hp 10 is really deadly, even if it's specially.. i'd recommend to use hp 8 or 8.5 at least thou. Well, the idea is that the map should be as unforgiving as possible since Akashi is kind of this "perfect" guy who has to win and be the best at everything so losing is not an option. Basically I'm forcing players to keep their combo and not to break if they want to pass.

Lastly, Akashi is a perfectionist, so HP 10 is selected to force the player to make as few mistakes as possible if they wish to even pass the map.

• I'm still not a fan of hp 10.

1. IMHO, hp should be reflective of or at least with respect to the difficulty of a map. The fact that I, as a mediocre player, lowered down the hp to 8 and I can pass it with my first try indicates the exaggeration of hp, which leads to my 2nd point.
2. Isn't there a correspondence somewhat between the song/rhythm itself (not the anime) and difficulty setup? I totally don't mind playing some extreme cs/ar maps since they change the overall style of a map. That being said, I couldn’t agree adjusting hp as a direct tool to interfere in players' gaming experience or even manipulate the scoreboard by making it 10. It sounds kinda stupid and sketchy tbh to force players to keep their combo merely to show how perfectionist the character of the anime is.
3. True, one subjective way to express Akashi's search of perfection/unforgiving is to deny players making mistakes. But what if people are confused about the hp setting because they have never watched this anime before. Your difficulty guide imo is not enough to justify the insanely high hp. If I mapper myself am a perfectionist is it justifiable to put hp 10 to all of my maps just for my own sake?

1. 00:01:537 (1,2,3,1,2,1,2,1,2) - I don’t quite get the arrangement of these sliders. 1,2,1,2,3,4,1,2,3 should best suit the music in terms of the direction of sliders positioned. Again, if those sliders are placed in this way for the sake of Kuroko’s ‘misdirection’ and confusing players you are simply ignoring the music.

Nostalgic wrote:

Hello Monstrata! I have a few questions about the map. Hope you don't mind.

[Akashi's Extra]

hp 10 is really deadly, even if it's specially.. i'd recommend to use hp 8 or 8.5 at least thou. Well, the idea is that the map should be as unforgiving as possible since Akashi is kind of this "perfect" guy who has to win and be the best at everything so losing is not an option. Basically I'm forcing players to keep their combo and not to break if they want to pass.

Lastly, Akashi is a perfectionist, so HP 10 is selected to force the player to make as few mistakes as possible if they wish to even pass the map.

• I'm still not a fan of hp 10.

1. IMHO, hp should be reflective of or at least with respect to the difficulty of a map. The fact that I, as a mediocre player, lowered down the hp to 8 and I can pass it with my first try indicates the exaggeration of hp, which leads to my 2nd point.
2. Isn't there a correspondence somewhat between the song/rhythm itself (not the anime) and difficulty setup? I totally don't mind playing some extreme cs/ar maps since they change the overall style of a map. That being said, I couldn’t agree adjusting hp as a direct tool to interfere in players' gaming experience or even manipulate the scoreboard by making it 10. It sounds kinda stupid and sketchy tbh to force players to keep their combo merely to show how perfectionist the character of the anime is.
3. True, one subjective way to express Akashi's search of perfection/unforgiving is to deny players making mistakes. But what if people are confused about the hp setting because they have never watched this anime before. Your difficulty guide imo is not enough to justify the insanely high hp. If I mapper myself am a perfectionist is it justifiable to put hp 10 to all of my maps just for my own sake?

It seems you just dont like HP 10. You said that on HP 8, even you as a mediocre player could pass it on your first try. That alone should be enough to say that HP 10 is necessary to get the draining effect across. You might think it sounds kinda stupid, but I really like it, and I think it captures the essence of Akashi's character, and both how and why he became what he was in the anime. You don't have to watch the anime to understand that HP 10 is prompting you to be a perfectionist.

[Kuroko’s Extra]

1. 00:01:537 (1,2,3,1,2,1,2,1,2) - I don’t quite get the arrangement of these sliders. 1,2,1,2,3,4,1,2,3 should best suit the music in terms of the direction of sliders positioned. Again, if those sliders are placed in this way for the sake of Kuroko’s ‘misdirection’ and confusing players you are simply ignoring the music.

They're arranged to go with the pitch of the music. Pitch is going up = upward movement sliders. Pitch is going down = downward movement sliders. The tricky part is that I use the peaks and troughs of the melody as the final note in the set, rather than the initial note in the set, which adds a bit of misdirection to it, but I'm confident once you figure out how to play it, it's really straightforward.

~

Don’t get me wrong I find this mapset really cool and innovative. That being said, I’d like to hear your feedback on what I think.

smau5 wrote:

i never had so much fun playing a map! really cool, i hope it gets ranked.

Loctav wrote:

Could you please not name the difficulties in a way that they make people assume that they are mapped by other users, while they aren't? This is false attribution (I don't care why you did it, because I know why you did it

EDIT: I also consider the usage of a different BG on every difficulty as unnecessary.

1. The difficulty settings are extremely inconsistent. There should be a progression based on the difficulty of every diff (since you have many of them, a linear progression would be good), but instead, it feels like the difficulty settings were scrambled and assigned to the wrong diff. I understand that you were trying to achieve something by changing the difficulty settings per diff (for example, for the AR8 one), but it backfires because of how many difficulties you've mapped and how they relate to one another and gets lost in the sheer number of difficulties there are. I won't comment on each difficulty's settings (except one), so keep this in mind when going through the diff-specific mods.

1. The beginning is inconsistent. I like that you used two circles instead of a slider every measure for variety and highlighting the song's structure, but the spacing should follow, and it doesn't. You start off with jumps 00:00:937 (1,2,3) - but immediately switch to regular spacing 00:02:137 (1,2,3) - 00:02:137 (1,2,3) - then back to jumps 00:04:537 (1,2,1) - although the song doesn't change on these objects. Stick to either the jumps or the regular spacing for this structure to have better effect.
2. 00:04:537 (1,2) - I assume you spaced these out more to follow the guitar going into higher pitch, but if that's the case, 00:04:237 (5) - should also be spaced out more, and the jump should be on 00:04:237 (5,1) - to follow the pitch change while 00:04:537 (1,2) - remains at a regular spacing to keep following the structure you introduced. Right now, the biggest emphasis in this pattern is on 00:04:687 (2) - which corresponds to absolutely nothing in the song - it's a structure tool you added, and it should not be emphasized like this.
3. 00:04:837 (1) - Should be a simple circle. The guitar does not appear until 00:04:987 (2) - where a 1/4 slider does fit, so by introducing the other 1/4 slider too early, you're ruining the effect this would have had and I assume was intended for the guitar.
4. 00:05:137 (1,2) - I like this movement. It goes really well with the guitar and it feels properly spaced. The only beef I have with this is the blanket is very imperfect and you are more than capable of fixing it. However, this spacing 00:05:437 (2,1) - is massively exaggerated and doesn't have the same cool effect as 00:05:137 (1,2) - . The other problem is how fast the slider is and the absolute antiflow of these two. I'm not too sure why the slider is so fast but you probably do have a reason for it, but the spacing should definitely not be this large. You should keep the spacing around the same as 00:05:137 (1,2) - because the guitar riff doesn't change between them. The addition of the drums doesn't justify this big a change in spacing.
5. 00:08:437 (2,3,4,5) - This spacing is rather confusing (also 3,4,5 aren't equally spaced, I'm not sure that was intended). It would make more sense to space 00:08:437 (2,3) - out to make this less confusing and separate the 1/2 jump from the 1/4 sliderjumps more carefully.
6. 00:08:887 (4,1) - Are completely overlapping each other.
7. 00:09:487 (1,2,1,2) - This movement is cool, but 00:09:937 (2,1) - completely ruins it. The guitar doesn't change its phrase or anything at this point, so why change the spacing and introduce this big flow killer ? 00:10:087 (1) - would be much better reversed to keep the flow straight as it was during the sliderjumps. Also, the sudden speedup you introduce with 00:10:537 (1) - would work much better if it starts from a stack instead of a jump.
8. 00:10:987 (3,5,3,5) - There's no reason for these to be 1/4 sliders.
9. 00:11:287 (5,6,5,6) - You contradict yourself with your flow again.
10. 00:16:087 (4,3,5,7) - Again, there's no reason for these to be 1/4 sliders. They should be regular circles.
11. 00:18:037 (3) - Highlighting this one in particular because again, you're not following your own structure. 00:18:037 (3,4,5) - is clearly an antijump pattern but you decided to make the first object a 1/4 slider when it bears no difference with the other ones. Either make them all 1/4 sliders, or all circles, but you need to stay consistent.
12. 00:18:787 (1,2) - This is very confusing. It looks like (1) is a 3/4 sped up slider and (2) is on the red tick, and the spacing really reads like that. In the previous occurence of this short bout of melody 00:09:487 (1,2,1,2) - you had 4 clicks going with the guitar but here you decided to ignore one, which is inconsistent and confusing. I understand why you decided not to use 1/4 sliders again considering the slider speed here, but at least make sure that all four guitar notes are properly hit.
13. 00:20:137 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) - Why are you ignoring the song here? Your spacing does not follow the guitar in any way and you even undermapped it. There are no other instruments there, so try to change this to better reflect it.
14. 00:22:087 (2) - Thank you for not using a 1/8 kickslider.
15. 00:23:737 (1,2) - These are really not following anything. If you want to follow the drums, continue the 1/1, otherwise try to follow the vocals, but this rhythm feels very off. The spacing feels very odd too and it's pretty clear that you only spaced them this way for the sake of the pattern.
16. 00:25:237 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - This insane increase in density is very random and unexpected. I get that you were trying to follow the bass, but it feels wrong. This is a slow part of the song and your first patterns 00:22:537 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - did indicate this, but you decide to completely go against that and add these. It'd be much better to keep the density low here. Even if you were following the bass, you should have made them all 1/4 sliders for the sake of consistency. Again, this feels like you only did this for the pattern and it doesn't fit. See, what you did at 00:27:637 (2,3,4,5,6,7) - works very well with the bass and the switch from vocals to bass fits a lot because the vocals become too scarce, but there's no reason to switch beforehand.
17. 00:29:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,1,2,1) - This was cool.
18. 00:32:437 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - Again, these 1/4 sliders are out of place and only exist for the pattern.
19. 00:37:387 (3,4,5,6,7,1) - ^
20. 00:40:237 (6,3) - This should be a jump, just like you did for 00:38:887 (4,5) -
21. 00:40:687 (2,3) - This fits but why are 00:40:837 (3,4,5,6,7) - spaced so low ? You should have kept the jump pattern going, it would have been more pleasant to play and more fitting.
22. 00:41:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - I would just like to point out that the least dense part of the map here, which corresponds to a fairly slow part of the song in terms of instrumentation (which you followed), has higher spacing than the whole verse before.
23. 00:45:337 (1,2,3) - This is severely undermapped and very confusing. They look like they're 1/4 apart but there's a big gap between them. At least make them repeat sliders to fit the song better and be less confusing.
24. 00:47:437 (5,6) - Should be two circles. At no other point during this part of the song you ever repeat that, so this feels very much out of place. Also, this might be my personal preference but why are you following the drums when the vocals at 00:46:537 (1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5) - are so much more interesting ?
25. 00:50:137 (1,1,1) - This was cool but I think the second one should be 1/2. I see what you did with the rhythm progression (1/2 -> 3/4 -> 1/1), so this is up to you.
26. 00:52:537 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) - The spacing and density of these completely contradict what you seemed to be introducing with 00:51:337 (1,3) - . These two sliders pretty much show that you're going to follow the vocals and play on a very stop-and-go motion using extremely slow sliders jumping into one another, but you instantly ruin this effect with these circles.
27. 00:54:937 (1,2,3,4,5) - Same!
28. 01:02:137 (3) - That was surprising but it's fun. Also 01:02:137 (3,1) - plz fix stack thx u
29. 01:03:337 (1) - That was surprising but not fun.
30. 01:03:787 (3,5) - 01:06:187 (3,5) - 01:08:737 (4,5) - 01:09:937 (4,5) - 01:11:137 (4,5) - 01:11:887 (2,4) - 01:15:787 (2) - 01:18:037 (2,3) - 01:19:387 (3,5) - 01:22:987 (3,5) - 01:25:387 (3,5) - Again, those 1/4 sliders should be replaced with 1/2s.
31. The entire chorus is chaotic. I have no idea what you're trying to follow. Neither the rhythms nor the spacing seem to be following anything the song does.
32. 01:07:837 (6,7,8,9,1) - There's absolutely no reason to space these like you did, especially when you space them differently right after 01:17:437 (1,2,3,4,1) -
33. 01:21:337 (1) - You're ignoring a very important beat in the song on the red tick after this.
34. 01:21:937 (3) - Should be a circle too, to stay consistent with 01:21:637 (2,4) -
35. 01:23:437 (6,1) - I don't see the reason why this has to be antiflow. (1) is not emphasized in any way in the song - in fact you even chose to make it a repeat slider. You should reverse this to keep the flow consistent here.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by AngelHoney.
2. Okay so overall, I understand that you were trying to make this difficulty hard to read with the overlaps and AR8, but this is... overdone. If you want to make it hard to read, make the patterns confusing, mix back and forths and straight jumps, antijumps and jumps, etc. but overlapping everything this way just won't work. This sort of stuff works 00:08:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5) - and doesn't even need AR8 to be difficult to read. I don't have much to say about this apart from the fact that it's completely cramped and, in my opinion, really unfit for this mapset. You're also breaking the rules many times with your fully overlapping sliders like 01:02:137 (8,1) - . I don't think this difficulty is rankable at all.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Hollow Wings.
2. Circle size is... yeah. You know. Also, the entire difficulty has vastly inflated spacing - using big circles is not an excuse for doing this. This could very easily be made better by choosing a more appropriate circle size and fitting spacing.
3. Overall this is much better than the first diff in terms of structure and consistency !
4. 00:26:137 (1,1,1) - I found these three very confusing because they end on a strong vocal, when you had spent the entire beginning of the diff focusing heavily on them. Replace them with 3/4+circle, I think it'd fit, and you'd keep the effect you were going for.
5. 00:58:537 (1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3) - TENGAKU WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I liked this pattern
6. 01:12:937 (1,3) - Again these two sliders feel very unfitting because they go over strong vocals when you've made a point to follow the vocals mostly in this diff.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Priti.
2. This entire diff is heavily overmapped. My guess is you were trying to make it using as few circles as possible, but replacing 1/2 circles with 1/4 sliders doesn't work. Even if we replaced 1/4 sliders with circles, it would be overmapped, like for 00:10:837 (2,3,4,5,6,7) - where you're basically following nothing. The guitar and the drums both keep a steady 1/1 rhythm. Also, the spacing overall is very inflated, like 00:29:737 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2) - where you have nearly fullscreen jumps in a fairly neutral part of the song. It's not the chorus, it's not a solo, it's just the middle of the verse, or 00:34:837 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1) - which follow nothing in the song. The abuse of 1/4 sliderstreams make the actually fitting ones feel completely irrelevant and that's a big problem.
3. 00:01:237 (2,3,4,5) - Why the circles with this odd spacing ? You should have made them 1/2 sliders like you did for the entire introduction.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Andrea. And it shares the same issue as a lot of his maps: the spacing and rhythms feel off because they're forced for the sake of symmetry while not actually following the song. The difference is yours is heavily overspaced, while Andrea's maps tend to be monotonous and with low spacing.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Irreversible.
2. AR9.3 OD10 is an insult to all creation.

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Taeyang.

Loctav wrote:

EDIT: I also consider the usage of a different BG on every difficulty as unnecessary.

xChorse wrote:

On that note, difficulty naming is pretty stupid in it's own, there's no reason to limit custom difficutly names to one per set. I can understand using the names of characters might mislead people thinking it's actually their difficulty. But an easy map can have a difficulty name like this

Loctav wrote:

If you want to have every difficulty to have a custom name, then you have a problem, because only one map might have a custom name. For all others, you have to probably figure out how to name stuff properly to reflect the hierarchy of the difficulties.

Loctav wrote:

I also consider the usage of a different BG on every difficulty as unnecessary.

Okorin wrote:

I kinda disagree that centereing a diff around mouse drift is a good idea, it maks the entire diff kinda boring and along with that a pain to play for me

Shiirn wrote:

It's like he's forgetting that we're supposed to make maps for music, with the concepts and unique ideas being secondary or thematic with the song/track itself.

Arphimigon wrote:

Having maps which require different skillsets from the norm should be allowed or even encouraged, not discouraged simply because the majority can't do them, since that is the point, it's learning to do something which you couldn't previously do (and feeling epic once you get it).

Antares- wrote:

Loctav wrote:

If you want to have every difficulty to have a custom name, then you have a problem, because only one map might have a custom name. For all others, you have to probably figure out how to name stuff properly to reflect the hierarchy of the difficulties.

Seriously, that one sentence forced me to do that post, because it easily shows how you havent played any difficulty. It's almost impossible to rate hierarchy of difficulties here, because every difficulty needs different skill required to FC it and star rating doesnt really show that. Main example - Kuroko's AR8 patterns. It's one of those unique mapping ideas that are being destroyed, because "lol i can't play that so it's bad". Kuroko diff requires reading skills and it's pretty fun challenge for those who can do it. For those who can't do it, it's probably harder than other diffs like e.g. Kise's one. That's why you can't really sort them after difficulty.

Antares- wrote:

Loctav wrote:

I also consider the usage of a different BG on every difficulty as unnecessary.

Every difficulty is mapped according to character's traits so I don't see any reason to remove it. There are many maps that are using different BGs without any reason to be honest and nobody care about it, this mapset at least had some reasons to do so

Antares- wrote:

Shiirn wrote:

It's like he's forgetting that we're supposed to make maps for music, with the concepts and unique ideas being secondary or thematic with the song/track itself.

Map is technically fine to music besides 1/4 slider spam in one of diffs, I think making unique ideas for fun of playing those is good enough reason to do so. I forgot we can't have ranked unique or fun maps anymore, just every map has to be literally same jump/stream/technical pattern spam...

Doyak wrote:

Antares- wrote:

Seriously, that one sentence forced me to do that post, because it easily shows how you havent played any difficulty. It's almost impossible to rate hierarchy of difficulties here, because every difficulty needs different skill required to FC it and star rating doesnt really show that. Main example - Kuroko's AR8 patterns. It's one of those unique mapping ideas that are being destroyed, because "lol i can't play that so it's bad". Kuroko diff requires reading skills and it's pretty fun challenge for those who can do it. For those who can't do it, it's probably harder than other diffs like e.g. Kise's one. That's why you can't really sort them after difficulty.

That's why he said it's a problem. A mapset is "supposed to" have a hierarchy, yet it is generally allowed when it comes to GDs and we use same difficulty name "Extra" for each of them. But if he has to remove those GD-like names, he can't have multiple "Extra" diffs, and now the hierarchy becomes a problem.

Doyak wrote:

Antares- wrote:

Every difficulty is mapped according to character's traits so I don't see any reason to remove it. There are many maps that are using different BGs without any reason to be honest and nobody care about it, this mapset at least had some reasons to do so

I'm not against using different BGs for each diffs, but as he has to remove those GD-like diffnames, the BGs will lose the concepts.

Doyak wrote:

Antares- wrote:

Map is technically fine to music besides 1/4 slider spam in one of diffs, I think making unique ideas for fun of playing those is good enough reason to do so. I forgot we can't have ranked unique or fun maps anymore, just every map has to be literally same jump/stream/technical pattern spam...

As he said, you still can make unique maps while following the song. I don't know how much this map is the case, but there are a lot of maps that has very unique patterns other than those "literally same jump/stream/technical pattern spam". Shiirn's maps are one of those too.

Loctav wrote:

Could you please not name the difficulties in a way that they make people assume that they are mapped by other users, while they aren't? This is false attribution (I don't care why you did it, because I know why you did it)

If you want to have every difficulty to have a custom name, then you have a problem, because only one map might have a custom name. For all others, you have to probably figure out how to name stuff properly to reflect the hierarchy of the difficulties.

You shouldn't false-label things for the sake of circumventing a ruleset you disagree with. This is not how it works.

(also the AR8 difficulty is pretty aids, but I leave that to others to decide)

EDIT: I also consider the usage of a different BG on every difficulty as unnecessary.

Okorin wrote:

My 2c along with a question:
what exactly makes the akashi's Extra diff require AR10? It's part of the theme. AR 10 rushes the player, and forced them to be constantly on their toes.
I kinda disagree that centereing a diff around mouse drift is a good idea, it maks the entire diff kinda boring and along with that a pain to play for me I think it's a great idea. Boring? I don't know. It uses only one kind of flow, which is really unique in mapping. Usually we try to avoid this because usually we don't have a reason for using only one type of flow, but here there is an overwhelmingly strong thematic reason for using only counter-clockwise flows.
that Aomine diff abuses that the rc guideline only specifies that sliderheads and circles must be snapping to beats, it's like you're asking for us to include sliderends in the rewording. I'd personally classify this thing as overdone for the sake of having a lot of sliders All slider-ends have been softened using a custom soft-hitnormal. They may seem overdone do you, but they fit the difficulty's theme very well. You aren't required to play out the sliders anyways, since all of them have been set up in a way where the player need only to click on the head without necessitating slider-body movement to get 300's. Furthermore, the kicksliders contribute to a more rushed feeling in the map through the constant presence of slider-balls.
Along with that the general clutter in Kuroko diff doesnt compliment AR8 very well, it seems like you used AR8 solely for the sake of making the map more confusing than it alreasy would be without the lowered AR. I like lower AR Extras but I can't bring myself to agree with that diff because it pretty much is for the sake of being confusing, like that seems to be its main intention That is the main intention yes. AR 8 is being used to make the difficulty even harder to follow because it creates more objects on the playfield for the player to keep track of. This is very important to Kuroko's theme, since he is know for being basically the "Phantom 6th man" on the team, and his lack of presence makes it hard for people to keep track of his location. I wanted this diff to have a lower AR so players get that same feeling of having to keep track of more of the playfield if they want to track Kuroko's movements in the game.

Shiro wrote:

Hey there,

This map has been brought up to me for a few reasons, and apart from the confusing difficulty naming (as Loctav pointed out), there are many things I'd like to address. I'll be focusing on the Extra difficulties here.

General

1. The difficulty settings are extremely inconsistent. There should be a progression based on the difficulty of every diff (since you have many of them, a linear progression would be good), but instead, it feels like the difficulty settings were scrambled and assigned to the wrong diff. I understand that you were trying to achieve something by changing the difficulty settings per diff (for example, for the AR8 one), but it backfires because of how many difficulties you've mapped and how they relate to one another and gets lost in the sheer number of difficulties there are. I won't comment on each difficulty's settings (except one), so keep this in mind when going through the diff-specific mods.

Akashi

1. The beginning is inconsistent. I like that you used two circles instead of a slider every measure for variety and highlighting the song's structure, but the spacing should follow, and it doesn't. You start off with jumps 00:00:937 (1,2,3) - but immediately switch to regular spacing 00:02:137 (1,2,3) - 00:02:137 (1,2,3) - then back to jumps 00:04:537 (1,2,1) - although the song doesn't change on these objects. Stick to either the jumps or the regular spacing for this structure to have better effect. Actually, the jump on 00:01:087 (2) - is due to the stronger guitar sound here, and the jump on 00:04:687 (2) - is in preparation for the kicksliders and SV change.
2. 00:04:537 (1,2) - I assume you spaced these out more to follow the guitar going into higher pitch, but if that's the case, 00:04:237 (5) - should also be spaced out more, and the jump should be on 00:04:237 (5,1) - to follow the pitch change while 00:04:537 (1,2) - remains at a regular spacing to keep following the structure you introduced. Right now, the biggest emphasis in this pattern is on 00:04:687 (2) - which corresponds to absolutely nothing in the song - it's a structure tool you added, and it should not be emphasized like this. Like I said above, the jump is used in anticipation of a transition, so your assumption is incorrect.
3. 00:04:837 (1) - Should be a simple circle. The guitar does not appear until 00:04:987 (2) - where a 1/4 slider does fit, so by introducing the other 1/4 slider too early, you're ruining the effect this would have had and I assume was intended for the guitar. No, I want kicksliders here for that rushed feeling.
4. 00:05:137 (1,2) - I like this movement. It goes really well with the guitar and it feels properly spaced. The only beef I have with this is the blanket is very imperfect and you are more than capable of fixing it. However, this spacing 00:05:437 (2,1) - is massively exaggerated and doesn't have the same cool effect as 00:05:137 (1,2) - . The other problem is how fast the slider is and the absolute antiflow of these two. I'm not too sure why the slider is so fast but you probably do have a reason for it, but the spacing should definitely not be this large. You should keep the spacing around the same as 00:05:137 (1,2) - because the guitar riff doesn't change between them. The addition of the drums doesn't justify this big a change in spacing. I fixed the blanket. The spacing is not actually that large. Consider that this is a slider to slider jump, and there is plenty of slider-leniency involved, since these sliders are arranged to go in opposite directions. You aren't required to play out the entirety of slider 2. Rather, the way I set up the flow through the blanket and overlap makes it encouraging for players to stop early and snap to the next slider.
5. 00:08:437 (2,3,4,5) - This spacing is rather confusing (also 3,4,5 aren't equally spaced, I'm not sure that was intended). It would make more sense to space 00:08:437 (2,3) - out to make this less confusing and separate the 1/2 jump from the 1/4 sliderjumps more carefully. This is fine. I don't see a problem with spacing here... 3>4>5 not being equally spaced is fine too, because I'm using an SV change here. Its more of a visual pattern here.
6. 00:08:887 (4,1) - Are completely overlapping each other. Yes. But this is AR 10. Also, I'm fine with the full overlap. It's defiinitely readable due to how few objects are on the screen.
7. 00:09:487 (1,2,1,2) - This movement is cool, but 00:09:937 (2,1) - completely ruins it. The guitar doesn't change its phrase or anything at this point, so why change the spacing and introduce this big flow killer ? 00:10:087 (1) - would be much better reversed to keep the flow straight as it was during the sliderjumps. Also, the sudden speedup you introduce with 00:10:537 (1) - would work much better if it starts from a stack instead of a jump. No, I think the flowbreak is what makes this movement so cool lol. The break works really well emphatically too.
8. 00:10:987 (3,5,3,5) - There's no reason for these to be 1/4 sliders. I want to use 1/4 sliders here. They work great as a beat-pairing tool, and are relevant to the difficulty's theme of duality too.
9. 00:11:287 (5,6,5,6) - You contradict yourself with your flow again. Huh? No I don't... that's part of the pattern.
10. 00:16:087 (4,3,5,7) - Again, there's no reason for these to be 1/4 sliders. They should be regular circles. No, 1/4 kicksliders work really well.
11. 00:18:037 (3) - Highlighting this one in particular because again, you're not following your own structure. 00:18:037 (3,4,5) - is clearly an antijump pattern but you decided to make the first object a 1/4 slider when it bears no difference with the other ones. Either make them all 1/4 sliders, or all circles, but you need to stay consistent. I want the anti-jump here. The kickslider here isn't being used in some sort of beat-pairing, considering the lack of a "reply". It helps signal the anti-jump.
12. 00:18:787 (1,2) - This is very confusing. It looks like (1) is a 3/4 sped up slider and (2) is on the red tick, and the spacing really reads like that. In the previous occurence of this short bout of melody 00:09:487 (1,2,1,2) - you had 4 clicks going with the guitar but here you decided to ignore one, which is inconsistent and confusing. I understand why you decided not to use 1/4 sliders again considering the slider speed here, but at least make sure that all four guitar notes are properly hit. Well, I wanted it to be a bit harder to read here, since I set up the blanket so that as much of 2's approach circle was obstructed as possible. Here, I want players to concentrate on judging the speed of the slider, and gauging when to actually click on 2, based on the rhythm and speed of slider 1. I want more slider-path and slider-speed > rhythm awareness here.
13. 00:20:137 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) - Why are you ignoring the song here? Your spacing does not follow the guitar in any way and you even undermapped it. There are no other instruments there, so try to change this to better reflect it. I'm not ignoring the song at all? This follows the strong notes, and creates a snappy flow.
14. 00:22:087 (2) - Thank you for not using a 1/8 kickslider. Np
15. 00:23:737 (1,2) - These are really not following anything. If you want to follow the drums, continue the 1/1, otherwise try to follow the vocals, but this rhythm feels very off. The spacing feels very odd too and it's pretty clear that you only spaced them this way for the sake of the pattern. Hmm, I agree. Changed this to a dotted rhythm.
16. 00:25:237 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - This insane increase in density is very random and unexpected. I get that you were trying to follow the bass, but it feels wrong. This is a slow part of the song and your first patterns 00:22:537 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - did indicate this, but you decide to completely go against that and add these. It'd be much better to keep the density low here. Even if you were following the bass, you should have made them all 1/4 sliders for the sake of consistency. Again, this feels like you only did this for the pattern and it doesn't fit. See, what you did at 00:27:637 (2,3,4,5,6,7) - works very well with the bass and the switch from vocals to bass fits a lot because the vocals become too scarce, but there's no reason to switch beforehand. Since I increased density from the rhythm before, the density isn't as unexpected. Other than that, I just don't agree with your evaluation here, I think the beat-pairing here fits remarkably well.
17. 00:29:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,1,2,1) - This was cool. Thanks
18. 00:32:437 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - Again, these 1/4 sliders are out of place and only exist for the pattern. They exist for the pattern yes. This is a gimmicky difficulty that has a really strong thematic reason for stuff like this. If you want a conventional difficulty, you won't find it here, sorry.
19. 00:37:387 (3,4,5,6,7,1) - ^ ^
20. 00:40:237 (6,3) - This should be a jump, just like you did for 00:38:887 (4,5) - Not sure what you mean here. I think you have the wrong thing highlighted...
21. 00:40:687 (2,3) - This fits but why are 00:40:837 (3,4,5,6,7) - spaced so low ? You should have kept the jump pattern going, it would have been more pleasant to play and more fitting. The song is transitioning to a calmer section, I want spacing to reflect this.
22. 00:41:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - I would just like to point out that the least dense part of the map here, which corresponds to a fairly slow part of the song in terms of instrumentation (which you followed), has higher spacing than the whole verse before.
23. 00:45:337 (1,2,3) - This is severely undermapped and very confusing. They look like they're 1/4 apart but there's a big gap between them. At least make them repeat sliders to fit the song better and be less confusing. I want them to be harder to read though, in order to highlight the drums. Also yes, its "undermapped" in the sense where I don't consider vocals heavilty here, but the drums and percussion are what I want to highlight here with the kicksliders. I think they are very easy to play after you know the mechanic here, and they end up following the drums very effectively.
24. 00:47:437 (5,6) - Should be two circles. At no other point during this part of the song you ever repeat that, so this feels very much out of place. Also, this might be my personal preference but why are you following the drums when the vocals at 00:46:537 (1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5) - are so much more interesting ? Here, its cuz of the two bass drums.
25. 00:50:137 (1,1,1) - This was cool but I think the second one should be 1/2. I see what you did with the rhythm progression (1/2 -> 3/4 -> 1/1), so this is up to you. Yea, I prefer to keep for the rhythm progression you mentioned.
26. 00:52:537 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) - The spacing and density of these completely contradict what you seemed to be introducing with 00:51:337 (1,3) - . These two sliders pretty much show that you're going to follow the vocals and play on a very stop-and-go motion using extremely slow sliders jumping into one another, but you instantly ruin this effect with these circles. Hmm... I don't know about this. I think what I have is perfectly acceptable, and plays really well, but I think your point is reasonable too, so I'll get more opinions.
27. 00:54:937 (1,2,3,4,5) - Same! ^
28. 01:02:137 (3) - That was surprising but it's fun. Also 01:02:137 (3,1) - plz fix stack thx u Fixed
29. 01:03:337 (1) - That was surprising but not fun. Sorry!
30. 01:03:787 (3,5) - 01:06:187 (3,5) - 01:08:737 (4,5) - 01:09:937 (4,5) - 01:11:137 (4,5) - 01:11:887 (2,4) - 01:15:787 (2) - 01:18:037 (2,3) - 01:19:387 (3,5) - 01:22:987 (3,5) - 01:25:387 (3,5) - Again, those 1/4 sliders should be replaced with 1/2s.No for the same reasons as above.
31. The entire chorus is chaotic. I have no idea what you're trying to follow. Neither the rhythms nor the spacing seem to be following anything the song does. Everything is following the song, I'm using a very specific beat-pairing rhythm here.
32. 01:07:837 (6,7,8,9,1) - There's absolutely no reason to space these like you did, especially when you space them differently right after 01:17:437 (1,2,3,4,1) - I like them. I can't give you a reason why they have to be precisely that shape. But making them standardized only makes the map lose its touch and gimmicky characteristic. I think the way I spaced them fit the difficulty's gimmick really well, and contribute to that staggered aesthetic.
33. 01:21:337 (1) - You're ignoring a very important beat in the song on the red tick after this. I just want to focus on the white ticks here.
34. 01:21:937 (3) - Should be a circle too, to stay consistent with 01:21:637 (2,4) - No, it's consistent with 1.
35. 01:23:437 (6,1) - I don't see the reason why this has to be antiflow. (1) is not emphasized in any way in the song - in fact you even chose to make it a repeat slider. You should reverse this to keep the flow consistent here. But it's a strong beat, and its a downbeat too... I think it's emphasized, though maybe not as strong as some of the other downbeats. Nevertheless, the flow-break here works really well for me.

Kuroko

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by AngelHoney.
2. Okay so overall, I understand that you were trying to make this difficulty hard to read with the overlaps and AR8, but this is... overdone. If you want to make it hard to read, make the patterns confusing, mix back and forths and straight jumps, antijumps and jumps, etc. but overlapping everything this way just won't work. This sort of stuff works 00:08:737 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5) - and doesn't even need AR8 to be difficult to read. I don't have much to say about this apart from the fact that it's completely cramped and, in my opinion, really unfit for this mapset. You're also breaking the rules many times with your fully overlapping sliders like 01:02:137 (8,1) - . I don't think this difficulty is rankable at all. Sorry, i think this difficulty is perfectly rankable. I don't think you understand this difficulty, going by how you seem to be judging all these difficulties from the perspective of a standard and generic "Extra" difficulty mindset. They are all gimmicky in their own sense, please consider their gimmick more thoroughly before trying to standardize them for the purpose of standarizing.

Murasakibara

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Hollow Wings.
2. Circle size is... yeah. You know. Also, the entire difficulty has vastly inflated spacing - using big circles is not an excuse for doing this. This could very easily be made better by choosing a more appropriate circle size and fitting spacing. This fits the theme though uh,,,?
3. Overall this is much better than the first diff in terms of structure and consistency !
4. 00:26:137 (1,1,1) - I found these three very confusing because they end on a strong vocal, when you had spent the entire beginning of the diff focusing heavily on them. Replace them with 3/4+circle, I think it'd fit, and you'd keep the effect you were going for. They don't end on strong vocals though? The rhythm is clearly 3/2 emphasized here.
5. 00:58:537 (1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3) - TENGAKU WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I liked this pattern
6. 01:12:937 (1,3) - Again these two sliders feel very unfitting because they go over strong vocals when you've made a point to follow the vocals mostly in this diff. Again, I think you are mishearing. The slider-end isn't an emphasized vocal...

Aomine

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Priti.
2. This entire diff is heavily overmapped. My guess is you were trying to make it using as few circles as possible, but replacing 1/2 circles with 1/4 sliders doesn't work. Even if we replaced 1/4 sliders with circles, it would be overmapped, like for 00:10:837 (2,3,4,5,6,7) - where you're basically following nothing. The guitar and the drums both keep a steady 1/1 rhythm. Also, the spacing overall is very inflated, like 00:29:737 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2) - where you have nearly fullscreen jumps in a fairly neutral part of the song. It's not the chorus, it's not a solo, it's just the middle of the verse, or 00:34:837 (2,3,4,5,6,7,1) - which follow nothing in the song. The abuse of 1/4 sliderstreams make the actually fitting ones feel completely irrelevant and that's a big problem.
3. 00:01:237 (2,3,4,5) - Why the circles with this odd spacing ? You should have made them 1/2 sliders like you did for the entire introduction. i want some more variety. The spacing is a staggered zigzag type pattern.

Kise

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Andrea. And it shares the same issue as a lot of his maps: the spacing and rhythms feel off because they're forced for the sake of symmetry while not actually following the song. The difference is yours is heavily overspaced, while Andrea's maps tend to be monotonous and with low spacing.

Midorima

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Irreversible.
2. AR9.3 OD10 is an insult to all creation.

Kagami

1. You lied, this wasn't mapped by you, it was mapped by Taeyang.

Okay, honestly, I don't have the patience to point out everything wrong with all these diffs, so I'll summarize: every difficulty save from the first two ones suffer from a severe case of overspacing and blandness. I don't know the anime and I don't know if there's a sort of power ranking between the characters whose names you took, but it very much feels like you tried very hard to force star rating to establish one. I get that you were trying to make each difficulty fit the character's specific skill in the anime (as do the backgrounds) but that's too obscure. It doesn't work and it makes most of these difficulty play really badly and be unfitting. The rhythms you chose are very generic and barely fit the song (if at all sometimes), and because of that, playing through all diffs was a chore. I felt like I was playing the exact same difficulty under the influence or different illegal substances.

I understand that you were trying to give each difficulty its own theme based around a central mapping (the first difficulty) and using very similar rhythms and patterns, and I like the idea, but it's executed poorly and it just feels like a cheap excuse at mapping random things to the same song. It would work on a more complex song, but this is unfortunately very shallow, and what you did with the extra Extra diffs is out of place and very intrusive. All the difficulties feel the same, and I don't think they add anything good to the mapset. You'd be better off keeping the first difficulty, which I think is the best one, and adding the other ones as extra download to the description.

The first diff is salvageable if you take time to correct the structure and consistency issues. The rest of them I think would be better off removed and added as an external download for fun. This is a good idea, and it can be fun, but I don't think it should be ranked. Centering your map around a given gimmick is not a bad choice - in fact it often is a good one. It helps pin down the structure, gives the map a backbone and makes it more cohesive as a whole. However, this only works if the gimmick you chose reflects the song. In your case, none of the gimmicks you build your diffs around is part of the song. They're external factors taken from something that has no actual relation to the song itself. That's why they don't work.

Good luck with this set !

Shiirn wrote:

Unique identities can exist without needing to completely scrap the song in favor of mapping specific styles or concepts.


As a showcase, this map shows interesting concepts applied consistently. The fact that they're incredibly emphasized just means the music itself is basically background music. You follow the map, not the music.


Again, this is something I personally dislike because Monstrata is making a map with the music as a background suggestion that he's outright ignoring - the AR10, the OD10, the HP10, they're all concepts to make the map interesting or different. The maps are dedicated to satisfying their own concept, the music is largely irrelevant and that's what I find distasteful in Monstrata's recent forays into conceptual mapping. He's just ignoring the music and as a mapper I find that disgraceful. It's like he's forgetting that we're supposed to make maps for music, with the concepts and unique ideas being secondary or thematic with the song/track itself. (And I'm not talking the BS 'oh but X character is Y' excuses - thematic for genre, musical style, and structure. Monstrata is more than skilled enough to understand this.)

This is not to say he's a bad mapper - Monstrata is skilled and quite knowledgeable, I just feel he's applying it in all the wrong proportions. Each of these concepts can fit an entirely separate track, and can even make for excellent beatmaps, but they're just thrown into a shitty TV size song because it's a fine sacrifice to show off some amusing concepts. Quaver had a similar issue - it's got an interesting concept, but it uses the wrong kind of music to really make it feel appropriate. (fwiw Strahv is a great track to show off the crescendo theme, but the breakcore sections might be irritating)

Monstrata wrote:

they clearly aren't fundamentally flawed.

Shiro wrote:

Monstrata wrote:

they clearly aren't fundamentally flawed.

Well, sorry to break it to you, but they are. You're artificially forcing a random gimmick based on something random to the song when it doesn't work that way.

I didn't expect you to even read the mod, honestly, so I'm honoured. Shame you're so stuck on not ever changing anything in your maps. Good luck, you won't see me in this thread again.

Shiro wrote:

Shame you're so stuck on not ever changing anything in your maps

Arphimigon wrote:

I mentioned this before, but perhaps to please both, names like:
Extra (Aomine)
Extra (Kuroko)
etc
Would be cool! It would still show the characters, and not seem like a GDer is doing it.