MrSergio wrote:
As the name implies, the "extra" difficulty is an addition. An addition for when your Insane is not using the entirety of the song and you can still make something different out of it.
I am not referring to stupid Extra diffs that just take an Insane rhythm and overspace it to reach a different SR (I could make plenty of examples here, but let's not be assholes and publicly say which mappers suck in this regard, shall we?).
As for the other diffs aside from the two required by RC I can say that just two diffs would make a too large spread on most modern songs, if that was the point of the question.
First and foremost, the actual difficulty name is supposed to be Expert, not Extra. As far as I know Extra comes from Touhou similar to how Lunatic is from there. Secondly, I could say the same for a lot of insanes having the same rhythm as hards as well, just with bigger spacing and notes instead of sliders to reach a different SR. Why not remove all insane diffs as well, and just go with easy, normal, hard? The answer is because there is more to osu! as a game than only the rhythm. If it were all about rhythm, we wouldn't have a 2D plane to move a cursor on, so arguing that it's "the same but overspaced" is stupid anyway, since the whole point of osu! is that you can change the arrangement of things visually and not necessarily change the underlying rhythm. Oh, and what's "overspaced" and what isn't is already subjectively dependent on your current skill level anyway, so it makes total sense to change the spacing depending on what target audience the difficulty is meant for.
The whole problem lies in the mentality of what a spread is and how it should work.
Right now it is seen as a playground, where all the kids gather and play together and you obviously think "why shouldn't I be allowed to join too?"
The "problem", so to speak, is that some people think there is only one way a "spread" can work, and that any other interpretation of what a spread is is wrong.
As I see it instead, it is more of a business-like sort of thing. Ranked maps are representing the "official" content of the game and I would like to ask you how many games you see out there giving the player a shitton of redundant content?
Maybe the word "business" is a bit too much and can make other arguments start even if there is no need for it, but it is a way to say that the current mentality is too lax and easy-going.
It is a game, I know, but the official part of the game is still something serious. No one says you can't map anyway and upload your stuff, it just doesn't belong to the "official" part of it (if really mapping is all what you want, but we know mappers don't map just for the "pleasure" of mapping, right?)
Free content created by the community, for the community. If you don't see the difference between that and the official content of other, commercial rhythm games are, then you should take some time and think about it. Yes, you can map anyway and upload things, and some people do that too, but that's also completely irrelevant to the ruling. You could say "you can do x anyway" to any stupid rule. If tomorrow any maps with sliders are unrankable, I could just reply "you can map maps with sliders anyway, if mapping is all you want", but it's not an argument to keep the rule.
Going back to my example with all those Extra diffs...
Those diffs shouldn't even be used for new spreads, considering they do not provide that much variation from the main and first spread, so no, making more spreads is not what I was implying.
I was implying that instead they could map another song. I'm pretty sure every mapper has quite a few songs they want to map (I do too) and the fact that someone is already mapping that in a similar-enough-way to your mapping should be enough to make you prioritize other songs, instead of jumping on the latest anime hype train and do the same stuff other 2346200920356 mappers could do.
"Is enough for me to decide to prioritize other songs, and I definitely should not speak for everyone else nor force my own viewpoint onto others." Unfortunately, what is enough for you to prioritize other songs is also pretty much not relevant. All it means is that the rule doesn't affect you personally. Yet because it doesn't, you believe it also shouldn't affect other people.
"Quality"?
Is "more diffs" quality for you?
Is "less diffs" quality for you? The quantity of maps has nothing to do with the quality of maps. A mapset could have the best 3 difficulties in existence, and it could have the best 15 difficulties in existence. But if less difficulties are mapped, there will both be high quality and low quality maps that could have existed, but don't. Maybe you can argue that it is worth losing some high quality maps because you reduce the number of low quality ones, but in my opinion there's merit to keeping both, as quality is subjective to an extent.
As I said above, the mentality is off here imo. There has been discussion about this in the thread and it all boils down to "if I want more quality content why are those GDers not making a spread? It would mean more content, right?" so let's not go again at it.
I don't understand your quote. No one is saying that. Rather, they're saying the opposite. GDers being forced to create their own spread will very likely either put together some rushed spread, or just abandon the map. Neither results in more quality content, and one of them reduces it, if said GD was a good map in the first place.
I can't help it but to imagine how this situation would turn out in the real world...
What if you were... let's say a designer or an artist or even just anything involving creativity.
What are the chances that a well known or even just a normal agency dealing with your field of interest would take you in? And based on what requirements?
Take a book: what are the chances you will read a book similar (as in, almost identical) to one you just read?
What are the chances the publisher would even want such a title to begin with if it was already done by someone else before?
Not... too low probably. If you haven't noticed, a lot of things are very similar to each other, because they feature popular themes, story structures, ideas and whatnot. Of course some parts of the book has changed; maybe the setting, or the characters, but so are maps. If you really think almost all of these expert difficulties are just copy-pasted maps, then you should take a better look. Similar? Sure, but remember that differences in mapping is not only in rhythm, but also in placement. If you don't agree with this, then any slight variation in rhythm should also be deemed as "identical", and no song should ever have more than 1 map. And obviously that's not how it works.
osu! is not such a business and this might taking it too far, but in real life creators are bound to make NEW things, not replicating endlessly already done stuff, otherwise they won't sell anything. They won't gain anything, which is in fact what happens when I see a new ranked map with a shitton of diffs.
If we exclude the style the main spread could have (let's not open another can of worms since even here we might say that a lot of maps are too similar, even tho the song changes) what I usually do is opening the first diff, look at it till the end, then open a second one look at the first 30 seconds and noticing no apparent difference I simply delete the map.
You may argue "why don't you look to the entire thing?", but that is because in the past year I haven't seen such revolutions nor surprises, so I just assume the rest would be similar. Don't get me wrong, I do give a chance to every diff, but 30 secs in and you can already see what is going on.
If you as a mapper even have a pride you'll probably not like to have your creation treated as a disposable object, right?
Apparently not many mappers have such pride tho, so yeah... keep going guys! We need more quality content!
I don't see why there is a need to be passive aggressive with this. So first, what does pride have anything to do with a rule? It doesn't concern you nor the ruleset what motivations or "pride" a mapper has. If their creation is treated as a disposable object is a problem in the first place, then you and people who think similarly is the problem, no? Since you are unwilling to look at the mapping, and rather just lump everything under "same", and call it a day.
Second, the ranking system is supposed to judge the map, not the mapper. That's your view on pride. Other mappers have other things they pride themselves in. Some might find pride in being able to copy/imitate a lot of different mapping styles, others might find pride in their hitsounding ability. But in the end, what does that have anything to do with the amount of difficulties that should be allowed in a set? Nothing.
Truly great, huh?
Who have guessed that people doesn't even look around them to notice they are not contributing as much as they imagined
Which is better than contributing nothing. There is a small minority that will enjoy one of the duplicates more than all the others. These restrictions make that small minority enjoy the game slightly less, while it's the same either way for every other player. I wonder which is the better result?
Mapping is free for everyone, but ranking is a privilege for the most notable maps, not a right for any "decent map" out there
Yes, and notable maps again have nothing to do with the amount of difficulties on said mapset. It's irrelevant. Also I generally dislike people who throw this around all the time. Yes, not every map can get ranked, and everyone understands that. No one is arguing otherwise; they're arguing about a specific part of an arbitrary rule limiting the amount of difficulties in a mapset that is going for said "privilege". Take the example of no slider maps again, and I could very much throw this phrase out again, and it would still be just as irrelevant as it is now.
@Shadowland
Your proposal is just promoting more idiotic sets, since the only thing I need to do is adding enough diffs to make it so all the diffs become "allowed"
I have 5 extra diffs, which means I need a total of 15 diffs and there we go, problem solved, right? 5 is 1/3 of 15 so...
My question is once again WHY all those diffs need to be there to begin with, assuming they will most likely use similar rhythms and mapping techniques?
You're asking the wrong question. Why not? The main argument to restrict it seem to be someone's own opinion/interpretation of what a spread should be, how all mappers should have the exact same values and motivations (which is ironic since people thinking alike would more likely result in similar maps as well) and nothing that really says anything about how a map benefits from this, which is what the ranking criteria should be concerned about.