UndeadCapulet wrote:

"it promotes laziness"
it also promotes caring about the single difficulty you want to make instead of phoning in a forced difficulty you don't want to make. people are always going to be lazy but at worst we get 1 lazily made difficulty, which surely is better than 2

we have some other major issues if bn's are nominating lazy diffs

havent read any prior discussion just want to throw my two cents.

i think every difficulty should really be involved in any map where applicable, but i think judging them on star rating like what we do now to form a perfect "spread" is a little useless. if normal comes to be 1.8 and hard comes to be 3.8, that should be allowed so long as the maps are of good quality yknow?

i also think we should be required to add breaks to (higher difficulties especially) longer maps. i hate playing through 4 minutes of a map without being able to stop. it hurts and i imagine its not good to strain ones self like that.

thats all carry on

best of luck

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"i could make just a 1 minute normal and rank it"
yeah and you can make a 1 minute EN set right now and rank that, there's basically 0 difference in effort or value. 2diff requirement doesn't keep people from making stupid sets, and it doesn't even discourage it. changing this to a single diff requirement will not encourage it any further because people don't really like to make stupid sets anyway, or else we'd see a lot more of them rn

"it defeats the point of having spreads to begin with"
again, marathons are already very prolific and are not inhibiting spreads in any way. tv sizes are super popular and always will be and will require a full spread, 3:30 H sets will not intrude upon that

my argument here was that if we're using the argument that filler difficulties are largely seen as obsolete, what is the point in requiring a spread? why should tv sizes be required to have a full spread when we're going to be exempting longer length maps from the same, just because they have meet a difficulty level requirement?

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"it promotes laziness"
it also promotes caring about the single difficulty you want to make instead of phoning in a forced difficulty you don't want to make. people are always going to be lazy but at worst we get 1 lazily made difficulty, which surely is better than 2

i think this is a very pessimistic way of looking at things; just because lower level difficulties may take considerably less time to make does not mean that the same level of care/effort hasn't been put into them. there are still a lot of people in this community that do put a lot of care and effort into making a balanced spread so that people of all skill levels can enjoy them. even then, if the mapset host doesn't want to make a lower-level difficulty, there are plenty of others in this community (guest difficulties) that would be more than willing to give their take on making something so that players of all skill levels can enjoy a mapset for a given song.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

basically by removing the 2diff requirement it makes for overall more clarity when the proposal goes through as all you need to understand is "linear spread from this diff onwards." forcing II sets in 4:30 songs is very awkward and unwarranted as it does not promote good content but instead just arbitrarily forces more content. from what i can see there is no benefit whatsoever from requiring 2 diffs

the benefit that i've been trying to argue is that it provides more options for players to enjoy the songs they want to play to. not everybody is going to have access to all maps, or may be selective in the type of songs they choose to download, so ensuring that there is a wider selection of difficulties for players to choose from that suit their skill level is crucial, in my eyes.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

@doormat your concern about the bn rule interacting poorly with single-diff sets is valid, but that seems more of an issue with the bn rule itself, which is a very different topic. we shouldn't let bn rules interfere with improving ranking criteria.

i actually think that these two go hand-in-hand. if potential ranking criteria changes have the potential to affect the rate at which maps will be ranked, then it can become a potential problem for the community: nominators will be swamped with an even bigger workload, and mappers will grow more frustrated at having to wait for their maps to enter the Qualified section if it so happens that somebody else qualified a smaller-sized mapset before theirs. getting rid of the "same song restriction" is also open to a whole bunch of new issues as well, as i'm pretty sure nobody wants to see the same song in qualified a bajillion times. these issues should be addressed and solved together, not separately.

point 1: difficulties in a spread are not filler difficulties, they are difficulties in a spread. this proposal is only upping the difficulty of the starting point for a spread for longer songs to better cater to mappers' needs and to better suit spreads to players' needs. it is not saying that spreads are not valuable. forcing 2 diffs in a mapset is not forcing the contribution of a spread, it is just forcing a filler difficulty. once again, we have had single-diff sets in the form of marathons forever, and they have not changed the value or perception of spreads in any way.

point 2: nice to hear people can make gds or other diffs if they want, but this is not a reason to force it.

point 3: this sounds more like you are against the entire proposal itself instead of just being against single-diff sets. forcing a second difficulty in a set does not give more options for players, as shown by how the rule is currently forcing EE/EN/NN sets that offer basically no variety. alongside the proposal, forcing 2 diff sets would at best only sometimes result in a spread-based difficulty, but would often just add a filler difficulty of the same difficulty level. there is no reason to force this.

point 4: ok then "solve it together" by changing/addressing the bn rule, not by inhibiting a change to the rc.

i like the 3:30/4:15/5:00 idea better too

Doormat wrote:

my argument here was that if we're using the argument that filler difficulties are largely seen as obsolete, what is the point in requiring a spread? why should tv sizes be required to have a full spread when we're going to be exempting longer length maps from the same, just because they have meet a difficulty level requirement?

That's a stupid question. Filler difficulties and spreads are not interchangeable. We require spreads so that newer players can play the songs, too. Filler difficulties, in this context, are exactly the same (or perhaps higher) difficulty and complexity, and thus contribute nothing to the spread except the minimum required effort on mappers', modders', and nominators' parts.

Doormat wrote:

i think this is a very pessimistic way of looking at things; just because lower level difficulties may take considerably less time to make does not mean that the same level of care/effort hasn't been put into them. there are still a lot of people in this community that do put a lot of care and effort into making a balanced spread so that people of all skill levels can enjoy them. even then, if the mapset host doesn't want to make a lower-level difficulty, there are plenty of others in this community (guest difficulties) that would be more than willing to give their take on making something so that players of all skill levels can enjoy a mapset for a given song.

And if they put a lot of care and effort into making a balanced spread, they're free to do that. Let's just not force the ones who won't put much effort into it to do the same.

Doormat wrote:

the benefit that i've been trying to argue is that it provides more options for players to enjoy the songs they want to play to. not everybody is going to have access to all maps, or may be selective in the type of songs they choose to download, so ensuring that there is a wider selection of difficulties for players to choose from that suit their skill level is crucial, in my eyes.

And not everybody is going to be happy and willing to make silly filler difficulties that, in terms of spread, are unnecessary at best. If you want to ensure that there is a wider selection of difficulties, then you are in a great position to do so through your own maps and through the maps you nominate. Let's encourage what you see as positive here instead of outright disallowing what you don't for reasons that do not appear to go beyond niche personal preference.

Doormat wrote:

i actually think that these two go hand-in-hand. if potential ranking criteria changes have the potential to affect the rate at which maps will be ranked, then it can become a potential problem for the community: nominators will be swamped with an even bigger workload, and mappers will grow more frustrated at having to wait for their maps to enter the Qualified section if it so happens that somebody else qualified a smaller-sized mapset before theirs. getting rid of the "same song restriction" is also open to a whole bunch of new issues as well, as i'm pretty sure nobody wants to see the same song in qualified a bajillion times. these issues should be addressed and solved together, not separately.

Are you implying that you want to force mappers to map at least two difficulties no matter what because it limits the speed at which they can produce sets, effectively trying to kneecap them?

Mun wrote:

Are you implying that you want to force mappers to map at least two difficulties no matter what because it limits the speed at which they can produce sets, effectively trying to kneecap them?

That is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that we're going to need to come to a compromise in regards to the current proposal; we shouldn't be trying to brute force the proposal in its current state when there are proponents on both sides arguing for and against difficulty count requirements. I was giving my points to (hopefully) explain why I think we need difficulty count requirements.

I do understand the grounds for which the removal of a difficulty count was proposed, and I do agree that we shouldn't punish mappers for wanting to be lazy. What I don't agree with is the notion that spreads should be optional for longer length songs, based on the current proposal: there needs to be a better progression line since playing a shorter 1:30 Insane is going to be much different from playing a 4:30 Insane.

Spreads aren't optional for longer songs, the rule just changes what is actually defined as an acceptable spread. This rule says, IF you have a 4:30 insane, that IS a spread now.

If you have a 4:30 extra, that is not a spread, and it would require an insane to become a spread.

I don't see an issue with this. Are you saying just because it's not 5 minutes you would like to force 4:30 insane diffs to also have a hard diff? But then what's the point of the this entire proposal.

edit -

The entire point of the proposal is to set new minimum difficulties for certain time slots. 3:30, the minimum diff is a hard. Anything above and below is optional. At 4:30 (or 4:15, whatever), the minimum diff is an Insane. Anything above or below is optional. If you add diffs above this minimum, they must form a reasonable spread.

Having 5 minutes be an arbitrary line where you say anything below this needs 2 diffs defeats the point of the proposal to me.

The proposal implicitely still requires a minimum of 2 diffs, as you can't have a spread with a single element (Oko confirmed this). I see no reason to keep this implicitely stated, as it can potentially lead to ambiguity and differences in interpretation, which is why I'm suggesting adding the rule back.

As for Mir concern about forcing EE or EN spreads where one E diff wouldn't add much (which is a pretty edge case, to be honest), I'd personally be open to moving said rule to guidelines. It should still be followed by an ample majority of mapsets, but would allow for ranking a single diff on songs that are so calm/slow that you can't add/remove objects to make a significant difference, up to BNs/QATs and ultimately community's discretion when qualified.

@Hobbes2: I think the original goal of this proposal was that, if you have a 4:30 Insane diff, you aren't forced to map 2 additional diffs (a Normal AND a Hard), but only one (a Hard or an Extra).

@Hobbes2: I think the original goal of this proposal was that, if you have a 4:30 Insane diff, you aren't forced to map 2 additional diffs (a Normal AND a Hard), but only one (a Hard).

I interpreted it based on what I see when reading the proposal, not what it was 'meant to be' or whatever. If it's the case that this is what the community overwhelmingly wants, as in forcing 2 diffs below the 5 minute point, then sure, whatever.

EDIT - I feel like there's some assumption here that the 2 diff requirement is some kind of inherent requirement but it's really not. It's a remnant of when we had to have 2 diffs to even move a map to pending from a technical forum perspective. It is possible for it to not exist.

Hobbes2 wrote:

@Hobbes2: I think the original goal of this proposal was that, if you have a 4:30 Insane diff, you aren't forced to map 2 additional diffs (a Normal AND a Hard), but only one (a Hard).

I interpreted it based on what I see when reading the proposal, not what it was 'meant to be' or whatever. If it's the case that this is what the community overwhelmingly wants, as in forcing 2 diffs below the 5 minute point, then sure, whatever.

EDIT - I feel like there's some assumption here that the 2 diff requirement is some kind of inherent requirement but it's really not. It's a remnant of when we had to have 2 diffs to even move a map to pending from a technical forum perspective. It is possible for it to not exist.

I think it stems from the assumption that the word “spread” implies more than one. If we’re saying “only one difficulty is acceptable as a spread,” why aren’t we just removing the spread requirement altogether? I think the pushback against the proposal also comes from the idea that we’re basically just removing marathons and saying “anything goes” as long as it meets the bare minimum requirement.

doormat can you please stop repeating yourself over and over bc you're just gonna get the same response over and over

"spread" does not imply "more than one diff" for the purposes of the ranking criteria, stop using pseudo-technicalities to force things that have no reason to be forced (or i guess you can find a better word for us to use than "spread" if you really have issue with us using a colloquial term in a way that doesn't immediately match an oxford dictionary definition)

yes obviously anything goes as long as it meets the bare minimum requirement, that's literally what the ranking criteria is, defining the bare minimum requirement. the bare minimum requirement is "have a reasonable spread from this diff on", which is a very reasonable minimum requirement that offers the proper lower diffs for the players that need them and makes the increase of drain time scale naturally until we pass 5 minutes.

1 diff sets don't mean some anarchic usurp of spread balance, they're just a 1 diff set like we've had for years and years with approval sets and will not in any way interfere with how most people design sets

UndeadCapulet wrote:

doormat can you please stop repeating yourself over and over bc you're just gonna get the same response over and over

"spread" does not imply "more than one diff" for the purposes of the ranking criteria, stop using pseudo-technicalities to force things that have no reason to be forced (or i guess you can find a better word for us to use than "spread" if you really have issue with us using a colloquial term in a way that doesn't immediately match an oxford dictionary definition)

Spreads have always had the implied meaning of more than one in the Ranking Criteria though; it’s why we had a separated “marathons” category that differentiated from other ranked maps in that they don’t need a full spread. Even if we remove the “marathon” definition in your proposal, “reasonable spread” in its current state still heavily implies more than one difficulty.

RC wrote:

Reasonable Spread: A mapset without drastically large differences between difficulties as dictated by difficulty-specific rules and guidelines.
Marathon: A mapset which does not require a full spread of difficulties.

Proposal wrote:

If the drain time of a song is...
… lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal. Because osu!mania does not have a difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria yet, an osu!mania mapset's Normal difficulty is defined as a difficulty below 2.00 stars. For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard. Difficulties lower than Insane can use their play time as a metric instead of drain time, but their drain time must be equal to at least 80% of their play time.
… lower than 4:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard. Difficulties lower than Insane can use their play time as a metric instead of drain time, but their play time must be equal to at least 80% of their drain time.
… lower than 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.
… anything else, the mapset is exempt from reasonable spread rules.

...

Single-mode mapsets must form a reasonable spread. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.

Saying that I’m using a pseudo-technicality is pretty insulting when the main problem I’m seeing here is just a misinterpretation based on your wording. If you’re going to go through with the proposal, then the wording needs to be changed to address that a single difficulty is acceptable as a “reasonable spread.”

doormat and i talked over irc so i didnt accidentally insult anyone anymore to clarify why there was confusion over current wording
tl;dr the current wording does make it explicit that single diff sets are allowed by "reasonable spread" but it might not be super clear so maybe an extra bit tacked on is needed
i dont wanna add it tho bc its redundant but wHATEVEr

UndeadCapulet wrote:

doormat and i talked over irc so i didnt accidentally insult anyone anymore to clarify why there was confusion over current wording
tl;dr the current wording does make it explicit that single diff sets are allowed by "reasonable spread" but it might not be super clear so maybe an extra bit tacked on is needed
i dont wanna add it tho bc its redundant but wHATEVEr

we technically didn’t agree on whether or not current wording was explicit enough but wHATEVEr i’m just glad we’re getting a better definition. we’ll see how the proposal pans out in the longrun though, since it appears there are proponents that are for and against difficulty count requirements.

with the changes to what constitutes as a “reasonable spread” being introduced i can at least be a bit more accepting of the proposal, even though i personally believe in more difficulty level choices for players (not saying they should be mandatory though)

Forgive me if this has been discussed before;

Wouldn't this give people a loophole to create 1 diff maps without it being above 5 min? So think of this case;

4:40 song (proposal here states that the minimum diff must be an insane)
Couldn't you just make a single insane diff and rank that?

What about having a single hard diff? or single easy diff? lol
wouldn't that kind of encourage this kind of low effort shit?

Or... is the 2 diff rule still in place after this?


edit: ok we discussed this on discord

For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard

I propose we do something more along the lines of

For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty must at least be one difficulty higher than the osu!std requirements

so if lowest diff is Normal on std, the minigames can be Hard
if its Hard on std, minigames can be Insane
etc.

I think this would provide more clarity since instead of being a category specific (only to songs below 3:30) it would simply apply across everything

in general it is better to avoid any category specific rules as it just causes confusion. that's like the equivalent of hard coding values to make something work

I find it a bit weird that this proposal at first was aimed to help longer maps that are not quite marathon length, but it ends up helping TV size and shorter maps as well. Some people were against this proposal at the start claiming it would limit how much the newbie audience could play.

I think shorter maps only requiring 1 difficulty minimum won't help them much because they are limited to Normal only. And people seem to enjoy playing Insane/Extra difficulties, so those mappers are forced to make the same spread as they are currently doing right now.

That said as a player/mapper, I would react very poorly to a 30 second ring tone sized ranked map that only has one difficulty. Such little amount of effort shouldn't be qualified or promoted to the ranked section.

Just my humble opinion:
I don't think this change will encourage laziness and that there won't be a sudden influx of normal-only sets, because I believe that when someone decides to map a song, they do it because they like it. Maybe I'm just being sentimental or something, but I don't think many people would be willing to impoverish/underrepresent music they enjoy. There would, of course, be those who exploit the rules UC proposed, and I don't think much can be done to avoid it, but, as has already been mentioned several times in this thread, we've got people who map EZNM sets even now. The only difference is that there would be no EZ.

Plus, I honestly don't feel like there are that many songs over 4:15, and even less over 4:30 (at least in the genres I enjoy), so there won't be that many insane-only sets either. Not to mention that in many cases insane is not the top diff.

Honestly, I can't see this proposal as anything but helpful, especially for newbie mappers like myself, who not only need to put more time and effort into their maps than experienced mappers, but also often struggle with finding people willing to GD exactly because of their visible inexperience. And this is even more true in case of longer songs.

There, the token newbie post for you.

timemon wrote:

I find it a bit weird that this proposal at first was aimed to help longer maps that are not quite marathon length, but it ends up helping TV size and shorter maps as well. Some people were against this proposal at the start claiming it would limit how much the newbie audience could play.

I think shorter maps only requiring 1 difficulty minimum won't help them much because they are limited to Normal only. And people seem to enjoy playing Insane/Extra difficulties, so those mappers are forced to make the same spread as they are currently doing right now.

That said as a player/mapper, I would react very poorly to a 30 second ring tone sized ranked map that only has one difficulty. Such little amount of effort shouldn't be qualified or promoted to the ranked section.

Pretty much this. The thread has very much deviated from what I (and probably other people) were originally here to support. The one-diff thing doesn't really tickle my peaches

timemon wrote:

I find it a bit weird that this proposal at first was aimed to help longer maps that are not quite marathon length, but it ends up helping TV size and shorter maps as well. Some people were against this proposal at the start claiming it would limit how much the newbie audience could play.

I think shorter maps only requiring 1 difficulty minimum won't help them much because they are limited to Normal only. And people seem to enjoy playing Insane/Extra difficulties, so those mappers are forced to make the same spread as they are currently doing right now.

That said as a player/mapper, I would react very poorly to a 30 second ring tone sized ranked map that only has one difficulty. Such little amount of effort shouldn't be qualified or promoted to the ranked section.

So really the point here is; if the mapper intends to be stupid, they can do it already (just make EE spread or EN, NN, etc)

so removing that limitation would only be beneficial as it makes it better for really low bpm ambient stuff where cases you can really only map a normal as the max diff it would remove the requirement of having to map an EN

yeah, what kibb said. A lot of the abuse cases y'all describe can already happen.

Hey, i want to bring up again what i said earlier

AncuL wrote:

1. if the drain time is <4:00 your set's lowest diff must be normal or lower
2. if the drain time is 4:00-5:00 your set's lowest diff must be hard or lower
3. >5:00 can be anything

I'm thinking more like this. since H is way more accessible than N. IX only is just too small imo. Since we are having problems with 4:30 maps, we don't need to do anything with anything below 4:00

The goal of the spread rule restructure is to reduce the amount of people doing extensions to reach 5 minute mark. and because of that, there's no need to touch anything not nearing that borderline, which in this case are 3:59 and below maps

I would still rather 3:30/4:30/5:00. Similar reasons to what I posted about boosting normal to 4:00 before. https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/posts/6655799

Edit: I still stand by doing 4:00/4:30/5:00 but I guess I'm in the minority here.

fwiw I'm more of a 5:30 or 6:00 kind of guy for the 1 diff limit. With a more gradual cut off the 1 diff requirement doesn't really need to be at 5 min, since mapping 9-10 min total isn't really that much more than 7-8min, in comparison to what it used to be, with the potential difference being something like 20 min vs 5 min of required mapping.

I've always felt like 6 minutes fit better for marathon length.There are enough 5 min songs that the length doesn't feel long/special enough to be called a marathon, compared to the time when the marathon length limit was like 6 or 8 minutes or whatever and you only occasionally got a marathon ranked. Maybe that's just me though, and increasing the cut off might not be well received since it's kind of taking away something mappers have had, but since we're discussing cut-offs anyway and most seem to end at 5 min for marathon I figured I'd just throw that out there.

Before tackling the removal of the 2-diff count rule

Kibbleru wrote:

For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard

I propose we do something more along the lines of

For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty must at least be one difficulty higher than the osu!std requirements

I think it is really clear that converts, specially for mania and taiko, aren't good enough so that a standard H converts to a proper H in other modes. So having a ENH standard spread + an I taiko is something you won't find much agreement on, IMO. Even for catch, that was considered to have decent converts, we've been recently moving towards converted diffs being less valuable. A few years ago standard spreads + a catch X was rankable. A while back it was changed so you required at least an I catch difficulty. And just a couple months ago we made it so the lowest diff you can need in a hybrid mapset with standard difficulties is a H. This proposed change is a step back.

=======

Now, onto the 2-diff count rule.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"single diff mapsets wouldnt feel like mapsets"
people are already well accustomed to single diff mapsets because marathon sets get ranked like every day, there will be no difference. its not like the average really think "mapset = a set of maps" anyway, they just play diffs they find, no reason to bar this from passing because of a weird pseudo-technicality

A single player will usually play a single diff from a mapset. But when you take a larger group of players, the same thing doesn't apply.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"i could make just a 1 minute normal and rank it"
yeah and you can make a 1 minute EN set right now and rank that, there's basically 0 difference in effort or value. 2diff requirement doesn't keep people from making stupid sets, and it doesn't even discourage it. changing this to a single diff requirement will not encourage it any further because people don't really like to make stupid sets anyway, or else we'd see a lot more of them rn

This is assuming a couple things that are just wrong. First, you're calling EN spreads inherently effortless and stupid. From my experience in catch, not many people know how to make a really good N diff from the start (actually, N are the diff my mods are usually the longest). Is that diff effortless? I don't think so. Seconly, requiring only 1 diff won't stop those that want to pull "stupid" EE or EN in their attempt to be the next memelord. Those types of "meme" spreads won't be affected at all, yet it is one of the reasonings most of you have used in favor of removing the 2-diff count rule.

I do understand that there are some songs that are so calm/slow that you can't make a significant difference between two diffs and that those are affected by the 2-diff count rule. However, that's a really niche case and, as such, removing the rule as a whole is not necessary. I proposed a thing a while back that got swiftly ignored, and which was a pretty decent middleground, which I'll state again at the end of the post.

UndeadCapulet wrote:

"2 diffs promotes variety/appeals to more players"
except EE/NN/HH/II are all rankable and do not promote either of those things. in fact of all the listed sets the ones we have ranked right now are EE and NN....

As I said a couple paragraphs above, removing the 2-diff rule won't prevent EE/NN/HH/II from happening.

I also read that those who want to map more diffs, for whatever reason (they like the song, they want to cater to a larger playerbase, etc.) can do so. That will happen whether the 2-diff rule is there or not. So, basically, the removal of the 2-diff rule just caters to two groups of people: those mapping songs that are so slow/calm that making 2 noticeably different difficulties is hard or imposible, and those that are lazy. Personally I don't think we should cater to the second group. As for the first group, there is a simple solution:

MOVING THE 2-DIFF RULE TO GUIDELINES
MOVING THE 2-DIFF RULE TO GUIDELINES
MOVING THE 2-DIFF RULE TO GUIDELINES
MOVING THE 2-DIFF RULE TO GUIDELINES
MOVING THE 2-DIFF RULE TO GUIDELINES

If you can judge whether a EE or EN spread is stupid, as you so called them in your post, you're equally capable of judging whether a song really doesn't allow for a 2nd diff.

I agree. Requiring at least 2 diffs is perfectly reasonable, thats what sets apart a marathon from a reasonable spread.

I don't see what the case is for exploitation of removal of the 2-diff rule is.

If you do not want to see stupid single-diff R3 music box ringtone size sets in ranked, then the solution isn't to outlaw them - it's to encourage the BNs and QATs who actually have the privilege and right to decide whether they get to ranked or not to stop the low-effort content that adds nothing from getting into the ranked section.

We shouldn't be disallowing content we don't like, that's exactly the wrong mentality to have. This is why I somewhat agree with ZiRoX on this one - move it to guidelines - although I disagree that it should only be allowed in clearly defined niche cases.

I'm more concerned that requiring 2 diffs encourages behavior like putting no effort into a secondary diff. Not requiring diffs that are generally unnecessary and don't fill any specific purpose means less work for mappers, less detritus in the ranked section, less work for BNs checking the maps, and quite likely more good content, and a greater variety of good content. Time that is not spent, but wasted on mapping or trying to find a GD for a second difficulty required for no good reason by RC could be better spent making more maps, modding other people's maps, or even just looking for BNs to check and nominate their single diff set.

That's precisely why I'm suggesting that the rule is moved to guidelines instead. For those songs that it is really hard to make a difference between 2 diffs, which is a really edge and niche case, you're still allowed to rank 1-diff mapsets provided you can actually justify that. Allowing 1-diff sets for this sole reason is going completely overboard.

completely agree with zirox

btw, this spread idea has gone from the diff requirements at different lengths being adjusted, which i supported, to removing the two-diff rule and changing things with hybrids, which i really can't support at all. we're taking a step back with the additional proposals being made in my opinion, when we could easily be passing the changes to the length for lowest difficulties like it was originally intended.

Regarding why we use minimum drain time, why not just replace it with minimum length
There's been plenty of cases where it would be preferable to have a break in a low intensity section, but having one prevents reaching the minimum drain. In some cases, it even feels overdone to map sounds for that section, but there's no way around it.

Imo all diffs should be allowed to use breaks since the player's total play time is unaffected,
Something like that would let marathons that are 5:01 give players recovery, 5 minutes without breaks is not fun for anyone and is just bad game design.

edit
ok so just have at least 80% of time must be mapped, problem solved?

I don't agree Sinnoh. That could be abused to have less than 10 seconds of actual draintime, like a 1 minute map with 50 seconds of breaks. That'd be horrible. A minimum of 30 seconds of drain time is perfectly reasonable. Also there isn't much use for a break in a 30 second map. Its over very quickly. Also how could you reasonably measure length? From the start of the audio file to the end of it? From the first object to the end of the audio file? From the first sound to the last sound? What if at least 20% of the outro isn't mapped? What if the mapper decides to have 40% of the song be an unmapped intro to beef up the length? It seems abusable.


About the 2 diff rule, I still think it should stay. Even with simple r3 music box songs, its always possible to make at least two different diffs if the mapper actually tries. Its also not an issue in any other gamemode besides osu!std. There can be full 3-4 diff spreads out of a r3 music box song in taiko/ctb/mania. If the mapper actually tries to represent different rhythms in a song, they can easily make at least 2 diffs. One of you gave an example of a two diff r3 music box spread with only a 1 object difference between the two diffs. Thats just a bad spread because of the mapper.

oh come on tatatat stop saying the same thing over and over again and not even acknowledging anything that's been said to the contrary

"that could be abused," is not a usable argument, nor is "a mapper can make multiple diffs if they try!" and the reasons why this is have been explained for you several times.

for what it's worth i can see this work while requiring 2 diffs minimum because a spread doesnt work as a spread if there isnt anything to spread out

to the contrary i forgot updating the gist for the first post with the changes pertaining to what's been said so i'll do that sometime

REEE done


I think 'Reasonable Spread' shouldn't skip any levels from the difficulty you start at btw
because doing the optional easy if your normal is optional and then doing no normal is ????????????????????????????????

https://gist.github.com/Okorin/190bc363 ... 919eb8e1cf we made some further updates

tl;dr drain time scales linearly now as requested by a bunch of people. other than that we just further clarified some things

In response to oko:

I was afraid of this coming up. If it is required that a spread be "reasonable" (not clearly defined) and linear even in sections where the spread is not required at all, then we run the risk of depriving the game of content, because in this case it is possible that a mapset would be completely acceptable and rankable without a low diff, but then have spread problems when that low diff is added.

Now, I'm sure you are already fully aware of my relationship with reasonable spreads, but I genuinely think it would be counterproductive to strictly enforce spread rules on low difficulties that are not required at all in the context of the mapset.


On another note, I am also concerned at the challenge of, "what constitutes an acceptable bottom diff?" As it stands, many Normal difficulties are viewed as unacceptable as the lowest difficulty on a set not because of their star rating, but because of density and difficulty elements present in the map.

My main concern is that when we have challenging Hard or Insane difficulties, will these be at risk of being blocked from the ranked section due to the challenge they provide? As a side-effect of this, won't we just see people making sets that go one diff lower than the minimum required in order to have an acceptable lower diff, defeating the purpose of this amendment altogether?

Mun wrote:

My main concern is that when we have challenging Hard or Insane difficulties, will these be at risk of being blocked from the ranked section due to the challenge they provide? As a side-effect of this, won't we just see people making sets that go one diff lower than the minimum required in order to have an acceptable lower diff, defeating the purpose of this amendment altogether?

I don't think the majority of Hards will have a problem with this, and if they violate

proposal wrote:

Single-mode mapsets must form a reasonable spread. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.

then I think it's entirely reasonable to require a normal or more appropriately mapped Hard. Star Rating is so broken that it should really not be used as the sole judge of whether something constitutes a reasonable spread, the difficulty-specific criteria exist for a reason and if there's concern about elements found in Hards that are not appropriate for players at that level, imo it would belong there rather than having anything to do with this proposal. Basically, if it's mapped like a Hard according to RC, it should count as a Hard, if it's mapped like an Insane, make another diff.

Mun wrote:

In response to oko:

I was afraid of this coming up. If it is required that a spread be "reasonable" (not clearly defined) and linear even in sections where the spread is not required at all, then we run the risk of depriving the game of content, because in this case it is possible that a mapset would be completely acceptable and rankable without a low diff, but then have spread problems when that low diff is added.

but we added a definition, did you read that lol it's pretty clear atm i just suggest it should be different from what it is atm

Mun wrote:

Now, I'm sure you are already fully aware of my relationship with reasonable spreads, but I genuinely think it would be counterproductive to strictly enforce spread rules on low difficulties that are not required at all in the context of the mapset.

most of these diffs we're talking about are going to be cases where someone includes the optional easy or normal, at that level people haven't really figured out why and what is going on for their own sake im suggesting this to avoid confusion among the players downloading a set

Mun wrote:

On another note, I am also concerned at the challenge of, "what constitutes an acceptable bottom diff?" As it stands, many Normal difficulties are viewed as unacceptable as the lowest difficulty on a set not because of their star rating, but because of density and difficulty elements present in the map.

My main concern is that when we have challenging Hard or Insane difficulties, will these be at risk of being blocked from the ranked section due to the challenge they provide? As a side-effect of this, won't we just see people making sets that go one diff lower than the minimum required in order to have an acceptable lower diff, defeating the purpose of this amendment altogether?

That was on my agenda for all the modes already - we will need to define what and if we need additional guidelines the same way we have them for normals as the lowest difficulty right now because i think these work.

@LwL there's a definition of the term reasonable spread in the glossary which probably explains whatever you were suggesting already

Okoratu wrote:

Mun wrote:

On another note, I am also concerned at the challenge of, "what constitutes an acceptable bottom diff?" As it stands, many Normal difficulties are viewed as unacceptable as the lowest difficulty on a set not because of their star rating, but because of density and difficulty elements present in the map.

My main concern is that when we have challenging Hard or Insane difficulties, will these be at risk of being blocked from the ranked section due to the challenge they provide? As a side-effect of this, won't we just see people making sets that go one diff lower than the minimum required in order to have an acceptable lower diff, defeating the purpose of this amendment altogether?

That was on my agenda for all the modes already - we will need to define what and if we need additional guidelines the same way we have them for normals as the lowest difficulty right now because i think these work.

@LwL there's a definition of the term reasonable spread in the glossary which probably explains whatever you were suggesting already

The idea was the same as what you said, though I never believed that it should be particularly needed. What I was trying to argue was that a Hard diff following the current difficulty guidelines should be able to fulfill the purpose of being the lowest difficulty if the spread can end at a hard, it shouldn't be different from how it is now. If you had an N-H-I spread currently, and the Hard would be way out there in terms of playability, that brings up the same issue as having H-I-X after this proposal with a challenging Hard, as the spread doesn't work as intended for a spread. For that reason any issues arising in this regard would not be exclusive to this proposal, but rather still be an issue with the current RC, and therefore should be discussed seperately.

I did forget about the current rule regarding bottom diff Normals though, but if I understood it correctly Muns concern was that the existence of such a rule (or a common perception that the principle should be followed) would lead to a significant amount of sets ultimately mapping a Normal or a very easy hard to avoid any problems, and then end up with the same number of difficulties as now. I think it's a valid concern, but for above stated reason it should be enough for this to maybe clarify that a bottom diff Hard or Insane has to strictly follow the difficulty guidelines (basically turning the Guideline part into additional rules, while staying relative to song speed of course), without a need to follow anything further than that as that would partially defeat the point of the change.

Nah it just means we need to define how easy we expect a hard to be rather than taking sets down for it so that we're all on the same page

If the drain time of a song is lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.

Difficulties lower than Insane can use their play time as a metric instead of drain time, but their drain time must be equal to at least 80% of their play time.

so if you've got a set with only a hard, minimum drain required is 2:48 for 3:30 songs? from a talk with oko, the play time thing was added so additional lower diffs dont need to force non-stop gameplay to meet minimum drain requirements, but having it apply to lowest diff hards like this seems to make it more lenient htan intended (and plain weird because fully mapped songs between 2:48 and 3:30 arent rankable).

may make more sense to apply the play time thing to diffs below the highest