- Destroy the idea of the existence of mapsets. The idea of a "set" will still exist, but instead of treating it in a per "mapset" basis, do it in a per song basis.
- The concept of 'mapset' as we understand now is incoherent with the way that current community treats it.
- Mapsets gives the idea that the structure of all the diffs within the set are the same, what I mean with this is, for example, a hard and an insane should have the same kind of style, patterns, structure, etc, and the difference between the two is that the insane uses a more complex version of the patterns used in hard and so on.
- What stated in the point above is not always true, specially if we consider the existence of guest difficulties.
- Current trends of mapsets is that they are very likely to include at least a guest difficulty, up to a point where only one submitted difficulty is created by the submitter. Ex: http://puu.sh/p3ky5/c764b22cac.png
- This has brought some problems within the mapsets as all difficulties are treated equally when they should not.
- There are some features requests that attempts to fix some of the issues caused by current concept of mapset ( t/451293 ; t/115773) But they are only "patch" fixes, meaning that they don't address the cause of the problem.
First off, this is just a conceptualization just to give you all a clearer idea of how it should work. It could be completely different if it were to be implemented in order to better adjust with ranking criteria.
- First time a song is going for qualification, special attention should be given to the song's metadata, timing, and all the other aspects related strictly to the song. This will open the "slots" to submit the difficulties.
- After a song's basic info has been approved, difficulties could be submitted and annexed to it. Each difficulty should follow its own qualification process.
- In order to avoid approving too many "songs" that will end up having no difficulties later on, it should be done in conjunction with at least two additional difficulties going for qualification as well. These two difficulties should be at least an E+N or N+H to guarantee that the song will provide easy difficulties for new players.
- The basic ranking procedure still holds, as in WIP -> Pending -> Qualified -> Ranked, just that they will be done separately.
- Storyboards could also be submitted separately. Although this might bring some problems with diff specific storyboards...
- Please do note the following, mappers that still wishes to submit an infinite amount of their own difficulties to the set, they should still be able to do so.
- In order to add an Extra difficulty to the song, an Insane difficulty must already be qualified. This means that in order to add Extra diff, then mappers will have to work collaboratively to unlock this option! Just like a normal video game!
- In order to avoid an excessive amount of Insanes and harder within the set, the ranking rules could say something like: The amount of Insanes or harder cannot be more than the amount of Easy + Normal + Hard.
- Many of the points stated here are just examples, the actual implementation should be discussed within the QAT.
- First one would be the very obvious one which involves the drastic change of the process of map qualification. The game has been using the same procedure since its beginning and everyone is used to it.
- osz2 is coming, and from what I understand of it, means that osu! is being developed in the opposite direction of what this proposal aims to. Due to this, the developers will probably not even care to consider the implementation of this.
- Will require a drastic recoding of osu!, as many things won't be compatible with this proposal. Ex: hitsounds, storyboards, etc Some ideas on how to deal with them
- Might even further promote speedranking and lack of easy difficulties within a song set.
- I have no doubt that many things won't work if this were to be implemented, but I am sure that all of these issues can be overcome by the developers. Just look at osu! the way it is now! Osu was not perfect by the moment it went live and it is so much more different than how it used to be!
- Difficulty's mapper can be properly attributed.
- After a song's qualification, it will incentive more mappers to submit individual diffs to the annex to the song. One of the main constraints seen with many mappers that does not finish their mapsets it's because they have to finish a whole mapset in one go in order to seek qualification which is time consuming.
- No more need to download X amount of the same song! As all the difficulties will be treated under the same song set. This would also mean that your song folder should weight a little bit less!
- More fairness when asking for m4m! Also, I expect an easier modding process!
- This will also be great news to new mappers as they can only submit 1 diff on an existing qualified song. They won't have to worry either by trivial things to them such as timing, spread, etc
- This new system will adapt to current mapping needs!
- This will also ensure that all diffs has the same metadata and timings
- Eliminate the need of calling a diff as XXXX's diff, which is just retarded
- Properly rate maps by difficulty instead of by mapset.
- I used to have thought of more benefits, but forgot them. I'll add them as I remember them, if you guys can also think of any, just post and I'll add!
- Ability to give multiple author per difficulty, this is aimed for collabs
- An option to auto add mapper's name as a SB for the collabs too. What I mean is to add an pre existing format for this, and if the mapper wishes to customize it, then the mapper could always storyboard it.
- Give more song's metadata option, in order to be able to specify more what version of the song we are dealing with. So no more adding Tv Size, etc in song's title
- While doing such drastic changes to osu!, implement scorev2 system as well. Give a proper new chapter to osu!
Ok, this is all for now. I know that there are still many things that have to be worked on, but this is just the idea. We could also use this thread to further discuss about this.