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!mania. Notice this is NOT the final result, as we need the feedback of the community first before getting it officially bumped into the wiki.









Make sure to read the whole draft and leave a feedback below! The draft will be up to discussion for two weeks and close on the 18th November 2016 UTC+0

Oh nice.

So of course the first question would be, how do we judge when notes try to emulate the sound of something? When something like that is rankable or not. Beside that, this looks already solid.

I think the value of 8 OD is a bit too low. I would just change the HP and OD because I feel HP 8.5 needs more justification than 8.5 OD.

Feerum wrote:

1. It’s widely accepted to use values of 6-8.5 for HP Drain Rate and Overall Difficulty for ranked beatmaps.
   
   1. Maps with an HP Drain Rate value of 8.5 or higher should be handled with caution; values of 9 or higher require justification from the beatmapper. A valid reason justifying a higher HP Drain Rate value in a beatmap may include mash prevention.
   2. Maps with an Overall Difficulty value of 8 or higher should be handled with caution; values of 9 or higher require justification from the beatmapper. Beatmaps with higher concentration of long notes should have their Overall Difficult values reduced to compensate the difficulty in long note release timings.
   3. The Overall Difficulty/HP Drain Rate should also keep a good spread according to the Mapset spread.

I disagree with OD recommendation thing. First of all, it's contradicting itself: "It’s widely accepted to use values of 6-8.5 for HP Drain Rate and Overall Difficulty for ranked beatmap" and then "Maps with an Overall Difficulty value of 8 or higher should be handled with caution"
Secondly, OD 8,5 is pretty standard in high level maps and I think it should still be clearly stated and separated that for maps with more complex LN usage recommended is 8 and for maps with little to no LNs recommended is 8,5.

Feerum wrote:

Every note must be clearly assignable to a musical layer or layer unit it tries to represent. This may either be the exact placement of noises within this layer or the silhouette of its movement, and it may be an attempt to replicate the noise behavior either visually or to make the player execute the motion that would paint the layer or layer unit as its best.[/b]

i'm not sure if i understood this correctly but does this mean delay streams can be rankable as long as it fits the song or what

Shouldn't OD be the stat you should change to prevent mashing? Considering if the chart is hard enough for you will have a way harder time hitting the notes mashing as you would with lower OD and higher HP. With high HP you still have a chance to pass really dense stuff if the OD is low enough *cough*P//S*cough*. Obviously this doesn't apply for charts that don't focus on jumptrillable patterns, though.

Good proposal, but I also want clarification on the point juan brought up. Does this mean "expressive" dumps are okay?

snoverpk wrote:

Feerum wrote:

-

i'm not sure if i understood this correctly but does this mean delay streams can be rankable as long as it fits the song or what

I don't see how they wouldn't be even before this. I think this rule is to imply that you can have roll spam on dubstep songs and such, but not dumps like tengaku.

Should we add Beginner from BMS to the list of possible Easy difficulty names?

I agree with the OD complaints; 8.5-10 seems increasingly common among high-difficulty maps, and I would hardly call OD 8.5 an "exception" that requires special explanation. Maybe we should make 8.5-9 the range that should be handled with caution.

I don't think you should put a "recommended" ODHP like Kami suggested. Lots of people have different preferences, and the preferred ODHP seems to change over time as well. Besides, it's quite easy for a new mapper to model their maps' ODHP off of other maps without needing to have a "standardized" suggestion. In general, the RC is there to point out what can't be ranked, so I think putting a "suggestion" like that is rather prescriptive.

Here to post my shitty opinions on this matter:

Feerum wrote:

[*]Every note must be clearly assignable to a musical layer or layer unit it tries to represent. This may either be the exact placement of noises within this layer or the silhouette of its movement, and it may be an attempt to replicate the noise behavior either visually or to make the player execute the motion that would paint the layer or layer unit as its best.

I honestly think this should be phrased differently. I've yet to understand what exactly are you trying to say with this rule.
"Does it mean I can't add notes when there is no sound?"
"Does it mean I can sometimes represent a long sound with a trill as long as it fits correctly?"

Everyone I know have been confused with what exactly are you saying with this. And if this is going to be on the Ranking Criteria, it should be as clear as possible. Now, I'm not saying to change the rule (again, I have yet to understand fully what you are trying to say with this), just the wording of it.

juankristal wrote:

Oh nice.

So of course the first question would be, how do we judge when notes try to emulate the sound of something? When something like that is rankable or not. Beside that, this looks already solid.

It is definitely up to discretion of the BN, it goes hand in hand with the rule that the BN must be able to judge the map with respect to the map's motive
So if the map's target audience falls outside the BN's ability range, it'd be a problem

juankristal wrote:

I think the value of 8 OD is a bit too low. I would just change the HP and OD because I feel HP 8.5 needs more justification than 8.5 OD.

We also have to take note of beginner difficulty mappers as well and generally all VSRGs, think 8 is a decent value to set it at if you were to look at other games, their accuracy difficulty revolves around 8

-Kamikaze- wrote:

Feerum wrote:

1. It’s widely accepted to use values of 6-8.5 for HP Drain Rate and Overall Difficulty for ranked beatmaps.
   
   1. Maps with an HP Drain Rate value of 8.5 or higher should be handled with caution; values of 9 or higher require justification from the beatmapper. A valid reason justifying a higher HP Drain Rate value in a beatmap may include mash prevention.
   2. Maps with an Overall Difficulty value of 8 or higher should be handled with caution; values of 9 or higher require justification from the beatmapper. Beatmaps with higher concentration of long notes should have their Overall Difficult values reduced to compensate the difficulty in long note release timings.
   3. The Overall Difficulty/HP Drain Rate should also keep a good spread according to the Mapset spread.

I disagree with OD recommendation thing. First of all, it's contradicting itself: "It’s widely accepted to use values of 6-8.5 for HP Drain Rate and Overall Difficulty for ranked beatmap" and then "Maps with an Overall Difficulty value of 8 or higher should be handled with caution"
Secondly, OD 8,5 is pretty standard in high level maps and I think it should still be clearly stated and separated that for maps with more complex LN usage recommended is 8 and for maps with little to no LNs recommended is 8,5.

Beatmaps with higher concentration of long notes should have their Overall Difficult values reduced to compensate the difficulty in long note release timings

Same argument I have with the previous issue i addressed, I think it's fine to leave OD at 8, considering the norm of ranked maps fluctuate around 7 - 9 generally.

snoverpk wrote:

Feerum wrote:

Every note must be clearly assignable to a musical layer or layer unit it tries to represent. This may either be the exact placement of noises within this layer or the silhouette of its movement, and it may be an attempt to replicate the noise behavior either visually or to make the player execute the motion that would paint the layer or layer unit as its best.[/b]

i'm not sure if i understood this correctly but does this mean delay streams can be rankable as long as it fits the song or what

Yes, this also includes simplification of the snaps, but take note that the BNs must still be capable of assessing the map if they want to nominate it

riktoi wrote:

Shouldn't OD be the stat you should change to prevent mashing? Considering if the chart is hard enough for you will have a way harder time hitting the notes mashing as you would with lower OD and higher HP. With high HP you still have a chance to pass really dense stuff if the OD is low enough *cough*P//S*cough*. Obviously this doesn't apply for charts that don't focus on jumptrillable patterns, though.

Good proposal, but I also want clarification on the point juan brought up. Does this mean "expressive" dumps are okay?

Would say that OD is definitely one factor that prevents mashing, think we just want to cover the major problems with setting too low of an OD during discussion, might be a possible addition to that rule.

Expressive dumps are up to BNs discretion, we might not have the same idea of what "expressive" means, but dumps are rankable in a way

Wh1teh wrote:

snoverpk wrote:

i'm not sure if i understood this correctly but does this mean delay streams can be rankable as long as it fits the song or what

I don't see how they wouldn't be even before this. I think this rule is to imply that you can have roll spam on dubstep songs and such, but not dumps like tengaku.

Would say tengaku is harder to justify due to how i used fodder notes to fill in blank spaces in the map, this will most likely not be rankable, but roll spams on distorted sounds are allowed in this case. Voice vibrato might be considered as well, there needs to be an instrumental backing the note's existence here basically

Nivrad00 wrote:

Should we add Beginner from BMS to the list of possible Easy difficulty names?

I agree with the OD complaints; 8.5-10 seems increasingly common among high-difficulty maps, and I would hardly call OD 8.5 an "exception" that requires special explanation. Maybe we should make 8.5-9 the range that should be handled with caution.

I don't think you should put a "recommended" ODHP like Kami suggested. Lots of people have different preferences, and the preferred ODHP seems to change over time as well. Besides, it's quite easy for a new mapper to model their maps' ODHP off of other maps without needing to have a "standardized" suggestion. In general, the RC is there to point out what can't be ranked, so I think putting a "suggestion" like that is rather prescriptive.

Quite agree to putting values here being prescriptive, note that this is in the guidelines, though I do agree while they are not meant to be followed they should be a good example.

I think generally, OD 7-9 is the norm for ranked maps these days so it's just a simple guidance on "what values are the norm" instead of "I think this should be the OD just because <insert opinion>". While I do agree that newer harder maps are using higher OD, we should also consider easier maps, after all, guidelines are targeted at everyone in general. Wouldn't say that guidelines that this is absolute obsolete nor hindering, this is just to guide people on what values they should consider first before venturing on into unorthodox values.

Guidelines are meant to help "generic" maps in general, if mappers have a different motive/idea such that they want to break out of this guideline, then so be it

Kaito-kun wrote:

Here to post my shitty opinions on this matter:

Feerum wrote:

[*]Every note must be clearly assignable to a musical layer or layer unit it tries to represent. This may either be the exact placement of noises within this layer or the silhouette of its movement, and it may be an attempt to replicate the noise behavior either visually or to make the player execute the motion that would paint the layer or layer unit as its best.

I honestly think this should be phrased differently. I've yet to understand what exactly are you trying to say with this rule.
"Does it mean I can't add notes when there is no sound?"
"Does it mean I can sometimes represent a long sound with a trill as long as it fits correctly?"

Everyone I know have been confused with what exactly are you saying with this. And if this is going to be on the Ranking Criteria, it should be as clear as possible. Now, I'm not saying to change the rule (again, I have yet to understand fully what you are trying to say with this), just the wording of it.

<"Does it mean I can't add notes when there is no sound?">
Every note must be clearly assignable to a musical layer or layer unit it tries to represent

<"Does it mean I can sometimes represent a long sound with a trill as long as it fits correctly?">
Would say a vibrating long sound would be more fitting than that of a sound that is constant. Note that this ranking criterion (singular) here is leaning towards technical mapping than that of anything that has to do with the physical demands of the map.

eg. This means that you can't justify mapping something to a blank space just because you want to maintain the difficulty of the map. This means that you have to not map anything there just because there's nothing in the music

eg2. This means that you shouldn't quad jack 1/1 a section that has a stutter on 1/4, as it doesn't fittingly represent the musical layer. I know it's possible to argue that "This is how I interpret it" to the BN, but note that it's up to the BN's discretion on if it is fitting. (Hint: This is my interpretation on how you're not supposed to map 1/4s)

Basically, in summary, if you want it to be rankable, you have to step up and convince the BN that the patterns represent the music.

--

Takeaway Points

Add Beginner from BMS to the list of possible Easy difficulty names

Might reconsider values of OD, however, it's most likely not a good idea to abolish it

- It’s widely accepted to use values of 6-8.5 for HP Drain Rate and Overall Difficulty for ranked beatmaps. Contradiction
- Maps with an Overall Difficulty value of 8 or higher should be handled with caution; values of 9 or higher require justification from the beatmapper. Beatmaps with higher concentration of long notes should have their Overall Difficult values reduced to compensate the difficulty in long note release timings. Grammatical Error

Possibly better phrasing of #4 in General rules, though I think it's fine as it is as we leave room for BNs to decide if something is good.

Feel free to ask more questions, will take into consideration everything
I might have missed something, not sure what

Expressive mapping here we goooooooo

Slider Velocities producing teleports are permitted as long as they are sensibly used with the music. Take caution when using higher slider velocity values, as chart readability becomes detrimentally affected.

As someone who doesn't actively/seriously map osu!mania, I have no clue what this guideline is about. "Teleports" are not really clear to me and RC should (in my opinion) be designed in such a way that any newcomer would understand everything clearly. Could you please elaborate the term "teleport" a little? I've never experienced anything I would call a "teleport", so this looks rather vague to me.

Edit: Just in case someone thinks I didn't read the common terms. It's not clear - "note motion" and "skipping given location of play field" are so abstract I don't even know what these refer to.

^
Sudden movement of notes. like 01:39:557 at Evening's PLANET//SHAPER.

a teleport happens if one uses a very high slider velocity for a very short period of time (like a 1/8 snap duration) and revert to a normal speed. This gives the impression that the notes falling down "teleported".

A common example of a teleport takes place if notes start to suddenly appear in the middle of the playfield instead of the regular motion of coming down from the the top. Can be seen in jinjin's ascension to heaven.

I seriously dont think there's a better term out there to describe such sv usage.

Hmm, I see what you're referring to now, personally wouldn't call it a teleport (but that doesn't matter at all call it whatever you want it to, I'd say it's shifted, but I might perceive in it a bit different way). Now that I understand what it is, I believe there can be much better wording than "Teleport Note: A note whose motion is quick enough to skip any given location of the play field instantaneously.", at least not "is quick enough to skip any given location", it certainly doesn't skip location, it skips to location. I strongly believe that there are clearer ways how to explain this technique. It's way too messy description and has a logical error.

Thanks everyone for feedback so far. We will lock it for now and discuss about all points which were bring up here.
Expect more from us soon!

archived because https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/719936