I would like to bring up my reasoning on how the proposal for the 8 diffs rule looks like:
Let's say I make a mapset on my own, consisting of Normal, Insane and an Extra. (total drain is not considered, can be anything)
Regardless of how much that took me, I ended up not having any more inspiration for the lowest diffs, and that's fine.
I then ask for GDs to fill up the hole for the Hard and maybe even the Easy.
Eventually someone interested in the song wants to give a different interpretation of the Extra, and GDs too.
So far everything's good imo and all these diffs can stay since they provide needed content (whether for variety or for catering to more players)
The issue I personally have after this point is: what meaning do more diffs have if I consider the previous spread as already "complete"?
I don't have any holes in the spread, plus the additional Extra provides that variety someone may seek, so everything is fine.
From this point onwards I can quite surely say that 2, or even 3, Extra diffs most likely cover already a lot of possibilities you can get from the song, so rarely (and I mean rarely) any other diffs add that much to the game.
Whatever gets added past this point is just not strictly needed for any particular purpose. In fact, it now looks like a way to break the RC and get a standing alone diff into ranked.
By definition you need a whole spread if the song is below 5 minutes and that's because we want to make sure every player can play the map. If I add my GD to an already completed mapset it just becomes a way to go past that rule because I may not have the time to do a whole set or whatever.
The situation may look like this after a few people get interested into the mapset:
ENHIIXXXXX
where green diffs are part of the original set + the GDs filling the holes in my spread and adding variety in the upper diff.
Everything else is a mean to map a song with just a diff without the need to actually make a spread.
tl;dr
Diffs that do not make up for anything useful in the spread are just a way to get past the former meaning of "spread for a song"
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I also want to add that checking stupid drain times is not what I personally like to do, above all when all maps on the Modding v2 panel will need just 2 nominations.
I firstly wanted to introduce a proposal about "the more drain time, the more BNs needed" but that is not possible, nor feasible.
This proposal instead looks better imo.
I just see complains about limiting the mappers' creativity when the actual limitation is just on the memery mappers are allowed to put into their mapsets, because let's be honest: mapsets with a shitton of diffs are just a meme, not an attempt to provide content. Above all when I can barely notice any difference from diff to diff of the same difficulty interval (concept-wise).
Sure, in those cases the maps are not totally identical, but the possibilities to vary patterns is usually in just a few places, while the overall map is simply the same as the others.
You guys should prioritize diversity of songs instead of wasting your time on making memes...
I feel like I could start a mega-rant out of this so let's call it a day for now
Let's say I make a mapset on my own, consisting of Normal, Insane and an Extra. (total drain is not considered, can be anything)
Regardless of how much that took me, I ended up not having any more inspiration for the lowest diffs, and that's fine.
I then ask for GDs to fill up the hole for the Hard and maybe even the Easy.
Eventually someone interested in the song wants to give a different interpretation of the Extra, and GDs too.
So far everything's good imo and all these diffs can stay since they provide needed content (whether for variety or for catering to more players)
The issue I personally have after this point is: what meaning do more diffs have if I consider the previous spread as already "complete"?
I don't have any holes in the spread, plus the additional Extra provides that variety someone may seek, so everything is fine.
From this point onwards I can quite surely say that 2, or even 3, Extra diffs most likely cover already a lot of possibilities you can get from the song, so rarely (and I mean rarely) any other diffs add that much to the game.
Whatever gets added past this point is just not strictly needed for any particular purpose. In fact, it now looks like a way to break the RC and get a standing alone diff into ranked.
By definition you need a whole spread if the song is below 5 minutes and that's because we want to make sure every player can play the map. If I add my GD to an already completed mapset it just becomes a way to go past that rule because I may not have the time to do a whole set or whatever.
The situation may look like this after a few people get interested into the mapset:
ENHIIXXXXX
where green diffs are part of the original set + the GDs filling the holes in my spread and adding variety in the upper diff.
Everything else is a mean to map a song with just a diff without the need to actually make a spread.
tl;dr
Diffs that do not make up for anything useful in the spread are just a way to get past the former meaning of "spread for a song"
I also want to add that checking stupid drain times is not what I personally like to do, above all when all maps on the Modding v2 panel will need just 2 nominations.
I firstly wanted to introduce a proposal about "the more drain time, the more BNs needed" but that is not possible, nor feasible.
This proposal instead looks better imo.
I just see complains about limiting the mappers' creativity when the actual limitation is just on the memery mappers are allowed to put into their mapsets, because let's be honest: mapsets with a shitton of diffs are just a meme, not an attempt to provide content. Above all when I can barely notice any difference from diff to diff of the same difficulty interval (concept-wise).
Sure, in those cases the maps are not totally identical, but the possibilities to vary patterns is usually in just a few places, while the overall map is simply the same as the others.
You guys should prioritize diversity of songs instead of wasting your time on making memes...
I feel like I could start a mega-rant out of this so let's call it a day for now