best of luck
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:
"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
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:
"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
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:
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
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.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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.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?
@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.
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.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.
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.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)
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.
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.”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.
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.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
For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a Hard
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
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 peachestimemon 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.
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.
AncuL wrote:
- if the drain time is <4:00 your set's lowest diff must be normal or lower
- if the drain time is 4:00-5:00 your set's lowest diff must be hard or lower
- >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
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.Kibbleru wrote:
For non-osu! game modes in hybrid mapsets that feature osu! difficulties, the lowest difficulty cannot be harder than a HardI propose we do something more along the lines ofFor 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
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:
"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
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.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
As I said a couple paragraphs above, removing the 2-diff rule won't prevent EE/NN/HH/II from happening.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....
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?
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.proposal wrote:
Single-mode mapsets must form a reasonable spread. This spread must comply with its respective mode's difficulty-specific Ranking Criteria.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.