This is something that's been irking me for a while, and I'm not sure where else to post it.
It's also something I could go on an endless rant about, so I'll try to keep it short and get straight to the point.

The point is, that Hard difficulties, in my opinion, either shouldn't have 1/4 streams at all, or be very limited in their usage of them.
Of course this kind of thing is highly subjective, and kind of depends on the BPM - like how some songs are below 100 BPM and 1/4 streams would easily be singletapped, even on a touchscreen using a driver that isn't customized for this kind of thing.

See, the thing is, a Hard difficulty can easily be hard without having 1/4 streams at all if you use appropriate jumps and kind of tricky patterns.
Of course I don't mean to say you should go and hide sliders/notes, but use a kind of patterns that requires a certain amount of skill to get through without breaking your combo.

Though there's the thing about how to define a hard difficulty, some mappers may consider hard difficulties easy if they don't have 1/4 notes; I know I do, but I could also be considered a very skilled player, and so could said mappers.
Do we have any specified criteria for what makes a Hard difficulty Hard ? Or is that entirely up to the mapper's/modder's judgment ?
I looked through the FAQ to see if I could find anything there, but all I found was this.
I might be blind, so please correct me if there is a thread with them somewhere.

Either way, I believe that the hardest difficulty in a mapset should be mapped in a way that feels the most natural to the song, and lower difficulties should be modeled after that, thus not making a difficulty that's too hard to fit the song.

To finish off, I'll give two examples of Hard difficulties that I personally think are great Hards;
1. Haduki Yura - The Last Queen [Odaril's Hard]
2. Queen - Don't Stop Me Now [Hard ROCK!]

The two use very different mapping styles, but neither have any 1/4 streams. I think that is all.
Keep it civilized please; This is supposed to result in a friendly discussion, not a flamewar.

triplets that match the music should be, sets of 5 maybe, streams any longer or on songs 190+ bpm probably not. else the jump from hard -> insane for alot of mapsets would be very large

You can't be one sided for that. This depends a lot of the music and mapping style.

Sure there are hard which are great without 1/4, there are also hards which aren't great without 1/4. same thing applies to Hards with 1/4.

We can't say " THERE SHOULDN'T BEEEE" like that. /thread.

Sushi wrote:

You can't be one sided for that. This depends a lot of the music and mapping style.

Sure there are hard which are great without 1/4, there are also hards which aren't great without 1/4. same thing applies to Hards with 1/4.

We can't say " THERE SHOULDN'T BEEEE" like that. /thread.

I didn't say that either:

or be very limited in their usage of them.

If they aren't strictly necessary to make the map play well, I won't see why they should belong in a diff less than Insane.

If the map is slow I think it's ok :/
Can't vote for this.

Depends really, if it fits the song I'm ok with it. If it's there just to make it harder, no.

As I said, it depends of the song/mapstyle. if it flows naturally in hard, I don't see why it wouldn't be present.

Do not forget that there are "Hard Hards" and "Easy Hards".

Of course, if a 1/4 stream seems not confortable in a Hard, I don't see why it would be in it, but in that case, they generally don't fit the song at all

Of course you have to adapt the difficulty, but in your way. Starting saying "Oh Geez NO STREAMS" is not a good Idea.

(just to be clear, what I mean by 'stream' is any succession of notes, from triplets to infinite)

I don't think we should have rules set in place about naming conventions as long as maps continue to have a diverse enough range of difficulties and not end up like Melt. If you consider the nature of a song and the many different ways you could map it, single words cannot accurately describe the difficulty of a map and getting too descriptive would just be an eyesore.

Limiting the freedom of mappers in this sense is something we really shouldn't be aiming for. Though, to be perfectly honest, a map with 1/4 streams is almost always going to be more appropriately labeled Insane in my eyes, but as I said before, this really isn't a big deal. If a player has trouble with the hardest difficulty, they should be able to move down to one that is considerably easier, not insultingly easier. We (sort of) have these standards in place as it is, though I think that having just two difficulties is not enough. We'd benefit from having that rule updated, that's for sure.

Sushi wrote:

Of course, if a 1/4 stream seems not confortable in a Hard, I don't see why it would be in it, but in that case, they generally don't fit the song at all

Or the mapper started it out as a Hard, it became an Insane, and said mapper is just too lazy or arrogant to change the name and map a new Hard.

It's not easy to properly balance at game like this (actually I'd say it's impossible due to how music isn't all the same and neither is its BPM), but a proper Hard difficulty should at the very least be enjoyable by players who are too skilled to properly enjoy a Normal difficulty, but not skilled enough for Insane. I guess this is where we get "Normal+", "Hard+", etc. from, but should those really not be considered Hard/Insane instead ?

Jarby wrote:

If a player has trouble with the hardest difficulty, they should be able to move down to one that is considerably easier, not insultingly easier. We (sort of) have these standards in place as it is, though I think that having just two difficulties is not enough. We'd benefit from having that rule updated, that's for sure.

I agree with this. I personally don't see why a map with just two difficulties should be ranked in the first place.
Now watch as I go and use myself as an example; quite often when I decide to have some fun playing with my touchscreen instead of my tablet, I end up playing only the two or three maps that I can actually enjoy playing like that without them becoming, as you said, insultingly easy. Though of course, this is likely because of how Windows 7's touchscreen driver interprets tapping in the same place as doubleclicking, which fucks it up, and I often end up getting a 50 on a stacked note like that. Of course, I could make this better by using Z/X, but that gets rather difficult when you can't move the cursor without actually touching the screen, thereby keeping one of the mousebuttons pressed. This would only work on small stacks, but now I'm getting offtopic, so you can disregard this part. Let's not derail the thread.
Also, I never played Melt, but it doesn't look any good on the rankings page.

And then there's the part about how many different ways you could map a song; This is partly why I believe the hardest difficulty should be mapped first, and lower difficulties should be modeled after that. So you won't have to worry about making an Insane too hard to fit the song, or making it so easy it becomes a Hard instead.

Although this is all my own opinion, and someone is going to either just disagree or find it completely retarded. That is inevitable and a risk I have to take by posting it.

To be honest, I don't really have a strong opinion about that. Either I can't play or map, but I feel sometimes they suit, sometimes they do not. It really depends on the song and on the mapper.

I agree, I mostly map Hards with 1/2 with 1/4 at few parts.
While a lot of other rhythm games wouldn't even dare call something with 1/4 (or 16th notes or whatever) it is quite acceptible here even if osu! is generally a much harder game because it's not just pressing buttons.

My Hards is very variating difficulty though but that's because of I experimented a lot and when I look back on some them they feel more like easy Insanes.

In my opinion, close-packed (where you don't have to move much) 1/4 notes are still acceptable in Hard difficulties.
...am I the only one who actually also like to play insultingly easy maps?

Maybe this would be more appropriate in gameplay & ranking.

I'm curious to know what hard map is streamy and is labeled hard? (apart from old maps like kanbu/marisa)

I don't really consider 3-5 1/4 notes after each other a stream, this is pretty basic.

Anyways, to me it all depends on how the song plays. You can't deny rythm imo, but you should also be creative when adding notes to a hard map, trying to not overuse jumps and streams.

Hey, this is a very nice subject.

Well, as far as I am concerned, I think most if not all Hard diffs ranked nowadays are actually Insanes.
Hards diff should not have long 1/4 streams like I saw in so many maps - nor any stupid long stream of jumps or stupidly wide jumps either - and keep the difficulty level above Normal anyway. I have seen so many Hard diffs called Hard because the mapper didn't want to call it Insane not to be told to map a real Hard that I have started making quite easy Hard diffs.

The point of a Hard diff is to offer a difficulty level between Normal and Insane. The introduction of 1/4s is a good thing, but too many of them is just abuse and does not match the purpose of a Hard diff. Usually 3 or 5 1/4s are acceptable (2 or 4 being really confusing), but only if they do match something in the song.

Same goes for jumps and confusing patterns/spacing: it should match the song (for any difficulty, mind you) and not be too hard. There are so many ways of making a diff harder than a Normal diff without using retarded difficulty settings, patterns, jumps or streams. Streams are just the easy way of doing so and often backfire.

Priestess In Yellow wrote:

BPM - like how some songs are below 100 BPM and 1/4 streams would easily be singletapped

What? I can't singletap them ;_;

a very simple answer is : depend on the song.
for most of the songs i would say yes, but not too much.

try to look it in another way, a Hard should fall in the gap between Nomal and Insane, how to judge? stars, no that's obviously weird, but let's say score, that would be fine, a nice hard should has a max score about the average of Normal and Insane (better lower, if use the common 4diffs map for example). and under such a situation, can you use 1/4s? sure. but not many.

however, things would chang if that's a high BPM song, and Insane is really an INSANE map, then streams is acceptable in Hard. of the Insane diff is just a calm map for a quiet song, then even triple 1/4s become weird.

If it fits with the overall spread yes, if not no. Idc whether your hard is a "hard" as long as it's a hard in comparison to your insane, normal and easy

Personally I usually wouldn't unless it was a really trolly song though

IMO, shouldn't be more than 5 notes. Remember, it's a Hard, not an Insane. Looking at maps with like 3004234-note streams on hard is ugh.

Also, depends on the BPM. But I still say it's better <5 notes.

I think it is the mappers choice. If it is mapped too hard it will be renamed to Insane

Hanyuu wrote:

I think it is the mappers choice. If it is mapped too hard it will be renamed to Insane

Experience proves it won't.

SHOULD they? I wouldn't say that they're necessary, so no.
Is it acceptable for Hard diffs to use a few streams? Sure.

I agree with derek. Should they? No. Can they? yes, but not too much, to an excessive point. (Yeah everyone said this)
long streams (in general) are meh, whatever the Diff is, btw.

As said about a lot of things, don't abuse of This, guys

(Sorry if I may Have seemed to be a little raegous in my first post, I read "Can" instead of "Should")

Also french auto correction on phone is painful to write in English.

EDIT : correction trololol