So currently we have this Guideline in the osu!catch RC's General section:
I think what this rule/guideline was initially meant to prevent was cases where a top-diff had lower AR (and therefore OD) than the diffs below it as a stylistic choice / gimmick, in order to ensure harder diffs gave more Ranked score.
However if this is the case, the current wording does the complete opposite: permitting you to use higher OD than normal on lower diffs up to and including the AR/OD of the diff above. I don't see a case where this would be beneficial at all, so this seems like a mistake.
I think what you wanna say to achieve the effect I mentioned previously is:
I make the distinction of "difficulty tiers" (e.g. all diffs labelled as Rain fall under the same difficulty tier) since variation in OD (and thus score) amongst difficulties in the same tier doesn't seem like a huge deal.
Simple example use case - Overdose AR lower than Single Rain
Rain: AR/OD = 9
Overdose: AR = 8.8, OD = 9
Complex example use case - Overdose AR lower than one or more Rains
Rain 1: AR/OD = 8.5
Rain 2: AR/OD = 9
Overdose: AR = 8, OD = 9
Unless I maybe totally misinterpreted the wording of this, in which case I am an idiot sandwich.
Overall Difficulty should have the same value as the Approach Rate. This is just a standardized value, as Overall Difficulty does not affect gameplay nor the amount of fruits a spinner has, just the maximum score of a difficulty. For cases where the two values are not equal, the Overall Difficulty should be less than or equal to the Overall Difficulty of the next hardest difficulty.
I think what this rule/guideline was initially meant to prevent was cases where a top-diff had lower AR (and therefore OD) than the diffs below it as a stylistic choice / gimmick, in order to ensure harder diffs gave more Ranked score.
However if this is the case, the current wording does the complete opposite: permitting you to use higher OD than normal on lower diffs up to and including the AR/OD of the diff above. I don't see a case where this would be beneficial at all, so this seems like a mistake.
I think what you wanna say to achieve the effect I mentioned previously is:
Overall Difficulty should have the same value as the Approach Rate. This is just a standardized value, as Overall Difficulty does not affect gameplay nor the amount of fruits a spinner has, just the maximum score of a difficulty. If a difficulty uses a lower Approach Rate than one or more difficulties in the tier below it however, the Overall Difficulty should be equal to that of the highest Overall Difficulty value in the lower tier.
I make the distinction of "difficulty tiers" (e.g. all diffs labelled as Rain fall under the same difficulty tier) since variation in OD (and thus score) amongst difficulties in the same tier doesn't seem like a huge deal.
Simple example use case - Overdose AR lower than Single Rain
Rain: AR/OD = 9
Overdose: AR = 8.8, OD = 9
Complex example use case - Overdose AR lower than one or more Rains
Rain 1: AR/OD = 8.5
Rain 2: AR/OD = 9
Overdose: AR = 8, OD = 9
Unless I maybe totally misinterpreted the wording of this, in which case I am an idiot sandwich.