i'm not really sure where to post this and nobody ever posts in beatmap management but this seems like the best place..? idk
someone move it if it's wrong please

Do not qualify mapsets whose song already has a Qualified mapset, unless no game modes of both sets overlap - this includes remixed versions.

this is supposedly to ensure variety of the qualified and later, the ranked sections by avoiding too many of one song being ranked in a short time span.

However, this rule is no longer very effective at what it set out to do.
Also one part often seems to be ignored...? the "This includes remixed versions" part.

1.) It's not effective anymore

Due to how flexible the qualification timer is now, whether two songs are in qualified simultaneously or not does not have much impact on spacing out when songs are ranked, which is the primary content stream for the majority of players.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/712172 , https://osu.ppy.sh/s/749631
despite the set being dq'd due to the marathon being in qualified, then the marathon's re-qualification being delayed because the set got re-qualified while it was down, these two maps of the same song got ranked within three days of each other. This means that despite all the delays because of this rule, the end result was still two maps of the same song within a week of each other in the ranked section.

while the intent of this rule makes sense, due to things like this, it can't very effectively do what it was meant to anymore.


2.) is it really worth it to apply this rule to different lengths or versions of the same song in the first place:
the example case above would be rather different experiences, a set vs. a marathon - but under this rule they're considered similar content for players simply because of the song.

remixes can also be very, very very different, while no cases come to mind immediately, for example, potentially delaying a mapset of the original song because an R3 version is qualified sounds silly.

3.) what constitutes remix is kind of vague, does it apply to covers? There have been two cases i know of recently that two cover versions were simultaneously qualified

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/716642 , https://osu.ppy.sh/s/688824
and
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/607014 , https://osu.ppy.sh/s/426548 (one of these ended up ranked later due to several dqs, none of which were related to the song)

and when this was brought up, it was said it is fine because they're not really the same exact song anymore.


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tl;dr
this rule can't even really effectively do what it was made for, has some ambiguity, and should either be revised to account for recent changes to the qualification timer or just removed entirely


im of the personal opinion it should be removed, thus i have listed no revised wordings of my own

I agree, some re-wording about that would be cool...for example, I think different versions of a song should not count for the current rule, let's take for example 2 different Sarishinohara songs, this acoustic one https://osu.ppy.sh/s/777891 and this regular one https://osu.ppy.sh/s/757350

Assuming they were both going to be qualified, at least in my opinion it doesn't make much sense to not have both at the same time in qualified, since even though they're the same song, the arragements are completly different and even the lenght are also different

Imo this rule would make more sense if both songs mapped are the same. Both in lenght and version

about the effectiveness of the rule I have no clue so I can't give my opinion of that hahahaha

honestly i dont see the point of the rule, all it seems to do is to artificially delay more rank ready sets from entering qualified/ranked. While maintaining variety is important, nobody chooses not to rank/map a song cause of this rule, so it'll just enter the pool later anyways.

Different mappers innately map differently, so in many cases different perspectives and styles are mapped to the same song, so that alone provide variety.

the rule sucks, it just leads to a bunch of scenarios where mappers/bn's are fighting to rank their set so it doesn't get delayed by a week or more, or worse trying to dq each others' versions. highly support removing it

artificially delaying more rank ready sets from hitting qualified/ranked is exactly what this rule does, because a significant portion of the playerbase will not appreciate essentially two creative iterations on the same track hitting at the same time

it's tacky and awful and it really shouldn't ever happen.

waiting a week or two isn't that big of a deal

Ephemeral wrote:

artificially delaying more rank ready sets from hitting qualified/ranked is exactly what this rule does, because a significant portion of the playerbase will not appreciate essentially two creative iterations on the same track hitting at the same time

it's tacky and awful and it really shouldn't ever happen.

waiting a week or two isn't that big of a deal

except as i mentioned, this can still happen to the ranked section now (as seen in the example), because of how flexible the qualification timer is when dqs are involved, and that's the main content stream for most players.

so basing it off of what's in qualified doesn't really work.


it now mainly leads to what UC and ailv mentioned, with delayed sets and people actively aiming for first or intentionally trying to dq other sets of a song.

gonna just like put this in hte uh archive uhyeah

even if the rule isn't as effective now, it still spreads out songs better than no rule would. circumventing that by requiring 7 days between each map in ranked would cause more hassle than it's worth through calculating dq timer stuff

for remixes, best to decide on it case by case. happens so rarely that idk if it's worth defining even