difficulty. If you decide, for example, to include Taiko in your map, make sure you have at least 2 Taiko mode difficulties and that one of them is of an easier difficulty level if it doesn't have an osu! standard Easy level difficulty.

Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset only if it's Platter level or below.

This way we'll secure a minimum 2 diffs when there's a Rain or an Overdose (so either Platter + Rain or Rain + Overdose). However, this will not prevent cases where the converts are easy and the CtB specifics are hard, but then we have other rule on our side (" In CtB, the spread evaluation is upon the BNs discretion").

Based on this last rule, BNs and QATs could enforce the Platter in case it's required (for example, I suggested to add a Platter here, but I wasn't a BN back then). After all, Ranking Criteria is comprised of necessary but not suficient requirements for a map to be of good quality. So, in addition to only checking the ctb diffs, BNs and QATs should check if the standard diffs create a proper spread leading to the CtB specifics, which would only require testplaying the standard diffs in CtB mode.

Nah, platters are mostly not harder than any converted Insane. Playing with No-Mod that it. Rain+ Overdose seems good but Platter + Rain is a bit meh. Its like ENHI+IX (if we look the CtB diff from a converted view). I'm personally not against it but in a case of Rain adding an easier difficulty should be up to the BNs. If the Rain is hard (thinking here about one with many HDash, complex patterns), Platter must be added if not than it could be allowed.

I agree with Kurokami's earlier idea of making 2 difficulties if the one CtB difficulty is an overdose. In my opinion, as he also said, Converted Insanes in general are around the same difficulty as Platter, so the spread should still feel fine, imo. However, if the mapset has an extra that converts to a similar kind of difficulty to a rain, I feel only having an overdose should be fine. I also think that if this rule did get implemented as at least one difficulty has to be a platter or below, you should be allowed to do Platter and Overdose only, provided the song has a difficulty that converts similar to the difficulty of a rain. There is one ranked mapset if I remember correctly, that has a Salad and Rain, but not a Platter, and I feel this kind of thing should be fine if there's a standard difficulty that converts to that kind of difficulty.

Write up a useable rule then? o:

So it's come to this?

Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset only if it isn't Overdose level, because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

In cases where the Rain is hard (thus it should be fine with this single diff, according to this rule) and the standard set converts to easy diffs, we should still apply the fact that "spread evaluation is upon the BNs discretion". I would like to give that sentence some more spotlight, as it will be our key to enforce proper spreads in cases where it's necessary.

ZiRoX wrote:

Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset only if it isn't Overdose level, because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

What if

• - You can have one CtB diff in your mapset as long as its difficulty isn't higher than Platter, however, if the difficulty is above Platter then its highly recommendable to add an easier difficulty as well.

Just rewording what Kurokami said.

Ok, here's my take on what the rule should be:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

- Magic Bomb - wrote:

Ok, here's my take on what the rule should be:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

^
I agree with this, because not every standard map is a horrible convert. If the CtB diff fits with the converted standard mapset, it should be allowed, and this should be judged on a per-map basis.

Just sharing what I think of:

There are quite a lot of Standard maps are fun when converted to CtB in my opinion, and most of the CtB patterns are made, which are originated to the ones in the Standard maps, for example, *link, it is just some exceptional cases that abuses CtB jumping and streaming, or just with plain stuff, but still it is not really a big deal.

In addition, I would say most Standard maps are fun, maybe they are even more interesting to play than CtB maps. In those CtB maps, to be honest the patterns are really similar from what I can see, like jumps and streams within every 10 seconds.

To be honest, it is just basically lack of modders and BNs to help the CtB mappers along, to get their CtB mapset ranked.
From what I see, I think changing rules don't help much; helping the CtB mappers to get along the ranking process do help much more.

---

Anyways I do agree to this:

- Magic Bomb - wrote:

Ok, here's my take on what the rule should be:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

Such rule gives a balance to the CtB diffs.

If the Standard mapset is already with full spread, having a Rain or Overdose difficulty won't be a problem, since the players can play the easier difficulties (For example Easy, Normal, Hard / BASIC, NOVICE, STANDARD etc.) as their practice of easier CtB patterns.

- Magic Bomb - wrote:

Ok, here's my take on what the rule should be:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

Yeah, this is the best one.

- Magic Bomb - wrote:

Ok, here's my take on what the rule should be:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

Fantastic idea. This way, less people are going to get upset as well.

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset as long as the spread is consistent with the standard difficulties. This is because standard converts correctly to CtB, and so as long as the standard difficulties can cover the lower difficulties, a higher difficulty is fine. However, mapping just an overdose is not recommended, and in cases where there is doubt, spread evaluation is upon the BN's discretion.

This wording cover most (if not all) the cases, so let's get it moving!

I like MB's idea and think it would be a good compromise, provided modders/BNs/QATs are prepared to properly evaluate the converts to give accurate and informed feedback on the combined convert and specific spread. Whilst CtB converts are generally much better than for the other modes, there are exceptions as people have pointed out. You can't just look at the Std diffs and say "the hardest convert is within X stars of the CtB specific diff, so it's fine/doesn't need another diff", or such like.

As long as modders are prepared to play test and evaluate the converts in a mapset where appropriate with the same care and attention they would give a mode specific map, I'm fine with this.

Just throwing a random quistion little related to this. Shouldn't there be a little exception for taiko? I know that maps are converted to ctb well, but why do not we allow taiko to be alone IF the map was hitsounded such a way so it could be actual taiko? Meaning if it would play well and wouldn't break taiko rules.

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset

There is nothing about taiko here.

Kurokami wrote:

You can have 1 CtB difficulty in a mapset

There is nothing about taiko here.

But I was not out of topic, the rule was even mentioned on first page and the topic's name does not say it is only for ctb, so why cannot I ask? Basically, the question is just, why do not we add "You can have 1 ctb or taiko difficulty in mapset...". I already saw maps that converted to taiko well (obviously, some mappers might use hitsounds fitting to taiko on purpose, so why not), so instead of actually making this discussion again whole for taiko in different post, why do not we just confirm it instantly and eventually change the rule a little?

The op mentioned it because the first thought was to merge CtB into that rule. Converts will never work good in taiko as the easier difficulties mostly contains sliders and sliders has no feedback in taiko. Taiko needs circles thats why an easier difficulty must be added. Hitsounds plays major role but thats not all. Whilst in CtB the converts works quite good, so if the specific difficulty blends into the spread nicely there is no need an easier one.

Kurokami wrote:

The op mentioned it because the first thought was to merge CtB into that rule. Converts will never work good in taiko as the easier difficulties mostly contains sliders and sliders has no feedback in taiko. Taiko needs circles thats why an easier difficulty must be added. Hitsounds plays major role but thats not all. Whilst in CtB the converts works quite good, so if the specific difficulty blends into the spread nicely there is no need an easier one.

You're not 100% correct. Sliders from standard are converted to taiko as circles if there is no tick on them. Without tick it behaves as circles, so if there is such a map, I don't see a reason why it couldn't be rankable as well.

Slider velocity plays a big role in low difficulties, it's too slow compared to the standard Taiko SV. Crowded notes are not the best way to introduce Taiko to new players.

Also, Taiko needs to give rest moments between pattern to give a small break to the players, but mostly, to represent the song better, specially in low difficulties. Such thing is rarely achievable with the usual standard mapping nowadays, so it's better having specific difficulties here.

DakeDekaane wrote:

Slider velocity plays a big role in low difficulties, it's too slow compared to the standard Taiko SV. Crowded notes are not the best way to introduce Taiko to new players.

Also, Taiko needs to give rest moments between pattern to give a small break to the players, but mostly, to represent the song better, specially in low difficulties. Such thing is rarely achievable with the usual standard mapping nowadays, so it's better having specific difficulties here.

So basically, even if the map would be both perfect in taiko and standard, which would actually be rare, but some songs actually allow those pauses naturally, so it is not impossible, it would be still unrankabe. I know it is really rare, but some songs are built well for this and might result in a good taiko, in my opinion, if the map had all perfect settings and everything for taiko, why should it not have an exception, that it is rare is one thing, but still, I think it's not always good to ignore these even tho rare maps.

Bringing this back to CtB, I agree with MB's wording.

Wafu wrote:

DakeDekaane wrote:

Slider velocity plays a big role in low difficulties, it's too slow compared to the standard Taiko SV. Crowded notes are not the best way to introduce Taiko to new players.

Also, Taiko needs to give rest moments between pattern to give a small break to the players, but mostly, to represent the song better, specially in low difficulties. Such thing is rarely achievable with the usual standard mapping nowadays, so it's better having specific difficulties here.

So basically, even if the map would be both perfect in taiko and standard, which would actually be rare, but some songs actually allow those pauses naturally, so it is not impossible, it would be still unrankabe. I know it is really rare, but some songs are built well for this and might result in a good taiko, in my opinion, if the map had all perfect settings and everything for taiko, why should it not have an exception, that it is rare is one thing, but still, I think it's not always good to ignore these even tho rare maps.

If it's actually that big of an issue where suddenly it's just so perfect that you firmly believe that someone can't just whip together a little Kantan you can bring it up with the taiko QAT. Knowing the taiko QAT relatively well (for someone that doesn't play taiko), I know that they're not retarded.

There's no point in LITERALLY HIJACKING A THREAD to fight your ass off just for some VERY SPECIFIC INSTANCE THAT, IN MY TIME, I HAVE NEVER SEEN (unless you wanna count taik!osu, but that was built specifically to work in both diffs.)

Like, if this was a commonly occuring thing, I'd say it's worth everyone's time, but even you say that its a VERY SPECIFIC INSTANCE.

Plus, tbh, making a Kantan isn't really even super difficult. Even though I don't play Taiko, I still would look through diffs when I was a BN (mostly because I was reckless enough to actually rank multi-mode beatmaps back then ), and I notice that there's so many differences between kantans and easies that it's just really such a rare instance in which this can actually happen, and honestly, if it does happen, it's probably a really shitty easy mode in osu!standard, because the core of what makes an osu!standard diff is different than a taiko diff.

-----------------------------------------------------

Making my post actually relevant to the thread (and because I felt bad for fucking up ZiRoX's efforts to take the topic back), the wording seems. . . fineish. It seems like it'd be super subjective and painful to deal with, but I guess in this instance there really IS no way to make it a solid rule without just being like "make full spreads" (which, seeing as most of my CtB rank is from converts, wouldn't be very fun )

So you basically want to make the condition of having 1 difficulty dependant on a subjective reception of how the standard difficulties convert?

This does not work as rule. You either want to merge the rules and make CtB have equal conditions to Taiko/Mania or leave it as it is right now.

I don't get why the idea of 2 difficulties if one of them is an overdose (or just base it on extra icon ?) was dropped. It's from far the best idea here.

So basically just going back to what zirox posted (slightly modified)

1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset if it isn't an Overdose level (or an Extra icon CtB difficulty), because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

I don't think to force the easier diff to be a platter is really needed since light insane std convert are still correct.

Krah wrote:

I don't think to force the easier diff to be a platter is really needed since light insane std convert are still correct.

That's the thing. There are like 1/1000000000000 cases where a Platter should be added and that's subjective. But yeah, having some subjectivity in 1/1000000000000 cases is better than in ALL cases.

Agree with Krah (and ZiRoX). Actually almost every Insane out there converts to being equal (or even easier) to Platter. But in worst case its somewhere between Platter and Rain. On the other hand the Rains an Overdoses are on a much higher level. So skipping the Rain in a E/N/H/I (osu!) spread and having only Overdose results a bad spread. So in a case of Extra level CtB specific difficulty a secondary, easier difficulty should be added.

ZiRoX wrote:

Krah wrote:

I don't think to force the easier diff to be a platter is really needed since light insane std convert are still correct.

That's the thing. There are like 1/1000000000000 cases where a Platter should be added and that's subjective. But yeah, having some subjectivity in 1/1000000000000 cases is better than in ALL cases.

Yeah, this.

As a pretty much scrub CTB player myself, Platter is the middleground between "Oh god, this diff is so easy, it's really boring" and "Holy Guacamole, why in the world isn't there a lower diff than Overdose?"

Loctav wrote:

So you basically want to make the condition of having 1 difficulty dependant on a subjective reception of how the standard difficulties convert?

This does not work as rule. You either want to merge the rules and make CtB have equal conditions to Taiko/Mania or leave it as it is right now.

Perhaps to make this more objective, group standard convert diffs by star rating into platter/salad/cup categories. IMO once you get to a rain level difficulty a mapper should transition into mapping an actual rain; at this point CtB mapping becomes more distinct(?). Ex: If a standard set has converted cup/salad/platter difficulty levels and a mapper wants to add an overdose, a rain must be mapped as well. This might not be a good long term solution though if the star rating algorithm for CtB changes in the future. So group standard diffs by a more objective method if star rating is not suitable.

I'm in agreement with the reasoning that's been discussed so far, but I'm still a little hung up on the "you'd almost never need a Platter" train of thought - we're suggesting that having one CtB difficulty in a mapset is fine as long as it's not at Extra/Overdose level, but what if we consider the case of a difficulty that qualifies as an "Extra" when played in Std, but is significantly easier when converted into CtB? Here you could potentially still see a large gap in difficulty between the hardest convert and the CtB specific diff.

Some examples, just by browsing my songs list (and yes, I know some are quite old)

1. Xi - Majotachi no Butoukai ~ Magus - hardest diff is 4.67* in Std but only 2.48* in CtB, song is 170BPM with a constant 1/2 and 1/4 drum track and guitar solos that could easily warrant a Rain/Overdose CtB diff
2. An - Encryption - hardest Std convert is 2.94* but the CtB specific is 4.42*
3. Anamanaguchi - STILL SPLODIN' THO (Interlude) - hardest Std convert is 3.09* but the CtB specific is 4.5*
4. Nekomata Master - Far east nightbird (kors k Remix) - hardest diff is 4.78* in Std but only 3.17* in CtB, 175BPM with a wide variety of complex dubstep/dnb patterns that could accommodate an Overdose CtB diff

Since we can't use a simple metric such as the SR to gauge "when an additional difficulty is needed" - due to subjectivity concerns - I'm not really sure whether this changes much relative to the current system. Sure, a spread issue like those I listed above might occur in only a rare few mapsets in the current age, but we'd still have to make an exception for those mapsets, which would of course be based on subjectivity.

Since (unsurprisingly) it doesn't seem like subjectivity can be removed from the equation altogether, then the best course of action is to minimize it wherever possible, as ZiRoX and others have suggested.

JBHyperion wrote:

I'm in agreement with the reasoning that's been discussed so far, but I'm still a little hung up on the "you'd almost never need a Platter" train of thought - we're suggesting that having one CtB difficulty in a mapset is fine as long as it's not at Extra/Overdose level, but what if we consider the case of a difficulty that qualifies as an "Extra" when played in Std, but is significantly easier when converted into CtB? Here you could potentially still see a large gap in difficulty between the hardest convert and the CtB specific diff.

Some examples, just by browsing my songs list (and yes, I know some are quite old)

1. Xi - Majotachi no Butoukai ~ Magus - hardest diff is 4.67* in Std but only 2.48* in CtB, song is 170BPM with a constant 1/2 and 1/4 drum track and guitar solos that could easily warrant a Rain/Overdose CtB diff
2. An - Encryption - hardest Std convert is 2.94* but the CtB specific is 4.42*
3. Anamanaguchi - STILL SPLODIN' THO (Interlude) - hardest Std convert is 3.09* but the CtB specific is 4.5*
4. Nekomata Master - Far east nightbird (kors k Remix) - hardest diff is 4.78* in Std but only 3.17* in CtB, 175BPM with a wide variety of complex dubstep/dnb patterns that could accommodate an Overdose CtB diff

Since we can't use a simple metric such as the SR to gauge "when an additional difficulty is needed" - due to subjectivity concerns - I'm not really sure whether this changes much relative to the current system. Sure, a spread issue like those I listed above might occur in only a rare few mapsets in the current age, but we'd still have to make an exception for those mapsets, which would of course be based on subjectivity.

Since (unsurprisingly) it doesn't seem like subjectivity can be removed from the equation altogether, then the best course of action is to minimize it wherever possible, as ZiRoX and others have suggested.

Yeah, I'm aware of such cases and, indeed, my original wording suggested that the easiest specific difficulty in a standard mapset must be, at least, a Platter. However, there are some cases where a Platter isn't needed, and forcing a 3rd diff (where the actual rule allows only 1) may discourage adding CtB specifics to standard mapsets. I think the current wording is the best middle ground.

And in those cases where a Platter is needed, there's a rule that says spread evaluation is up to BNs discretion. If you really think a mapset needs a Platter, you're free to suggest it and, if declined, you're on your right to not nominate that mapset.

I agree :O!
Please nuke the old rule!
The insane's are like... either so so easy to clear or almost impossible like you said o-o

I guess I really agree about ZiROX arguements,
STD sometimes convert the Difficulty of STD > CTB turns the map into a Platter Diff map, even Insane map turns to Salad or Platter diff.
Alas, its a secondary option to add Platter if it is required or not to added unless to make a good spread mapset for other diffs.

But there`s some map that still concern, whether this difficulty is really a Platter Difficulty, for example:
Akiyama Uni - The Grimoire of Alice (HW's Hard) - https://osu.ppy.sh/b/344619

There`s certain pattern that goes from Platter to Overdose or Rain, but I`m not sure other map did this same issues.
But I guess thats my opinion.

Bumping this. Pretty sure we've already reached consensus or are really close to it.

1. Having just one CtB difficulty is allowed in an osu!standard mapset if it isn't an Overdose level (or an Extra icon CtB difficulty), because standard difficulties are converted correctly to CtB. Thus, in Taiko or osu!mania mapsets you need at least 2 CtB difficulties since Taiko and osu!mania can't be converted to CtB.

This rule will imply for the CtB diffs/spreads inside osu!standard mapsets:

1. Rain: okay
2. Platter + Rain: okay
3. Rain + Overdose: okay
4. Cup + Salad + Platter + Rain: okay
5. Overdose: not allowed
6. Overdose1 + Overdose2: not allowed

CtB diffs inside taiko/osu!mania mapsets will need a full spread like specified in other rules. This'll remain untouched.

Let's give it a try, sure.

Giving this a second thought, this rule would allow ridiculous cases like a Easy and Normal standard spread + a Rain. While I doubt something like that will actually occur, I think it's better to include something like: "(...) if it isn't Overdose level and the converted standard diffs resemble a spread covering the missing lower diffs". I used 'resemble' since we can't expect converted diffs to fully comply the description of a Cup, Salad or Platter diff.

Ugh, Easy+Normal can hardly called as "spread". If the song is really supporting just those two then the CtB is ridiculously overmapped and shouldn't be ranked imo. In any other case, just suggest them to add a lower CtB or harder osu! difficulty.

I don't feel the need for this kind of add since it will just had some useless "cumbersomeness" in the rule.

Btw it's not handled in other modes too since technically a double easy std spread is rankable and I can just put a hard + insane (taiko or mania) and it will still be rankable.

Seems fair. Move this forward :^)