Hopefully this post is in the right forum lol

Here you can see the BNs discuss this ---> t/481640

I am a total newb at beatmapping so I'll just say this...

In all honesty, there is much too little guides on the internet about how to make a good beatmap. Taking a good look at beatmaps made a few years ago, it seems that we have moved quite far from it, yet all the guides on the internet only helps with making maps that are considered good years ago. I have played a significant amount (majority of them offline so don't judge my profile), and anything I make, following the guides they may seem but is just missing the nowadays colour. With the community being almost completely opion-based on beatmaps, new ideas such as Kikoku Doukoku has been disgusted by many perhaps due to unfamiliarity, it is indeed very very hard to make a guide for nowadays "ranking criteria". Therefore the best way for newbies to learn is through trial and error, but that's now an option.

Why?

Looking at majority of modders they tend to hate modding newbie maps, not all that surprising considering it's more work done for the same amount of kudosu. (The kudosu system, theoretically, should be given in an amount proportionately based on the quality of the mod, but this makes it hard to stop people from spamming large amounts of kudosu for themselves) This makes things even harder for newbies since they now find it hard to improve. Many people quit mapping due to how hard it is to get their first map ranked. On the contrary, people like Blue Dragon, Hollow Wings, Monstrata have it much easier to get their maps ranked due to publicity.

Another thing is variations newbies give to Osu!. Newbies, being unaware of how "normal" beatmaps are made, make variations to the "standard" way of mapping. I think this really should be like evolution, and natural selection. However, the community seems to hate on almost anything offering variations to the pool of maps, instead of fine-tuning it, it is completely shut down.

I feel like many newbies feel this way that's why I have made this post, just whilst I'm still a noob I can say what it is like in this position as I am experiencing it first hand.

TL:DR ---> Really hard for newbies to learn the "right" way of mapping nowadays and getting their first map ranked

Battle wrote:

Guides exist

Yea but following them doesn't necessarily lead to a bankable beatmap

It doesn't exactly LEAD into rankable maps, but it certainly does help steer you toward the right direction. There's not exactly a clear cut way for people to get a ranked map, it's a learning process, the more you work on it the better you'll become. It may seem unfair, but that's just how life is lol

You will never find a Guide which tells you how to make a rankable beatmap. Guides mostly tell you the basics as in, what to take care of when mapping. At the end it boils down to the experience you gained over a certain period of time. Guides are only helping one at the Start. What I can believe is that we might missing some guides for certain rubrics, but that's a different Problem.

The Community Mentor Program was born from this need, since it is true that guides alone won't get you anywhere.
Truth be said, not even a mentor can tell you exactly what you need to do to make a map since you're literally free to make whatever you want (in theory). As part of the mentors I can tell you that besides what's written in those guides and besides our own studies on the matter, we can't give anyone anything concrete to work on: making a map is a personal matter so YOU should be the one giving the right input. What a mentor does is simply trying to give you a different and personal point of view on certain arguments of mapping (eg. Spacing, emphasis, patterns and so on) and sometimes giving you little tasks (like homework) you have to work on. Please to note the "work on" since again, YOU are the one that has to give input to the map.

The new cycle of the mentoring program will start in October so pay attention to the Beatmap Management forum to not lose the chance.


On a more personal note:
The guides you consider so "un-helpful" were the ones that made me understand mapping.
I never actually got the chance to rely on someone else, to ask questions or clarifications during my "newbie days", to get anyone to watch my work and give me the right input. Ironically, last year I even applied to the mentor program to get someone to help me (and I got denied, so rip mentor for me), but from this year I am a mentor myself.
How should I feel, considering my hard work, about your whole post about not having enough guides?
The natural conclusion from my perspective is that you gave up, therefore it is a sort of insult towards those that had the will and power to get through it, rigth?
Please, don't take this personal because it is just my rant towards nowadays mapping in general, since I can clearly see people not caring about the map itself but rather about "getting a ranked map". (At least, that's how I perceived your post since you were focusing mainly on that, right?)

Anyway, if you want to make "good" maps then I must tell you that a good map nowadays means also being creative. Being creative means doing something no one else does, something that can't be learned through someone else's' perspective. If you let someone teach you stuff it will be harder to make something really "yours" imo.
You pointed out the "fresh input from newbies" and I think it's a wonderful thing (it's also part of my policy as a mentor) but if you let someone else overwrite that freshness it becomes as any other map.
In conclusion: keep mapping on your own and try to give your personal interpretations and rules to how a map works if you want to make something original, otherwise just stick with the meta stuff and get a ranked map in 2 weeks, if your objective is simply getting a ranked map.

That's all I have to say, sorry if I sounded harsh but it wasn't really my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes, as well as the ones of those who might read this and have your same problems.

I do share your complaints about getting qualified feedback as a newbie but there's a relatively easy workaround.
While many mappers dislike modding newbie's maps as it often leads to spending a lot of effort on a map of someone who might very well give up on mapping/not give a proper reply (this is the deciding reason, no mapper seriously cares about kudosu at this point), many mappers are willing to testplay your map and give you a brief feedback of what their impression is.
As a starter you will be doing tons of mistakes considered being absolute crime (I did some at least) but those can easily be outlined via a testplay.
This also gives you the opportunity to find your own way because as MrSergio already mentioned:
If people show you how they do it you're just replicating what other people do using their reasons, their interpretation.
If you ask people for mistakes on your map you will learn how to NOT do it and as a result create beatmaps that root in your personal interpretation of a song while having them being conform with the most basic requirements to be considered fine.
Personally I think that the former way of learning mapping (consciously replicating someone else) is plain boring even though it might appear to be the best solution at first.
So use your creativity, use your head, get some feedback and try to make sense of it on your own and apply it in a way that fits your way of thinking through a map. It's certainly more difficult but it also feels very rewarding when you manage to create something that you consider as good without being completely spoonfed.

I applied for the mentorship last year as well and I think now I'm at a point where I don't really feel like I would benefit from a mentorship that much (even though the mainreason for not applying this year is that I lack the time to commit to it as much as I would want to when taking someone else's slot).

tl;dr
If you look for feedback as a beginner, ask for testplays and let people briefly tell you what your worst mistakes on the map were. Then try to take their standpoint, look if you can relate (often you will be able to) and try to incorporate it while keeping the things you like.
Every ranked map that you enjoy may serve you as a guide on how to do it right, ergo the amount of guides is massive. Everything else is just a matter of trying to improve your map by making it "less bad".

MrSergio wrote:

The Community Mentor Program was born from this need, since it is true that guides alone won't get you anywhere.
Truth be said, not even a mentor can tell you exactly what you need to do to make a map since you're literally free to make whatever you want (in theory). As part of the mentors I can tell you that besides what's written in those guides and besides our own studies on the matter, we can't give anyone anything concrete to work on: making a map is a personal matter so YOU should be the one giving the right input. What a mentor does is simply trying to give you a different and personal point of view on certain arguments of mapping (eg. Spacing, emphasis, patterns and so on) and sometimes giving you little tasks (like homework) you have to work on. Please to note the "work on" since again, YOU are the one that has to give input to the map.

The new cycle of the mentoring program will start in October so pay attention to the Beatmap Management forum to not lose the chance.


On a more personal note:
The guides you consider so "un-helpful" were the ones that made me understand mapping.
I never actually got the chance to rely on someone else, to ask questions or clarifications during my "newbie days", to get anyone to watch my work and give me the right input. Ironically, last year I even applied to the mentor program to get someone to help me (and I got denied, so rip mentor for me), but from this year I am a mentor myself.
How should I feel, considering my hard work, about your whole post about not having enough guides?
The natural conclusion from my perspective is that you gave up, therefore it is a sort of insult towards those that had the will and power to get through it, rigth?
Please, don't take this personal because it is just my rant towards nowadays mapping in general, since I can clearly see people not caring about the map itself but rather about "getting a ranked map". (At least, that's how I perceived your post since you were focusing mainly on that, right?)

Anyway, if you want to make "good" maps then I must tell you that a good map nowadays means also being creative. Being creative means doing something no one else does, something that can't be learned through someone else's' perspective. If you let someone teach you stuff it will be harder to make something really "yours" imo.
You pointed out the "fresh input from newbies" and I think it's a wonderful thing (it's also part of my policy as a mentor) but if you let someone else overwrite that freshness it becomes as any other map.
In conclusion: keep mapping on your own and try to give your personal interpretations and rules to how a map works if you want to make something original, otherwise just stick with the meta stuff and get a ranked map in 2 weeks, if your objective is simply getting a ranked map.

That's all I have to say, sorry if I sounded harsh but it wasn't really my intention. I just wanted to open your eyes, as well as the ones of those who might read this and have your same problems.

I'm gonna have to admit, that I am probably the worst "googler" ever. For the past half a year or so I have been searching everywhere for a mentor programme but couldn't find it lol.

I would like to first point out that this post was made as a possible consideration for people in the community rather than to attack the system or the community.


You were like 3 different people in a span of 3 paragraphs haha, 1st paragraph more GM (formal), then the next one some emotions leaked out, and finally you kinda sucked it back in lol.

MrSergio:

Sorry if I sounded like I'm hating on the community and the guides, but I'm not. In fact, the guides are made very well to cover the basic, what I am saying is that with all the basics sorted, there are still missing elements, ESPECIALLY the stuff that are in grey yard zones. It really comes down to trial and error, newbies generally just don't get that error notice.

I haven't given up yet lol, I just wish that other newbies could contribute to the community with their own style of beatmaps because in the end, that's what beatmappers do. You're right, you have the sheer iron and will to push through this and I respect that (Look at you! a GM!!! With the green names!!), but what I am getting at is, mapping is really part of osu! At some stages, people want to play this particular song in this particular way, and they will need to beatmap. Of course after putting all of that hardwork into beatmapping, you would want it to get ranked. You may say that it can just be a graveyard map but lets be honest here, there aren't that many people that make legitimate beatmap just to be graveyarded.(With the exception of training maps and visualisation maps).

You pointed out that nowadays it's about being creative, I can disagree on that. Hollow Wings, about the most creative beatmapper in the community, gets hated on by a lot of people. Although there are other sides, e.g people like Blue Dragon who thinks it's a great beatmapping style, imagine a newbie bring that variation into this community. "It's only because it's HW/ALIEN that this map was able to be ranked", this is partially true since looking at a beatmap like that, we would assume that if a newbie made it, he is just screwing around like every other one. Whereas if a very experienced beatmapper e.g Hollow Wings made that, we would say, hey look, she definitely knows what she is doing, so perhaps this is a variation we can consider.

The "right" way of beatmapping nowadays is really easy pp points and TV size jump maps. Yes it's true the true right way is through creativity, but do you really think a newbie can do that without getting bashed? If HW gets bashed, what makes you think a newbie won't?

Mapping in general is really just about getting ranked in a sense. You make a beatmap to enjoy it yourself and also for others to be like "Wow that was cool". Let me ask you, how amazing is a creative beatmap, with everything original and well mapped sitting in a graveyard with zero plays? Beatmappers make creative variations because they want to show the world, hey, this is an idea which I've made, try it out. And not because they want it to sit in the corner of graveyard and enjoy it for themselves(Literately almost all the players I know only play ranked beatmaps because they give pp whilst being enjoyable). But people are hating on variation these days so really the only way to contribute to variation is to climb up the ladder, earn publicity, then develop your own style. Once you climb up the ladder, aren't you already used to the normal way of mapping? You see more sets of rules, you see the tiny details that makes a map good, and you would follow them. Therefore less of your own style is in the map(Not saying everyone is like that, but just a lot of them). Whereas a newbie comes in with a mindset of Hey! This seems like a cool idea, lets try that! I like this here so I will put that here.

Now this is not a post attacking experienced mappers and boosting Newbies. I agree, newbies like me do the most retarded things, but rather than getting shut down I would just prefer people who fine tune newbie's ways of mapping(Of course what needs to be shutdown, e.g Ninja Spinners needs to be done but talking about the more subtle things). This makes diversity and fun, not just all TV sized jump maps and other easy pp maps.

Endaris wrote:

I do share your complaints about getting qualified feedback as a newbie but there's a relatively easy workaround.
While many mappers dislike modding newbie's maps as it often leads to spending a lot of effort on a map of someone who might very well give up on mapping/not give a proper reply (this is the deciding reason, no mapper seriously cares about kudosu at this point), many mappers are willing to testplay your map and give you a brief feedback of what their impression is.
As a starter you will be doing tons of mistakes considered being absolute crime (I did some at least) but those can easily be outlined via a testplay.
This also gives you the opportunity to find your own way because as MrSergio already mentioned:
If people show you how they do it you're just replicating what other people do using their reasons, their interpretation.
If you ask people for mistakes on your map you will learn how to NOT do it and as a result create beatmaps that root in your personal interpretation of a song while having them being conform with the most basic requirements to be considered fine.
Personally I think that the former way of learning mapping (consciously replicating someone else) is plain boring even though it might appear to be the best solution at first.
So use your creativity, use your head, get some feedback and try to make sense of it on your own and apply it in a way that fits your way of thinking through a map. It's certainly more difficult but it also feels very rewarding when you manage to create something that you consider as good without being completely spoonfed.

I applied for the mentorship last year as well and I think now I'm at a point where I don't really feel like I would benefit from a mentorship that much (even though the mainreason for not applying this year is that I lack the time to commit to it as much as I would want to when taking someone else's slot).

tl;dr
If you look for feedback as a beginner, ask for testplays and let people briefly tell you what your worst mistakes on the map were. Then try to take their standpoint, look if you can relate (often you will be able to) and try to incorporate it while keeping the things you like.
Every ranked map that you enjoy may serve you as a guide on how to do it right, ergo the amount of guides is massive. Everything else is just a matter of trying to improve your map by making it "less bad".

Mmmm I agree.

Ahhh, I believe people give up on mapping because of how annoying it is to get your map ranked. Like I said to MrSergio, getting your mapped ranked is really the goal for beatmappers for one reason. Because it gets lots of plays. When you make a beatmap of course you want people to play it. Which is what newbies can't do without sheer iron of will (Like Mr.Sergio) and pushing through hell, and that's why I am raising this issu.

I never really enjoyed the idea of spoon-feeding. Your suggestion on people testplaying your maps and receiving quick feed back is a great one, something I'll try. However, I think I will probably try mentoring first.

First of all, Ranking Criteria and Guidelines are not "guide" to excellent maps but to the basic stuffs your map must or should meet.
And there won't be any guide which, if being referred or used, could help you rank a beatmap. Or rather, following guide != definitely get your map ranked.

Considering the mapping community is always a moving society, as you could see that some "tutorials" are no longer that efficient nowadays, some of which even conflict with current ranking criteria. Also the ranking criteria is always being amended, revised and revamped. New guide may become outdated quite fast. So what we relatively experienced mappers or modders could do is just trying our best to give out the knowledge about the basic stuffs (though rather limited) that does not change along with the pace of the community.

It's like, laws and regulations would not help you to be a "good" person, either because it is too hard to define what a good person is or it is just too complex to say what you need to do to become a good person. It may sounds a bit weird but it is similar to becoming experienced mappers from beginners.

But does that mean it is almost impossible for starters to pick up mapping? Of course not, though helping new mappers is really a time-consuming work with almost no payment xD, there are some modders, mappers and even players who are willing to give feedbacks and simple advice regarding your map through irc, testplay etc. So don't hesitate to ask them for help.

P.S Since mapping is related to modding, M4M is also a nice way to find help for your map. This is a mutual process so that you and your counterpart could both get benefits. <3

Blitzfrog wrote:

I never really enjoyed the idea of spoon-feeding. Your suggestion on people testplaying your maps and receiving quick feed back is a great one, something I'll try. However, I think I will probably try mentoring first.

Thank the people who cultivated this and Mao for recommending that method to me.

you know what, I agree with you, it is HARD


but you have to REMEMBER that if you wan't your FIRST ranked mapset you are going to work HARD


'Newbies' should HAVE to work hard to get a ranked mapset, that what feels so rewarding about it, i'm guessing.