Hi everybody!
After weeks of discussion within the people involved in the United Beat-Knights of Ranking Criteria, I'm happy to announce we've come to an agreement and crafted a draft for a new set of rules and guidelines for osu!standard. Notice this is NOT the final result, as we need the feedback of the community first before getting it officially bumped into the wiki.
Before posting, please think through if what you want to add belongs into the difficulty-specific draft or the general Ranking Criteria. Thanks!
The proposal starts with the Glossary
If your song is drastically faster or slower, some variables might be different. Apply reasonable judgement in these cases.
Difficulty Names
Rules
All rules are exactly that: RULES. They are NOT guidelines and may NOT be broken under ANY circumstance.
Guidelines may be violated under exceptional circumstances. These exceptional circumstances must be warranted by an exhaustive explanation as of why the guideline has been violated and why not violating it will interfere with the overall quality of the creation.
Rules
Make sure to read the entire draft again, the opening post is up to date now! The Revision will be up to discussion for two weeks again and close on the 27th October 0:00 UTC+0
After weeks of discussion within the people involved in the United Beat-Knights of Ranking Criteria, I'm happy to announce we've come to an agreement and crafted a draft for a new set of rules and guidelines for osu!standard. Notice this is NOT the final result, as we need the feedback of the community first before getting it officially bumped into the wiki.
Frequently Asked Questions
(read this in all cases before posting)- Is it necessary to read the entire draft before commenting or asking questions?
-> Yes, else you may complain about/mention things that are not related to this draft or are actually already present here. - Is this the entire new Ranking Criteria? I feel like this is missing a lot of things...
-> This is not the entire Ranking Criteria. This draft aims to replace the rules and guidelines currently in effect on the osu!-specific Ranking Criteria. - To which difficulties does this criteria apply?
-> All osu! difficulties. This draft aims to replace the content on the osu!-specific Ranking Criteria. There will be a difficulty-specific part which will apply to the different difficulty levels that osu! currently has. - Why are some things on this draft conflicting with the Ranking Criteria?
-> This draft will, when applied, take priority over the general Ranking Criteria. The respective parts from the Ranking Criteria were identified to be only applicable to osu! specifically so they should end up only present on the osu!-specific ranking criteria in the very end.
The proposal starts with the Glossary
Glossary
Rhythm related guidelines apply to approximately 180 BPM maps.If your song is drastically faster or slower, some variables might be different. Apply reasonable judgement in these cases.
Common terms
Difficulty Names
- Easy
- Normal
- Hard
- Insane
- Expert
Refer to t/178700 for alternative difficulty naming methods.
Advanced: A difficulty combining elements found in both Normal and Hard difficulties. It is often used to fill the gap between lower-level normals and higher-level hards.
Extra/Extreme/Ultra: Names used to replace Expert and to indicate increasing difficulty among multiple Expert difficulties.
- Jump: Hitobjects spaced further apart from each other in comparison to the average spacing for such patterns. Usually snapped to 1/2 beats.
- Stream: Consecutive circles grouped together. Usually snapped to ¼ beats.
- Stack: Two or more hitobjects placed in the same spot on the grid.
- Stack Leniency: A setting used to determine if hitobjects stack or directly overlap each other. Increasing its value will cause hitobjects to stack at longer time intervals.
- Overlap: Hitobjects touching each other where they do not stack.
- Snapping: Timeline tick where an object is placed.
- Slider head/tail: The start/end positions of a slider.
- Slider border: Visible outline of a slider's path. When this is distorted through overlaps, sliders can become harder to read.
- Slider anchors: Tools used to shape the body of a slider. Gray anchors shape a single curve, while red anchors end the current curve. Also referred to as “nodes”.
- Slider Velocity: A slider's speed defines how much space it travels within a given beat. Base slider velocity can be controlled in the timing panel and additional changes can be made through inherited (green) timing points.
- Buzz slider: a slider snapped to 1/8 or denser with more than three reverses, causing a "buzz" rather than individual hitsounds.
- Short Reversing Slider: A short slider (usually 1/4 or 1/8 snapping) with 1 or more reverses. This allows a player to keep their cursor in one place while the slider reverses.
- Hold Slider: A slider requiring the player to keep their cursor in one place rather than follow the sliderball.
- Burai Slider: A slider directly overlapping its own body, resulting in an unclear slider path.
- Extended slider: A slider whose tail is not snapped to a specific beat in the music, but is instead expressing a prolonged sound. The most common extended slider is ¾ of a beat.
- Slider Tick Rate: The amount of slider ticks that appear per beat of music.
- Spinner Recovery Time: The time between the end of a spinner and the following hitobject.
- Time-distance equality: Spacing between hitobjects is proportional to the duration of time between them. Also known as using a constant distance spacing
- Hitobject/Note density: The average timeline gaps between hitobjects expressed in fractions of a beat (such as 1/1 for one beat, 1/2 for half a beat).
- Keysounding: Hitsounding using samples extremely similar or directly from the song in their respective places. This method of hitsounding usually provides low feedback to the player.
General
Rules
All rules are exactly that: RULES. They are NOT guidelines and may NOT be broken under ANY circumstance.
- Hitobjects must never be off-screen in 4:3 aspect ratios. Hitobjects that are even partially off-screen can create reading difficulties. Test play your map to confirm this.
- Spinners must be long enough for Auto to achieve 1000 bonus score. Short spinners are unreasonably difficult to complete.
- Each map must use at least two different custom combo colors unless the default skin is forced. The combo colors must not blend with the map's background/storyboard/video in any case. This is so hitobjects are always visible to the player and custom skin's combo colors do not blend with the background accidentally.
- Reverse arrows on sliders must not be completely visually obstructed by other hitobjects with the default or beatmap-specific skin. Covering up reverse arrows on sliders can result in sliders being ambiguous to read.
- Every slider must have a clear and visible path to follow from start to end. Sliders which overlap themselves in a way that makes any section unreadable or ambiguous cannot be used, such as burai sliders and hold sliders without straightforward slider borders. When perfectly overlapping two slider bodies, the first slider must be fully faded out before the second slider is fully faded in.
Guidelines may be violated under exceptional circumstances. These exceptional circumstances must be warranted by an exhaustive explanation as of why the guideline has been violated and why not violating it will interfere with the overall quality of the creation.
- All circles and slider heads should be snapped to distinct sounds in the music. Adding hitobjects where there is no musical cue to justify them can result in unfitting rhythms.
- Slider tick rate should be set according to the song. For example if your song contains a section that uses ⅓ snapping only, using tick rate 2 would not be fitting for the entire map. In such cases, tick rate 1 should be used.
- Avoid using combo colors, slider borders or hitcircleoverlays with ~50 luminosity or lower. Dark colors like these impact readability of approach circles with low background dim and the other elements partially give up their functions as borders.
- Avoid using combo colors with ~220 luminosity or higher during kiai times. They create bright pulses which can be unpleasant to the eyes.
- Avoid overlapping hitobjects with other elements of the default and beatmap-specific skins. This refers to all elements that are part of the interface and can be skinned.
- Avoid using high tick rates combined with low slider velocity. Receiving feedback from slider ticks that are not visible can be uncomfortable.
- Ensure that your combos are not unreasonably short or long. Combos should reflect patterns expressed in the song, such as bars of music or vocal/instrumental phrases.
- Avoid keysounding without hitnormal support. If hitsounds blend perfectly with the song, feedback is minimal.
- Buzz sliders should have appropriate delay before the next note. 1/8 and 1/16 sliders should be followed by a 1/4 gap, whereas 1/12 sliders should be followed by a 1/6 gap. This ensures that the hit-window between hitobjects is playable.
- Difficulty should be appropriately expressed to represent the intensities of different sections in the music. More complex/denser rhythms and more complex/quicker movements should be appropriately used to produce feedback through difficulty.
- Avoid major composition differences in similar sections of a song. The basic spacing and rhythm should be similar, while patterning can vary. This ensures that rhythm and intensity in all similar sections reflect a song similarly.
- Sliders should begin on stronger beats and end on equal or weaker sounds. Stressing important sounds through clicking is more natural to play than stressing unimportant sounds.
- Avoid extended sliders which pass through important sounds. If an extended slider tail lands on silence and passes through a loud sound, players may have trouble interpreting rhythm. In these cases, it is better to place the slider tail on an audible beat.
- Jumps should be used to highlight certain sounds in the music. Because playing a jump pattern puts more pressure on the player, they naturally fit better for highlighting certain sounds.
- Make sure that your spinners are not unreasonably long. Aim for a maximum spinning time of about 5-7 seconds; any longer can cause the player's wrist to get sore. If your spinner must be longer, be sure that the music suggests this.
- Spinners should be used when they fit the music. This is to ensure score differences among perfect plays on the leaderboard. They usually fit during held notes, changes in intensity, or transitions between sections.
- When including a slider velocity change, there should be a discernible change in the song's pacing. Otherwise the velocity change would feel unsupported by the music.
- Avoid using sound samples for sliderslide, sliderwhistle, and spinnerspin which do not naturally loop. These hitsounds are continuous, meaning that their files play from start to end and loop as one continuous sound for the length of the object.
- Avoid silencing both slider ticks and slider slides together. Low volume or blending sound samples are similarly discouraged when inaudible. If a slider tick does not snap to a distinct sound, it can be inaudible.
- Avoid following multiple layers of the song if it is unclear what rhythm is prioritizing. Players should be able to discern what part of the song is being followed.
- Sliderends of extended sliders should be snapped according to the song's beat structure. If the song is using a straight beat, 1/4 or 1/8 are recommended. If the song is using a swing beat, 1/6 or 1/12 are recommended. If the song has a beat in a different position from what was recommended, snapping to an actual beat always takes priority.
- Try to spread your hitobject placement evenly across the playfield. Cluttering hitobjects in one section of the screen for no reason will make them stand out unnecessarily.
- Avoid rhythms which are in no way predictable. Rhythm can be made intuitive through the usage of consistent timeline gaps bridging between different snappings, time-distance equality, or slider reverses/ends snapped to irregular beats.
- Avoid using similar combo colors in successive combos. Players should be able to differentiate between different combos in a map.
- Spinners and sliderends should have hitsound feedback. If either are used to represent a held sound and do not end on a distinct sound, having no feedback is acceptable.
Skinning
Rules
- Spinner circles and their centers must be clearly visible and exactly centered. This is to ensure that players have a visible aid to help them spin consistently, as well as a visual reference point to spin around.
- Hit100 and 300 must be different from corresponding geki and katu skin elements. Hit300g, hit300k, and hit100k indicate if players perfectly hit all 300 in a combo.
- A custom slider border color must be selected when a beatmap contains skin elements from the hitcircle or slider sets. This is to avoid the default slider border or a player's custom skin's slider border from conflicting with the map's specific color scheme. This is done by adding “SliderBorder: <RGB Value>” under “[Colours]” in a .osu file.
- Slider body color cannot be too similar to slider border color. If both of these settings are too similar to each other, then the slider border element loses its point as a visual border for the slider. Slider body color can be selected by adding “SliderTrackOverride: <RGB Value>” under “[Colours]” in a .osu file.
- Both slider border and body colors must be manually set or not set. Setting only one may conflict with a user's custom skin choices.
- Usage of the old style spinners is not recommended. It can be only used with Preferred Skin set to Default. Skins using SpinnerBackground will change the color of spinner-background.png and that could negatively change spinner's appearance. This setting doesn't work in .osu file.
Make sure to read the entire draft again, the opening post is up to date now! The Revision will be up to discussion for two weeks again and close on the 27th October 0:00 UTC+0
