Time for a little discussion~

For a while now, modding has included a concept of requiring a smooth difficulty spread from the easiest difficulty to the hardest difficulty. What defines a smooth difficulty spread, however, can sometimes be subjective and hard to pin down. What are your thoughts on the matter, and how could we clarify the exact requirements as to mapping a good spread?

On that note, what are your thoughts on the star difficulty ranking for Taiko? Should we consider it the end-all or can it sometimes misrepresent difficulty, and if so, should we raise that as an issue when a map has, say, N N H I?

Starting off, everyone who's new to mapping should read this thread, as it gives a good description of the requirements of each difficulty, and following this should give a decent spread. However, there's still some room for subjectivity, as there are use of 'mostly' and 'sparingly', where people's definition of such terms will come into conflict. Notably, the rules can change when a song's base BPM is particularly high or particularly low. What are your thoughts on the matter? (Personally, I think one should take the scroll speed into account, as well. Ease of reading can help determine how much or how little you want to map on lower difficulties.)

A second talking point could be perhaps the following: lately, I've noticed some modders requiring every section of every diff to be harder than the same section on the lower diff. Following the rule that 'you can always make the difficulties easier as they actually could be, but never make them harder as they normally should be', do you think this might lead to overmap? Say for instance you have a section in a song which is of less intensity, and the only conceivable way to map it leads to Oni and Muzukashii sharing the same notes, or perhaps even in extreme cases all 4 difficulties sharing the same 1/2 d d d. What are your thoughts on the matter? Should an Oni diff be allowed to use Futsuu patterns, if the music doesn't allow anything higher?

Good that you opened this. I wanted to add this topic in a more specific way in the guide as well, but never came to it. Posting in a thread is easier than writing an article for me. Maybe let me give you an insight of how I think about this as QAT? What I wrote might sound a bit like this is the absolute way, but it's just my own opinion about spreads; how I approach them and what my experience I gained over the last 5 years tells me.


The topic spread is actually not as subjective as one might think. You could even say it is pretty logic if you are used to music and mapping because, spreads are not a thing of fortune but of consistency and the way music works. I think you can even say that the consistency I am talking about is ruled by the way music works. So, let me start with the first thing I personally think of that should be taken into account for having consistency in your spread(I assume at this point that mapper knows how Kantan, Futsuu, Muzukashii and Oni is mapped): Representive parts in a song:

When mapping, you have to take care of how a song is made up and map to its parts and their intensity. Because if you follow this, you will have it pretty easy to bring up a consistent structure among all your maps, since you applied in that respect the same idea to all diffs, which leads automatically to a well spread. That would mean, if for example in your Oni, you have more patterns in the kiai part than in your normal parts, and the least patterns in calm parts, you should do pretty much the same in Muzukashii, Futsuu and Kantan to acchieve a well spreaded set. That's actually the whole magic about spreads and how they work. Though, there is something else that has an great impact on the spread, but which referes to the difficulty of a map in specific, too: Rest moments:

Missing rest moments are the most common disqualify reason in Taiko because, even though they seem to be diff specific, they still have a great impact on the spread in general if used inconsistent among the maps in a set. The thing is, while the idea of rest moments or breaks is to give mapper the chance to prepare themself for upcoming patterns; lowering the difficulty in your map and having some emphasition with this, there is still the danger that these breaks appear inconsistent among all difficulties. As a mapper I say, it is absolutely important to have in a map a good relation between patterns and breaks, which determinates the density of a beatmap. And that's where it starts to become spread-wise a very big problem.

As I said before, the way you approach to a song's parts should be pretty much the same among all diffs. And the same goes for the use of rest moments and breaks. If you use for example in Kantan and Muzukashii a sufficient amount of breaks, you can't have none in Futsuu. To have a picture of what "sufficient" means, I will give a thumb of rule I always use when checking difficulties:

Is the main snapping 2/1 + 1/1 the diff should provide 4/1 breaks (usually Kantan)
Is the main snapping 1/1 + 1/2 the diff should provide 2/1 breaks(and some 4/1) (usually Futsuu)
Is the main snapping 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/4, so in a more denser way, use 3/4 and 2/1 breaks (usually Muzukashii)
Is the main snapping 1/2 + 1/4 the diff should provide 1/1 breaks (usually Oni / Inner / Ura)
(above Oni level, we normaly have no problem if breaks and stuff differs. There you can go as you like as long as it sounds good of course)

It's not exactly like that, since it also varriates from case to case and you can have of course different breaks in a map. But this gives an idea how you can approach breaks in a map. The main idea is to look at the main snappig your difficulty provides with the result of having the needed breaks.


Of course, the difficulty of patterns are also considered in spreads. Like if they are for example monotonically or not. But as far as I can see, that actually works pretty well in our community and problem rather lies on where rest moments are placed and how the parts in a song are mapped. And maybe some of you might have noticed, that these two things are pretty much connected to each other, since rest moments and breaks are the one, who determined (beside the patterns) how dense certain parts become. So the tl;dr output would be following:



Hm. Not sure if I answered everything you asked above. Maybe I forgot something. Was rather a general thing I wrote, huh?

Well, let me answer here to your questions Coro.

You actually answered your first question already. The reason for havng a more cautious writing is because of the different BPMs or cases, where it is hard to apply said suggestions in the guide. As name says, it is a guide. It rather leads you into a direction how to map normal maps and indicates some kind of idea how difficulties are made up. This can be to some degree be applied to low and fast BPMs, but will be rather handled by the modding system itself, even though you could give a border, but it would be most likely vague.

About your second question I must say this is very true. Mappers often have similar patterns among all diffs, especially in calm parts. Maybe the sentence you can always make the difficulties easier as they actually could be, but never make them harder as they normally should be has been misunderstood? Because it shouldn't lead to overmap but rather to easier mapping, especially in calm parts. And in diffs like Kantan and Futsuu, this is most likely always possible except if there are really strong beats like you took for example 'd d d d', then nothing speaks against it to have sometimes similar patterns. But in general the main point is: "pleas don't map everything hard!" lol

The thing is that some modders look at star rating and judge from that, not from playing it themselves sometimes

I think we all know star rating is inaccurate for a few Taiko maps, it overrates repeating patterns in a row, like ddk ddk ddk ddk and similar. And remember max combo isn't always an accurate note density/spread indicator

About Coro's second question, I think it's okay to have a really calm part mapped similar if not the same, as long as it is actually the calmest part for the map in all the difficulties.

Also, sometimes there will be some kind of hard difficulty jumps across difficulties, which can't be avoided without the map playing/sounding bad due incomplete/awkward rhythm resulting if we force a smooth spread.
As long as the whole spread makes sense, in this case would be the Muzukashii not being way harder than Futsuu considering the whole difficulty, then there shouldn't be problems, though a smooth spread would be always preffered if possible. But remember sometimes songs doesn't want to cooperate with us

I should say this is my opinion, not a 100% fact.

I just want to add that there is a thing going on which people don't understand, and yet try to enforce, and that are the difficulty settings, more specifically drain.

So, your higher diffs have drain 5? Lower diffs need to have lower drain to have better spread! Wrong.

The way the drain works is that it's affecting on how much you regenerate your hp, based on the total amount of notes (or should I say notes per second) and the total time. It does NOT affect how fast you lose HP.
If you have a short song, putting drain 6 in Kantan is okay. You would be surprised if you test it out, I actually managed to pull off less than 75% total on a Kantan diff to pass it. If I was mistiming, I would go even lower.

Drain should be set based on what do you expect of the map, and not to some arbitrary value people are starting to believe it's right.
Would you want to let a decent accuracy but many misses 95% pass the map or not? Would you want to drop it further? Is your map mapped so the hardest part is the end? The beginning? So many variables which affect the usage of the drain.

In most cases it's not necessary to go above or below 5 (it's recommended to make it different across the board though), but even 7 can work, especially in lower diffs if the maps are short. If the maps are long and have many notes, even drain 4 might feel too much. It's all situational and is based on the mapping itself.

This doesn't mean you need to use drain 10, there is no need to overcompensate, but I just cringe when I see a low BPM TV Size Kantan with a drain 3 or 4. I could literally not play the map, and just hit the last few notes to pass. That's just extreme.

Well, just by looking at the screen Dake provided and without considering other factores but only density, that wouldn't be rankable. Too high difference between low<->high diffs. And in general (in my understanding at least) if song doesn't cooperate with you, normaly you are still able to make it somehow work. Though, I agree. It's not always that easy, which is why in such cases some lenienty should be shown.

Yeah, what lolcubes says. Though, there is some rethinking about it in general. So this might stop some day...

lolcubes wrote:

I just want to add that there is a thing going on which people don't understand, and yet try to enforce, and that are the difficulty settings, more specifically drain.

So, your higher diffs have drain 5? Lower diffs need to have lower drain to have better spread! Wrong.

The way the drain works is that it's affecting on how much you regenerate your hp, based on the total amount of notes (or should I say notes per second) and the total time. It does NOT affect how fast you lose HP.
If you have a short song, putting drain 6 in Kantan is okay. You would be surprised if you test it out, I actually managed to pull off less than 75% total on a Kantan diff to pass it. If I was mistiming, I would go even lower.

Drain should be set based on what do you expect of the map, and not to some arbitrary value people are starting to believe it's right.
Would you want to let a decent accuracy but many misses 95% pass the map or not? Would you want to drop it further? Is your map mapped so the hardest part is the end? The beginning? So many variables which affect the usage of the drain.

In most cases it's not necessary to go above or below 5 (it's recommended to make it different across the board though), but even 7 can work, especially in lower diffs if the maps are short. If the maps are long and have many notes, even drain 4 might feel too much. It's all situational and is based on the mapping itself.

This doesn't mean you need to use drain 10, there is no need to overcompensate, but I just cringe when I see a low BPM TV Size Kantan with a drain 3 or 4. I could literally not play the map, and just hit the last few notes to pass. That's just extreme.

this is pretty much why I put 8\7 on my Big Money's Kantan\Futsuu lolz (I need to revise them again)
the system kinda considers the song's length a bit more than the actual note density, it seems

I think it'll be good if more people know how to mod and map regarding difficulty spread.
The number 1 reason for DQs seems to often be difficulty spread, and it also seems almost every Taiko map that gets to qualified gets hit by the DQ (usually by our good friend Ono up there XD)

If so many maps are getting DQ'd, isn't that indicative of a bigger problem? Things like this should be caught by minimum the BNs, if not the normal modders, so just a little feedback~

You are absolutely right. I plan since a longer time to add a spread guide (as we handle it now) to decimate the amount of DQ's. Didn't come to it yet. Even though situation has become regarding this better, if it is urgently needed, I will faster the process?

I'll get some of my words on the question now.
Regarding spread itself, there are things to note.

1. The difficulty spread is even if the difficulty gap from one diff to another is right. It can be 1-2-3-4, or 1.5-2-2.5-3, both cases are even spreads in star rating. However, due to some songs not having a defined structure, the best thing to do is also to look at the maps themselves. It means that even if your map goes, let's say, 1.7-2.3-2.7-3.7, if the overall difficulty of the maps appear to be even, the spread is considered as correct.
Some jumps may be more or less pronounced, but as long as these parts make sense, there should be no problems.
Of course, spreading is the most tedious process because it can easily go wrong. Disqualifying maps for small (tiny) spread problems will lead to even more (insanely huge) problems after application, because of that.

2. Rest moments. This is a thing that we are required to add, unlike last years. And while some maps have a good structure with them, others feel like they were forced. Not having rest moments once in a while is a no-no because it will be tedious on longer maps. However, enforcing a great amount of breaks in the diffs is also a problem, because the diff that made justice to the song might become unnecessarily easy, or thrown to a higher difficulty level. And in lower difficulties, that suffers a lot, because enforcing such breaks (4/4 and 8/4) on 100 and less BPM will make the map ultra boring and probably rarely played. (100 BPM is 600ms for a beat, that is, a measure lasts for 2.4 seconds.)
Other thing is, the enforcement of breaks made the average Taiko set level decrease slightly over the past 3 years. What is now considered Oni used to be Muzukashii, or for some, Futsuu.

Is the main snapping 2/1 + 1/1 the diff should provide 4/1 breaks (usually Kantan)
Is the main snapping 1/1 + 1/2 the diff should provide 2/1 breaks(and some 4/1) (usually Futsuu)
Is the main snapping 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/4, so in a more denser way, use 3/4 and 2/1 breaks (usually Muzukashii)
Is the main snapping 1/2 + 1/4 the diff should provide 1/1 breaks (usually Oni / Inner / Ura)

There's a thing with these values, it's that they are fairly arbitrary, and thus can't apply on non-4/4 sections. 6/4 maps can't work with these values.

3. Sectioning. A taiko map can be divided into sections. Most BN, now with a big sword of DQmocles above their heads, are highly concerned about some portions not being mapped harder. Mapping these sections should be on the song's way to show you notes. Truth is, if it fits it sits. However there are things to note:
* If your Muzukashii has 12 notes in one section but your Oni 29, there's a problem somewhere.
* Mapping a small unmapped section on the 3 first diffs in Oni diff could work.
* Uncooperative songs might fuck up spreading, mapping to the song might not be a good idea at times.

4. Actual difficulty ? It might be a dumb question, but sometimes, by wanting to make a large spread, it ends up being stupidly easy at the beginning but very hard at the end, to the point that for the Muzukashii, making a somewhat normal spread would make it Oni already. That can also be a problem.

5. Definition of difficulty bounds, and difficulty limitation. This is also something that should be treated, so we don't get confused - defining difficulty bounds to each name is not a good idea. One of the perfect examples is Mooned Insect. We don't have lower bounds for difficulty, as it's defined by the spread itself, but normal and upper bounds are defined regardless of the song. The upper bounds of lower difficulties can even lead to a big spread refinement, which is the last thing a mapper wants to do after working a lot on his set. This also joins point 2, as using these bounds can lead to ultra break enforcement and unnecessary difficulty reduction.

tl;dr:
1. Even diff spread is defined by how the maps are related to themselves.
2. Breaks only when necessary, not too many, not too less.
3. Sections' difficulty should be adaped to the song unless undoable.
4. I don't know what to say
5. Difficulty bounds should be defined strictly by the mapset, nothing else.
6. Once again I might have said shit

1 is quite invalid due how broken Star Rating is, it shouldn't even be used as a guide to evaluate the spread ( https://osu.ppy.sh/s/55920 | https://osu.ppy.sh/s/59982 ). Better just use your common sense here.
In 2 I'd add when necessary and fitting.
4 is married to 5.

For the rest, you can have my babies for writing what I couldn't express in words.

I considered 1 as a map with no fancy business - a very simple map with simple patterns (Mooned insect has a very tiny star gap, in fact it's barely 0.2 between futsuu and oni). SR gives a very rough idea of the map's difficulty, give or take 2,100 note streams. That's the reason why actually looking at the difficulties give a more precise idea of the spreading through the Four Main. You can have a correct SR spread but yet have your futsuu easier than kantan at modt parts, due to the way it is computed. A lot of parameters are taken into account when I pre-mod a map (general look and testplay) such as note difference, SR difference and the feel of the dificulties (it's more obvious if you work upwards!)

_Gezo_ wrote:

What is now considered Oni used to be Muzukashii, or for some, Futsuu.

This one is tricky.
When considering a spread, in most cases this is true, but not because of the individual maps, but the mapset as a whole. In hybrid sets which have a Muzu and an Oni, or single Oni sets, you can clearly see that it's fine for the maps to be harder, as long as they are both on the harder side.
Also, in the greater picture, this isn't such a bad thing either. I actually quit taiko 2 times before I started it for real for the 3rd time, just because of the lack of easier maps.

In most cases, people map a yolo Kantan, just so they have it, and then they map a Futsuu diff either too easy or too hard. Toning it down means that you should probably have a Muzu at around the same middle level your other maps are, but in most cases people then start mapping the Muzukashii diff easier and they just throw in random super hard stuff.
If people map the whole set on the easier side, you can fit another harder Oni without issues, and if people map on the harder side (but still acceptable), you can even have harder individual diffs as well.

I've seen people do really odd things in their Muzukashii diffs, which causes confusion if it gets disqualified, and that is that they map it like a Futsuu for half a diff, and then they throw in super hard stuff somewhere, usually in choruses, and then it gets disqualified for being "too hard". Naturally, this would make people map Muzukashii diffs even easier when they don't understand why is it too hard. It just lacks consistency. The difficulty should be mostly consistent (can be progressive), and shouldn't be averaged out. This is actually why SR is a bad thing, it just shows you the peak difficulty of the map.
Of course some songs are more active at some spots than the others, but a proper preparation needs to be done. You can't just map 1/2 everywhere and then you make 2 easy monocolor triples in a 2 measure long 1/2 chain. That's just too hard.

I'm not saying you should map everything in 1/4, but try to be reasonable when forming patterns.

As for the breaks, that one is tricky. I for one don't believe breaks should be enforced to tone the difficulty down in a way that you need to have it every X amount of measures, but you should place them on fitting positions. When you break down the rhythm in every section, you can see which notes are less important, and you can just try to go without them. It's just that usually they are consistent through X amount of measures in the song, but it doesn't have to be.