How are we dealing with standardization of OD in Taiko ranked maps? If you check the list of qualified maps, it's becoming more and more common to see OD7 maps in the ranking process. Four out of the six qualified maps this week are OD7. Of course, the Taiko pp system rewards an OD7 play way above an OD6 play (for similar accuracy), and I'm worried that if the OD meta increases to 7, then beloved years-old ranked maps will become irrelevant -- not because of problems with the maps, but simply because it is impossible for them to give as much pp as a new OD-powercreep map.
In the information for his new OD7 Demetori map, Surono explained that he chose OD7 because he was simply bored of OD6 maps. Now, I love that map, but I think that this should not be a permissible justification to employ an OD that will cause a drastic difference between the pp awarded by it and any other map with similar parameters except OD. Sand's new Demetori map is also OD7 -- for what reason? I was just browsing the five pages of the beatmap's thread and I couldn't find anything about OD (although admittedly I was using some control-f searches, and not reading every message in full). And I would be shocked if the 5-years-old currently-qualified Demetori map wasn't changed from OD5 to OD6 before it was given the green light -- after all, the OD meta of similarly aged maps seems to have been OD5. If that map were left at OD5, then it would be inconsequential to players' rank, relative to maps of similar difficulty parameters in our current OD6 meta.
Note that I'm not disparaging the mappers that I've mentioned -- in fact I think that the maps that I've referenced are among the best that I've played in a while, and in general I <3 Sand and Surono's beatmaps, ranked or graveyarded! (You guys are awesome, and make me love this game more and more!) I merely think that there should be some well-defined, standardized reasons to choose a non-meta OD for maps, and I find no evidence to conclude that there was any such reason to set the OD to 7 in these maps. Please correct me if I'm wrong -- after all, I'm not anywhere near involved with the Taiko ranking process; but I contend that the Surono example is evidence that there is a lack of standardization regarding the selection of non-meta OD's in Taiko. And I should stress that in the case of the currently-qualified U.N. Owen Demetori map, it makes perfect sense to me that its OD would have been changed from 5 to 6, because such a choice suits the current OD meta.
Note also that I'm not calling for the OD on these maps that I've mentioned to be changed. I am well aware that if I had wanted to ensure that these maps not be of OD7, then I should have complained while they were qualified. However, with four out of the six currently qualified maps being OD7, it's become apparent to me that we might be in the middle of an OD metagame shift, and that thought makes me exceptionally uncomfortable. The occasional OD7 map is of little concern to me; what is of concern to me is a full-on metagame shift, if such a shift is caused by nothing other than a seeming lack of standardization.
What are peoples' thoughts on this?
P.S. The following paragraph has nothing to do with my argument above, although it does question one specific motivation to use OD7:
All of this is not to say that I see OD7 as being necessarily a bad thing. With the current scheme, someone could have a number of FC's with maps of moderate difficulty, but then if they're going to get a performance increase using a very difficult map, then they're forced to FC or get an insignificant amount of pp, even though non-FCs of difficult maps can (to my mind) be a lot more qualitatively impressive than FC's of easier ones. So higher OD could be used to distinguish higher-difficulty plays from the heap of moderate-difficulty FC's. However, is increasing the OD on harder maps really the only way to get rid of such an issue? (That is, if people even think that it IS an issue.) Aren't there are other weighting procedures that wouldn't require, say, the 6+ SR maps to have a different OD meta than easier maps? I should stress that, to my mind, if OD inflation accomplishes nothing other than to allow players to gain pp from higher difficulty maps, then the OD is being used as a crutch to get around a problem with the pp system.
In the information for his new OD7 Demetori map, Surono explained that he chose OD7 because he was simply bored of OD6 maps. Now, I love that map, but I think that this should not be a permissible justification to employ an OD that will cause a drastic difference between the pp awarded by it and any other map with similar parameters except OD. Sand's new Demetori map is also OD7 -- for what reason? I was just browsing the five pages of the beatmap's thread and I couldn't find anything about OD (although admittedly I was using some control-f searches, and not reading every message in full). And I would be shocked if the 5-years-old currently-qualified Demetori map wasn't changed from OD5 to OD6 before it was given the green light -- after all, the OD meta of similarly aged maps seems to have been OD5. If that map were left at OD5, then it would be inconsequential to players' rank, relative to maps of similar difficulty parameters in our current OD6 meta.
Note that I'm not disparaging the mappers that I've mentioned -- in fact I think that the maps that I've referenced are among the best that I've played in a while, and in general I <3 Sand and Surono's beatmaps, ranked or graveyarded! (You guys are awesome, and make me love this game more and more!) I merely think that there should be some well-defined, standardized reasons to choose a non-meta OD for maps, and I find no evidence to conclude that there was any such reason to set the OD to 7 in these maps. Please correct me if I'm wrong -- after all, I'm not anywhere near involved with the Taiko ranking process; but I contend that the Surono example is evidence that there is a lack of standardization regarding the selection of non-meta OD's in Taiko. And I should stress that in the case of the currently-qualified U.N. Owen Demetori map, it makes perfect sense to me that its OD would have been changed from 5 to 6, because such a choice suits the current OD meta.
Note also that I'm not calling for the OD on these maps that I've mentioned to be changed. I am well aware that if I had wanted to ensure that these maps not be of OD7, then I should have complained while they were qualified. However, with four out of the six currently qualified maps being OD7, it's become apparent to me that we might be in the middle of an OD metagame shift, and that thought makes me exceptionally uncomfortable. The occasional OD7 map is of little concern to me; what is of concern to me is a full-on metagame shift, if such a shift is caused by nothing other than a seeming lack of standardization.
What are peoples' thoughts on this?
P.S. The following paragraph has nothing to do with my argument above, although it does question one specific motivation to use OD7:
All of this is not to say that I see OD7 as being necessarily a bad thing. With the current scheme, someone could have a number of FC's with maps of moderate difficulty, but then if they're going to get a performance increase using a very difficult map, then they're forced to FC or get an insignificant amount of pp, even though non-FCs of difficult maps can (to my mind) be a lot more qualitatively impressive than FC's of easier ones. So higher OD could be used to distinguish higher-difficulty plays from the heap of moderate-difficulty FC's. However, is increasing the OD on harder maps really the only way to get rid of such an issue? (That is, if people even think that it IS an issue.) Aren't there are other weighting procedures that wouldn't require, say, the 6+ SR maps to have a different OD meta than easier maps? I should stress that, to my mind, if OD inflation accomplishes nothing other than to allow players to gain pp from higher difficulty maps, then the OD is being used as a crutch to get around a problem with the pp system.