So the way flashlight works is it'll start off a little bit big, its not too hard at first for pretty much any level. Then at 100 combo it'll shrink a bit, at this point it's still not too hard to play you have enough view to keep going. but when you get to 200 combo, it shrinks a lot! its like the size of a single size 0 circle (slight exaggeration, but not much) and it gets really hard to keep going, if you get to a short slider that reverses, you might not even see the reverse and die, even at a long slider if its sliding a bit fast you might not see it, and jumps are near impossible depending on it's speed at that point. basically any level that has more than 400/ above 3.5 stars is too hard for flashlight, it takes many people tens, to even hundreds of attempts to memorize a level just to use it with flashlight.

and all that difficulty for a x1.12 muiltiplier, at this difficulty i would rather have it be worth more points than double time which many players can complete in a few attempts even on really hard levels, it basically makes flashlight useless.

i have two suggestions

1.) this is what seems like the best/ easiest solution, is nerfing the difficulty of the flashlight like maybe having the 200 combo part a little bigger so you can still see stuff or increasing the combo amount before it shrinks, (ie. first shrink 200, 2nd 400)

2.) this is probably not going to happen because scores are already posted with the Fl mod, but i thought i'd mention this anyways- increasing the muiltiplier, it doesnt need much boost, x1.15 or x1.18 is good enough. but as i just said the scores are already posted so i doubt this is an option but if they get around that somehow im ok with it.

[edit] someone mentioned about how flashlight is memorization rather than changing the gameplay. i would like to comment on that hidden and flashlight are in a way similar, flashlight is memorizing the circles' location and hidden is memorizing the timing. but even though they are similar flashlight still has the underpower.

Flashlight doesn't make the map really harder to play. Physically it is as easy to get a good score as without a mod.
It's exclusively a mental and visual challenge - you memorize stuff. That process can't be evaluated properly as it has nothing to do with gameplay. Flashlight is also a mod you can improve at. There are some extremely sick scores by FL-players. You can watch mesita's HDFL-score on this map for example: https://osu.ppy.sh/p/beatmap?b=53554&m=0
FL mostly exists to get Top50 scores and for that the 1.12x multiplier suffices.

We have Followpoints...

I think it's good that DT and FL have the same multiplier. People that have enough skill to play DT can go for it and try beating FL scores without playing FL.
Unless the score is +DT,+FL,+some_other_mod
This way, people are not forced to play FL, in order to beat other plays. Remember also that +HD,HR is 1.06x1.06x = 1.1236x, so even 1.13x for FL could be overweighted. However, if someone really want to put an effort and learn the map, FL can help him to get a good score and PP, like Endaris already mentioned.

I like to think about an osu! as a game that is first of all skill based.
Memorization is an option for me and you usually don't need perfect memorization with FL, if you have a certain skills developed. As you keep playing, you literally get experience and expertise in playing or reading certain patterns, doing certain jumps, etc., which can be used to play FL easier.

So, the thing is, don't just memorize circles placement. Try to memorize the patterns! It often makes things really easier
The whole patterns, distances about the circles, rotation, the objects placement by comparison to the objects that follow or antecede them, etc. Also, like Bara- said, we have followpoints. It's good to pay more attention to them and include them in your map learning. Even without memorising the map, they can be a great help, if read properly.

Again, big jumps are indeed very hard, but not near-impossible. This is where a good muscle memory kicks in =) You don't need to see the circle, you need to know where it is and how to jump there... or just how you should jump (i.e. direction and distance of your jump). But it needs much time and work to develop these skills, like with most of other things in osu!^^.

flashlight doesn't really make the map rhythmatically harder or more difficult
if you're able to memorize the notes of a map then flashlight (which a lot of people can do) it might make the scoreboards a bit weird

Endaris wrote:

Flashlight doesn't make the map really harder to play. Physically it is as easy to get a good score as without a mod.
It's exclusively a mental and visual challenge - you memorize stuff. That process can't be evaluated properly as it has nothing to do with gameplay. Flashlight is also a mod you can improve at. There are some extremely sick scores by FL-players. You can watch mesita's HDFL-score on this map for example: https://osu.ppy.sh/p/beatmap?b=53554&m=0
FL mostly exists to get Top50 scores and for that the 1.12x multiplier suffices.

it looks to me like you are referring to easy levels, easy levels (2.5*and under) can be really easy with flashlight, especially if they have less than 200 combos, even with high combos it can still be easy, but most people like to play levels that are not super easy. yes, people can get really good scores with FL on harder levels, i have one myself on frightmare using all mods (7th place 500 combo)[ok maybe frightmare isnt too hard, but few people completed with all mods]. but how common is it that you will see scores with FL on the leaderboard on levels 3.5* or greater, most levels of that difficulty dont even have a single Fl play, so saying that some people CAN complete really hard levels and have a really good memory, thats only a few handfuls of people, obviously anyone can do good at it if they work hard enough, but stuff that is harder to accomplish should have a bigger reward than what is easier to accomplish, because then what's the point of do the harder thing (besides glory)

Bara- wrote:

We have Followpoints...

when the circles change colors there wont be followpoints, i never seen a ranked level where circle colors never changed, and on fast levels, followpoints dont really matter.

The problem with flashlight is that it requires aspects of skill that aren't present in other modes of play.

If you see skill as an one-dimensional variable (by reducing all aspects of it - aiming speed and precision, tapping speed, timing precision, memorization, etc. - to one dimension), then the FL versions of maps would be statistically seen as considerably harder than other mods (including no-mod) in most cases (exceptions would be mostly cases where the map becomes physically too hard to play, such as using DT in a very fast map).

But, FL changes the map in a way that makes the game to be played in a way that is considerably different, arguing whether a certain FL play is better than a play with other mods or not, is like arguing whether a record made by an athletic sprinter is better than the record made by a swimmer or not. Even if the FL play is statistically better than the other plays (it requires a statistically better player to match the same performance as the other mods), it's a matter of opinion whether the aspect of skill present in the FL play is important to the overall skill of the game or not.

The ideal solution would be not mixing plays with FL with other mods in the leaderboards. Treat it like a separate game mode, with a separate leaderboard.

Bara- wrote:

We have Followpoints...

agreed