As almost any experienced catch the beat player knows, almost all of the highest ranks and scores on most maps are purely Hidden. Why? Well, for one, Flashlight is just as hard on ctb as any other mode and requires quite a lot of memorization. But for another -
Hard Rock and Doubletime are broken.
How so? Let us start with HR.
HR in standard decreases the circle size by one, and multiplies all of the other difficulty settings by 1.4, rounding down and capping out at 10.
In catch the beat, it does the same - however. While it was very smart and logical to switch the multipliers for DT and HR (DT gives x.06 and HR gives x0.12), hard rock's increase in sheer difficulty is huge compared to what it does on standard - Approach rate and Health Drain are much, much more apparent when playing catch the beat as the way you regain HP is different due to the fact that sliders are counted as two notes combined with spinners giving very little hp at all. Approach rate as well, any half-serious ctb player will tell how how huge the difference in speed there is between AR8 and AR9. As of right now, when you HR an 8-AR map, the AR becomes 10 - the same as Hard Rocking a 9-AR map.
The health drain also is increased a very large amount, and on maps with long spinners or hold sliders or slow sections, will outright be impossible to pass.
Proposed fixes:
A) Have Hard Rock increase AR by 1, decrease circle size by 1, and increase HP drain by 1 or 2 rather than multiply by 1.4
B) Have Hard Rock decrease circle size by 1, leave HP drain, and not touch AR at all - Rather silly?
C) Decrease circle size by 1, increase AR by 1, leave HP drain alone - as if you're using a mod on a map, you're most likely going to try to FC anyway, and you shouldn't be failing due to HP drain while you're FCing.
(On an unrelated note, Hard Rock also causes perfectly stacked notes to move a random number of pixels between 1 and 15 to the left or right in gameplay. Not really worth mentioning, but it's notable and is rather neat)
Following me so far? No? Oh well.
Let's move on to Doubletime.
On standard, Doubletime multiplies the rate the playing field is displayed as well as the music by 150% - essentially making everything 50% faster and harder (AR is technically increase 50%, OD is technically increased due to a smaller window of 300) and sports a score multiplier of x.12. Sounds well and fair.
On CTB, Doubletime does largely the same - the fruits drop 50% faster, and ryuuta himself is 50% faster. However, since the difficulty of clicking things is removed for ctb, the score multiplier is accordingly demoted to x.06. That's all and good.
However.
What non-seasoned catch the beat players do not realize, is that halftime and doubletime have a very special bit of coding in them. They decrease or increase the margin of error within hyperfruit coding.
Let's explain what a margin of error is. A hyperfruit is created when it is physically impossible for ryuuta to go from fruit A to fruit B under his maximum speed (dashing). What this "margin of error" does is that it takes the "absolute maximum distance ryuuta can travel" and decreases the amount by a certain percentage to allow for human error. For example, if the absolute maximum speed of ryuuta is 1000 arbirtrary units of distance/time, a margin of error of 10% would spawn a hyperfruit at 900 units of distance.
I have estimated the default margin of error for hyperfruits to be, or very close to, 10%. Halftime increases this margin of error to a whopping 30%.
Doubletime decreases this margin of error to -10%. Negative.
This means that with the doubletime mod, notes that are barely hyperfruits in default play will have their hyperfruit status revoked in doubletime - And even with edge catching, they will be impossible to catch.
Proposed fix:
A) Fix hyperfruit coding so that outright impossible-with-doubletime jumps will spawn hyperfruits as normal
B) Remove the "margin of error" decrease that DT causes - meaning no change to the number of hyperfruits or their position, just needing 50% faster reflexes (as doubletime should require)
I for one am kind of bored of seeing HD scores topping 90% of maps worth mentioning and HR and DT only being used on lower difficulties.
I'm sure that people will misunderstand that I am advocating making HR or DT easier (I'm not).
Also, if this belongs in help and support (Would it?) move accordingly.
Hard Rock and Doubletime are broken.
How so? Let us start with HR.
HR in standard decreases the circle size by one, and multiplies all of the other difficulty settings by 1.4, rounding down and capping out at 10.
In catch the beat, it does the same - however. While it was very smart and logical to switch the multipliers for DT and HR (DT gives x.06 and HR gives x0.12), hard rock's increase in sheer difficulty is huge compared to what it does on standard - Approach rate and Health Drain are much, much more apparent when playing catch the beat as the way you regain HP is different due to the fact that sliders are counted as two notes combined with spinners giving very little hp at all. Approach rate as well, any half-serious ctb player will tell how how huge the difference in speed there is between AR8 and AR9. As of right now, when you HR an 8-AR map, the AR becomes 10 - the same as Hard Rocking a 9-AR map.
The health drain also is increased a very large amount, and on maps with long spinners or hold sliders or slow sections, will outright be impossible to pass.
Proposed fixes:
A) Have Hard Rock increase AR by 1, decrease circle size by 1, and increase HP drain by 1 or 2 rather than multiply by 1.4
B) Have Hard Rock decrease circle size by 1, leave HP drain, and not touch AR at all - Rather silly?
C) Decrease circle size by 1, increase AR by 1, leave HP drain alone - as if you're using a mod on a map, you're most likely going to try to FC anyway, and you shouldn't be failing due to HP drain while you're FCing.
(On an unrelated note, Hard Rock also causes perfectly stacked notes to move a random number of pixels between 1 and 15 to the left or right in gameplay. Not really worth mentioning, but it's notable and is rather neat)
Following me so far? No? Oh well.
Let's move on to Doubletime.
On standard, Doubletime multiplies the rate the playing field is displayed as well as the music by 150% - essentially making everything 50% faster and harder (AR is technically increase 50%, OD is technically increased due to a smaller window of 300) and sports a score multiplier of x.12. Sounds well and fair.
On CTB, Doubletime does largely the same - the fruits drop 50% faster, and ryuuta himself is 50% faster. However, since the difficulty of clicking things is removed for ctb, the score multiplier is accordingly demoted to x.06. That's all and good.
However.
What non-seasoned catch the beat players do not realize, is that halftime and doubletime have a very special bit of coding in them. They decrease or increase the margin of error within hyperfruit coding.
Let's explain what a margin of error is. A hyperfruit is created when it is physically impossible for ryuuta to go from fruit A to fruit B under his maximum speed (dashing). What this "margin of error" does is that it takes the "absolute maximum distance ryuuta can travel" and decreases the amount by a certain percentage to allow for human error. For example, if the absolute maximum speed of ryuuta is 1000 arbirtrary units of distance/time, a margin of error of 10% would spawn a hyperfruit at 900 units of distance.
I have estimated the default margin of error for hyperfruits to be, or very close to, 10%. Halftime increases this margin of error to a whopping 30%.
Doubletime decreases this margin of error to -10%. Negative.
This means that with the doubletime mod, notes that are barely hyperfruits in default play will have their hyperfruit status revoked in doubletime - And even with edge catching, they will be impossible to catch.
Proposed fix:
A) Fix hyperfruit coding so that outright impossible-with-doubletime jumps will spawn hyperfruits as normal
B) Remove the "margin of error" decrease that DT causes - meaning no change to the number of hyperfruits or their position, just needing 50% faster reflexes (as doubletime should require)
I for one am kind of bored of seeing HD scores topping 90% of maps worth mentioning and HR and DT only being used on lower difficulties.
I'm sure that people will misunderstand that I am advocating making HR or DT easier (I'm not).
Also, if this belongs in help and support (Would it?) move accordingly.