Hello, since I was told I should be ashamed for not wanting to make this thread here it is.
This is about the general guidelines.



So going through that:
Rewording
I suggest to reword the part that explains linear difficulty spread, mainly because relying on star rating 1) can't be applied to all modes and 2) is somewhat dumb.

Removal
I think this should be removed as I don't think wub-maps and songs with general tempo changes should need to explain their usage of slider velocities. The current mapping meta seems to employ more than 3 slider velocities on average depending on the song, so i don't think anyone has felt the need to justify breaking this guideline recently anyways.
I think this should be removed because while the chorus for "commonly mapped" stuff does start on a downbeat, that isn't necessarily true for all songs and you shouldn't have to justify that your rock songs like Injection start kiais on red ticks
Uhh... So you have to justify putting effort into your 4 minute set...? This feels out of touch with current mapping, honestly.

Revision
I would like revision on this by the RC council or something simply because I don't think that people like inverness or Priti should have to justify whatever they made, ever just because they probably cannot pass it. I do not think it's necessary to be able to pass the difficulties in your own set, but generally think it's better to somewhat be able to play what you're making. Hence I'm unsure on what to suggest to do with this thing because I agree with the rule but don't see it as necessary or something you would dq over, ever.

Guideline Moving
My reasoning for the following is similar: These are the general guidelines, they should apply to all gamemodes, and these don't seem to fit on the main rc.
Seems to be worded towards standard, can be applied to all modes probably (not entirely sure how osu!catch handles sv changes), but in its current wording it seems to be more towards standard, either revise this wording or move it to standard.
Doesn't apply for gamemodes such as osu!mania and osu!taiko, as they don't have the need to rest any aim hand or whatever to realign, they handle this with rest moments and usually map the whole song, this seems misplaced, not sure about osu!catch
osu!mania doesn't have sliderticks, sliderticks work entirely differently in osu!taiko, and i don't know if osu!catch hitsounds sliderticks or if this happened or if it's discouraged or actually encouraged. Seems misplaced as is.

Feedback and suggestions of any kind are welcome!
I also need clarification on the stance of osu!catch towards most of my suggestions.

Okorin wrote:

Hello, since I was told I should be ashamed for not wanting to make this thread here it is.

this is the most loctav quote I've heard in my life i don't even care if he didn't say it

Anyways, I'm happy that you decided to make this and it's unfortunate that the Ranking Criteria Council, who's job was to do exactly this, hasn't stepped up and promoted anything like this (But they have actually looked at stuff in this subforum so that's super cool that they're doing stuff).

I'm gonna go ahead and only comment on the revisions and stuff that I disagree with

Make sure that you can pass each difficulty in your mapset. Continually test-playing your map is one of the best ways to spot mistakes and correct issues.

So this rule definitely applies probably to me more than any other active mapper in this game. I'm an incredibly low-ranked player, and I can't pass a LOT of my maps. Granted, I don't make hard maps, but still. However, I think this is a helpful guideline for new mappers. The reason I can make maps above my skill level, and people like Priti and inverness that you have mentioned can do that is because they have a solid understanding of what makes a map in a certain difficulty enjoyable and playable. New players often times want to make insanes, but havent really spend the time modding or playing the higher level difficulties to understand what makes them good. I think this rule shouldn't be enforced if the map otherwise plays fine, but it's good advice for a newer player. This could be moved to somewhere less official though.

Use breaks where possible. Even if they are only 5-10 seconds, it allows a bit of recovery and hand repositioning for players. However, try to avoid longer breaks that are in excess of 15 seconds. Breaks should especially be used with Easy/Normal difficulties.

Not disagreeing, just moreso clarifying. Most CtB maps that I see have breaks in them similar to osu!standard. So this might even just be moved to those 2 mode-specific guidelines

I'm really happy that this thread exists, and I hope that something comes out of it.

Currently writing up the same thread for the standard-specific guidelines, will check if osu!taiko can need a thread similar to this one, but last time I checked it didn't

Okorin wrote:

I also need clarification on the stance of osu!catch towards most of my suggestions.

I'll try to help out a little here.

Okorin wrote:

When including a slider velocity change, there should be a discernible change in the map's tempo. A spacing change, a short break in the map, or a slider containing at least one tick will help show the transition between them.

Seems to be worded towards standard, can be applied to all modes probably (not entirely sure how osu!catch handles sv changes), but in its current wording it seems to be more towards standard, either revise this wording or move it to standard.

Kinda ambiguous for osu!catch, since you can technically achieve SV changes just by angling your sliders differently - position of objects depends on x-axis only. SV changes are commonly used for other purposes such as manipulating droplet formation, so I don't feel this is really necessary for osu!catch.

Okorin wrote:

Use breaks where possible. Even if they are only 5-10 seconds, it allows a bit of recovery and hand repositioning for players. However, try to avoid longer breaks that are in excess of 15 seconds. Breaks should especially be used with Easy/Normal difficulties.

Doesn't apply for gamemodes such as osu!mania and osu!taiko, as they don't have the need to rest any aim hand or whatever to realign, they handle this with rest moments and usually map the whole song, this seems misplaced, not sure about osu!catch

Breaks are handled in much the same way in osu!catch - I'd be perfectly happy with it being included as a guideline in both game modes.

Okorin wrote:

Slider tick hitsounds are discouraged. If you want to use them, then make sure that their volume is balanced (i.e. notably quieter than regular hitsounds). A very loud slider tick, especially when only used once or twice, would be extremely jarring.

osu!mania doesn't have sliderticks, sliderticks work entirely differently in osu!taiko, and i don't know if osu!catch hitsounds sliderticks or if this happened or if it's discouraged or actually encouraged. Seems misplaced as is.

Sliderticks can be hitsounded the same as any circle or slider in osu!catch, since there's no need to "click" sliderheads, giving them more emphasis. The question would however arise that if you're mapping sliderticks with loud hitsounds, why aren't you following that rhythm and placing a circle or slider at that point... Would need to ask a few more opinions on this, so I'll discuss this with the Criteria Council osu!catch team when we next meet up.

Hope this helps to clear up a few things - I don't have time to review osu!standard specific things right now, but I will when I can. Looks like nice work though.

I'm pretty sure bringing star rating as a tool to judge the map difficulty is totally wrong. Yet it can roughly show the difficulty of the map, we cannot rely on it.

Kyubey wrote:

I'm pretty sure bringing star rating as a tool to judge the map difficulty is totally wrong. Yet it can roughly show the difficulty of the map, we cannot rely on it.

Any player not too keen to how SR works will simply look at it to determine if a map is for their level. SR should at least give a basic glimpse of how hard the map is to mappers as it does to players alike.

Exa wrote:

Kyubey wrote:

I'm pretty sure bringing star rating as a tool to judge the map difficulty is totally wrong. Yet it can roughly show the difficulty of the map, we cannot rely on it.

Any player not too keen to how SR works will simply look at it to determine if a map is for their level. SR should at least give a basic glimpse of how hard the map is to mappers as it does to players alike.

Well, truth is, it doesnt. I frequently get flamed in multiplayer by other players because I picked greatly underrated maps while others may pick overrated ones.
It's not the job of mappers to map according to star difficulty but SR's job to properly display difficulty.
If it cannot achieve this it should not be used as a standard to determine map difficulty/spreads etc. when it comes to RC.

/edit: yes, and kyubey misread something, i was already a bit confused

Nevermind, I misread something.

my wording suggested using the actual gameplay elements to determine the diffgaps instead, yes

I can sort of agree on all the points, maybe it will need some rewording still, but I won't mess around with this, I cannot come with anything much better.

Just 2 points:

1. I would not consider 4:3 and 16:9 as "officially supported" supported. I think the mapper/modder should check that on all standard aspect ratios, so 4:3, 16:9, 16:10 - osu! still allows you these three. I am aware that 16:10 is not so frequently used (even though I use it for a little while now), but it is still one of standards. And that SB, background or video doesn't tell you recommended resolution for 16:10 doesn't mean it's not supported, I think all should be checked.
2. Apart from that, it should be mentioned that not only HP bar, but also the time-graph, combo and score shouldn't overlap these objects. Like, it makes no sense to apply that to only life bar, when overlapping with score/combo can afflict the gameplay exactly the same way - score can probably hide even more than the HP bar can.

Osu also allows you to use 5:4 (1280x1024) but everythin in it basically looks really odd and wonky. So far i've only seen disqualifications if anything in 4:3 or 16:9 resolution was offscreen, and a lot things are offscreen in this resolution

The lifebar thing makes sense, will reword in a bit

Thanks for your input

Options such as letterboxing, countdown, and audio lead-in should be consistent between difficulties. Having cohesive settings throughout your mapset will look much more professional, although there are always scenarios where this is impossible. One difficulty might start at the beginning of the mp3, where a countdown is impossible but an audio lead-in is absolutely necessary; while another difficulty may start a few seconds in, where a countdown is usable but an audio lead-in is senseless.

--

Just a passing comment I guess, but audio lead-in is (and has been for quite a while now) factored into the game regardless of whether you add it in or not. If your map begins at 0 ms, osu will automatically add in the minimum 1,500 ms audio lead-in, so I don't actually see a need to edit audio lead-in in the first place.



Also, this guideline mentions maps that are starting at different points: One difficulty might start at the beginning of the mp3, where a countdown is impossible but an audio lead-in is absolutely necessary; while another difficulty may start a few seconds in, where a countdown is usable but an audio lead-in is senseless.

When i read this, i go "if maps can begin at different points, why is there a guideline that says they should end at the same point?" I think nowadays, people know to map a full easy/normal/hard/insane and not to map half of a song for a lower diff, and the full song on higher diffs.

I would push for something more close to:

Your difficulties should all begin and end at around 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.

Blue: Addition.

Monstrata wrote:

Your difficulties should all begin and end at around 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.

Exactly, it doesn't make sense to do one thing that is causing the same problem as other thing that is allowed. I would just probably mention that you might choose not to map some intros and outros with very variable timing on lower difficulties, it's not too frequent, but while it could be challenging on higher difficulties, easy and normal players might have no idea how to click such rhythms.

Anyway, I have some new ideas:

Ranking Criteria wrote:

Slider tick hitsounds are discouraged. If you want to use them, then make sure that their volume is balanced (i.e. notably quieter than regular hitsounds). A very loud slider tick, especially when only used once or twice, would be extremely jarring.

This is extremely misleading to be honest. I know a very high amount of people who refuse to use slider tick hitsounding because of it being mentioned in guidelines. If you look at the rest of guidelines, they are written in the form that you shouldn't do something or should be aware of that - it's obvious that usage for taiko and mania would not make much sense, but what is wrong about doing so on mania or osu!. Basically nothing, if you do it with care. Instead of adding a bold text with "it's DISCOURAGED", say that you should do so with care right in the bold part. Anything that is told to be discouraged discourages people from doing it, no matter whether there are exceptions.

Ranking Criteria wrote:

Options such as letterboxing, countdown, and audio lead-in should be consistent between difficulties. Having cohesive settings throughout your mapset will look much more professional, although there are always scenarios where this is impossible. One difficulty might start at the beginning of the mp3, where a countdown is impossible but an audio lead-in is absolutely necessary; while another difficulty may start a few seconds in, where a countdown is usable but an audio lead-in is senseless.

Firstly, I need to agree with what Monstrata said, basically nothing wrong with it. But this wording is really punching my brain. "Having cohesive settings throughout your mapset will look much more professional" - Something looking like professional is not a rational argument. You could apply that simply on anything, yet it doesn't give you a proper reason to do something. People tend to stick to RC, which is not wrong, but might then use the same arguments that RC promotes, such as this one, on any other issue. You could simply rewrite it to: "Options such as letterboxing, countdown, and audio lead-in should be consistent between difficulties unless it's necessary for design purposes.", obviously after aplying what Monstrata said, I don't see why using lead-in is still allowed, when it's a change that you can't do in editor but isn't mentioned on the list of things you can change in .osu file. + It does basically nothing nowadays.

This is handled by the Council now.