Hi everybody! After weeks of discussion within the people involved in the Criteria Council, I'm happy to announce we've come to an agreement and crafted a draft for a new set of rules and guidelines for Catch the Beat. Notice this is NOT the final result, as we need the feedback of the community first before getting it officially bumped into the wiki. Here's the proposal:
General
Rules
Rules
See the draft of the difficulty-specific ruleset here: https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/435598
EDIT: There'll be a limited time to post your feedback in these threads, so make sure to do it until the 10th April at 23:59 UTC. There'll be a period of couple of days afterwards where the council will deliberate and adjust the draft to the recieved input from the community. This is to ensure that the ruleset gets approved by the staff in a reasonable period of time. It should be plenty of time to get enough feedback, so don't complain afterwards when the ruleset gets approved!
The thread will be locked for further deliberation on the 8th May at 23:59 UTC. Make sure to post your opinion before that date!
This will be the last 2-week period to recieve feedback from the community. After locking the thread on the 29th May at 23:59 UTC the ruleset will be discussed one more time with the last recieved comments and ammended by the osu! staff afterwards.
Common terms
General
- Cup: Easy
- Salad: Normal
- Platter: Hard
- Rain: Insane
- Overdose: Expert
- Fruit: A large object represented by a hitcircle, slider head, tail or repeat.
- Drop: A medium-sized object represented by a slider tick.
- Droplet: A small object representing a slider body. Missing these will reduce your accuracy, but unlike the above, will not result in a combo break.
- Banana: An object found during spinners. These award bonus points, but do not contribute to accuracy and are not required to obtain max combo.
- Jump: A spacing between two objects that requires the use of dash to catch both.
- Hyperjump: A more exaggerated spacing which cannot be caught by normal dashing. During play, hyperdash will be triggered between the two objects, characterised by a coloured outline on the first object.
- Edge Dash: A very large spacing between two objects where the required Trigger Distance is not reached, and as such, a hyperjump is not generated. The first object must be caught with the edge of the plate in order to catch the second object at all.
- Trigger distance: The minimum spacing between two objects at which a hyperdash is generated between them.
General
Rules
- Your map must theoretically be possible to SS. This means it must be possible to catch absolutely all fruits, including droplets.
- Edge dashes must not be used in direct conjunction with hyperjumps. This is because such patterns require especially precise movement and force an unreasonable restriction on accuracy required to catch them.
- Each map must use at least two different combo colors which must not blend in with the map's background/storyboard/video. This is so hit objects are always visible to the player.
- Ensure combos do not reach unreasonable lengths. Caught fruits will stack up on the plate and can potentially obstruct the player's view. Bear in mind that slider tails, repeats and spinner bananas also count as "fruits". New Combos should be placed regularly to clear the plate and avoid this.
- Try to have at least one spinner in each difficulty to create variety in the map and fluctuation among scores. However, if a spinner just doesn't fit anywhere in the song, then there's no need to force one.
- Overall Difficulty should have the same value as the Approach Rate. This is just a standardized value, as Overall Difficulty does not affect gameplay nor the amount of fruits a spinner has, just the maximum score of a difficulty. For cases where the two values are not equal, the Overall Difficulty must be greater than or equal to the Overall Difficulty of the next hardest difficulty.
- Hyperdashes may only be used on droplets and/or slider repetitions when the slider path is simple and easy-to-follow. This is to prevent chaotic or unreasonably difficult slider movement, as transitioning into and out of complex slider shapes with hyperdash is usually uncomfortable to play and a major penalty to accuracy for little benefit. Hyperdash on slider repetitions must not be used for more than two repeats, and such slider must not be used consecutively.
- Use the same slider tick rate on every difficulty as it is a property of the music rather than the mapping. However, lower difficulties may use lower tick rates to reduce accuracy requirements for newer players, providing they still follow the rhythm of the song. Using high tick rates purely to increase score/combo/difficulty is senseless.
- Hyperdashes should not be used when the destination of the hyperjump is located near the left or right border of the play field. This creates an uncomfortable movement as the catcher is forcibly stopped upon reaching the border of the playfield. Try to leave at least 16 osupixels of space between the end point of the hyperjump and the border of the play field, respectively at x:16 or x:496 at most.
Skinning
Rules
- Custom catchers must be included in v2 skin format. This is to ensure correct display on all skins. The required filenames are "fruit-catcher-idle.png", "fruit-catcher-kiai.png" and "fruit-catcher-fail.png".
- Custom fruits must include all necessary elements and be colored in a scale of grey colors. This is to ensure that your images are clearly defined and of acceptable quality. The needed elements can be found in the osu! wiki https://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/Skinning_Catch_the_Beat#Fruits. Additionally, it is recommendable to use transparent elements for the overlays.
- Skinned elements must be the same size as their default skin counterparts. This is so they represent the hitbox properly and don't alter gameplay. The current dimensions used in the default skin are 128x128 pixels for the fruits, 82x103 for the drops and 306x320 for the catcher.
- Custom catchers can additionally include the element "lighting.png" to complete the skin set. This element is however optional to add and has default dimensions of 184x184 pixels, though it may vary depending on the desired visibility of the element.
Revision #2
General
Rules
Rules
Common terms
General
- Cup: Easy
- Salad: Normal
- Platter: Hard
- Rain: Insane
- Overdose: Expert
- Fruit: A large object represented by a hitcircle, slider head, tail or repeat.
- Drop: A medium-sized object represented by a slider tick.
- Droplet: A small object representing a slider body. Missing these will reduce your accuracy, but unlike the above, will not result in a combo break.
- Banana: An object found during spinners. These award bonus points, but do not contribute to accuracy and are not required to obtain max combo.
- Jump: A spacing between two objects that requires the use of dash to catch both.
- Hyperjump: A more exaggerated spacing which cannot be caught by normal dashing. During play, hyperdash will be triggered between the two objects, characterised by a coloured outline on the first object.
- Borderline dash: A spacing between two objects which requires dash between the opposing borders of the two objects to catch both. The spacing is not quite large enough to create a hyperjump.
- Trigger distance: The minimum spacing between two objects at which a hyperdash is generated between them.
General
Rules
- Your map must theoretically be possible to SS. This means it must be possible to catch absolutely all fruits, including droplets.
- Borderline dashes must not be used in direct conjunction with hyperjumps. This is because such patterns require especially precise movement and force an unreasonable restriction on accuracy required to catch them.
- Each map must use at least two different combo colors which must not blend in with the map's background/storyboard/video. This is so hit objects are always visible to the player.
- Ensure combos do not reach unreasonable lengths. Caught fruits will stack up on the plate and can potentially obstruct the player's view. Bear in mind that slider tails, repeats and spinner bananas also count as "fruits". New Combos should be placed regularly to clear the plate and avoid this.
- Try to have at least one spinner in each difficulty to create variety in the map and fluctuation among scores. However, if a spinner just doesn't fit anywhere in the song, then there's no need to force one.
- Overall Difficulty should have the same value as the Approach Rate. This is just a standardized value, as Overall Difficulty does not affect gameplay nor the amount of fruits a spinner has, just the maximum score of a difficulty. For cases where the two values are not equal, the Overall Difficulty must be greater than or equal to the Overall Difficulty of the next hardest difficulty.
- Hyperdashes may only be used on droplets and/or slider repetitions when the slider path is simple and easy-to-follow. This is to prevent chaotic or unreasonably difficult slider movement, as transitioning into and out of complex slider shapes with hyperdash is usually uncomfortable to play and a major penalty to accuracy for little benefit. Hyperdash on slider repetitions must not be used for more than two repeats, and such slider must not be used consecutively.
- Use the same slider tick rate on every difficulty as it is a property of the music rather than the mapping. However, lower difficulties may use lower tick rates to reduce accuracy requirements for newer players, providing they still follow the rhythm of the song. Using high tick rates purely to increase score/combo/difficulty is senseless.
- Hyperdashes should not be used when the destination of the hyperjump is located near the left or right border of the play field. This creates an uncomfortable movement as the catcher is forcibly stopped upon reaching the border of the playfield. Try to leave at least 16 osupixels of space between the end point of the hyperjump and the border of the play field, respectively at x:16 or x:496 at most.
Skinning
Rules
- Custom catchers must be included in v2 skin format. This is to ensure correct display on all skins. The required filenames are "fruit-catcher-idle.png", "fruit-catcher-kiai.png" and "fruit-catcher-fail.png".
- Custom fruits must include all necessary elements and be colored in a scale of grey colors. This is to ensure that your images are clearly defined and of acceptable quality. The needed elements can be found in the osu! wiki https://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/Skinning_Catch_the_Beat#Fruits. Additionally, it is recommendable to use transparent elements for the overlays.
Revision #1
Rules
Rules
General
Rules
- Your map must theoretically be possible to SS. This means it must be possible to catch absolutely all fruits, including droplets.
- Timing jumps must not be used in direct conjunction with hyperjumps. This is because such patterns require especially precise movement and force an unreasonable restriction on accuracy required to catch them.
- Each map must use at least two different combo colors which must not blend in with the map's background/storyboard/video. This is so hit objects are always visible to the player.
- Overall Difficulty must have the same value as the Approach Rate. This is just a standardized value, as OD does not affect gameplay nor the amount of fruits a spinner has, just the maximum score of a difficulty.
- Hyperdashes must not be used on droplets and/or slider repetitions. This is to prevent chaotic or unreasonably difficult slider movement.
- Ensure combos do not reach unreasonable lengths. Caught fruits will stack up on the plate and can potentially obstruct the player's view. Bear in mind that slider tails, repeats and spinner bananas also count as "fruits".
- Try to have at least one spinner in each difficulty to create variety in the map and fluctuation among scores. However, if a spinner just doesn't fit anywhere in the song, then there's no need to force one.
- Use the same slider tick rate on every difficulty as it is a property of the music rather than the mapping. Using high tick rates to increase score/combo/difficulty is senseless.
- Hyperdashes should not be used when the second object in the hyperjump is located near the left or right border of the play field. This creates an uncomfortable movement as the catcher is forcibly stopped upon reaching the border of the playfield. Try to leave at least 16 osupixels of space between the end point of the hyperjump and the border of the play field, respectively at x:16 or x:496 at most.
Skinning
Rules
- Custom catchers mustbe included in both v1 and v2 skin format. This is to ensure correct display on all skins. The required filenames are "fruit-ryuuta.png" (v1), "fruit-catcher-idle.png", "fruit-catcher-kiai.png" and "fruit-catcher-fail.png" (v2).
- Custom fruits must include all necessary elements and be colored in a scale of grey colors. This is to ensure that your images are clearly defined and of acceptable quality. The needed elements can be found in the osu! wiki https://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/Skinning_Catch_the_Beat#Fruits. Additionally, it is recommendable to use transparent elements for the overlays.
See the draft of the difficulty-specific ruleset here: https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/435598
This will be the last 2-week period to recieve feedback from the community. After locking the thread on the 29th May at 23:59 UTC the ruleset will be discussed one more time with the last recieved comments and ammended by the osu! staff afterwards.