Hey there, I'm back at it with another ranking criteria change after gathering opinions from a few others regarding a rule in osu!catch.

The rule in question is the following:

Basic hyperdashes can't be used more than two times between consecutive fruits. If higher snapped hyperdashes are used, they must be used singularly (not in conjunction with other hyperdashes or dashes)

Specifically, this proposal is regarding the last section of the rule, regarding higher snapped hyperdashes not being used in conjunction with dashes. This ruling is quite strange, due to the fact that doing a dash into a HDash shouldn't be that complex for a platter player, even if the HDash is higher snapped, because the difficulty more comes from hitting the dash, rather than the HDash afterwards, and the player's reaction to the HDash is more purely based on whether they can react to the initial dash, a skillset which comes from playing Salads, rather than platters (And therefore, is quite fitting as a continuation of that skillset at this level).

Due to this, I feel the rule can be changed so that it's only unrankable if the HDash is followed by the dash, as this ruling makes sense due to the fact that reacting to the speedchange of the HDash is the main skillset required in that situation, which is something that's only introduced at platter level, and so can't be expected as something to be learnt at that level, as it's quite complex for an introduction to HDashes. My proposal would be changing the rule to be as follows:

Basic hyperdashes can't be used more than two times between consecutive fruits. If higher snapped hyperdashes are used, they must not be followed by other hyperdashes or dashes.

This wording rules out the first case mentioned, whilst keeping the second case unrankable.

Double post because I don't want this attached to the initial proposal, but I'm going to point out that there maybe should be something in the proposal about not following a higher snapped dash by a higher snapped HDash, as this may be a bit of a complex pattern, however at the same time I wonder if this is really necessary, due to the fact I don't think anyone would consider that type of pattern in a platter, however it may be best to clarify.

If anyone has any wording that encompasses that without being too lengthy, that would also be great.

im dumb for not making a response about this sooner

In theory this would be great for mappers as they would have more freedom with how they want to interpret the song/patterning usages. In addition, this would be neat to have because I still think the gap between platters and rains are a bit large so this could ease some of the balances in ranking.

Though I'll play a bit of the devil's advocate here. A common mistake I see in new players (also shows when they're learning platters) is that new players would try to read patterns as a whole leading them to release too early before catching the note and focus on the pattern right after it. So yeah, as you stated earlier, players dashing into a hdash shouldn't be too hard, but it does create more scenarios of a player attempting to read the overall pattern by mistiming in favor of hitting the hdash.
Then again, maybe it's a skill thing for players to learn better in this diff range.

I don't see it mentioned in the rule but I'm also a little concerned of this rule applying to stuff like higher snapped hdash antiflow too. As for your second post, I could kinda see some scenarios work although its really dicey to pull offer. Though at the same time, I agree that this type of pattern would be hitting rain territory somewhat. I would try to help with wording but I gotta run somewhere pretty soon.

The main problem with this imo is the fact that a higher snapped hdash can be anywhere from 125 to 250ms. At around 200-250ms, a dash into a hdash doesn't feel that difficult, but at the higher ends from 125-150ms, the difficulty is definitely noticeable and too hard for many platter players.

Platters are meant to serve as an introduction to hdashes as a whole, so keeping this rule as is would be most beneficial.

ima have to disagres with ur notion where in a dash into hdash pattern is the hardest part. In my opinion i find that the hardest part about hypers in this diff range is that players simply are not good at controlling and knowing what to do when thet are asked to accurately play high velocity patterns and anything like a dash or antiflow that would put even further strain could feel unfair. Im down for a rewording like what cyanine said ,but i think the rule regarding higher spaced dashes is fine atm

Don't think this needs changing as mentioned. Consider the movement situations:

Direction-switch dash->hyperdash: Difficult to read, especially at ar8. Notes cluster together and this can be intimidating to platter players. The higher-snapped hyper also changes the margin time in which the player can hyperdash back to where they came from, and this can confuse the player, especially if it's coming from a consistent 1/2 rhythm before.

Single direction dash->hyperdash: While this may be easier to read, it's also uncomfortable to play due to the sudden flowbreak when the movement speeds up. It becomes easy to see the note before the dash and the note after the hyperdash, but not the note in the middle, possibly leading to a miss. (cyanine's point)

As for a rewording, I'd be fully fine with these patterns being followed by antiflow/direction changes being unrankable still, as I agree those types of patterns can definitely be too hard for a platter. If someone finds a way to integrate that into the wording without being overly lengthy, that would also be great.

In response to AZ's post, I have to disagree that this is cluttered in any way. Given the fact that up to 4 1/2 dashes in a row can be used between fruits in a platter (even with direction changes), I don't see how a 1/2 dash followed by a 1/2 HDash would be cluttered (or even more so with stuff such as a 1/1 dash into 1/2 HDash).

As for the single direction dash into HDash, I'd like to point out these ones are actually even more unnoticeable than direction change into HDash, as even with this rule being so prevalent, I've had multiple instances where BNs (including the one BN who seems to look for these in every bubbled map) didn't notice them as a difficulty spike or DQable at all.

Hello,

Considering the discussion about this change has kind of died down, it was hard for ZiRoX and I to make a decision on how we wanted to move forward with this.

As of right now, we're leaning towards dismissing this rule change due to the potential ramifications it could have on the spread of difficulties, especially between Salad and Platter. We don't feel like buffing Platters in this way is beneficial to the health of future spreads, and keeping the rule is not doing much in the way of damaging current ones.

We'll be giving you, as well as the community, one week to voice your opinion on the rule and this decision before we finalize it. Please ensure this is done by 23:59 UTC+0, April 21, 2019, at which time if no discussion is ongoing, we will be denying this change to the RC.

I have to highly disagree on this having any bad effect on the spread of difficulties, especially considering the spread from platter-rain is highly improved by this compared to the salad-platter gap being damaged at all.

To explain this, if you look at the case of difference between platters and rains in this aspect, you can go from not being allowed a 1/2 dash into 1/2 HDash in a platter to being allowed 4 1/2 HDashes in a row in rains (which is slightly rare, but having 3 or 2 isn't a rare case at all). Due to this, I feel if anything this is highly suitable in helping spread between difficulties rather than anything else.

Edit: I feel the easiest way to show how little of a difficulty problem in platters these are is by showcasing some examples, as I can give numerous examples of these (albeit primarily on my own maps) showing how little they stand out in terms of difficulty in a platter.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/943873 - Platter in this set uses multiple of them, the only examples that stand out as slightly difficult are 00:22:592 (4,5,6,1) - and 00:37:592 (7,8,9,1) - , yet nearly every dash in the difficulty is unrankable due to this rule.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/879085 - Platter in this set uses this pattern at 00:59:138 (5,6,7,8) - , yet this is by no means close to a difficulty spike in the difficulty compared to other jumps throughout the difficulty.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/845536 - Platter in this set uses this pattern at 00:56:048 (2,3,1) - , where it's barely even noticeable at all as even a slightly hard pattern, let alone a spike of any kind, and at 01:20:685 (3,4,1) - , where it is a quite difficult pattern, but definitely not harder than a lot of the back-forth dashes throughout the map.

https://osu.ppy.sh/b/758848 - Platter in this set (albeit quite a bad platter quality wise due to it's age, but that's not really relevent to whether the offending pattern stands out) uses the pattern at 00:32:765 (3,4,5) - , yet compared to the rest of the map, this pattern is not difficult to hit at all.

I could list more examples if necessary, however I feel my point is proven that compared to what else is allowed in platter difficulties, these sections don't stand out at all in terms of difficulty.

Somewhere earlier it was mentioned that dashing into a hyper without a direction is flowbreaking? Seems silly as in that circumstance you literally just hold dash and don't have to pick your moment to start dashing on the startpoint of hyperjump.

However dashing into direction change hypers is inviting major miss potential for newer players, given the frequent need/inclination to change direction early in order to cover a large distance that experienced players will just not notice because it's second nature to them to have better grasp of timing and platter control.

If there really has to be a change I'd consider the first acceptable (provided the mapper can explain why not emphasizing the first sound (with dash) negatively impacts the flow and feel of the section. However it's kind of silly imo to claim that Platter-Rain spreads need to be bridged better when recent mapping has filled the gap perfectly fine with more prevalent antiflow usage.

For years, Salad-Platter spreads were a complete mess in catch and I think we're at a much better position now than we were then. Yes you technically can see a scenario where a Platter only has walks into 1/2 hdashes with no direction changes, whereas a Rain has consecutive 1/2 hdash / dash direction-changing combos, but this can (and should) easily be cited as a spread problem if required. If mappers want to include these difficult patterns in Rains they need to build a stepping stone for it in Platters, and combining higher snapped dashes and basic hyperdashes with some simple direction changes is usually enough to do this.

JBHyperion wrote:

However it's kind of silly imo to claim that Platter-Rain spreads need to be bridged better when recent mapping has filled the gap perfectly fine with more prevalent antiflow usage.

For years, Salad-Platter spreads were a complete mess in catch and I think we're at a much better position now than we were then. Yes you technically can see a scenario where a Platter only has walks into 1/2 hdashes with no direction changes, whereas a Rain has consecutive 1/2 hdash / dash direction-changing combos, but this can (and should) easily be cited as a spread problem if required. If mappers want to include these difficult patterns in Rains they need to build a stepping stone for it in Platters, and combining higher snapped dashes and basic hyperdashes with some simple direction changes is usually enough to do this.

As I've mentioned in my previous post, as well as in the initial post, this isn't intended to bridge the gap between platter-rain or "fix" any gap between salad-platter, the entire point is that these patterns are by no means the hardest patterns used in platters, and in almost all cases they're used, they don't stand out as a hard pattern for the difficulty level. I feel it really says a lot that until a certain member joined the BNG, this rule was almost always ignored due to the fact these patterns weren't a big difficulty problem, and the member who does point them out has even said himself that he only does it because it was pointed out on one of his maps.

MBomb wrote:

I feel it really says a lot that until a certain member joined the BNG, this rule was almost always ignored due to the fact these patterns weren't a big difficulty problem, and the member who does point them out has even said himself that he only does it because it was pointed out on one of his maps.

This is actually just wrong Ben

The rule that I point out because ZiRoX pointed it out for me is 1.1x spacing on a higher snapped hdash for antiflow movement.

This rule with dashes to hdashes is looked for by almost any BN with experience. The only thing that it might have changed with me joining is the cases on which it is very low bpm, such as 120-150. In cases like these where the time between notes is around 200-250ms. Not many people notice these because they dont notice the amount of time between notes, but they feel ok.

But yeah, this isn't the rule pointed out to me by ZiRoX, its a completely different one. My point as a whole stands and I believe this rule should be kept as is

chickenbible wrote:

This rule with dashes to hdashes is looked for by almost any BN with experience. The only thing that it might have changed with me joining is the cases on which it is very low bpm, such as 120-150. In cases like these where the time between notes is around 200-250ms. Not many people notice these because they dont notice the amount of time between notes, but they feel ok.

In one of the cases listed, it was a 180bpm (or 200, can't remember(Edit:182bpm, so still not between 200-250ms.)) that went unnoticed by everyone and reached ranked status, which, as well as the other multiple instances of this pattern getting ranked before January, is a clear indication that this rule wasn't cared about until you started pointing it out.

Whether or not it's the rule that was pointed out to you, it's blatantly true that it was a rule no BN had cared about until you, as made obvious by the fact it was a rule no one pointed out, because it didn't stand out as difficult for a platter at all.

After going thru the sets ben linked ima have to agree with his notion IF we place a limit on the hyperdash itself. This is because like what andrew said, a hyper can be anything from 250 or 120 ms. I do think its silly that noone has pointed many of these unrankables prior to very recently so it should be fine imo to make them rankable officially

@wonjae: Mentioned in the modding/mapping hub (and earlier in this thread I think), but a possible limitation for this is restricting direction changes after, possibly changing the wording to something as follows.

Basic hyperdashes can't be used more than two times between consecutive fruits. If higher snapped hyperdashes are used, they must not be followed by other dashes, hyperdashes, or direction changes, and also must not come after higher snapped dashes.

I feel this encompasses this rather well, and also brings up the matter mentioned in my second post.

(Maybe the word preceded should be changed because long words can cause confusion to non-native speakers, I just thought that was the least wordy way to put it) thanks monkey king for dumbing it down

I disagree with the assumption that a dash into a hdash isnt complex/hard for newer players.

Hypers may be trivial and even easier than dashes once you get the hang of it but at the beginning they can be quite a hurdle since they require precise movement. Coupling this with a dash can lead to unfair feeling difficulty spikes and disregards the whole idea of platters being an introduction to hypers.

These examples arent hard at all to hit correctly I do agree on that. But I think that this is due to us being used to hypers and having played them over and over again unlike newer players who arent familiar with even the very concept of it.

From a mapping perspective im all for this rule change since it opens quite a bunch of possibilities. But from a player perspective, which i think is way more important when discussing rule changes in lower diffs, this seems unecessary hard. Platters offer a huge density boost compared to salads and have a much more frequent dash usage from what i have seen. This already provides a good and demanding learning curve which shouldnt be made harder as i think its in a pretty good state right now.

After reading and re-reading the proposal, as well as the comments from the community both here and on discord, ZiRoX and I have decided that we’ll be denying this change to the RC. As people such as IDu5t have said, this change may increase mapping freedom but has potentially hazardous effects to players that currently outweigh the positives it has.

Some people that support the notion have also stated that more limiters would need to be placed on the hyperdash itself, which creates a solution more wordy and convoluted than it’s worth.

We’d like to thank everyone who has participated in this discussion, but after a few hours, this thread will be archived in the finalized/denied amendments subforum.