Beginning of the songSpacing - Here is the main issue of this whole set. The damn Rain difficulty. You hold your dash, you move, that's it. Is this a calm part? Yes! Then why it is mapped this way? Whilst in Platter there's not a simple mini-dash on the intro, Rain abuses of it. You could have made use of HDs or even dashes on Platter, too. Even on Salad, I would say! Exactly at 00:05:004 (3,1) - . When I asked you about 00:08:516 (4,1) - (on Rain) you told me "is the intro of the intense part", alright, let's take a look at Platter: 00:08:662 (4,1) - hmm... walkable
. I should talk about this in another section called "Consistency" but screw that, I will include this here.
Spread regarding spacing at the beginning: Salad > Cup >> Platter >>>>>>>> Rain
Have you forgotten the rest of the Rain difficulty? Of course, that's a calm part if you compare with the rest. What's the big deal? I'm not gonna make the whole stuff on the intro of Rain "walkable" just for the sake of "consistency towards the diff spread". Platter is supposed to be between a non-HDashed diff and a rather challenging one, so wanted it to be rather easy at that part, whereas in the Rain that's not possible.Consistency - When I refer to this point in particular in the beginning I mean what needs a dash and what does not. In this map, there's something really peculiar, and it's the fact that the Salad is easier than the Cup (in the intro, don't get this wrong). For example, in Cup you decided to split patterns into different sections, as you can observe 00:04:126 (1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3) - ; every NC, the placement of the notes changes, they stay in a linear spot but they... are separated. Salad, on the opposite side, is a straight line, you can almost pass it without too much movement, and that's what making the beginning of the map pretty easy, there's no real challenge, it /seems/ more difficult cause of the density itself, not for the patternship. On Rain, for example, there's only one pattern that follows this rule: 00:05:296 (1,2,3,4) - everything else is mapped "randomly" (actually I like it a lot, it flows decently buuuut it's inconsistent with your other difficulties).
(On Salad the jump 00:05:004 (3,1) - was reduced after some mods due to the rather large distanced it implied, being in the intro part. Cup uses dashes till 1,70x whereas Salad goes for 2,00x max, plus the difference of the note density and therefore the more than constant direction changes makes the difference between both diffs)Density - This is really easy to see, basically Salad and Platter have literally the same amount of objects in the beginning, there's no difference. Yes, the song has a lot of sounds and that's what makes this a bit hard to map. Or at least that's what it seems like! I'm a really newbie CtB mapper, but having a noticeable density across all the difficulties should be considered more. Salad is really exaggerated in this way.
Spread regarding density at the beginning: Cup >>>> Salad/Plater >> Rain
(There is a slight difference on the # of objects Salad/Platter. I must say that it was hard for me to keep a real consistency throughout all diffs, but the fact that a few extra notes were added and the part where the spinner 00:08:809 (1) - should be was mapped was sufficient for me to make a difference. I'm sorry it didn't impressed you that way)Design - Something similar to what I said in consistency. The design of the difficulties should be mapped differently while Salad / Platter are the same.
(Now that you mentioned it, it's true that the design for both diffs looks similar in the editor mode. This is however totally unintentional lol. Testing both diffs should be enough to see that there is actually a difference)The non-kiai partCup / Salad - The gap between these difficulties is just insanely big, not as much as Platter/Rain, but still. Salad's density is too much and uses some really "hard" patterns for the kind of difficulty you are mapping. The real gap between these is density-wise and also some design. For example, in Cup you literally abuse of the move-move-stand still pattern, because not too many sliders require a certain movement, they are indeed good for this difficulty, but they are too many so they may be a bit too tedious to play, and so, boring. There are only two patterns that doesn't fit at all in your Cup which are 00:38:662 (2,3,1,2,1) - and 00:43:345 (2,3,1,2,1) - . They do require a lot of movement and the density is just too much compared to other patterns. For some really odd reason, those patterns are very identical to the ones appearing on Salad, very similar actually, and that is when you have a mini-gap with the Platter. The spacing is really good, there's a good spread here, every note is perfectly emphasised and not too many dashes are needed on Salad, good job.
(Well, better than keeping all sliders vertical and get them w/o moving the catcher)Salad / Platter - Kuro, wake up!!!! The gap between these difficulties isn't that high. The only problem I find between these are the streams. Aw, boy, the streams, why did you map them separately, I told you! Although they seem to be hard, they flow perfectly with the following object, so that's an extra point for Deif, hurray! You /may/ think of "oh my God, Deif's using back-and-forths, that's so hard for a Platter difficulty! But they aren't such a big deal, I don't even need to dash to catch 'em. Regarding density, it's fine; in fact, on some really specific points you will notice that there are more notes on Salad (00:50:809 (3,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) - ) than in Platter (00:50:809 - ). Your consistency between these difficulties could be seriously way better, but isn't /that/ bad, hey: on Platter: 00:52:126 (1,1,1) - shouldn't the (1)'s increase their spacing gradually? Why the 3rd one has the same spacing as the second one; vice versa, 00:52:126 (1,1) - on Salad.
(There's already a dash to differenciate the phrases. Was a crescendo truly needed?)Platter / Rain - Literally boom. There's not a single thing I could say "they are more or less similar" / "they fit with the spread". Platter has about 11 HDashes on the non-Kiai and only on really prominent notes. Rain is a spam of HDashes, where there should be a dash, there's a Hyper, the difference between a Clap hitsound and a Finish one is nonexistent. As said, the only "difference" is Rain having linear streams while Platter require a certain movement to both sides. You created a monster, mom, this is, indeed an Overdose.
Spread of the the non-kiai part: Cup >>>> Salad >> Plater >>>>>>>> Rain
(There's no way that the Rain can be compared to an Overdose. It's the highest difficulty of the spread and the BPM is rather high, but that doesn't mean it's a real challenge of difficulty. My intention was to create a difficulty that can be reminded with unique patterns, instead of the average anime map. The Platter was also notched a bit more difficult to balance the spread, though it looks it wasn't as much as I expected)The_Kiai.jpgCup - Excellent actually, love it. The only "thing" I can say about this is... 01:11:735 (3,1,2,1,2,1) - yes, I mentioned it on a previous mod, however this sounds really weird if you compare it to your other difficulties. I mean, this is the damn Kiai, you can make patterns a bit more "heavy" / "dense", use them if necessary.
(Why do you give me a piece of advice and retreat afterwards? D: Nevermind, even though this is the "damn kiai" you cannot forget that it's the easiest diff of the mapset. Not necessary at all to exaggerate)Salad - Ugh, the back-and-forths. As a personal comment, you could have used more dashes, there are literally 0. Just saying, by the way, 01:02:662 (1,2,1) - this pattern is really hard for Salad-level players (as a player I can confirm it, hah), the curves from (1,2) could be removed for some first-try SS:
http://puu.sh/lGV0T/1244f180ee.jpg . Compared to the rest of the map, the Kiai is very different actually, is basically a full-motion part. I like things like that, but it seems like another map, actually.
(I can't FC without using the dash button orz. Anyway, I didn't see any point where it was possible to add real-real dashes apart of 01:00:321 (1,2,3,4) - which are direction changes again. I'm afraid if the distance of those get increased, people would say BOOOO that's too hard for a Salad blahblahblah)Platter - For some reason, this seems easier than Salad, nice. Good usage of HDashes, good flow, back-and-forths are present as well.
(Say what? o_o)The monster - SV changes, horizontal sliders, HDashes. Nope, not going full in-depth here. Just one thing: be consistent. Throughout this part you are literally copy-pasting sliders, then why 01:19:931 (5) - 01:12:760 (4) - why they appear as random objects there? Shouldn't 01:12:028 (1,2,3,4,5) - have the same rhythm as 01:10:857 (1,2,3,4) - ? You already know this, but usually copying rhythms for 2 stanzas is a great idea, it might sound a bit lazy but is the best option, sometimes.
Spread of the the Kiai part: Cup >>> Salad >> Platter >>>>>>>> Rain
(That was the most logical option for me to fit the lyrics. The 1st part uses 2 1/2 sliders whose distance isn't that big because the lyrics were rather consistent and low. The 2nd part was splitted into note - 1/2 slider - note to go with the intensity of them. The jump (3,4) wouldn't have been possible if the structure were the same as in the 1st part, so I could "play" a bit more with larger distances rather than fixed distances. (4) could've been a slider with a repetition in order to avoid (5), but well... I'm a fan of using symmetrical stuff)To sum up:
I can't pass the beginning of the Rain difficulty so I'm here to complain about the whole set!!!11!
Deal with it.