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Why is mapping for difficulty frowned upon?

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Bikko EX
Topic Starter
Bikko EX
I have no experience in mapping, but that is besides the point; try to ignore my experience when answering this question.

I would be repeating myself, but, why is it that mapping for difficulty is frowned upon? I don't get it.

The concern of trying to portray the song as accurately is understandable, however a rebuttal to that would be the sheer amount of low BPM anime openings that don't deserve the difficulty they are mapped at.

Not only that, but many metal/high BPM electronic songs have easy difficulty charts, and that seems to be okay with everyone.

What if a mapper wants to make a challenging map for every class of players and have it ranked at the same time? Why do people say that mapping for difficulty shouldn't be a thing? What is the point of "difficulty spreads" if trying to reach a specific star rating so.. frowned upon?

I have downloaded many chart packs, and I've noticed a very apparent saturation of 4*-5* difficulties... as for 7*+, not so much, in fact they're less than a hundred, while i have thousands of insane charts.

When watching top players play, it's obvious that THEY are lacking challenging charts of their favourite songs... so they are forced to use modifications to compensate. This is the only rhythm game I've seen with this problem.

So, what's the deal?
chainpullz
2,334 posts
Joined June 2013
chainpullz
If you actually took the time to look at the scoreboards of a lot of those 5* maps you'd notice there are a fair number of them that even top players struggle to play. Mapping for difficulty isn't frowned upon. Mapping that cuts corners to superficially inflate star rating to look more difficult than it actually is is what is looked down upon.
Bikko EX
Topic Starter
Bikko EX

chainpullz wrote:

If you actually took the time to look at the scoreboards of a lot of those 5* maps you'd notice there are a fair number of them that even top players struggle to play. Mapping for difficulty isn't frowned upon. Mapping that cuts corners to superficially inflate star rating to look more difficult than it actually is is what is looked down upon.
"fair number" is pretty vague. I guess you seem to be speaking of maps that have a difficulty gimmick in them or that need a specific technique to clear. Those are present in every rhythm game and they're consistently underrated by the rating system. Not only do they deserve a higher rating (they don't count in this discussion), but they're also very rare in comparison to other maps, ie. their number pales so they can be discarded as a minority phenomenon.

I agree with you when you say that a mapper shouldn't cut corners and map a chart sloppily just to make it harder. Most BMS charters copy and paste the hardest file and lower the note density by deleting a note here and there to make it easier which is just a mess (or the other way around). That shouldn't be allowed at all. I however think that if a mapper can justify a certain placement, they shouldn't be put down with difficulty as a basis.

When watching Pishifat's videos about mapping, and specifically in an episode about a mapper called "Mazzerin", he mentioned that his maps were very controversial because of their difficulty. Just that. Usually in other games, causal players and competitive players alike get hyped because the #1 is going to get a sick clear on it. But when trying to read through one Mazzerin's difficult maps' thread, people's reaction to it was something among the lines of disgust. Is he a bad charter that tries to force his maps into ranking? Is he clueless about what he does? Does he cut corners like you said? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm genuinely oblivious.
chainpullz
2,334 posts
Joined June 2013
chainpullz
Mazzerin is actually one of the few mappers that makes very high quality maps that happen to also be high star rating. I believe a lot of the controversy should be looked at as being more like jealousy than anything else tbh. That Mazzerin can rank a high star map while other (coincidentally lower quality) high star maps sit unranked.

By the way, there are actually plenty of tech maps they just happen to be on songs that are <5 minutes and overall more difficult to push through the ranking process so most of the map creators don't even bother making a spread to push them forward. Similarly for high *rating maps as well, though many high *rating unranked maps do in fact lack the quality sought out in ranked maps.

It's not like high ranked players are really even lacking maps to play per say. I remember talking with Toy like a year ago about how trying to find quality/enjoyable 6*+ maps was such a challenge compared to the goldmine that is 5*-6*. "Having to resort to using mods" is kind of a piss poor way of looking at it. The better way to look at it is that there are a lot of lower * rating maps of higher quality albeit arguably slightly lower difficulty that are simply more enjoyable to play with mods than nomod'ing the higher difficulty lower quality maps.
Bikko EX
Topic Starter
Bikko EX
Okay, this cleared up a lot of things. Thank you.
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