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[Rule Clarification] Drain Time Ambiguity

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Shohei Ohtani
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
So the Ranking Criteria Council has been super duper helpful, and has definitely made lots of changes to the ranking criteria, and completely hasn't died off behind closed doors never to be mentioned or brought up very again!! However, even with such an actively working team, I feel like I should still contribute some things.

So there's been a lot of unwritten rules on how breaks and drain times are handled in maps. I've followed these rules for a while, and have kind of known them since I've been modding for a while, but I kind of feel like these things should be in the ranking criteria (and forgive me if these are already there, I skimmed through it before making this thread but meh, I can miss things)

So,

1) All breaks must be the same. This rule does not apply to guest difficulties
2) All maps must begin and end at the same time. This rule does not apply to guest difficulties

There's mention of this in the guidelines, that are listed as such

Your difficulties should all end at the same spot. Having a fully-mapped Normal/Hard and a half-mapped Easy just looks sloppy/lazy. A full Easy may look boring to you, but not to a player that can't handle the harder difficulties.
It's really ambiguious, and minute cases like the ones I've had to deal with aren't really addressed. Especially the wording only states that they should end at the same spot (and the word SHOULD is in there)

So, what's the ruling on this? I've kind of become aware that I habitually will state rules and say "the ranking criteria says", when it's only some unwritten rule that is just kind of known within the modding community.
B1rd
2,974 posts
Joined December 2013
B1rd
Why do the breaks all need to be the same? Why do they all need to end at the same time? This is just more unnecessary restrictions on mapping freedom.
Garven
osu! Alumni
5,857 posts
Joined January 2010
Garven
From what I understand, they are lightly enforced. When I was active, generally break times weren't nearly as strongly enforced due to people suddenly having more "creativity" for the harder maps and just had no break, whereas they would suddenly have less ideas when it came to lower level difficulties or suddenly realized that players should have a break time while playing.

The start and end thing was mostly there due to the super-short easy maps of old. Beyond that, I'd recommend to have the same start/end point on all of your difficulties in the same set since it's basic design. You're making content for a game, and these elements should be roughly equal for all difficulty levels that you make for the song.
Endaris
5,282 posts
Joined June 2010
Endaris
I think that on maps with a longer duration it is legitimate to put breaks in Easy/Normal at spots that you map in the higher difficulties, simply due to the fact that inexperienced players need the breaks more than experienced players do.
That doesn't have anything to do with lazyness, more with a playerfriendly design. And in the moment I'm mapping a very calm part with low density in an Insane that is a piece of cake for my target audience(aka the player can rest in a way, readjust hand position) I can't really achieve the same effect on easier difficulties without including breaktime.

See here for example:
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/562105&m=0
Even though it's all about guest diffs here too, I think it makes absolutely sense to include a second break for the easier diffs.
Last edited by Endaris , edited 1 time in total.
Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Sonnyc
There might be a positivity by assuring cross difficulty consistency and organization.
However, there are also pros by using the optimal setting for each difficulties even those being inconsistent.

Since those might be different genre of beatmaps, I think leaving as a guideline as it is would work fine enough.
Mao
Elite Mapper II
2,963 posts
Joined December 2012
Mao
A Criteria Group meeting was held at 01.04.2016. We came to the conclusion that it is necessary to consider this rule / guideline, however we would like to suggest a different wording:

Difficulties should all generally end at the same part of the song. Fully mapping one difficulty and only partially mapping another is unacceptable. Ending a section slightly early or late depending on the difficulty and cadence of the song is acceptable, so long as it is done in a justified manner. However the beginnings and breaks don't have to be consistent.

We would like to receive community feedback on this topic before pushing it forward further, so feel free to discuss!
Okoayu
Nomination Assessment Team / Elite Nominator
4,959 posts
Joined May 2012
Okoayu
uhm can you clarify where guest difficulties stand in this wording

I'm using different breaks depending on the difficulty style already, but sometimes my guestdiffs prefer to end a section early for example, so interpreting cadence of a song is kinda vague
Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Sonnyc
Like other general rules, having a reason supporting that criteria would work better.

Difficulties should all generally end at the same part of the song. Fully mapping one difficulty and only partially mapping another is unacceptable. Ending a section slightly early or late depending on the difficulty and cadence of the song is acceptable, so long as it is done in a justified manner. This is so to assure players having a consistent experience through all difficulties. However the beginnings and breaks don't have to be consistent.
Just a random sentence here that went my mind, but anyways since this criteria being less value-neutral, such explanations would benefit imo.
p3n
Global Moderator
947 posts
Joined June 2009
p3n
This topic has been discussed today. A slight rewording to further clarify this guideline was proposed:

The important part:

  1. Difficulties should all generally end at the same part of the song. Fully mapping one difficulty and only partially mapping another is unacceptable. Ending a section slightly early or late depending on the difficulty and cadence of the song is acceptable, so long as it is done in a justified manner.
Further rewording to bring the "commonly known" parts up to the same level:

  1. Maps should generally start at the same part of the song. Starting a section slightly early or late depending on the difficulty and cadence of the song is acceptable, so long as it is done in a justified manner.
  2. Breaks should be placed reasonably. Depending on the different difficulty levels of the maps in a set the amount and placement of the breaks can differ.

Common sense implies you lay out the duration of your mapset and then you fill it with content that targets all players from beginners to higher levels. You ONLY cut or extend content for different levels if it would completely break the coherent difficulty within the map.
those
3,136 posts
Joined November 2010
those

p3n wrote:

Fully mapping one difficulty and only partially mapping another is unacceptable.
There isn't really much of a reason for this line to exist, especially without any reasons.
B1rd
2,974 posts
Joined December 2013
B1rd

p3n wrote:

Common sense implies you lay out the duration of your mapset and then you fill it with content that targets all players from beginners to higher levels. You ONLY cut or extend content for different levels if it would completely break the coherent difficulty within the map.
No it doesn't. The purpose of mapping isn't to 'fill a song with content', it's to make a good map. Different diffs are different, so they they will naturally have different parts of the maps emphasised or not emphasised by having breaks in different areas, and sometimes this may be at the end of the map. Forcing mappers to map parts of a map they otherwise would not will do nothing but decrease the creative freedom of mappers and thus decrease the quality of the maps.

If we accept the premise that all songs need to have fully mapped easy difficulties, then the current rule will suffice in warding against mappers not mapping parts of the map out of laziness. The new rule proposed by Mao is effectively no different from the current rule, so I don't see why it needs to be changed.
Shohei Ohtani
Topic Starter
Shohei Ohtani
so what u guys feeling
Bara-
11,978 posts
Joined April 2013
Bara-
I'd say it's fine for lower diffs to have more breaks. Insane and up can sometimes be very tiring due to having little breaks. If that'd be the same for easy/normal, it'll cause newbie players to have lots of troubles keeping up
Myxo
osu! Alumni
3,103 posts
Joined December 2012
Myxo
With the change of how the Ranking Criteria Subforum works from now on, topics like these are obsolete.
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