So I noticed while watching many youtube vids of pro players that on all of the songs they play they've deleted the backgrounds and turned off the video so its always just notes against the black background. I assume the reasoning behind this is that it makes the notes easier to see and follow obviously.

Anyway I have two questions regarding this:

1) What are your thoughts on deleting backgrounds and/or playing without video? Would you do it or do you feel it can take away from the fun of playing if there are no images or graphics or videos accompanying the song?

2)How do I make the combo colours always the same? This is a problem because sometimes when I play a song against a black background it is hard to see the notes as they appear in dark colours sometimes.

Oh it's this thread again

1) I play a rhythm game to play a rhythm game not be distracted by videos or annoying backgrounds. Mappers can complain all they want about how hard they worked on a storyboard but in the end I don't want that in the beatmap because it's distracting.

2) I don't know about this I just deal with the dark colors. Hasn't stopped me yet.

You're going to be fucked when osz2 comes out

I always assumed that my inability to see objects due to background, skins etc. was an addition to the difficulty of the beatmap.

I still fail some normals.

I think that it would make more sense to count this as added difficulty if it weren't already circumvented by everyone. At this point it's just an annoyance and a beginner's trap.

Edit: Lol at "Oh it's this thread again." XD

New mod1: Play with storyboard (score multiplier: 1.04)
New mod2: Play with video (score multiplier: 1.08)
New mod3: Play with background (score multiplier: 1.06)
New mod4: Play with default skin (score multiplier: 1.12)

1) I want to play the game, not watching videos or pictures.
2) ~osufolder/skins/your_skin_name/skin.ini then change them in [Color] section, and put on the thing that will forcefully use this colors instead of map's colors in your osu's settings.

1) I used to shy away from deleting that stuff because I didn't want to take away from the aspect of playing osu. That is until I started deleting all of it. Now backgrounds and sb's are just annoying to me and I don't play with them. Osu is still fun despite what people who are against doing that say :p

2) nah there really isn't any way of doing that without saving a new unranked copy of the map.

darkmiz wrote:

New mod1: Play with storyboard (score multiplier: 1.04)
New mod2: Play with video (score multiplier: 1.08)
New mod3: Play with background (score multiplier: 1.06)
New mod4: Play with default skin (score multiplier: 1.12)

I love it. Put it in the game immediately! XD

-N- wrote:

How do I make the combo colours always the same? This is a problem because sometimes when I play a song against a black background it is hard to see the notes as they appear in dark colours sometimes.

This can be achieved by placing hitcircle.png that contains only one color on your skin folder. You can check MathiasXII's Contease skin to see how this can be done.

I delete 99% of hitsounds/circles etc because in general they just ruin the skin that I use and I only delete backgrounds if it blends in with combo colour or if I'm trying to Hidden FC and there are notes under others etc.

darkmiz wrote:

New mod1: Play with storyboard (score multiplier: 1.04)
New mod2: Play with video (score multiplier: 1.08)
New mod3: Play with background (score multiplier: 1.06)
New mod4: Play with default skin (score multiplier: 1.12)

I'd actually love that.

Or even better:
After osz2 is out, add a no-SB+BG+Skin mod which mults your score by 0.98 or something.
Nothing big, just some slight disadvantage over the people who don't turn it off.

I'd be perfectly fine with that, screw those 2% score, I'm FCing it with 99% that way instead of failing my combo with 96%.


Gotta post that in the suggestions forum... lol


My opinion on the OP matter:

JAKACHAN wrote:

1) I play a rhythm game to play a rhythm game not be distracted by videos or annoying backgrounds. Mappers can complain all they want about how hard they worked on a storyboard but in the end I don't want that in the beatmap because it's distracting.

2) I don't know about this I just deal with the dark colors. Hasn't stopped me yet.

thelewa wrote:

You're going to be fucked when osz2 comes out

I used to play with backgrounds and I still can. I just find them annoying to play with because I don't want to watch some stupid storyboard or video I want to play a game. If I wanted to watch a video or storyboard type thing I would go to youtube.

Playing with BG feels like playing with FL for me. D:

BG = CS +100, AR +900 + FL.

Haven't deleted a single BG yet and never had problems reading, even on AR 10. How do you people manage to get distracted by backgrounds... videos I can understand, although the only video that managed to distract me was http://osu.ppy.sh/s/43013.

Maybe try using a better skin? I use a beatcircle overlay that has half black and half colored surface, so that it stands out no matter what's behind it, and a border that is made fatter and white for the entire circle/slider edges... and invisible 300s are mandatory but I'm sure everybody who plays with disabled backgrounds already has that.

Background and circles have same colors:


Still easy to see everything.

Aqo wrote:

and invisible 300s are mandatory

Yeah, nah.



They aren't.

Aqo wrote:

Haven't deleted a single BG yet and never had problems reading, even on AR 10. How do you people manage to get distracted by backgrounds... videos I can understand, although the only video that managed to distract me was http://osu.ppy.sh/s/43013.

Maybe try using a better skin? I use a beatcircle overlay that has half black and half colored surface, so that it stands out no matter what's behind it, and a border that is made fatter and white for the entire circle/slider edges... and invisible 300s are mandatory but I'm sure everybody who plays with disabled backgrounds already has that.

Background and circles have same colors:


Still easy to see everything.

I want my skin to draw thick red lines through all the beats for me just like yours!!!!

Hehe. Just kidding.

Aqo wrote:

Haven't deleted a single BG yet and never had problems reading, even on AR 10. How do you people manage to get distracted by backgrounds... videos I can understand, although the only video that managed to distract me was http://osu.ppy.sh/s/43013.

Maybe try using a better skin? I use a beatcircle overlay that has half black and half colored surface, so that it stands out no matter what's behind it, and a border that is made fatter and white for the entire circle/slider edges... and invisible 300s are mandatory but I'm sure everybody who plays with disabled backgrounds already has that.

Background and circles have same colors:


Still easy to see everything.

I see absolutely nothing here

It's the same with me, I just see a blur of colours. What is your picture supposed to represent, Aqo?

spend 1 day playing with a BG and you'll be almost used to it by then

(with the exception of AR10)

kriers & lewa: either you guys need to go see an eye doctor, or buy a new monitor. I really find it hard to believe you can't clearly see the circles there. I have five different monitors at home and it looks crystal clear on all of them; on my HP laptop if I look at it from too much of an angle it does become hard to see - but the same goes for the entire screen if you look from that much of an angle, so that doesn't count.

I have huge problems in distinguishing similar colours from each other. They all just blur together, my eyesight is top notch otherwise.

thelewa wrote:

I have huge problems in distinguishing similar colours from each other. They all just blur together, my eyesight is top notch otherwise.

idk if lewa is ironic here , but you might take in cosinderation that there could be some real user affected by colorblindness just like me o/
eventho i can distinguish between 2 really different colours i can't with 2 colors that are really similar , like let's say

this
looks the same as
this

But you have a white circle telling apart the inner section of the beatcircle and the rest of the map. That's more than enough. Not to mention I also made the circle have a black inner part, AND there's the number. I just can't understand how your sight can be good enough to read 9pt characters in the forums but not good enough to tell a circle that big apart from the background, sorry.

Colorblind or not, even if the whole screen was grayscale, the white and black parts would still stick out clearly from the rest of the background.

oh you know what sucks though

light combo-colors + light backgrounds

fff

just wait for osz2 and let's see what happens to the people who delete bgs and sbs.
I would say they just need to do more pcs on one map in order to get the original score.

--------------------------------
This applies to our eyes: we tend to catch moving things in our sight. So video is really annoying in this case. Also for approach circle in ar10, if you pay too much attention to it, your eyes hurt. BG is not moving, so it is not that distracting.

I don't care about backgrounds and stuff. I like the videos and the moving backgrounds, the colours and all that. I think it's a part of osu! and so I deal with it. I like it :>

Powersocke wrote:

I don't care about backgrounds and stuff. I like the videos and the moving backgrounds, the colours and all that. I think it's a part of osu! and so I deal with it. I like it :>

I want to see what are you going to say after a month or more.

Toosenbo - Hatsune miku

Really light grey hit objects
White and grey background

I can't pass any difficulty on it because I can't see :<

It strikes me that most top players use some kind of visual customization in order to improve their gameplay.
While as most players who avoid this, so stubbornly throws shit at people who use visual customization, are mediocre or bad players who can't pass the maps we use visual tricks for in the first place.

Just know that if we had to use the same flashing SB and BG as you do (This includes with mods like HR and DT), we'd adapt in just a few hours, and we'd still crush you to pieces, so don't ever think you're special just because you didn't go all the way to become the best osu! player possible.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I don't care about having SB and BG if it's forced upon me. I can adjust, and the game might become what it used to be like before my competitiveness took over.

kriers wrote:

It strikes me that most top players use some kind of visual customization in order to improve their gameplay.
While as most players who so stubbornly throws shit at people who use visual customization, are mediocre or bad players who can't pass the maps we use visual tricks for in the first place.

Just know that if we had to use the same flashing SB and BG as you do (This includes with mods like HR and DT), we'd adapt in just a few hours, and we'd still crush you to pieces, so don't ever think you're special just because you didn't go all the way to become the best osu! player possible.

I'd also like to add that I don't care about having SB and BG if it's forced upon me. I can adjust, and the game might get what it used to be like before my competitiveness took over.

Agreed. It will just take some more pc to adapt that. Hope osz2 is coming out soon. (also peppy already has novideo for distracting moving things)

1. i dont care about having storyboard or something but i hate to see vids
2. just use a skin with bright(not sure how to explain it..)note. i use glass1.0 for notes and it's pretty good for me i guess

kriers wrote:

It strikes me that most top players use some kind of visual customization in order to improve their gameplay.
While as most players who avoid this, so stubbornly throws shit at people who use visual customization, are mediocre or bad players who can't pass the maps we use visual tricks for in the first place.

Just know that if we had to use the same flashing SB and BG as you do (This includes with mods like HR and DT), we'd adapt in just a few hours, and we'd still crush you to pieces, so don't ever think you're special just because you didn't go all the way to become the best osu! player possible.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I don't care about having SB and BG if it's forced upon me. I can adjust, and the game might become what it used to be like before my competitiveness took over.

QFT.

kriers wrote:

It strikes me that most top players use some kind of visual customization in order to improve their gameplay.
While as most players who avoid this, so stubbornly throws shit at people who use visual customization, are mediocre or bad players who can't pass the maps we use visual tricks for in the first place.

Just know that if we had to use the same flashing SB and BG as you do (This includes with mods like HR and DT), we'd adapt in just a few hours, and we'd still crush you to pieces, so don't ever think you're special just because you didn't go all the way to become the best osu! player possible.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I don't care about having SB and BG if it's forced upon me. I can adjust, and the game might become what it used to be like before my competitiveness took over.

Sounds about right to me.

kriers wrote:

It strikes me that most top players use some kind of visual customization in order to improve their gameplay.
While as most players who avoid this, so stubbornly throws shit at people who use visual customization, are mediocre or bad players who can't pass the maps we use visual tricks for in the first place.

Just know that if we had to use the same flashing SB and BG as you do (This includes with mods like HR and DT), we'd adapt in just a few hours, and we'd still crush you to pieces, so don't ever think you're special just because you didn't go all the way to become the best osu! player possible.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I don't care about having SB and BG if it's forced upon me. I can adjust, and the game might become what it used to be like before my competitiveness took over.

I'd also like to point out this from the person that was beating you down about how you have to disable all graphics:

Ranked Score: 1,619,924,011 (#9812)

Performance: 3,356pp (#12,338)

And your stats

Ranked Score: 20,177,079,026 (#131)

Performance: 5,698pp (#116)


I really don't understand why someone would make the game harder on themselves. Is it like a statement or something? "Hey I use backgrounds and video's so that makes me more pro"? That's like saying because you can play guitar hero on the controller half as good as someone who uses the guitar that you're better than them theoretically even though they crush all your scores.

I personally HAVE to delete all the backgrounds and sb's in order to play the game. Why? Because I have a semi-low end computer and using the resolution for osu that I do if I don't delete these graphics it'll severely lag the game and make it impossible to play well. Not to mention it makes it harder to read with the background and that is a fact and has been proven so many times.

Oh btw osz2 isn't coming out from what I've heard.

OK, so I don't understand the big deal about deleting backgrounds. I play with a black background. When people watch replays they can feel free to watch them with whatever video/background they want. I personally record my replays with the default settings and skin so that I can watch it play back with the pretty background and effects. I don't want it while I'm playing though. What is the big deal with playing sans background and letting other people decide how THEY want to watch the game? I feel like it goes without saying that the competitive side of this game doesn't need artistic disadvantages.

Nobody ever said not-disabling backgrounds makes you more pro. Get off your high horse. Some people actually like the atmosphere that the background image and storyboard changes add to the feel of the map. In maps like http://osu.ppy.sh/s/33911 the storyboard really makes the map a lot more fun to play and if you're removing it then you're missing out on some of the nuance that goes while playing it.

If you really wanted to remove distractions completely, you'd disable the mp3 too. The song does little to help your timing, and it can do more to confuse you on most maps than help you. Face it, you can play Osu perfectly by visuals alone, and it is also more reliable to play like that.

Again - if you just want to go with maximum efficiency to get the best play results - then why stop with skin and background? Replace the mp3 with a blank one too. An inner metronome will be way more accurate than a potentially incorrect offset and ambiguous song-beat mapping syncs that many maps have. Don't go and claim that backgrounds are 'only a distraction that increases the difficulty by making beats harder to see'.

For many players, a good storyboard is not a distraction at all and it makes the game more fun. There are many maps where the storyboard is badly done, has annoying flashes, pointless effects, or a myriad of colors in the background image that makes it really hard to see beats - but in those cases, it's the mapper's fault for making the storyboard wrong. It doesn't mean all storyboards are globally bad. It's on the same level as having maps with incorrect timings, and yet you still play with mp3 enabled, right?

Nearly all maps before 2011 feel completely off-timing for me and I find that a lot more distracting than a flashing storyboard.

I'm in favor of having an option to let people disable backgrounds, similar to NoVideo. I would rarely use it myself, but I see no reason why not just let anybody play however they want. However I believe the reason peppy doesn't want to add this option, is because a lot of people would instantly leave it enabled without even trying to play with storyboards, and because of that mappers would lose motivation to actually work on interesting and good storyboards - and then people who do like playing with storyboards would get shafted.

If/when OSZ2 comes out, it would be nice to see something along the lines of having a NoBackground mod added, but only allow to use this mod for each map difficulty after you at least cleared it once. That more or less solves the problem. On one hand mappers would still be motivated to make good storyboards, because if they're bad people would complain that it's unplayable, and on the other hand players who like to disable storyboards and maximize their efficiency and scores (which would require practicing a map several times anyway) would be allowed to do so with no background as a legit game mechanic.

Aqo wrote:

If you really wanted to remove distractions completely, you'd disable the mp3 too. The song does little to help your timing, and it can do more to confuse you on most maps than help you. Face it, you can play Osu perfectly by visuals alone, and it is also more reliable to play like that.

Again - if you just want to go with maximum efficiency to get the best play results - then why stop with skin and background? Replace the mp3 with a blank one too. An inner metronome will be way more accurate than a potentially incorrect offset and ambiguous song-beat mapping syncs that many maps have. Don't go and claim that backgrounds are 'only a distraction that increases the difficulty by making beats harder to see'.

Possibly the stupidest thing I've seen. People remove visuals as it makes it difficult to see, especially when you use hidden and such. Sound doesn't make seeing things harder. When maps are ranked and such offsets are checked etc. and there's a reason why you don't have to hit it on the exact millisecond to get a 300, there's a hit window.

Aqo wrote:

I'm in favor of having an option to let people disable backgrounds, similar to NoVideo. I would rarely use it myself, but I see no reason why not just let anybody play however they want. However I believe the reason peppy doesn't want to add this option, is because a lot of people would instantly leave it enabled without even trying to play with storyboards, and because of that mappers would lose motivation to actually work on interesting and good storyboards - and then people who do like playing with storyboards would get shafted.

To be honest, if people (in general, not people that only have map/mp3 files) do end up deleting visual elements like storyboard, hit circles, numbers used for score etc. it is the mappers fault and if .osz2 is implemented the standards of ranking maps should go up. I don't want a white-ish background with light coloured notes with a flashing screen during Kiai Time if I'm playing with hidden.

there are plenty of people who hold themselves to a higher regard because they don't play with deleted backgrounds/SBs/videos. I'd list their names but I don't want to start a flame war nor do I want to attack these people (because of their ignorance).

I can agree with Aqo on many things especially about the atmosphere storyboards and backgrounds images give off -- I truly do miss that from before I deleted elements -- to an extent.

I even went through the trouble of deleting EVERY map I had because I figured that I would give it another try and see whether or not I could play comfortably with elements once again (and because I had a lot of maps that I just wanted to get rid of). I could in, and in only a few hours of playing. However, I chose (personally) to delete elements once again as they were preventing me from experiencing a part of the game that I've grown to love ((what I consider to be) higher-end play; AR10; and DT). I'm not saying that you HAVE to delete backgrounds to be able to do this, but it sure as hell made it a lot easier for me.

With that being said, this discussion is rather pointless in two ways: first off, osz2 is on it's way. second off, all of this is based on opinion and your opinion is only relevant to yourself in this matter, that is, how you wish to play this game.

i can't form coherent sentences today soz

JappyBabes wrote:

Possibly the stupidest thing I've seen. People remove visuals as it makes it difficult to see, especially when you use hidden and such.

Let me say this again - if it's distracting, it means the storyboard or choice of background image and combo colors is bad. It doesn't mean it was impossible to make it good.

Aqo wrote:

JappyBabes wrote:

Possibly the stupidest thing I've seen. People remove visuals as it makes it difficult to see, especially when you use hidden and such.

Let me say this again - if it's distracting, it means the storyboard or choice of background image and combo colors is bad. It doesn't mean it was impossible to make it good.

JappyBabes wrote:

To be honest, if people (in general, not people that only have map/mp3 files) do end up deleting visual elements like storyboard, hit circles, numbers used for score etc. it is the mappers fault and if .osz2 is implemented the standards of ranking maps should go up. I don't want a white-ish background with light coloured notes with a flashing screen during Kiai Time if I'm playing with hidden.

Did you not read my entire post? I made mention that there are bad maps where you have to delete some elements and that there are also people that delete everything regardless of it being a good or bad design.

Of all beatmaps I ever played, I'm having the hardest time playing http://osu.ppy.sh/s/27107 due to flashy SB. But still I never remove all the beatmap elements.

I would rather memorize the rhythm and serve all those as an added challenge. If I can memorize them, I might even try using FL mod depending on the intensity of the beatmap.

If you play competitively, why would you not do something that gives you an advantage? This goes for any game, not just osu!. Even if you like background images, storyboards, and skins, the game is ever so slightly easier to play when it's just circles on a plain background, so if your reason for playing is to get the highest score you can, then yeah, you surely have reason to remove them.

That said, I do favor requiring people to play with background/skin/storyboard. As a mapper, I don't usually bother with a storyboard or finding the perfect background image, but when I do, it's because I really want my map to be played with them. Perhaps this would also inspire mappers to be a little more hesitant to use busy backgrounds that actually do make the map more difficult to play. (see: maps like No,39).

No video mod exists because weaker computers simply can't handle the load of playing a video and running the game at the same time. Same reason the ranking criteria prohibit high storyboard load.

I still don't understand why "hitobjects and approach circles must be relatively easy to see with videos, storyboards, and backgrounds in mind" is not at least a guideline for ranking.

It should be made into a rule that the combocolours should form a good contrast with the background image; for example no dark red notes on a red bg or something like that

This is not the exact same thing as above, I said rule instead of guideline huehuehue

Well, it can make the map almost unplayable (or give someone who rips out the BG an advantage), and these things DO get ranked. I get confused more by a lot of fancy BG and videos/SBs than some hitcircle patterns. Hitcircle patterns cause rankable maps to be unranked because they confuse people, why not make rankable maps with bad SBs and videos become unranked because they confuse players?

I like the way you think