Dear Taiko Community,
This thread is going to discuss A LOT of things about Taiko’s Star Rating, Performance Points, and Modifiers. Most of what I present is just going to be thoughts on the current situation, issues presented, and possible solutions (for some things). I’m not going to talk about Taikomania because we all already know that it’s not Taiko and discussion of this is not what I want to become of the thread. Of course I’m not an authority on this, and whatever I say does not necessarily go. All comments and ideas welcome (except those of a defeatist nature); it’s time we sorted this shit out properly.
Alright so that’s my lengthy summary of issues and potential solutions. If anything above is flawed (which is likely) then feel free to tear me a new one. If there’s any good or even better ideas (I’m sure there are) then let them be known. Do remember that this thread is made to improve the Taiko ranking and competitive experience; we’re not here to nerf everything, nor are we here to give ourselves 30kpp. Again, no comments of a defeatist attitude, I know the Taiko community is better than that; we can make this better and we will.
Cheers,
Jaye
This thread is going to discuss A LOT of things about Taiko’s Star Rating, Performance Points, and Modifiers. Most of what I present is just going to be thoughts on the current situation, issues presented, and possible solutions (for some things). I’m not going to talk about Taikomania because we all already know that it’s not Taiko and discussion of this is not what I want to become of the thread. Of course I’m not an authority on this, and whatever I say does not necessarily go. All comments and ideas welcome (except those of a defeatist nature); it’s time we sorted this shit out properly.
Star Rating
Alchyr’s attempt is good but needs more fleshing out. Whilst we almost all agree to nerf 1/4 + 1/6 and doublets (of the 1/8 variety), the challenge is managing to do this without sacrificing SR for technical maps (also nobody even knows what the definition of a technical map is so /shrug.) All I can say on this is keep up the good work, keep testing the algorithm, and keep breaking it so that we can develop better solutions.
Another issue to mention is that no pattern is inherently more difficult than another, yet we still see things like kddkddk awarding more. This of course does not factor in rhythm or snapping complexity (which is a whole other story, mentioned above). Making a system that does not encourage particular patterns of notes is ideal. Remember that we players adapt to the patterns that are ranked, which are often influenced by what the SR system favours. That being said, longer patterns in general are more difficult (probably) just because of density.
There’s also been a small debate about whether or not we should buff speed maps. Personally, I don’t have any problems with this; take a look at the amount of people capable of FCing the end of Galaxy Collapse or TLDNE. As I don’t really have an argument for this, I welcome any in the comments. My only other piece of information is that whilst speed may be the argument, stamina is important too; 300bpm is significantly easier if it’s bursts versus streams (now to just argue for how a stamina value would work, if it would even. The short answer is probably No because you can pause sometimes without consequence; long answer is Maybe for reason you guys can discuss if interested.) Alternatively, concepts like speed and stamina are irrelevant because we can just look at density, but then we’ve got a 1/6 and 1/8 problem again (how fun.)
ARGENTINE DREAM has a list of all ranked 7*+ maps and arranged them into appropriate-looking categories based on their actual difficulty (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/747516); I can agree with it for the most part and I think it would come off as a useful point in showing what we as a community value as difficult.
Another issue to mention is that no pattern is inherently more difficult than another, yet we still see things like kddkddk awarding more. This of course does not factor in rhythm or snapping complexity (which is a whole other story, mentioned above). Making a system that does not encourage particular patterns of notes is ideal. Remember that we players adapt to the patterns that are ranked, which are often influenced by what the SR system favours. That being said, longer patterns in general are more difficult (probably) just because of density.
There’s also been a small debate about whether or not we should buff speed maps. Personally, I don’t have any problems with this; take a look at the amount of people capable of FCing the end of Galaxy Collapse or TLDNE. As I don’t really have an argument for this, I welcome any in the comments. My only other piece of information is that whilst speed may be the argument, stamina is important too; 300bpm is significantly easier if it’s bursts versus streams (now to just argue for how a stamina value would work, if it would even. The short answer is probably No because you can pause sometimes without consequence; long answer is Maybe for reason you guys can discuss if interested.) Alternatively, concepts like speed and stamina are irrelevant because we can just look at density, but then we’ve got a 1/6 and 1/8 problem again (how fun.)
ARGENTINE DREAM has a list of all ranked 7*+ maps and arranged them into appropriate-looking categories based on their actual difficulty (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/747516); I can agree with it for the most part and I think it would come off as a useful point in showing what we as a community value as difficult.
Performance Points
So PP scaling seems to be a bit weird; it’s easy to get high pp on lower stars, but harder to achieve that on high stars (sort of like x=y2 for x≥0). Please make this more balanced? Not particularly sure what the reasoning for this is but I have an idea; later on I’ll discuss OD and why it needs a PP change along the lines of that lower diffs generally have lower OD, which is kind of overweighted.
Until some SR changes are made, it feel that it would be otherwise hasty to offer suggestions for PP changes, if any are needed.
Converts
They’re not Taiko maps; we have a ranking criteria with guidelines and a team of dedicated nominators for a reason. Converts are good for when a mode has no maps, but Taiko has existed for years and we have a heap of maps now. Please do not make these worth anything. I’m fine with them existing to have leaderboards, but like the Loved category that is all they should have (not even give bonus PP). As for other gamemodes, they can feel free to decide this for themselves.
Until some SR changes are made, it feel that it would be otherwise hasty to offer suggestions for PP changes, if any are needed.
Converts
They’re not Taiko maps; we have a ranking criteria with guidelines and a team of dedicated nominators for a reason. Converts are good for when a mode has no maps, but Taiko has existed for years and we have a heap of maps now. Please do not make these worth anything. I’m fine with them existing to have leaderboards, but like the Loved category that is all they should have (not even give bonus PP). As for other gamemodes, they can feel free to decide this for themselves.
Modifiers
A couple of things to say about mods, including the state of them as is, whether we need/want them or not, and what ones are impacting the game the most and how to solve the issues they create.
Readability Dilemma
On one hand, HR is almost entirely useless because it changes reading but awards no pp for it (the only PP increase awarded is based on the OD increase); similarly, there is nothing in the PP or SR algorithm that factors in “readability”, yet HD is a mod that purely affects readability and it does award a PP bonus, showing a lack of consistency. One method is to continue as is, with readability having no importance, and make HD yield no bonus; however, doing so would also make HR useless as the game might as well just have adjustable scroll (like Mania) and maybe adjustable OD (like Malody, or maybe HR isn’t totally useless by just increasing OD, again like Mania, but that’s kind of boring.) The downside to this is that, for one, less PP, and two, reduced motivation for the playerbase to use modifiers; this sort of ruins how we structure tournaments. Only other option then is to make readability matter in the PP algorithm; how that is achieved, beats me. It is possible to award a sort of bonus for HD versus low scroll and HR versus high scroll, but the exact amounts are subjective and up-to-debate ie. how much does the bonus give, when do we reach the point of memorisation being required (which ruins the whole idea of the bonus), and how much extra will be awarded versus how long the map has this reading difficulty (since SV changes). Opinions welcome. You may also wonder what such a change would do to gimmick maps; all I have to add is that they’re not rankable so it probably doesn’t matter (but would be nice if it worked for them too).
EZHDNC
Yeah it’s broken, but why? Well let’s look at the mods individually… We can rule out NC as being broken considering it’s the same as DT, which works fine. EZ is relatively broken because of two reasons: firstly, it makes patterns easier to hit by the abuse of timing windows, which in a sense reduces the difficulty of a chart (slightly), and secondly, EZ allows for greater accuracy (generally) than without (essentially EZ isn't broken, it's the OD that is.) HD acts as a counterbalance to the PP drop from the OD decrease. Again, HD is only broken if the algorithm does not consider readability. Two solutions to the EZ problem: one, we scale PP versus OD more harshly so that lower ODs are of a greater penalty, or two, we tie OD into SR. The issue with both of these changes is that high bpm maps start to reach OD9, which is kind of a necessity, but then we’ll just be facilitating more PP from OD literally just because “it’s fast” and not because “it’s harder to hit.” In essence, from playing maps like TLDNE I have learnt that if you’re not accurate on fast maps, you generally miss, so high bpm leads to high OD, but results in high accuracy (that’s a lot of PP boosting and not sure it’s particularly right.)
So the decision regarding OD that I present is this: should we scale OD more harshly, or should we incorporate it into SR? Arguments welcome, but the one I have settled upon for myself is as follows:
* OD scaling more harshly is good because it solves the problem of EZ making maps slightly easier, and reduces the strange PP spike that is awarded on lower difficulties (because they too have low OD). Furthermore, fast charts are hard enough and we would only be reducing the lower OD values, and not affecting the higher ones (if you were to increase the higher values slightly though, then I wouldn’t mind; it gives more weight to HR and makes speed maps less cheese-able.)
HDHR
I think it goes without saying, but make this option open to the playerbase; in its current state it is like FL and is mostly unusable (congratulations to the few that possess the insane reading ability to use this combination.) It works in v2 perfectly fine, and worked for about an hour with v1 back in 2017, so just implement it already. Furthermore, making v1 HDHR act like v2 HDHR may discourage dualscreening.
FL
As for FL, it is generally agreed upon to be unusable; only a few players can use it consistently (I’d say it’s harder than v1 HDHR). Making FL give no PP does not hinder the playerbase’s attitude towards mod use for competitive play, and also will discourage dualscreening. Whilst some people worked hard to remember an entire chart (myself included with Maniera and Black Lotus), it’s a worthy sacrifice. Best case scenario, keep the score bonus for the mod, but that’s it.
Readability Dilemma
On one hand, HR is almost entirely useless because it changes reading but awards no pp for it (the only PP increase awarded is based on the OD increase); similarly, there is nothing in the PP or SR algorithm that factors in “readability”, yet HD is a mod that purely affects readability and it does award a PP bonus, showing a lack of consistency. One method is to continue as is, with readability having no importance, and make HD yield no bonus; however, doing so would also make HR useless as the game might as well just have adjustable scroll (like Mania) and maybe adjustable OD (like Malody, or maybe HR isn’t totally useless by just increasing OD, again like Mania, but that’s kind of boring.) The downside to this is that, for one, less PP, and two, reduced motivation for the playerbase to use modifiers; this sort of ruins how we structure tournaments. Only other option then is to make readability matter in the PP algorithm; how that is achieved, beats me. It is possible to award a sort of bonus for HD versus low scroll and HR versus high scroll, but the exact amounts are subjective and up-to-debate ie. how much does the bonus give, when do we reach the point of memorisation being required (which ruins the whole idea of the bonus), and how much extra will be awarded versus how long the map has this reading difficulty (since SV changes). Opinions welcome. You may also wonder what such a change would do to gimmick maps; all I have to add is that they’re not rankable so it probably doesn’t matter (but would be nice if it worked for them too).
EZHDNC
Yeah it’s broken, but why? Well let’s look at the mods individually… We can rule out NC as being broken considering it’s the same as DT, which works fine. EZ is relatively broken because of two reasons: firstly, it makes patterns easier to hit by the abuse of timing windows, which in a sense reduces the difficulty of a chart (slightly), and secondly, EZ allows for greater accuracy (generally) than without (essentially EZ isn't broken, it's the OD that is.) HD acts as a counterbalance to the PP drop from the OD decrease. Again, HD is only broken if the algorithm does not consider readability. Two solutions to the EZ problem: one, we scale PP versus OD more harshly so that lower ODs are of a greater penalty, or two, we tie OD into SR. The issue with both of these changes is that high bpm maps start to reach OD9, which is kind of a necessity, but then we’ll just be facilitating more PP from OD literally just because “it’s fast” and not because “it’s harder to hit.” In essence, from playing maps like TLDNE I have learnt that if you’re not accurate on fast maps, you generally miss, so high bpm leads to high OD, but results in high accuracy (that’s a lot of PP boosting and not sure it’s particularly right.)
So the decision regarding OD that I present is this: should we scale OD more harshly, or should we incorporate it into SR? Arguments welcome, but the one I have settled upon for myself is as follows:
* OD scaling more harshly is good because it solves the problem of EZ making maps slightly easier, and reduces the strange PP spike that is awarded on lower difficulties (because they too have low OD). Furthermore, fast charts are hard enough and we would only be reducing the lower OD values, and not affecting the higher ones (if you were to increase the higher values slightly though, then I wouldn’t mind; it gives more weight to HR and makes speed maps less cheese-able.)
HDHR
I think it goes without saying, but make this option open to the playerbase; in its current state it is like FL and is mostly unusable (congratulations to the few that possess the insane reading ability to use this combination.) It works in v2 perfectly fine, and worked for about an hour with v1 back in 2017, so just implement it already. Furthermore, making v1 HDHR act like v2 HDHR may discourage dualscreening.
FL
As for FL, it is generally agreed upon to be unusable; only a few players can use it consistently (I’d say it’s harder than v1 HDHR). Making FL give no PP does not hinder the playerbase’s attitude towards mod use for competitive play, and also will discourage dualscreening. Whilst some people worked hard to remember an entire chart (myself included with Maniera and Black Lotus), it’s a worthy sacrifice. Best case scenario, keep the score bonus for the mod, but that’s it.
Alright so that’s my lengthy summary of issues and potential solutions. If anything above is flawed (which is likely) then feel free to tear me a new one. If there’s any good or even better ideas (I’m sure there are) then let them be known. Do remember that this thread is made to improve the Taiko ranking and competitive experience; we’re not here to nerf everything, nor are we here to give ourselves 30kpp. Again, no comments of a defeatist attitude, I know the Taiko community is better than that; we can make this better and we will.
Cheers,
Jaye