Exa wrote:

So this has been in my head for quite a while, so I went ahead and made a post about it.

As the title implies; I would like to request the addition of a new mechanic regarding the slider's velocity:

When the player interacts with a slider, he does so by tapping on it's head. From that point on, all he has to do is follow the slider-ball that appears while it travels with a fixed velocity across the slider's body. The feature I am suggesting, makes it possible for the slider-ball's velocity to gradually decrease and/or increase from the point of tapping, to a certain point across the slider's body.

Gradual decrease

The red point represents the slider-ball's starting point.
The bluepoint represents the slider-ball's ending point.
The black point does not represent the slider's end point, but a simple fixed point, being roughly at 3/4 distance from the slider's starting point to the ending point. It could also be on the slider-ball's end point.
The arrow represents the distance which the slide-ball has to travel until it reaches it's final velocity. That distance being from the red, to the blue point.

This is an example of the slider's velocity gradually decreasing. The narrower the arrow gets, the lower the slider velocity becomes until it reaches it's final velocity (black point).

Graph:

X axis represents the slider's body. Start being at 0.0 and end being at 2.0
Y axis represents the slider's velocity. Maximum being at 2.0 and minimum being at 0.5

Gradual increase

The red point represents the slider-ball's starting point.
The bluepoint represents the slider-ball's ending point.
The black point does not represent the slider's end point, but a simple fixed point, being roughly at 3/4 distance from the slider's starting point to the ending point. It could also be on the slider-ball's end point.
The arrow represents the distance which the slide-ball has to travel until it reaches it's final velocity. That distance being from the red, to the blue point.

This is an example of the slider's velocity gradually increasing. The wider the arrow gets, the higher the slider velocity becomes until it reaches it's final velocity (black point).

Graph:

X axis represents the slider's body. Start being at 0.0 and end being at 2.0
Y axis represents the slider's velocity. Maximum being at 2.0 and minimum being at 0.5

The mapper shall be able to determine how fast the arrow "widens" or "narrows" to determine how fast or slow the slider velocity fluctuates.
The arrow must always start (either way) at the slider's starting point to avoid starting the fluctuation mid-body.
There shall only be only one arrow, meaning only one fluctuation for each slider.
The black point can be moved across the slider's body do determine where the fluctuation ends.
There are limits to how fast/how slow the slider velocity can get and these are the same as how fast or how slow the slider velocity can get on the timing panel in the editor.
This is a very advanced mechanic and shall be used with extreme caution and only by experienced enough mappers.

The only visible element during gameplay shall be the "arrow". The 3 points are merely used for the sake of understanding the concept behind this.

Surely these should not be the actual graphical elements, I am just bad with working on editing programs.

silmarilen wrote:

i think this would hurt readability too much. you can already change the speed at which a person has to move their cursor without doing that by giving the sliders funny shapes or compressing them (like this or this).

Exa wrote:

silmarilen wrote:

i think this would hurt readability too much. you can already change the speed at which a person has to move their cursor without doing that by giving the sliders funny shapes or compressing them (like this or this).

I can't see this be used in small sliders, so readability should not be that much of a problem; especially when applied nicely.

Also why not avoid ugly and unreliable slider shapes like these and have an actual way of changing the slider velocity mid-body? (2nd looks kinda cool though but that's not the point)

Karuta- wrote:

what silmarilen is trying to point out is

when you play the map without taking note of when the slider's velocity will change (i.e. usually it is not readable unless you can read the mapper's mind)

while altering the slider actually achieves the same result without affecting how a player reads

I don't see the need to add this in, sliders are already difficult as it is

Full Tablet wrote:

If this gets implemented, I think there should be a new visual indication of the speed changes (since, as it is proposed, you would have to guess that the slider has speed changes).

Doing a velocity change of this sort by squiggling the slider is a bit more readable, since you can notice the slider shape and estimate how it will move. Even with that visual indication, sliders like that are quite limited in ranked maps, mainly because of the difficulty of sight-reading them.

Exa wrote:

The only visible element during gameplay shall be the "arrow". The 3 points are merely used for the sake of understanding the concept behind this.

Surely these should not be the actual graphical elements, I am just bad at working on editing programs.