Rad- wrote:

Hello everyone, I know this comes out of nowhere, but to me, ranking a map really shouldn't be exclusive to a mappers only (If your map is good enough to be ranked, it's probably going to get ranked with a bit of effort.), as this can form opinions division between players and mappers (The issue with this is that player-only members of this community do not know how to map, meaning they cannot POSSIBLY be qualified to give opinions on maps. Trust me, I was a new modder once as well.), even though the game from the start should involve both parties coexisting together to bring the ranked map category a more fun (What everyone finds fun is extremely subjective-- see Shiten or any map drama ever), and balanced area to find new maps for everyone (Good in concept, but there is absolutely no way you can confirm that this would happen.).

This system will look a bit too out of the ordinary and maybe people will ignore this enourmous rant, but I did this because I truly enjoy the game and would like to see the best come out of it (Okay, cool?). And i tried my best at counter arguments to my own points so that it's something well structured and not just a random opinion thread.

So, what's the problem with the current system?
- Mappers/modders currently are the ones who choose which maps should be ranked, regardless of player feedback after it gets qualified; (Have you not heard of testplays? Players have been the deciding factor on a number of maps, such as polygon or any Mazzerin map ever. Besides, following up with my points above, normal players have little/no experience with mapping, and thus they are not a reliable source of knowledge on anything but playability...)
- Qualified section at the moment is mostly just a placeholder for maps during a week for QATs or other people to find unrankable issues, or other really strong issues with the map, but most go by as any map can be ranked regardless of ''quality''; (So, it's doing its job? Quality is extremely subjective as well (see Shiten or any UC map's drama))
- Maps can be ''speedranked'' if knowing the right people and have help prior to submitting the map, while alot of unknown mappers are left behind. (Alright, so this is actually a common misconception so I forgive you. Speedranked maps are usually speedranked because of group efforts in readying a map before upload and they are ranked quickly due to the perceived quality of the map from the BNs. Enforcing all maps to get mods is counter-productive because the suggestions are either not needed in the first place or they are going to be denied anyway.)
- The only way for players to vote maps they like are with hype to help nominate a map (even though mappers can easily obtain 5 hype just from modders alone), or voting for loved section maps. (Well, the loved section was made for players so uhhh yeah. Hype is generally meaningless anyway. What is your point? This is not a problem, because of my repeated statement about players and critique in maps)

Well, to say what is wrong with a system and not bringing a solution from my part would be a bit obnoxious, then here is my idea:

1 - First of, Nomination to Qualify section rework.

At first I thought the new qualify section would be a tool for more mappers to get their maps under revision, but instead its a more ''early access'' ranked section, nothing really changed except avoiding unranks on maps already approved to the ranking system. (Okay, what. It is doing its job then? If there are no unrankable issues with a qualified map, what is the point in disqualifying it?)
The new system I present here will completely change how a map gets nominated in favor of lesser known mappers. (This sentence alone is what I was afraid of. As soon as we lower our standards to a select group of people, nothing becomes equal anymore. This could lead to disastrous results depending on the reaction of the community.)

This solution is by allowing the mapper itself to apply their map for qualify, by actually choosing themselves when to put it when fit ready (LOOOOL. You assume that mappers actually know if their map is for sure rank-ready and that they put no bias on their work at all).
There are new requirements to do this below:

1. No unrankable issues (wrong timed objects, number of difficulties based on mapped length, etc (Yes AiMod needs to be fixed for this*) (AIMod does not need to be fixed to enforce rankability.))
2. A map requires at least 8-10 or above Hype; (Okay, I guess. The number really doesn't matter.)
3. At least 10-15 people need to give at least 3 different suggestions to your map; (See point above about speedranking)
4. Each difficulty needs at least 3 different modders with 1 suggestion each; (^)
5. A mapper would now have to wait 2 weeks after submitting the map (maybe 3 weeks is more appropriate). (what????? you state that speedranking is a problem to begin with, and your reasoning is just "but what about the new mappers?". Having arbitrary wait times for maps does literally nothing to "fix" speedranking and makes the ranking process even more annoying.)

After all 3 requirements are verified, the mapper will be able to unlock the ''Push to Qualify'' button on their mapset thread if they see their mapset fit ready for qualifying, as this could be an autonomous method for checking if maps do have the requirements already before giving the mapper the choice to push forward to the next step.(No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Absolutely not. There is a reason why people are nominators and QAT. This could abused to no end to push absolute garbage maps (in my opinion, obviously) with tons of backing from oblivious players and meming mappers/modders. This is just... not a good idea in the slightest.)

*About the Aimod, sending a mapset with issues from Aimod, gives a trigger to the submitted mapset thread saying that it could not get ranked and thus not being allowed to push to qualify yet. (There is no way to check all unrankable issues with a bot, generally because of context issues with certain guidelines and rules. Take diff-specific rules for example.)

2 - Qualify section rework.

After your map has gone into Qualified section, it will stay there for 2 weeks (ugh. 1 week is already fine, just leave it at that.), and players will now have a ''Would you like this mapset to be ranked?'' voting below after submitting a play on it (players are not qualified to give critique on maps outside of playibility. players are not qualified to give critique on maps outside of playibility. players are not qualified to give critique on maps outside of playibility.) (or 1 in 2 different difficulties if it has more than 1 difficulty, this can be another solution to troll voters (What does this mean???)). After a certain percentage, let's say, 80-85% or above voted in favor (Either nothing is going to end up getting ranked because of targetted votes, or everything is going to get ranked because no one cares. That's not exactly enticing...), then the map after 2 weeks of not receiving more information on issues it presents (Imagine getting an issue on the last day in qualified. That would be ridiculous. assuming you go as fast as possible, it would've taken 5 weeks just to get to that point, and then you'd have to go with another 2 weeks when it gets requalified? Jesus...), will move automatically to ranked. It should be clarified, that if people think that most people shouldn't vote regardless of their rank, well you are probably forgetting that the most non-dedicated players wouldnt probably play qualified maps anyway, so this is why the voting is within the map thread for those willing to help the game in a way so they think which maps should be approved for ranking or not (This is not the issue I have with this section. My issue is with people who vote based on names or hive-minds, such as /r/osugame. This is not great because if you are a certain person, you are discriminated against in the ranking process, with is terrible for the game's reputation and status.).

About the new mapset getting qualified, other players, and modders alike, can still submit suggestions or report any issues they find with the map, if a certain number of issues has been reported and the mapper chooses to fix said issues because, it may impact on the map vote % if these issues are too bad, then it will continue in pending for at least another week (ugh.), giving time to fix said issues and for the mapper to improve now that they got more publicity to their mapset thanks to the qualified section and it's leaderboards.

About the number of maps limited for qualifying, I will talk about this during the next section about the QAT system.

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So what have we established so far:

- Unknown mappers don't have to rely on the current beatmap nominator circles to qualify their own map; (Which may or may not exist... you have no idea if such things are happening. In my honest opinion, there is a little/no factor in circlejerking being the reason why maps from newer mappers "aren't getting ranked".)
- Qualified section gets more exposure to all mappers for people interested in seeing new maps; (No, it wouldn't. You haven't changed anything outside of wait times and voting in terms of the qualified section, which are both very questionable ideas to begin with.)
- Players can play a role in what they want to push forward to ranking. (something something players critique something something)

Because this is a community driven game, the whole community should be part of what goes into ranked section, not just the mappers as they have drifted so far away from what other players would like to play on a song. (Be the change you want to see in the world. Besides, any attempt to do this has received critique from all sides (See: Sotarks' Maps, UC/Haile's Maps, Mazzerin's Maps, ProfessionalBox's Maps, and many more))

And lastly, the bigger impactful section:

3 - The Quality Assurance Team and the removal of Beatmap Nominators. (what?)

So why remove Beatmap Nominators? (Good question!)

The sole purpose of Beatmap Nominators is to push a map to qualify (The purpose of BNs are to prepare a map for rank and to help rank it based on their own opinions about what makes a map good.), yet when the mapper themselves can now put their maps into qualified, there is no need for BNs (Which is already a bad suggestion to begin with, as I've already stated...), instead the focus should be on the QAT system. With this, there is no modder with special attributes and they simply have to help everyone equally removing the BN circles (before saying baseless accusations, maybe confirm your opinions before you try and make a proposal regarding it. This also gives less incentive to mod, because why mod if you can't actually help people push their maps to rank? It's just not the same thing.). This is also the solution to certain BNs not helping other mappers being inactive on the modding scene and qualifying maps only within the said BN circle.Again, my points above about BN circlejerking and how this is not an argument against the current system. Everyone gets to be equal here.

Except, well, QATs.
And what is the QAT system going to do now?

The QAT system will keep an eye on the maps now on qualified (They already do this..?), they can be more active now (Stating that the QAT could be more active does not make them more active lol) and the same thing they do currently: they check if mapsets have any unrankable issue, see if there are more serious issues and look at other people's opinions as to why the map shouldn't be ranked yet. (So, they are doing the exact same thing they were doing...)

Now there should be more maps ofc in the qualified section, but that also means there should be a limit per day (15-20), as QATs and other people will have a large influx of maps in the qualified section to look after since they stay for 2 weeks now (so that means in a full 2 weeks, a maximum of 280 maps could be qualified. That is ridiculous! No team the size of the QAT could possibly check that amount of maps while there are even more maps flooding the qualified section. It is just not possible.). I said 2 weeks because they early the map is in qualified section, the more bound for others to find issues increases, the last days of qualified section is when QATs can be more active in checking the mapsets to see if any issues still arise (So how does that change with the new system? Wont the QAT still check the maps at the end? This might cause a DQ, which leads to EVEN MORE WAITING. Nothing is changing here.). And let's not forget that mapsets still need to have the requirements in order before jumping straight to qualified, specially the case with the 2 weeks after submission and enough people to look at it. (I've already stated how this is a bad suggestion in the above points.)

If modders have established outstanding performance in the modding scene helping other mappers, they could be hand picked to join the QATs if they wish to do so (Well, okay... but how is that different from BNs at that point then?), allowing more dispersed members of the QAT to look at more mapsets (Again, how is this different from the old system/BNs...). The requirements of entering QAT can be more harsh (Aha! I figured it out! It's just like the selection of BNs, but it has... harsher guidelines to get in. Not sure how this fixes any issues, but alright.)but even so, there is no longer a need to get more members into the BN group (No, there's not a need for more BNs, but you now need more QAT members, which could only end up back into the semi-old system, which you have been trying to avoid.) to look at enough maps, the qualified section give it more attention already.


About kudosu and hype:

Since now it requires more hype for a beatmap to be approved for qualifying, I suggest increasing to 2 hype per week. And as a modder since kudosu no longer means anything except more reputation as a modder, you can exchange each 15-20 kudosu points into 1 hype point to help other mappers, this benefits everyone! (Kudosu in its original form is not coming back. It never will come back. Please stop pushing this.)

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TL:DR - So the whole point of the system:
- Mappers themselves picking up what should go for qualify when ready and fit requirements, making everyone equal; (This does not make anything equal, and implies no bias takes place at all.)
- After qualified, during the 2 weeks, players themselves have a chance can vote maps fit for ranking; (Which may or may not work, considering my opinions on players' ability to critique maps and the general interest level in the qualified section)
- Maps can still be judged during qualified just like in the current system, and can still be disqualified if issues are present; (Which becomes infinitely more annoying considering it now takes 2 weeks to get past qualified.)
- Removal of BN system, and more focus on QAT. (Correction: Migration of BN responsibilities to QAT)


All this is to bring the community more together in the quality of maps that get ranked (player critique point), and help those less successfull in the ranking process to shine more (Have you considered why they aren't as successful? It is because either their attitude (minority of cases, think like chuuristutv drama), or it's because their map isn't up to quality standards from certain BNs (majority of cases, think newer mapper's maps)). Well known mappers will still be popular because their maps are known to be good so that won't change.

Now there are those that would say that this would never be implemented, and peppy ''doesn't care about it because it's too much work''. But I am not posting this expecting to be implemented, I was just giving my idea, my opinion, on a different take on the beatmap ranking system, instead of just complaining or waiting for someone else to do something about it, giving 0 contribution to the discussion. (Such as I am, currently. Your argument is flawed because your bias leads to removal of things that already work and do not require changing.)

So because this is such a massive rework on the current system, I tried my best at seeing all counter arguments to each point so that it was the most well structured thread possible, because really the current system has many flaws, so I made this with the most responses to each problem I could find. Hopefully you find this thread interesting enough and would like to see a new change. Opinions are welcome.