There's a lot more to cover here. I tried to fit it all in one guideline, but there is too much information on this subject. We could potentially use this thread to isolate the guidelines to making a playable beatmap rather than making a topic for each guideline, because I think there are more than a few guidelines still missing from the draft concerning this subject. (Don't think my submission below is absolute-I tried to get as many issues as I could into one guideline. If you think that it should be split into separate guidelines, mention that )

I think this needs to be a rule. MATs/BATs should be able to tell whether a map plays intuitive enough to be ranked. (I am reiterating what the MAT/BAT already does. They decide whether all the beatmaps play well enough to be ranked. I really don't see any valid flaws in this rule. My reasoning: If you don't agree with the opposite thing of what I'm saying, then these rules should apply. No map is made better by excessively overmapping it, and by overmap, I'm referring to the literal translation, which is mapping beats that aren't there excessively. If I'm misstating this, please tell me how I should amend it.)
Maps should be reasonably playable
All maps should play in an intuitive manner. Mappers should avoid excessively overmapping beats. Beatmaps should be designed for the song not the difficulty. Under certain cases overmapping can work (as long as it's intuitive), but excessive overmapping is strongly discouraged (for ranked maps). (Do not turn a slow song into a crazy intense song for example)

This is a guideline.
Difficulties should be consistent throughout Patterns in your map shouldn't vary in intensity. Easy difficulties should have an easy to follow pace and contain easy patterns, and a Normal should be moderately more challenging than an easy difficulty. The same goes for each difficulty with few exceptions.

This is a slightly less important guideline
Difficulty settings shouldn't be so high or low that the map becomes awkward to play. A good tip is to choose settings that make the patterns most readable, but still give a reasonable window to actually hit whatever crazy pattern the song has and fits the difficulty.


Changelog

Removed clause about jump spaming, because I think it's not as important and much more acceptable than overmapping.
Added more specifications on overmapping
Split the main points of my post into separate guidelines.
Added a clarification that rankability for overmapping and suggested that it be a rule instead


Current Topic Issue

What is considered overmapped? Is it negative? Should it be controlled? If so, how?

The beast players needs hard difficulties !

This is too subjective. High skilled players will not have any problems with anything. I know this isn't aimed towards them, but this is just an example of how subjective this is.
Avoiding overmapping for no reason is common sense and is already caught in the modding process, so this guideline is sort of redundant. Diff spread rule covers the rest too (which means eveyone should have a map which fits them, most of the time).

What? I'm just reiterating how people determine what is too crazy for ranking or not too crazy. It's not written down, but this is practically it. I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying you should avoid it, unless you are saying we should encourage overmapping. I really don't think we should.

The people who map pro diffs know what they are doing. The people who do not, shouldn't try to needlessly overmap things period. If there is not a beat there, why make one?

It is the main reason some patterns are shot down by modders/MATs/BATs. This pattern is unreadable. (Really I think you're taking my rule too as a matter of factly- I took probably 3-4 guidelines and tried to fit them as a single guideline. I could break this down as well as include more values that MATs/BATs check for to ensure a map is ready to be ranked. Because we can't tell them to fix what's not written in the guidelines)

If you want to help this guideline, actually help me rephrase it in a way that complements everyone, because right now your view says every pattern regardless of readability is allowed in ranked difficulties. Oh BTW that's for every easy, and normal difficulty too. Because there's no guidelines for having a hard criteria element in a Normal or and easy.

Have fun trying to convince me when I say that there is nothing that says I can't have a jump in an easy. It's not in the guidelines, and you shot down my attempt at adding such things to the guidelines. I think such an opinion kind of defeats the spirit of maintaining difficulty.

TheVileOne wrote:

Have fun trying to convince me when I say that there is nothing that says I can't have a jump in an easy.

If you're going to act like that then i would say have fun trying to get said map ranked

Just reminding that overmapping is a COMPLETELY different thing than "making a map harder than it should be".

Blue Dragon wrote:

Just reminding that overmapping is a COMPLETELY different thing than "making a map harder than it should be".

I don't completely agree. Actually you're right, overmapping doesn't always make the map excessively hard

Lets look at the word "overmapping". We got the word over, which in this definition it's defined as excessive, or beyond what's necessary and we got "mapping" which refers to the beatmap's note spread. I don't know what you get when you put the two words together, but I get "excessive mapping of notes" as the definition of overmapping.

Do you think it should be a separate guideline? It could be used for excessive overmapping instead. Excessive overmapping should be a rule actually.

Okay.

What do you think the definition of excessively hard should be?

This is a major issue. What is considered too hard to be ranked? Can we phrase a guideline/rule that can cover all of the elements that woul,d make a map unrankable due to difficulty, either from lack of readability, huge unnecessary jumps, or lack of sensible spacing? What is reasonably playable? Why aren't TAG difficulties allowed? What makes those maps too difficult for a single player to beat? What if they were called anything other than TAG? What part of their design makes them unrankable?(unapprovable for that matter)

TheVileOne wrote:

So what is everyone's definition of overmapping?

Mapping to silence / putting notes when there's no sound accopanying it on the song (like for instance when there's a single sound or 2 1/2 sounds putting a 1/4 triple)

Does this guideline include the big bad? if so, YES. if not, idc.

^ I'm not sure what you mean.

I hope I made my concerns clear. I'm not trying to prevent the maps currently being ranked. I'm only trying to put into words what MATs/BATs mention as reasons not to bubble/rank a map. There is such a thing as too hard to rank, even though the skill level of osu players has skyrocketed. But what is too hard to rank? Can we just have a song that's one giant 1/4th stream without breaks with huge ridiculous jumps at the end of each stream and as long as it doesn't reach the max score it would be allowed?

There's a thing called common sense

You don't have it, sakura, so don't start.


This entire thread will go nowhere - Map difficulty has nothing to do with playability. Arguing is useless since any maps that are suitably "omg so hard" will likely go through modding and stuff anyway, where it will be brought up and addressed. If the map's not going for ranking, who are you to say it shouldn't exist? Have a little faith in the modding system.

lolcubes wrote:

This is too subjective.

I was going to say this as soon as it was posted.

We don't need new guidelines, especially ones that are so complicated that to make them not vague in their description you need to write a paragraph. MATs/BATs generally tell why they won't rank/bubble something in the particular thread. We don't need guidelines for that. There's a difference between being unrankable, and not comfortable with ranking. Gray areas can be covered on a case by case basis.

What is intuitive? What is overmapping? Why is overmapping bad? I have my own opinions on the matter which vary greatly from a large number of people on osu. Don't force my opinions on others when it's clear they are opinions and enough people do not share those opinions. Maps have to be reasonably playable is fine as a guideline, but it is also an unspoken guideline. I believe we already have a rule on "must be theoretically FCable". If we don't, it's common sense, and doesn't need a guideline.

No thanks. If I want to make one section hard and another easy, that's my prerogative. It can be looked down upon (which it generally is by modders) but this is stupid.

Eggpain is not unrankable. Certainly it makes the game harder to play, but seriously, OD 10 is not that harsh (40 ms is huge when compared to other rhythm games). CS 7 is almost never used, and will be replaced by cs2 at some point. CS 6 is hard, but not impossible. OD has to be tweaked to be reasonably passable, but doesn't necessarily have to be. Just look at "hey now" or "owens".

Edit: I didn't get to your post ziin

I didn't say it shouldn't exist.... Why is everyone on my case? When did difficulty not matter? It used to be a huge issue in the community, now I'm being practically flamed for just trying to clarify things. Did I miss the bus when it came to this conversation? Shiirn are you going to tell me to read some conversation that made everyone agree that readability and difficulty didn't matter anymore? Maybe I'm old-fashioned but seriously I'm only stating simple things that people should keep in mind when making their maps. Trust me greenpoint0 learned the hardway that overmapping shit doesn't work, and there have been SHD maps in the past which were just omg spam 1/4th streams for the entire song without reason. Look for yourself http://osu.ppy.sh/s/16412 and http://osu.ppy.sh/b/57052&m=0 and this http://osu.ppy.sh/s/11487 (Is that now rankable?)

Tell me right off, if it's technically possible to beat, should I just not tell them that it's too crazy and their attempts for ranking for a particular map is completely unrealistic?

I could make a proof of concept map if you want. I'll follow every written guideline and include a map that's so ridiculously hard for the final diff, and then I'll make my argument that's it's rankable, because according to everyone it is. Perhaps I should use a ridiculously small distance snap for it too, so you wouldn't be able to identify 1/2th notes from 1/4th notes. There's nothing saying that a ranked map can't have that. There's no readability issues at all with that. The old 2008 map spacings would be very nice. I mean why would I want any better in a ranked map. DJPop is a well known mapper, and he used those spacings, why shouldn't I? I don't see anything saying that doesn't play well.

If anyone says differently, it's not in the guidelines or the rules, or the ranking criteria about this. Why should I listen to feedback if it's not against the rules?

Don't be ignorant with me. I know what I'm talking about, my experiences may be a bit dated, but there is nothing MAT/BATs are falling back on in their decisions. N-O-T-H-I-N-G There is no such written(important word) rule/guideline that says that mappers can't just use anything they want as settings. If they were stubborn like I would be with my example- they couldn't back their defense for removal or toning down such elements with anything, because it's all unwritten and in their heads- as good as their opinion. In their opinion it shouldn't be ranked until this is done. Well why do they have this opinion, erm, ehm... uhhh....

Modders need to have accountability as well. We need to back up our reasons for people to change things. We need mapping guidelines as well as every other guidelines...

If I haven't gotten through the dense egos that have appeared on this thread.

Take this:

Modder: This is overmapped, you should change it.
Mapper: I mapped it like that to make it more difficult. If I change it, it wont be challenging enough.
Modder: It doesn't play well to the beat. You should just remove some notes.
Mapper: No. I like it this way. I think I'll keep it.

Communication was not made. The mapper did not trust the modder's opinion enough to reconcile removing notes from his beatmap. How many modders would it take to get this point through this mapper's head? How many would it take if there was an official(another important word) guideline stating exactly the modder's opinion about this.

I guess my opinion and knowledge of stubborn (being quite stubborn myself) wouldn't know anything about this myself. Back in the day I could deny many more than 10 people's requests to change something. I'm still quite stubborn about things. I might even refuse to change something that a BAT tells me I should change. I wouldn't know what myself and people I've had to deal with in the past have done. Oh no... Sakura you of all people know how I am/was.

New question: How do you get a person who's stubborn to make changes to his map? Think of it from the everyday modder's perspective.

There used to be a rule that all maps have to be sightreadable on the first try but it was removed.

The situation you described is the same situation most new mappers tend to get frustrated on because they become stubborn with their maps and don't fix what needs to be fixed, we don't need a guideline/rule for every single mistake that can happen in a map since most of them depend on the maps themselves and the songs, and even the mapper's intention with the map, if the mapper's intention is clearly to confuse players then it won't get ranked.
We would end up with a ton of guidelines and rules related to this and they would just make every map feel the same, and that's not what we want, since each person has their own mapping style, last but not least, common sense states that this is a rythm game and maps should follow the rythm of the song so it can be played according to the song's rythm, take for instance if the song has a constant 1/2 rythm through a certain section then you can pretty much place notes all in 1/2 and put some unique patterns with jumps and everyone will know when to hit them because they're all 1/2 (ztrot spacing rings a bell?).

Is it too hard to just listen to the song...
</rant>

TheVileOne wrote:

New question: How do you get a person who's stubborn to make changes to his map? Think of it from the everyday modder's perspective.

You, as the modder, cannot. If you can't, oh well, that's the mapper's fault for not agreeing with you (how dare s/he!).

If you're a MAT/BAT, then you've been given the ability to deny these mappers. Alas, you are not one, so I don't see why you need to worry about it.

Well, "reasonably" change too much between us all players,modders and mappers... so I don't see any reason too add subjective-interpretable guidelines

There's no point in trying to set anything in stone in regards to what is intuitive, because experienced people have been conditioned to certain quirks and outright fallacies in maps--I'm talking about ridiculous spacing changes, horrendous clusterfucks and other things which are a nightmare to read, but are justified by "you should read maps by their hitcircles only." It startles me that blatant sloppiness is allowed in a lot of maps and I'm not just talking about presentation.

I could go on and on and on about what I dislike about current mapping standards, but it would be absolutely pointless. All I can say is that I don't find a lot of maps to be very sensible, but I find that what passes for ranking stretches the meaning of the word more with every week that passes. For example, what are considered to be acceptable jumps are becoming more and more dramatic and inconsistent and I really don't think that certain maps give much of an indication of rhythm and fluency at all.

Also, Shiirn: It's reasonable to be annoyed at stubborn mappers, because if a mapper ignores/outright denies a normal user's suggestions and then makes similar changes based on a MAT or BAT's feedback, then it shows a flagrant disrespect towards sensible suggestions and people in general, unless they have an authority tag. When I see stubborn mappers yield only when their map can't be bubbled or ranked, I lose a lot of respect for them. As a further note, there is a difference between trying to get a second opinion and sucking up to higher-ups just to get something ranked.

[New Guideline] Maps should be reasonably playable

I agree with that. The map should should follow the song and a mapper shouldnt spam 1/4 triple stacks all over the map just for the reason that it feels fun to move your fingers that way/because of hitsounds/to increase difficulty in a horrible way.
Well those maps are still getting ranked one after another and if you play without hitsounds for a while you will notice how many bad beatmaps there actually are (99% of them with a star rating over 9).

On the other side a very complex song should never be needed to get easier because of a rule like that. If it is hard then it is hard as long as it all got a certain note pattern and is justified by the song and nothing else.
Well it should not be overmapped aswell, like 10 beat long streams for example while there are actually more audible patterns during that. Add bad hitsounds and/or non-existing hitsounds to that aswell, makes it just perfect.

But after all some people enjoy playing such things so...
Also the game's idea i think is that everyone has their oppurtunity to create a beatmap just for the fun and enjoyment of themselves and others and if there are no "errors" in it, it should be approved no matter what.
None can tell you your map is not approvable just because someone thinks it plays not right while it is 100% technically correct. Well at least i think so.
And thats why i disagree after all with your idea allthough i can understand your point with this.

Difficulty settings shouldn't be so high or low that the map becomes awkward to play. A good tip is to choose settings that make the patterns most readable, but still give a reasonable window to actually hit whatever crazy pattern the song has and fits the difficulty.

Completely disagree because that is just subjective.

TheVileOne wrote:

I could make a proof of concept map if you want. I'll follow every written guideline and include a map that's so ridiculously hard for the final diff, and then I'll make my argument that's it's rankable, because according to everyone it is.

Do it. However make a valid argument, rather than just an argument. I think the map could be quite fun too.

TheVileOne wrote:

Perhaps I should use a ridiculously small distance snap for it too, so you wouldn't be able to identify 1/2th notes from 1/4th notes. There's nothing saying that a ranked map can't have that. There's no readability issues at all with that.

This won't pass probably, such things would get picked up in the modding process. It doesn't say it's allowed either, so that argument is invalid. Keep in mind that common sense still applies, and if it does fit the song a player will be able to identify them anyway. Also I don't think you can say that there are no readability issues when you claim that you will make it so the player won't be able to identify them, you're contradicting yourself.

TheVileOne wrote:

The old 2008 map spacings would be very nice. I mean why would I want any better in a ranked map. DJPop is a well known mapper, and he used those spacings, why shouldn't I? I don't see anything saying that doesn't play well.

Don't blame or use as an example a well known mapper who has tons of old maps which are considered bad today. It doesn't matter what happened in the past, it's 2012 now and things are different. Besides, his latest maps are quite okay, and that's an opinion, not a fact.

TheVileOne wrote:

If anyone says differently, it's not in the guidelines or the rules, or the ranking criteria about this. Why should I listen to feedback if it's not against the rules?

You don't have to. Just don't expect the BAT who mods it to approve of it, if it's really that bad.

TheVileOne wrote:

Don't be ignorant with me. I know what I'm talking about, my experiences may be a bit dated, but there is nothing MAT/BATs are falling back on in their decisions. N-O-T-H-I-N-G There is no such written(important word) rule/guideline that says that mappers can't just use anything they want as settings. If they were stubborn like I would be with my example- they couldn't back their defense for removal or toning down such elements with anything, because it's all unwritten and in their heads- as good as their opinion. In their opinion it shouldn't be ranked until this is done. Well why do they have this opinion, erm, ehm... uhhh....

Blaming people won't change things, helping people will. Making a redundant guideline does not help, in fact it only makes us spend more time discussing why is it redundant, when we could have spent that time discussing some other rule. You're blindly following what's written instead of using your own head and thinking why you should or shouldn't be doing something.
If you insist on being stubborn about something without proper arguments ("because I want it that way" is not a proper argument, you need to back it up with something why you want it that way), then you're just wasting everyone's time, including your own, because you're getting nowhere. I consider myself quite stubborn too, but when someone gives me valid arguments why should I change something, I consider them and change it, atleast in a way that I still keep stuff I want, but the person complaining gets what he wants too.

TheVileOne wrote:

We need to back up our reasons for people to change things. We need mapping guidelines as well as every other guidelines...

I agree with this 100% (with the backing up our reasons), and you can do that in your mod post. If you bring up valid arguments, in most cases stuff will change. I understand that when I write something people will most likely change it because my name is red, but you would be surprised how well this works even if it's not. If stuff doesn't get changed, well unfortunately you can't do much about it, neither can I.

TheVileOne wrote:

If I haven't gotten through the dense egos that have appeared on this thread.

I won't comment on this. Please, quote my previous post and tell me where I'm wrong, if you want a civil discussion that is. If you keep talking like this, this discussion will get nowhere and I will just nuke this and lock the thread.

TheVileOne wrote:

Take this:

Modder: This is overmapped, you should change it.
Mapper: I mapped it like that to make it more difficult. If I change it, it wont be challenging enough.
Modder: It doesn't play well to the beat. You should just remove some notes.
Mapper: No. I like it this way. I think I'll keep it.

This is a very bad example, also a very vague one. "It doesn't play well" is too subjective. You need to exactly state why it doesn't play well and give a suggestion what plays better. That's the right thing to do. Some people will always be stubborn and you can't change that.

TheVileOne wrote:

Communication was not made. The mapper did not trust the modder's opinion enough to reconcile removing notes from his beatmap. How many modders would it take to get this point through this mapper's head? How many would it take if there was an official(another important word) guideline stating exactly the modder's opinion about this.

You ask for a change, mapper denies you. That's communication. I don't know what you're saying here, but you can't make other people's maps your own. You should map your own map instead. Maybe a bit harsh answer, but I find this quite true.

TheVileOne wrote:

New question: How do you get a person who's stubborn to make changes to his map? Think of it from the everyday modder's perspective.

You present valid arguments backed up with reasons and provide appropriate suggestions (multiple if possible) about a certain thing that bothers you. There is no better way.

Long post, but try to keep everything objective in the thread. Don't take this post as a personal vendetta against you, but you shouldn't be bringing so many opinions without backing them up with specific things and reasons into the discussion, to the point of assigning blame to someone. Noone forces you to "help" people, helping people should be a reward in itself, you don't really need one after helping people (atleast that's how I see this discussion, you trying to "help" and other people, including me, telling you that you're doing it wrong, which you take it as slap in the face, instead of thinking how to change your way of thinking so it actually helps).

Sorry if I was a bit harsh, but really, try to see things from a different perspective.

edit:

TheVileOne wrote:

Have fun trying to convince me when I say that there is nothing that says I can't have a jump in an easy. It's not in the guidelines, and you shot down my attempt at adding such things to the guidelines. I think such an opinion kind of defeats the spirit of maintaining difficulty.

Yeah, that attitude won't help anyone. If you keep saying stuff like this, not many people will take you seriously.

Bring into question a pattern that doesn't work/can't be read/is impossible on 100% of the maps/songs then we can consider adding it as a rule or maybe a guideline, do not bring into question stuff that depends on the map/song to make guidelines/rules out of it.

Okay why should modders have to say the same thing dozens of times when they could just link to an official guideline that states exactly the modder's point? It just means that the modder will have to communicate (bad English or not) his views as to why it's not acceptable and the mapper would have to trust his opinion. It's a lose lose for everyone.

Oh and I think the difficulty settings one is not really important. I could remove it, because it's more of a make sure the settings appropriately fit the difficulty kind of things. It was supposed to be subjective.

But at least I got something other than 100% negativity from this thread. Negativity for such a basic example of rankable qualities just shows how much the ranking criteria has degraded, and standards have been thrown out the window.

I am really appalled that readability is no longer a criteria for ranked maps. There needs to be some form of standard for reading patterns. It doesn't have to be on the first go, but, maps just should not stack notes all over the board, with constant switching, at large BPMs.

This makes me not even want to mod anymore. I can't even trust that the BATs will actually do anything about inherent flaws in the beat maps. I know most of the MATs wont, because those are the same people wanting constantly new challenges. Why the hell would they care if it throws readability out the window or is even properly mapped? That doesn't even matter, they're so pro they can play even the most overmapped song.

This is just acute player bias.

Also I don't know why people are treating guidelines like they are absolute. I'm saying, there needs to be guidelines for these things, so mappers will need to be accountable for things like overmapping a part or making something harder to read, or just placing randomly spaced jumps through the entire song. It goes beyond common sense, because the pros don't care what spacing it is. MATs/BATs need to care about this stuff, because it matters. It's the difference between only crazy people get to play it or anyone who can do insane modes can do it. It used to matter.

Anyways... I viewed the guidelines as a standard that all mappers should keep in mind. I don't see why it should be restricted to complete unsubjective topics. The topics and concerns that really matter is how readable/playable the mapset as a whole is, not whether it has more than three slider velocities or has too many spinners. We need to cover what really matters, not just avoid it with the excuse of subjectivity.

As great as it would be to be able to enforce consistent spacing that makes perfect sense, it just can't be done. Even as a guideline, it's not really feasible, as jumps are very variable. All that can be done is removing ridiculous spacing through modding, with the mapper and MATs/BATs co-operating.

Apparently, there is already something about not abandoning distance snap unless it's absolutely necessary, but the definition of "necessary" changes too much, depending on the map, mapper and modder. Try not to get too wound up about this, either. I feel exactly the same way about the state of standards here, but if even a MAT or BAT considers how intuitive something is, their own judgement is altered by what they're used to playing. If anything, it becomes harder for experienced mappers to judge what might throw more casual players, because the days of that would be long gone for the mapper.

You ask for a change, mapper denies you. That's communication. I don't know what you're saying here, but you can't make other people's maps your own. You should map your own map instead. Maybe a bit harsh answer, but I find this quite true.

this

I think that concerns about "communication" are usually down to the mapper being unable to justify why they didn't apply a suggested change. If they disagree about something that the modder clearly thinks is a serious error, then they could discuss the issue and try to talk about alternative ways of mapping something. This approach has worked for me a few times and has made it a lot less painful to deal with errors/overcome impasses.

Oh and BTW, it shouldn't be the mapper's choice whether his map's patterns are rankable. It is the BAT's choice. So really it's not subjective unless you mean it is among the BATs. Because those are the only people whose opinion should matter in this.

I could say that a Hard is a Normal.

Does it mean that it is? According to me and my opinion it is, but it's really up to the BATs to determine whether I have a normal or a hard mode there. Does that mean there shouldn't be a rule against hard modes as normal, because I have a different opinion?

I appreciate your effort and most of your suggestions, however it's just too uncertain. Guidelines exist as lenient rules which can be broken in very specific cases, not always. A guideline which needs to be broken often because of any reason is a bad guideline.

Most of the stuff you're suggesting is already happening through common sense in modding. Sometimes not, but having a wall of text to include or exclude so many things, which can be broken in special cases (everyone will always think their case is THE special case) won't change much, if anything. :\

It doesn't need to be.


My points:

All difficulties must be playable within reason (according to the BAT) - Mapper's opinion doesn't count since ranked maps are supposed to contain a degree of quality. If the mapper maps a horrible map, and thinks it's great. It's not a standard to rank the map, because according to the mapper it's good. The same goes for readability.

Lets see: All difficulties must have consistant difficulty. This is 100 percent needed, because I can easily exploit the rules otherwise.

If we don't have it as a guideline, then I can map an easy as hard as I want and the BATs wouldn't even have a valid argument. I haven't broken any rules. There's nothing saying I can't have jumps in an easy, and no BAT could say there are.

I can follow this up with simple logic. If my map isn't breaking any rules or guidelines then it must be rankable. I'd like to see a BAT explain their way around that.

The fact is that part is NOT subjective. It needs to be there for the BATs and modders to do their jobs, because the job of the modder is to uphold guidelines and if it doesn't count as a guideline then it isn't an issue.

The last part is subjective, but should apply for 95+ percent of the cases. Settings should be reasonable and if you have a case that would be unreasonable, then you would be the exception to the rule.

The fact of this matter is that we need interpretive rules just to properly mod things. The law has different interpretations. If it didn't, then justice system as I know it would fail miserably. Rules are supposed to cover a multitude of cases. Ensuring non- subjectivity goes completely against this.

There is also NO excuse to excessively overmap anything. Map things correctly... If this isn't a standard I think we need to go back to the definition board on what a standard truly is. It is something that should be held as the proper approach. A good map isn't horibly overmapped period, regardless of what <insert person who overmaps all the time here> says. How can you say there are varying opinions on this when the sensible approach to quality would put overmapping as a negative?

Ok let me put it this way, if it was as simple that you can have a rule or guideline for every little mistake on a map, then we could have AIMod ranking maps instead of BATs, the reason we don't it's because maps, songs and mappers vary all the time so it's hard to enforce something general for all the maps, plus it would make all maps be exactly the same which would be boring.
What i do agree is that the quality of ranked maps is going lower and lower tho...

TheVileOne wrote:

All difficulties must be playable within reason (according to the BAT) - Mapper's opinion doesn't count since ranked maps are supposed to contain a degree of quality. If the mapper maps a horrible map, and thinks it's great. It's not a standard to rank the map, because according to the mapper it's good. The same goes for readability.

Aren't you being a bit harsh here? First of all we didnt have this at any point and we are still getting quite nice maps all the time. New mappers might be overdoing it but that's caught in the modding process. Yes, sometimes terrors will exist, but this guideline won't change that, because just as those terrors could avoid modding, they would avoid this guideline with whatever argument, or atleast try to. My point is, having this guideline won't change anything, which makes it redundant, especially because it would be broken too often.

TheVileOne wrote:

Lets see: All difficulties must have consistant difficulties. This is 100 percent needed, because I can easily exploit the rules otherwise.

I don't get what you mean here, what kind of consistency are we talking about.

TheVileOne wrote:

If we don't have it as a guideline, then I can map an easy as hard as I want and the BATs wouldn't even have a valid argument. I haven't broken any rules. There's nothing saying I can't have jumps in an easy, and no BAT could say there are.

No you can't map an Easy as a hard. If you don't find "too hard for an easy" a valid argument, there is something wrong with YOU. While it's not clearly defined whats ok to do or not, it's not because we hate your or we hate making guidelines, it's because its impossible to cover everything needed, without making too many exceptions. Everything is a case per case scenario.

TheVileOne wrote:

I can follow this up with simple logic. If my map isn't breaking any rules or guidelines then it must be rankable. I'd like to see a BAT explain their way around that.

Why do you have this attitude? You do know that BATs can refuse to mod/bubble/rank something, without even saying or explaining, right? Probably not too nice, but they can.

TheVileOne wrote:

The fact is that part is NOT subjective. It needs to be there for the BATs and modders to do their jobs, because the job of the modder is to uphold guidelines and if it doesn't count as a guideline then it isn't an issue.

No, you got this wrong. Modder's job is to improve the beatmap. Mapper's job is to map within the standards and according to the rules and guidelines. Which is exactly why such silly stuff is already caught in the modding process.

TheVileOne wrote:

The last part is subjective, but should apply for 95+ percent of the cases. Settings should be reasonable and if you have a case that would be unreasonable, then you would be the exception to the rule.

What is "reasonable" to you? Define it, clearly. If a guideline or a rule is not perfectly clear, it's bad and it shouldn't exist. Unfortunately some rules aren't 100% clear and that is why we are revising everything.

TheVileOne wrote:

The fact of this matter is that we need interpretive rules just to properly mod things. The law has different interpretations. If it didn't, then justice system as I know it would fail miserably. Rules are supposed to cover a multitude of cases. Ensuring non- subjectivity goes completely against this.

You already have a huge bunch of rules and guidelines you can follow. And objectivity going against this is natural, which is another reason why this shouldn't go.

I really don't see why you are pursuing this matter anymore. Everything has been said pretty much, you're just forcing your opinions and ideas on everyone. If so many people tell you it won't work because of whatever reason, it could be possible that the problem is on your side.
In any case this is my last post in this thread. You don't have to reply to anything I said, I'm just stating my thoughts on the stuff you wrote.

I might drop by in some days to see how did the discussion go and finalize this.

Guidelines by their nature don't need to be specific. I don't know where people are getting this strict approach to guidelines. And I already proposed a rather concise guideline for it. By definition, a difficulty shouldn't increase in intensity without due reason. I'm serious. If it isn't a guideline, I'm going to completely ignore consistency of difficulty in my maps. My easies will have varying spacings, 1/2th notes, and dare I say it streams. OMG ai mod mentions it as a hard whatever criteria, but my opinion is that it's easy enough.

I will call out any BAT/ MAT that says otherwise due to the guidelines not clarifying that I cannot do this. It really makes modding a joke. I don't see how anyone other than BATs would even be knowledged enough to know what's "too difficult" for a map. Why should I even listen to someone I don't trust?

I told you this is not subjective as it refers to specific things that are harder to read/play than the rest of the difficulty. It's general things that you would know is more difficult. It doesn't matter by what degree it's more difficult, that's subjective, all that matters is that it's excessively different than it needs to be. Anything else is the exception....

This is the perfect example of a guideline. You're treating subjectivity as if noone else could have a different opinion in all of osu for something to be non-subjective. This guideline has been stated by MANY, MANY modders. It's not a new thing to state that such an such element is too hard for difficulty x. We need something in place that backs up modders claims that a difficulty can have elements that are too hard to be allowed. Otherwise what they say is mere opinion and thus absolutely worthless.

If anything include this or I will abuse it on purpose. Because I don't need to keep the easy player's in mind to make a good simple difficulty. I just need to keep it limited to 3 stars. That gives a lot of areas where I can fit in a nice stream, a stream that I wouldn't have done before because I thought it was a guideline.

viewtopic.php?p=916694#p916694
If you really think a guideline/rule that states "Maps should be reasonably playable" needs to be added define how would said rule/guideline look in there, but if you're going to attack many aspects at once, make a separate thread for each so we can discuss each and it looks more organized, if the whole point of this thread is to promote multiple guidelines then i'll have to lock it because it isn't following the rules of this forum that are clearly stated in the post i linked.

That was a generality. I provided a template in hopes people would contribute and make it better. I never expected people to be like : Map playability: I disagree.... OMG I should have the choice to make my maps playable and I should have the right to make that choice. If it's truly reasonable, then you would know it.

I don't really want to go so far as to physically exploit something to prove my point. I just want some support period. I mean this "Let the mapper do whatever he wants" ideal is not a good approach to modding. Pros can identify almost any pattern change, but that doesn't mean that the map should change it's pattern in unpredictable ways.

That's why I left it kind of broad and open for interpretation. That way we can state that such an such guideline is in our opinion being violated for this pattern, you should really consider changing it. The BATs can also fallback on this broad rule for things such as readability, unnecessary note placement and the such. It doesn't all need to be detailed specifically, it's all a part of playability.

Wtf is this I dont even

You need to present us with something more concrete as a suggestion for a guideline. We know what you're getting at, but the fact that this would still boil down to modders using their own discretion, makes a guideline kind of redundant. It would be wrth doing as much modding as you can, especially of the currently popular styles of maps, because other people might pick up on things that they wouldn't usually consider.

All that can be done is mod and hope that mappers curb certain habits in future maps, or that they at least change specific things in maps.

Your map must be perfectly timed. This means that your BPM and offset are spot-on, sliders end when they should, notes are generally following a recognizable rhythm (such as the lyrics or drums) which is comprehensible by a player, and that there are no unsnapped notes (you can check this by running AIMod (shortcut ctrl+shift+a) in the editor).

I think this covers most of your rule. Also this isn't a justice system, people aren't going to be thrown in jail if they have a bad map. Rankable isn't a good concept and shouldn't be talked about. Unrankable is fine, cause we can point to a rule and say there. But just because its not unrankable doesn't mean it will or should be ranked. There is always going to be a grey area, there will never be a time where AImod or any program can look at a map and rank it.

Oh and good luck getting your stuff ranked if you try that. I don't think you will get that far.

Finally someone with a nice point against it. I guess in that sense it doesn't need to be.

Still what's the harm in including even a modified version of rule 2? AI points things out for a reason, and generally they are valid reasons why a map doesn't make sense and FYI I didn't really much care for mapping by difficulty, I map what feels right and that generally means my easies have streams and other things usually.

I don't have time to think of a better way to say it, but tomorrow I will look into a more clear way to say it that people may be more agreeable with.

Edit I still think there needs to be a limit of how crazy a difficulty can go. I could easily map everything in 2.0 and completely ignore everyone's complaints that its too hard due to the reason that they can't handle it. It would be nice if there was a rule/guideline that restricted the rankable distance snap used for the majority of the beatmap, and other things like you should never have a jump that exceeds 4.5 with the only exception being miscalculations with different slider velocities.

Then again how often does this happen. I'd rather set the limit to 4.0. Anything more than that is kind of ridiculous by jump standards.

I said I won't post anything anymore, however as I took another glance here I felt I should post something.

TheVileOne wrote:

Edit I still think there needs to be a limit of how crazy a difficulty can go. I could easily map everything in 2.0 and completely ignore everyone's complaints that its too hard due to the reason that they can't handle it. It would be nice if there was a rule/guideline that restricted the rankable distance snap used for the majority of the beatmap, and other things like you should never have a jump that exceeds 4.5 with the only exception being miscalculations with different slider velocities.

Then again how often does this happen. I'd rather set the limit to 4.0. Anything more than that is kind of ridiculous by jump standards.

I will just leave this map here:
http://osu.ppy.sh/s/18630

By your "standards" this map is beyond unrankable. Please stop thinking about generalization where it's not required, and start thinking on a case per case basis where every variable counts, be it bpm, intensity, overall feeling of the song, etc. This is also another great example why your guideline about spacing is just plain wrong.

The harm about including a modified version of that rule is that you aren't specific enough. Everything needs to be clear.

TheVileOne wrote:

Guidelines by their nature don't need to be specific.

Yes they do, what is the point if they aren't?

In closing, rules aren't here to limit everyone in what they can do, they are here to prevent really stupid stuff from happening, limiting the mappers is just a result of the reason. Not the other way around.

That was only an example and an ill-thought up one..... I'm beyond my thinking clearly mood. When I suggest things, usually the first product is raw material, and I spend the next responses molding that into a sensible idea. I wasn't going to press for that of course. I said then again, it might not be worth the troubles, which meant I wasn't sure about what I said...

I'll reiterate. That part is not worth it, and I do not think what I said is worth it or a good idea; it was only an idea. I don't want to come into this thread to comments saying things, because that was only an example that was unrefined.

You do make a really good closing remarks.

I think I get what you are trying to say. "What if a map is crappy, even if it meets all the Rules/Guidelines thru some weird exploits etc". I think this will come out in the modding. People will say, this map is crappy please fix it. Putting in vague rules/guidelines is only makes the problem worse. The Rules and Guidelines can't spell out every permutation of bad mapping otherwise it would be as long as this thread. Although I would to see something at the bottom of the guidelines like "The BATs have the final word on ranking. If you don't like a BATs decision, feel free to find another. If you can't then you have to come to some understanding with the BAT"

Yea I guess my reasoning is that, all things should be covered in the guidelines, subjective or not. Before, it was criteria for ranking, and now that has been changed to rules and guidelines. A guideline is different in meaning than a criteria. A guideline is a standard; it is the suggested/recommended way to map a song. It is what BATs like to see in maps.

Basically I was hoping people would want to create a more thorough set of standards for a ranked map. So we can show future mappers, these are the elements to make a good beatmap, but it's not the only way it can be done. If we just tell them they should overmap whenever possible, what kind of quality will their beatmaps have?

I don't care if there are good reasons to overmap. It is misleading to not hold a standard of any kind against overmapping or at least make a note of it. If there was recommendations section, it would be even more perfect for this. I mean aren't the guidelines already filled with tips on how to make a basic beatmap? Adding breaks in a map is subjective.... We can't say that all maps must have a break. Why can't we say that Mappers should not overmap a song (by placing notes where there are no sounds) just to increase difficulty and should only do so if it fits. Overmapping is considered an advanced technique and only should be used by experienced beatmappers. (The same as using 1/8th notes for example)

What is wrong with that?

Because there is nothing inherently wrong with overmapping except for your dislike of it.

As such, it should be moderated via modding, rather than the rantings of an individual.

GigaClon wrote:

Your map must be perfectly timed. This means that your BPM and offset are spot-on, sliders end when they should, notes are generally following a recognizable rhythm (such as the lyrics or drums) which is comprehensible by a player, and that there are no unsnapped notes (you can check this by running AIMod (shortcut ctrl+shift+a) in the editor).

Shiirn, you're wrong.


By definition overmapping, means excessive mapping. Excessive under this meaning is referred to as a negative, or else it would just be referred to as just mapping or creating your own beat as some do call it. It should be done in moderation or all maps will just end up being unnecessarily difficult.

Think about more people than just the ones on your skill level. Would everyone want to deal with overmapped beats? Should everyone have to deal with them? Is a map made better because its overmapped?

Hi I play 2008 maps and many are more fun than current "standard" maps. kk.

2008's standards were stricter than they are currently.

Huh, really? Never knew that. I still find them more fun though. I guess it's something about how each map feels different from each other in some way.

Still, I don't really see the point of this. 2008 maps were considered "reasonably playable" at the time they were ranked I suppose, and today, the majority of the osu!community disagrees. Then what about me and every other guy that still think they are "reasonably playable"?

My skill level is pathetic.

Just saying.

Shiirn wrote:

My skill level is pathetic.

Just saying.

It's probably a safe assumption that you can at least make an educated guess as to where the next object should be. I'm a pretty sloppy and unskilled player myself, but I can miss something and think, "this is fucking hard, but it at least fits the music" or, "this mapper's just spouting as much fake difficulty as they can and I feel no connection to the music as a result."

I also feel compelled to reiterate the second definition of overmapping. If every spare rhythm in a song has an object to the point where the entire map becomes a horrible mess, then it is overmapped. I would much prefer to see an undermapped song if it makes the playing experience fun. "Fun" is subjective, because I usually prefer to take it easy when I play, but it's really not a problem if a map doesn't follow every semiquaver and triplet that occurs in the rhythm section.

mm201 wrote:

2008's standards were stricter than they are currently.

mmm' sure?
then explain why some players left osu! because the average level of mapping was low?

When? Then or now?

"average level of mapping was low" could be because standards are too low or too high, so it doesn't say very much.