ziin wrote:
I personally dislike catering to the newbies requiring easier difficulties. Not every single song is designed to be RIDICUHARD, and likewise, not every song fits easy well. In other games (yeah yeah, osu isn't other games) frequently songs only have one or two difficulties. Newer folk generally understand that they can't possibly handle a 5 star or even a 4 star map. There will always be easy songs being created and played, but they are clearly not for everyone. For that reason, we do not need a good difficulty spread for every single beatmap.
As for the flip side, what the forced easy difficulty has done is make it very easy for any player to immediately join osu and be able to pass (almost) every single song with no previous experience, or at least a couple of retries. This in itself is admirable and shows that peppy (or whoever decided this rule should exist in the first place) wants to keep newer members and make them improve by giving them songs that they like which they can play multiple difficulties of. A newbie might only get the latest version of the song too, which is likely of better quality, and skip the previous versions. Likewise, by adding extra difficulties, more maps are produced, while less songs are produced. We already have an over-abundance of songs being ranked. Can you imagine how that would change if everyone just made one or two hard difficulties for every single map they made? Requiring 3 difficulties for an insane means 3x the chance for errors, more modding, and more experience.
I both support and dislike the rule.
I just want to chip in here. If a mapper finds it impossible to simplify the contents of even a busy track, then they're either a poor mapper or they shouldn't map the song in the first place (or, you know, both). There is
always a way to convey the intensity of frenetic music, even in easier maps. Guiding the player on and off the beat, using more hitsounds and using edgy patterns would usually work pretty well. To me, mapping is not about adhering to everything in a piece of music--it's about picking out what's important and embellishing it. Even a series of objects of two or more beats apart can have a profound effect on the player, as long as they're placed cleverly and provide enough rhythmic variance.
Additionally, what if we did have a sudden influx of hard/insane-only mapsets? If this became commonplace, then we've wiped out a good chunk of new players, who either can't find playable maps of their favourite music or who attempt harder maps, fail them constantly and get sick of osu! as a whole. It's a worst-case scenario, but the fact is that almost every mapset should be accessible to everybody. Otherwise, people will get scared off. If osu!stream
does end up drawing more casual players to this game, then they will become very important to consider.
Your point about slowing the flow of maps is good as well, if only because it means that mappers need to consider a song more thoroughly. However, an over-abundance of mapsets isn't a bad thing, as long as they're all good. This game is built around user contribution, so any amount of good content should be welcomed. Either way, I think that quantity should be a mere byproduct of making mapsets which can actually be played by most users.
In short, proper difficulty spreads in ranked maps is the best way to attract
and keep new players, as they can be nursed into playing more maps of increasing difficulty.