The Mania Modding Team's purpose is to provide mods that are substantive enough to improve the quality of your map (whether it'd be through more profound musical relevancy, or better playability), to the point where it would exceed the quality of a typical ranked mapset. Or rather, to the point where you can look at your map and say "this is definitely a mapset that should be in the ranked section". This means that the higher priority is improving your map (and your mapping skills as a whole), not qualifying your map. While we might not be the best modders, we strive to be as elaborate in our modding as possible, giving reasons as to why we feel a certain way about a certain pattern and other things. You are free to do whatever you want with the mods that you were given of course, because you did what you have to do (mod a few maps or one from the special list) - we are not forcing you to do anything.

However, I do think that you should at least look at the mods and think about your thought processes behind certain patterning that is pointed out. If you have a gripe with a certain line in a mod, feel free to reject it, but I think it would be good to explain as to why you don't think it's a good suggestion. In the same vein, it is also good to look at it from the modder's perspective, going through their thought processes in a certain mod. If you agree with them, then you can adopt that certain view on a particular pattern and apply it to future charts. That's how you improve in mapping - though making mistakes and rationally justifying your own patterning. Mods are not just made to fix your map, they are supposed to help you improve as a mapper. This is why we try to be as elaborate as possible.

We can rank your maps of course - we have QATs and BNs. However, we have pretty high standards on what should be ranked and what aren't. Again, we're not striving for maps that are "good enough for rank", we are trying to qualify exquisite maps that captivates players. You shouldn't expect your maps to be qualified through this queue, because chances are there are certain things that we would like to point out about your map before moving it to the ranked section - that takes time. If we have a lot to say about your map, that probably also means that your map might not necessarily be up to our standards yet.

...We also don't have that many BNs/QATs to begin with. Especially not at this point in time, where the only two BNs are -Kamikaze- and ajeemaniz, the latter who is pretty on-and-off when it comes to qualifications. Blocko and Starry- are busy with their own obligations. That's all the less reason to expect your map to be ranked.

I want you (not you in particular, talking about the general populace who is reading this) to take a step back and think of why you want your map ranked. Do you want more people to play your map? Do you think you will be deeply respected just because you have ranked maps? While the first point is completely fair and valid (but I'll address this a few sentences down the road), I don't think the second one is valid by any means. People are respected for maps that are enjoyable - and especially now, people don't see the "ranked" label as a "good" map. In fact, it's generally the contrary. Some of the more notable ranked maps get a lot of backlash for abusing the star rating system (intentionally or not) or just has one ridiculous section which people only play because it gives a good amount of PP. Other ranked maps are played, but aren't remembered too much and are shelved a few weeks down the road. We want to try to improve maps to the point where the maps are memorable and a journey to play through.

The point is that you should not necessarily be looking at the ranked section as the endgoal. Your main priority is to ensure that your chart is enjoyable to the largest audience possible. This includes players and mappers alike. It's not possible to appease everyone, but we're trying to reach that point. You are no longer making maps for yourself (or rather, it is not your top priority) when you are ranking a map. You are mapping for an audience. If your map only appeases to a very niche audience (and it's not intended to do so), you have failed in making a "good" ranked map. Given, there are some maps that will not be welcomed with warm applause at first, because they're intentionally (and justifiably) rigid in some form or another. Those maps are an exemption; and chances are, your map is not built based on a certain gimmick (e.g. difficult patterning). So try to improve your mapping to the point where you can make a good amount of people say "whoa, this map is really good", rather than push people around and say that you want your map ranked just because it doesn't break ranking criteria.

Let's talk about the "cost" of going through our queue first, because this is a smaller issue. The purpose of having such a relatively high cost compared to your conventional M4M is because the ulterior purpose of this queue is for mappers to give back to the community through modding. This is why we also expect the mods to be detailed (though this hasn't been looked at too in-depth yet... that should change soon). It doesn't have to be as structured as some other mods that are given by members of the MMT, but it should at least be more than just "move, move, ^, ^, remove".

You also don't have to mod three maps at all to begin with. You can just mod one of the maps in the special list. The maps in the special list are maps that require improvement for us to "accept" them back into the queue. Alternatively, the mappers who have their maps listed in the special list can skip through us entirely by you guys, by modding the map with constructive feedback. We have given reasons as to why we rejected the map, so you can use those points to help improve the map.

So why do we reject maps? We reject maps for a multitude of reasons - but the most common reasons would be song choice and the fact that the chart really isn't polished enough to begin with. A chart with glaring errors (such as following only the percussion and not the lead instruments, extremely questionable/inconsistent layering) will be rejected, because these are factors that should be easily modded to begin with. We would like your map to reach a certain level of quality through other modders before going to us - mainly because we think it would be excessive for us to go through 2 rounds of modding (one to ensure that everything is layered correctly and everything, basically typical RC shenanigans, and one to finish up and improve your chart) for just one map. In any case, our rejection reasons should be constructive enough for the mapper to improve on. You can ask other modders to look at these particular areas if necessary, since these are the areas that we feel require the most improvement more than anything else.

As for song choice, first we want to say that we don't explicitly discriminate the song itself because we think it sounds bad or anything like that. We only reject songs based by song choice because there is not much you can actually do with the song with our current ranking criteria. We don't say that we're rejecting songs based on song choice explicitly, because there are usually some elements about the song that causes this issue of just not being expressive enough to create an exquisite chart. We point out those instead. Those types of maps, I don't think will be (or at least, should be) put onto the special list. This is because the maps are generally polished enough and probably doesn't require that much improvement (so mods won't be too meaningful there) - their best bet is to get other BNs to get their maps ranked. Those maps aren't necessarily lost causes, but rather they are maps that we have little to really contribute.