Before I get into any of my arguments and explanations and readers get confused I'd like to say that I strongly believe that 3K(3 keys) should be rankable. My proposal to have a new rule: Beatmaps must have a keycount between 3 keys and 9 keys in order to be considered for rank.

At that moment, there is currently no rule in the ranking criteria that directly says 3K maps are unrankable, there is just the vague section under the guidelines saying

Note: 1K, 2K, 3K, 9K and 10K are from the new unstable update, so not recommended to mapping it now.

(This update is definitely not new.) However no BN would ever consider even bubbling a 3K map at the moment. With the new osu!mania ranking criteria draft set to directly spell out in the rules that only beatmaps with keycounts between 4 and 9 keys are rankable

Your beatmap can use only from 4-Key up to 9-Key. Anything else is not properly supported.

I see no better time to finally try and convince everyone that 3K can be rankable. I hope to be able to spread my love for 3K to everyone else through the ranked map section.



I'd like to go over some common arguments against 3K being rankable and counter them.

Nobody plays 3K, so why should it be rankable?

While it is true that the 3K playerbase in osu!mania is very small, there is a small community that loves 3K, and if 3K is rankable more people will be exposed to 3K and that playerbase will grow. Also there are communities in other 3K mania-like games such as the Tap Tap series of games.

I tried 3K once and it wasn't very fun.

While I don't think that everyone will enjoy 3K, just as everyone doesn't enjoy every keycount in osu!mania. Certain people may enjoy 3K, and I hope they have a welcome place in the community c:

Every 3K map I've seen is bad! How can there ever be a good 3K map?

I definitely do believe that there is currently a lack of quality 3K maps pending and graveyard section. There most certainly is quite a few joke/meme 3K maps and of the many maps that aren't a joke very few of them actually going through a modding process to improve their quality. I believe this can be explained by a few things. Some modders may refuse to mod 3K, seeing all 3K maps as jokes. Also, there isn't any incentive to produce a high quality 3K map through the modding process at the moment because 3K isn't rankable. If 3K were rankable, many more people might open up into modding 3K maps, asking for mods on their own map.

How can there be any high difficulty maps with only 3 keys?

While it is true that 3K doesn't support as high of difficulties as 4K without getting marred in excessive jacks, comparing 4K to 7K also shows that 4 keys can't support as high of a difficulty as 7 keys. You don't see any 7* 4K diffs for a reason, the same reason you wouldn't see any 6* 3K diffs, its just not reasonable for the keycount. I truly believe that it is possible for 3K mapsets to have a reasonable and fun difficulty spread.


Thank you for hopefully reading my proposal to the end, and I encourage you to discuss your thoughts on the matter in this thread.
-With love, tata

I be honest, i am against it. 4K is already pretty limited in using different pattern, like really. Look how many Jumpstream maps we have. SVs start to bring up some kind of variety into it buuuut that's a different thing.

My problem is that, while 4K is already limited, 3K is even worse. How do you want to make proper Beatmaps in 3K. How do you want to play it? 1-Finger L/Thumb/1-Finger R?

I tried in the past some 3K beatmaps and the playstyle itself is really uncomfortable.. but maybe it's just me.

>Also there are communities in other 3K mania-like games such as the Tap Tap series of games

There are "mania-like" games for like every keymode out there. 16K would be BMS Doublestage but does it mean it shall be rankable? I don't think so

Now let's look at the other "Anti-Meta" keymodes (Anti-Meta is copyright by Kamikaze).
5K, 6K, 8K and 9K.
osu!mania is now 5 years old (correct me if i'm wrong) and in all this time we got roughly:

70 5K Mapset's Ranked
30-40 6K Mapset's Ranked
40-50 8K Mapset's Ranked (I counted 8K and 7+1K together)
15-20 9K Mapset's Ranked // Forgot to mention that 9K got added later, but is already 2-3y old

As you see, for five years this is really really REALLY not a lot. Maybe because it's difficult to map these or maybe people simply do not like these keymodes. They are simply, as much as it hurt me to say so, unpopular. And i sadly do not see that this will change in near future, as much as i support "Anti-Meta" Mapsets.

I think 3K won't end differently. There will be maybe a short hype about it because "Oh look! Something new" but that's it about, people will forget it and stay at mapping 4K Beatmaps.

I don't see a future for 3K Rankable and that's why i am against it.

3k is just, way, way too limiting for anything to be good, let alone fun or interesting. disregarding gameplay, charting will be an absolute nightmare to make anything that successfully represents the music to a rankable standard. if you somehow make something that works, chances are gameplay wasnt acounted for when creating the map. there is no real comfortable key pattern to even play 3k sufficiently, let alone make a rankable beatmap that is both quality enough to be within the ranked section and to play comfortably.

3 columns just doesnt allow for anything "good" per se and i personally dont see it working. 4k is limiting enough, and 3k has its own set of problems that really wont be suited for anything within the ranked section.

im downs for 3k

The limitation on 4K is the main reason I don't map 4K primarily. 3K is just worse

Feerum wrote:

I be honest, i am against it. 4K is already pretty limited in using different pattern, like really. Look how many Jumpstream maps we have. SVs start to bring up some kind of variety into it buuuut that's a different thing.

My problem is that, while 4K is already limited, 3K is even worse. How do you want to make proper Beatmaps in 3K. How do you want to play it? 1-Finger L/Thumb/1-Finger R?

I tried in the past some 3K beatmaps and the playstyle itself is really uncomfortable.. but maybe it's just me.

>Also there are communities in other 3K mania-like games such as the Tap Tap series of games

There are "mania-like" games for like every keymode out there. 16K would be BMS Doublestage but does it mean it shall be rankable? I don't think so

Now let's look at the other "Anti-Meta" keymodes (Anti-Meta is copyright by Kamikaze).
5K, 6K, 8K and 9K.
osu!mania is now 5 years old (correct me if i'm wrong) and in all this time we got roughly:

70 5K Mapset's Ranked
30-40 6K Mapset's Ranked
40-50 8K Mapset's Ranked (I counted 8K and 7+1K together)
15-20 9K Mapset's Ranked // Forgot to mention that 9K got added later, but is already 2-3y old

As you see, for five years this is really really REALLY not a lot. Maybe because it's difficult to map these or maybe people simply do not like these keymodes. They are simply, as much as it hurt me to say so, unpopular. And i sadly do not see that this will change in near future, as much as i support "Anti-Meta" Mapsets.

I think 3K won't end differently. There will be maybe a short hype about it because "Oh look! Something new" but that's it about, people will forget it and stay at mapping 4K Beatmaps.

I don't see a future for 3K Rankable and that's why i am against it.

Thanks for your comments feerum!

My problem is that, while 4K is already limited, 3K is even worse. How do you want to make proper Beatmaps in 3K. How do you want to play it? 1-Finger L/Thumb/1-Finger R?

I personally play 3K with ER I 2 . 2 keys on the left, 1 key on the right. I find it perfectly comfortable. There are some alternatives to both playing and mapping 3K though, such as CommandoBlack's tap tap mania thread which includes special instructions for playing the game with only 2 fingers, and special mapping instructions. c:

There are "mania-like" games for like every keymode out there. 16K would be BMS Doublestage but does it mean it shall be rankable? I don't think so

Yes there is, but I don't think 16K should be rankable because its not reasonably playable. You don't even have 16 fingers. 3K is reasonably playable.


Also are you implying that the anti-meta keycounts shouldn't be rankable? I think that even if they don't have very many maps, they have their own playerbase that loves them, and I think the same can be said of 3K. I don't expect hundreds of ranked 3K maps, just like how I don't expect hundreds of ranked 5K maps. I still think that 5K should be ranked though.

3K. let's talk about playstyle. 3K has the option of being played with two fingers on one hand and one finger on the other, or for the really daring, 3 fingers on one hand (which as far as im aware has also been done with 4K, if 3K was hypothetically rankable this option is not going to be very conventional). lets define "normal" playstyle as two fingers on one hand and one on the other, with the hand playing with two fingers using the spacebar.

in odd keymodes, since there is a guarantee of a hand imbalance, it is quite recommended for maps to maintain a hand balance in both left hand heavy and right hand heavy playstyles. this approach is quite obvious and visible in kawawa's 7K maps, just to give an example of this. given this argument, the spacebar (again, assuming "normal" playstyle) will generally have less notes than the two other columns. this is usually okay in 5K, 7K, and 9K, because the amount of non-spacebar columns are much greater. but in 3K, one hand will inevitably have one finger on one hand, and it will be extremely unbalanced. this is exactly why 3K is considered extremely uncomfortable to many players.

about tap-tap - it's a mobile game. since the playfield is a lot more restrictive you can't play the 3K in the same way you would play it in osu!mania.

there are many more arguments against 3K but i wont be going over them at the moment. it just really isnt practical to allow 3K to be ranked.

only people who would be willing to play 3k:
- you
- people who get nostalgia from ttr

that's a remarkably small playerbase so it's unnecessary effort to make 3k rankable bar the fact that no one would be willing to nominate such notecharts

++ Insane+ 3k diffs are bound to look awful there's only so much you can do with 3 lanes

Lenfried- wrote:

only people who would be willing to play 3k:
- you
- people who get nostalgia from ttr

that's a remarkably small playerbase so it's unnecessary effort to make 3k rankable bar the fact that no one would be willing to nominate such notecharts

++ Insane+ 3k diffs are bound to look awful there's only so much you can do with 3 lanes

I know at least 10 other people besides me who are willing to play 3K. I do not know if they've ever played TTR though.

It's off topic but I would like to point out one thing about the "Anti-Meta" keymodes.

Feerum wrote:

Now let's look at the other "Anti-Meta" keymodes (Anti-Meta is copyright by Kamikaze).
5K, 6K, 8K and 9K.
osu!mania is now 5 years old (correct me if i'm wrong) and in all this time we got roughly:

70 5K Mapset's Ranked
30-40 6K Mapset's Ranked
40-50 8K Mapset's Ranked (I counted 8K and 7+1K together)
15-20 9K Mapset's Ranked // Forgot to mention that 9K got added later, but is already 2-3y old

As you see, for five years this is really really REALLY not a lot. Maybe because it's difficult to map these or maybe people simply do not like these keymodes. They are simply, as much as it hurt me to say so, unpopular. And i sadly do not see that this will change in near future, as much as i support "Anti-Meta" Mapsets.

I think it's just because of PP ranking system.
If you divide PP system by key modes, more player would play Anti-Meta keymodes and more mappers would make Anti-Meta ranked maps.
This no longer forces 5K 6K 8K users to play 4K 7K because of gaining PP.

many 5K players played those : DJMAX series, PopStage, BMS(Luv-it), EZ2 series
many 6K players played those : BandMaster, DJMAX Trillogy, EZ2ON
many 8K players played those : BMS(LR2)

DJ Max Trilogy and EZ2ON had 4K,5K,6K,8K modes, and there were many 5K 6K users as much as 4K users in network before osu!mania appeared.

While everybody is getting worked up on how limiting 3k is, can you offer examples of 3k maps which you think deserve to be ranked?

abraker wrote:

While everybody is getting worked up on how limiting 3k is, can you offer examples of 3k maps which you think deserve to be ranked?

Of course! Although the amount of maps for 3K is obviously small, I can give you 3 maps of reasonable quality. 1 map per column in the keycount c:

https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1395174
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/519381
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1351076

Yes extreme fantasy survival does have way more keycounts than is necessary, and some of the difficulties are not of a good quality. I am focusing only on the 3K diffs of that set. If you'd like to see what I'd consider in the upper limit of 3K difficulty, you can check out evening's map https://www.dropbox.com/s/gnpsh75k1xmns ... 6.osz?dl=0

c:

After thinking about it, I see the keymode has a struggle between providing content and its very point.

Argument for rank:
Anyone who plays mania more seriously and wants to improve will take 3k as a joke, however it's a fun keymode for people playing casually. You indeed can't do much with it, but you don't have to. You just have to provide people who play this game something fun to play.

Argument against rank:
If it is to be played casually, then what is the point of applying ranking to players who play 3k? Ranking implies the intent to improve, and 3k doesn't go far with that. You can still play it casually unranked

I don't think any view is more correct than other. Rankings is a display of competition, but is also an inventive to push certain content forward. However, despite the incentive, I don't believe it is going to be mapped a lot. I would first want to see something done about the lack of 6k, 5k, 8k, and 9k maps before we try to push in a controversial keymode on to the stage. Figure out a way to make them as popular as 4k and 7k, then maybe we can think about 3k.

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