KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS POST HEAVILY EMPHASIZE ON SINGLE DIFF SPREAD

In the RC, there is a rule regarding specific drain time which allows certain difficulty to be the lowest difficulty in a spread.

RC wrote:

If the drain time of each difficulty is...

...lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...between 3:30 and 4:15, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...between 4:15 and 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.
...anything higher, the beatmapset is exempt from reasonable spread rules.

With this rule, this technically allows a single diff to be rankable if it follows all the criteria corresponding to the difficulty's rules and guidelines. This may look fine and all at first glance, but the problem arises when higher keymodes ( for example we use 6K and 7K as they're the most played higher keymodes) were to follow the current rules and guideline.

This can be clearly seen when you compare a single diff Insane with an Expert. In an Insane diff, the written guideline for it is as follows:

RC wrote:

Additional guidelines for 7 key Insane difficulties:
Avoid using 1/4 jacks with 3+ notes in the middle of chordstream. These require finger independence that is too difficult for players at this level.
In the middle of a long chord stream with a chord every...
...1/1, there should not be more than 3 notes, except at the beginning/end of a stream, when 4 is acceptable.
...1/2, there should not be more than 2 notes.
...1/4, it's recommended to use a single note instead unless there is extremely clear musical justification.

Following the guidelines above, this is the highest density you can get from a chordstream :

Whereas for an Expert diff, there are no restrictions or any limitation imposed on it, that means you can do whatever with it if it exceeds the 5:00 minute mark. An example of this would be:

A little bit of exaggeration but you get what I mean. The difficulty gap between these 2 are too wide when you look at it from single diff spread standpoint.

So what I'm going to suggest here is that, a level of difficulty should be added in between Insane and Expert.
A difficulty that serves to bridge the gap between Insane and Expert. I have yet to decide on a name for this particular difficulty, but let's call it "Light Expert" for now.

With a "Light Expert" the gap can narrowed down by quite a margin, something like this:
This would feel more of a proper progression.

The thing is that this has to be ONLY exclusive to 6K and above keymodes.
Why exclusive only to these keymodes?

The answer is simple. The general density of higher keymodes in a map will always be a lot denser than that of a 4K map (as in note counts). There is actually no point to map a 6K/7K map if people are going to just map it with the density of a 4K map. A 2000 notes in a 2 minutes of 4K map would be pretty dense, whereas a 2000 notes in 6K/7K map would actually feel pretty light because of the number of columns that can be utilized.

Where would this "Light Expert" fit in the drain time rule?

I've given myself quite some time to think about this, and this is what I came up with:

If the drain time of each difficulty is…

...lower than 3:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Normal.
...between 3:30 and 4:00, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a Hard.
...between 4:00 and 4:30, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than an Insane.
...between 4:30 and 5:00, the lowest difficulty of each included game mode cannot be harder than a "Light Expert".
...anything higher, the beatmap set is exempt from reasonable spread rules.

I've mentioned about this being heavily emphasized on single diff spread, but this can actually also be applied to full spread if needed.

Not to mention the current rules and guidelines need some amendments as well, that's why I came up with a new RC draft for 7K (for now). The purpose of this new RC draft is to fix and gives a better difficulty progression in a spread. A lot of the guidelines are reused from the current RC, but I've added more specific guidelines for mappers to let them know the things they need to know such as usage of patterning.

Here's the link to the draft: https://pastebin.com/QAY9Efr2

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

not really sure what this is aiming to achieve. if a mapset is one difficulty, it doesn't need to meet any spread requirements, so why does it matter that the difference between insane and superhardexpert is big?

pishifat wrote:

not really sure what this is aiming to achieve. if a mapset is one difficulty, it doesn't need to meet any spread requirements, so why does it matter that the difference between insane and superhardexpert is big?

The previous difficulties would somewhat make sense following the rules and guidelines in terms of the difficulty progression, even for a one difficulty mapset. Only when it goes from an Insane to an Expert, the difference is notably huge. Let me do a quick example out of this:

Currently it goes like (NOT SR, just a representation): 1.1 (Easy) > 2.2 (Normal) > 3.3 (Hard) > 4.4 (Insane) > 6.6 (Expert). That huge jump is what I'm trying to cover by proposing a "Light Expert" difficulty. The desired result would be:
1.1 (Easy) > 2.2 (Normal) > 3.3 (Hard) > 4.4 (Insane) > 5.5 ("Light Expert") > 6.6 (Expert)

What I'm trying to achieve is that the progression of each difficulty should be clear and coherent to each other, even if it is a single difficulty spread. It definitely won't affect on how someone would make a spread. Additionally, by doing this, mappers can have more freedom mapping something in between 4:30-5:00 without being restricted by the guidelines of an Insane. (yes the current guidelines for Insane simply isn't enough to make full use of a longer song, it's somewhat underwhelming)

_Kobii wrote:

1.1 (Easy) > 2.2 (Normal) > 3.3 (Hard) > 4.4 (Insane) > 6.6 (Expert)

if mappers are making spreads like this, they're doing something wrong unrelated to what you propose

for mapsets with only 1 difficulty, i don't see it being a problem that experts above 5minutes can be any level of difficulty -- that's the point of the spread rules being lifted past that time limit

_Kobii wrote:

Additionally, by doing this, mappers can have more freedom mapping something in between 4:30-5:00 without being restricted by the guidelines of an Insane. (yes the current guidelines for Insane simply isn't enough to make full use of a longer song, it's somewhat underwhelming)

1. how does song length relate to difficulty?
2. if higher difficulties are needed to express the song best, create a spread with those higher difficulties which starts from insane

i think what kobi is proposing is pretty clear. the "Insane" guidelines are a bit restrictive; people mapping songs of length between 4:30 and 5:00 should not have to oblige themselves to mapping a second, easier difficulty of their X icon map merely for the sake of spread (this is hypothetical of course but there are quite a few notable maps that fall under the length and difficulty criteria)

what kobi proposes is more clear cut, imo. 5+ minutes = marathon, 4:30-5 = Extra purple icon lowest, 4-4:30 Insane lowest, 3:30-4 Hard lowest. i feel like this gives mappers that tad bit more leeway that has been long needed for people less inclined to rank longer maps with current spread rules.

i understand it now, and i disagree with loosening spread requirements like this

pishifat wrote:

[quote="_Kobii"]1.1 (Easy) > 2.2 (Normal) > 3.3 (Hard) > 4.4 (Insane) > 6.6 (Expert)
if mappers are making spreads like this, they're doing something wrong unrelated to what you propose

I am referring to the written rules and guidelines here, not the mappers themselves

It's not really loosening the spread requirements. What I'm trying to address here is that the current guidelines (for 7K) has a lack of proper difficulty progression from Easy to Expert and therefore needs 1 more difficulty to be added to make it more complete. We can't really treat 7K the same as 4K because they're played very differently, learning curve as well. And as of now, most of the guidelines for 7K are following 4K, which is not really.. something that we should do.

I really don't see the harm in doing this because it's literally the same as adding new rules/guidelines to new difficulty if it is the lowest difficulty in that spread. Often people cannot judge higher level difficulty in 7K because there is the lack of proper guideline for it, that's why I have written a draft in the original post.

It's not really loosening the spread requirements.

what you've written allows users to make single-diff experts below 5 minutes drain, so i'd say that counts as loosening requirements

What I'm trying to address here is that the current guidelines (for 7K) has a lack of proper difficulty progression from Easy to Expert and therefore needs 1 more difficulty to be added to make it more complete.

why are you editing a general rc rule to compensate for an issue in one keymode? this should be handled in some mania-specific way instead if it's only an issue for 7k, not by changing how all modes handle their lowest-diff-for-a-mapset requirements

pishifat wrote:

It's not really loosening the spread requirements.

what you've written allows users to make single-diff experts below 5 minutes drain, so i'd say that counts as loosening requirements

What I'm trying to address here is that the current guidelines (for 7K) has a lack of proper difficulty progression from Easy to Expert and therefore needs 1 more difficulty to be added to make it more complete.

why are you editing a general rc rule to compensate for an issue in one keymode? this should be handled in some mania-specific way instead if it's only an issue for 7k, not by changing how all modes handle their lowest-diff-for-a-mapset requirements

The one that I have proposed is a "Light Expert" which has its own restrictions (rules and guidelines) as well, it's not an Expert by any means. It's to accommodate higher keymode mapping due to the sheer density that would typically appear on these keymodes (mostly 6K, 7K and 7 + 1K, not too sure about 9K because the playerbase for this keymode is almost non-existent.)

I thought so, but this is not only an issue for 7K alone, it applies from 6K to 7 + 1K. So I would like to ask if it's possible to make the drain time rule to have exception only for these keymodes? I think this would be mania-specific.

_Kobii wrote:

What I'm trying to address here is that the current guidelines (for 7K) has a lack of proper difficulty progression from Easy to Expert and therefore needs 1 more difficulty to be added to make it more complete. We can't really treat 7K the same as 4K because they're played very differently, learning curve as well. And as of now, most of the guidelines for 7K are following 4K, which is not really.. something that we should do.

If you bring "learning curve" into the discussion, pure 8K and 9K is a whole different learning curve compared with 7K and 6K. The finger independence makes it harder to master those keys as pinkie fingers are harder to control. And talking about density, 8K and 9K generally would have more sparse notes compared with 6K and 7K with same amount of notes. If that's the case, wouldn't 8K and 9K need more elevated guidelines as it's harder to master than 6K and 7K?

And what about 5K+1? On what category would you group it? 4K/5K group because it's 5K but with a special column just like 7K+1? If that's the case, it means the keymode wouldn't have the proposed "Light Expert" treatment which would led to people abandoning the keymode at all. Just because no one maps it doesn't mean you can exclude the keymode. The client support exist so it's rankable.

In case you're bringing "10K is supported in client and it's not rankable" because 10K in-game is listed as 5K Co-Op which technically means the client needs you to play with other person even though you *can* play it alone. 5K+1 is different as the client didn't demand you to play tag teamed with another person (evident with only one lane viewed in-game).

pishifat wrote:

1. how does song length relate to difficulty?
2. if higher difficulties are needed to express the song best, create a spread with those higher difficulties which starts from insane

I think the song length mentioned here are a result of fitting the "Light Expert" into the duration rules threshold, not because the duration directly affects the difficulty of the map.

_Kobii wrote:

I really don't see the harm in doing this because it's literally the same as adding new rules/guidelines to new difficulty if it is the lowest difficulty in that spread.

_Kobii wrote:

but this is not only an issue for 7K alone, it applies from 6K to 7 + 1K. So I would like to ask if it's possible to make the drain time rule to have exception only for these keymodes?

Adding a rules isn't easy as there's much more consideration regarding future risk. Some modes may took example of 7K and then tried to create their interpretation of difficulties (e.g. "Light Rain/Overdose" or "Light Oni/Ura Oni") which would break the cohesiveness of gamemode integration already provided. That's one and I'm sure there's more than that as this is a system change, not a minor one (like adding a patterning restriction in a difficulty-specific guidelines).

_Kobii wrote:

And as of now, most of the guidelines for 7K are following 4K, which is not really.. something that we should do.

It is not what we should do, that's why we can break the guidelines if necessary.

-mint- wrote:

i feel like this gives mappers that tad bit more leeway that has been long needed for people less inclined to rank longer maps with current spread rules.

Honestly the current duration threshold is already forgiving enough with difficulty accessibility in mind. The equilibrium between the difficulty and the song duration is already good, giving both mappers and players benefit. With 4:30-5:00 as a lesser Expert difficulty would lower the accessibility for players as they didn't have lesser diff to play. It might benefit mappers more to lazily rank hard maps easily, but it demands player to be really good at playing first.

MEGAtive wrote:

If you bring "learning curve" into the discussion, pure 8K and 9K is a whole different learning curve compared with 7K and 6K. The finger independence makes it harder to master those keys as pinkie fingers are harder to control. And talking about density, 8K and 9K generally would have more sparse notes compared with 6K and 7K with same amount of notes. If that's the case, wouldn't 8K and 9K need more elevated guidelines as it's harder to master than 6K and 7K?

Whether this gets implemented or not, that still doesn't change the fact that the other keymodes have no comprehensive guidelines as of now. I see this as a chance to actually write individual RC for each keymode.

MEGAtive wrote:

Adding a rules isn't easy as there's much more consideration regarding future risk. Some modes may took example of 7K and then tried to create their interpretation of difficulties (e.g. "Light Rain/Overdose" or "Light Oni/Ura Oni") which would break the cohesiveness of gamemode integration already provided. That's one and I'm sure there's more than that as this is a system change, not a minor one (like adding a patterning restriction in a difficulty-specific guidelines).

If the other gamemodes feel the need to change their way of interpreting certain difficulties, they can always write up a proposal in regards to that. This is why we have this forum isn't it? The one that I've brought up is an objective issue, not a subjective one. Another thing is that this is only a mania-specific problem, I'm sure exceptions can be made when we reached to some sort of general consensus.
Also, wouldn't adding a patterning guideline in a difficulty-specific guidelines let mappers know is allowed and what isn't allowed? Using the argument of "deterring creativity in a map" wouldn't work. If the patterning is hard, then it shouldn't even fall into that specific difficulty at all. Make a spread out of that if they need it.

MEGAtive wrote:

It is not what we should do, that's why we can break the guidelines if necessary.

Of course, but I do think separate RC should be made for different keymodes. Each of them are played very differently.

MEGAtive wrote:

Honestly the current duration threshold is already forgiving enough with difficulty accessibility in mind. The equilibrium between the difficulty and the song duration is already good, giving both mappers and players benefit. With 4:30-5:00 as a lesser Expert difficulty would lower the accessibility for players as they didn't have lesser diff to play. It might benefit mappers more to lazily rank hard maps easily, but it demands player to be really good at playing first.

The thing is that whatever you mapped out of, songs can have different duration. You can always have mappers with different preference in regards to the preferred song length to be mapped. This in fact does not limit the accessibility for players, it's a matter of choice.

If the mapper wants to make a super hard top diff out of a 2 minute song, he would then have to make an appropriate spread for it to be rankable.

Same goes to the mapper that wants to map a 4:30 song; because the lowest diff rules and guidelines essentially allowed the mapper to be able to do just a single diff, he is not obliged to make lower difficulties. But then he still can make it if he feels need to make a spread. The mapper himself/herself should know the consequences of making such choices. What if their intended audience are not for beginners but for experienced players? Mappers can always have the choice of making something to cater to their audience. And it's not like everyone would map something that high of a difficulty as well, it's merely just choices to go with.
If they intend to make a specific single difficulty for that song of that duration, wouldn't the current rules and guidelines be limiting what the mapper can do? This would also ultimately make a mapper giving up mapping something of that duration.

i second the notion that we need separate difficulty progression guidelines for different keymodes. the current one is to adherent to 4k, as ive discovered after beginning to map a 7k set.

You showed this already earlier within the BN Server and we had already discussion in there. I also stated there already that i do not understand what you are trying to achieve and reading all these posts i must say i still do not understand the purpose of this.

I will answer to it how i think what this thread tries to achieve.

First of all, i disagree with this proposal. There is absolute no need to add another difficulty to "spread requirements."
Simply because i don't see need for it that we need to define another difficulty.

As pishi already said. If you have a single diff spread, why do we need that?

If you want to map a higher difficulty on a song which is below 5min, you simply will have to map several difficulties. There is no way around. There is no way around it in any game mode

Let's say your song is 4:40. You have an Expert difficulty which uses very dense pattern. Now the spread rules requires you to map an Insane, which you of course add to your mapset and which follows the Ranking Criteria.
Now you notice that the gap between those difficulties is pretty big. So what to do?
You simply map another difficulty to fill this gap!
That's how it works in, as already said, every game mode.

Why do we need to define another difficulty for that? I don't understand that at all.
For me it sounds like you simply don't want to map more difficulties because you are lazy. It might sound a bit harsh but i can't find any other words for it.

Why does osu!mania need special treatment here? Doesn't make sense at all.
Naturally the higher key modes have a bigger difficulty-curve, but that's in the nature of the game itself. You need more fingers, you need more finger-independence/coordination which is clearly harder to master/learn than just with 4 fingers.

Correct me if i just wrote total bullshit and OT stuff now but that's how i understand this proposal. That you want to add another difficulty into the spread rules because you don't want to map that much

theres an underlying problem with star rating calculation not scaling the same for different keymodes if anything

I personally think that _Kobii's proposal is pointing out the flaws of the current Mania Ranking Criteria.

The current mania-specific ranking criteria is trying to apply across all keymodes, but it favors 4K specifically much more notably than the other keymodes.

_Kobii's proposal is trying to support the other keymodes (5K and higher) because the density and playability is vastly different from 4K. Other keymodes have more columns - as _Kobii mentioned in his proposal - thus the concepts are different. His (_Kobii's) proposal is not accounting the Star Rating at all, which seems to be a large misunderstanding.

Length was only brought up because the difficulty rules and guidelines for that certain length is flawed for non-4K maps.

Sure, people can map lower diffs as they want. Issue: if the mapper doesn't intend to map other difficulties, it doesn't mean that they are lazy, it's moreso that mapping other difficulties doesn't showcase or express their interpretation as vividly. You usually see mappers map lower difficulties because the song choice allows them to still utilize their concept(s); with that, song choice isn't the reason for this proposal either - why else do you map something for rank if you know that you can't map lower difficulties that expresses your style ?

Mania needs the special treatment here because other modes do not have "keymodes." Standard, taiko, and catch the beat can all be played the same with the same setup for every single map (excluding special gimmicks). Mania is the only mode where you actually need a different setup for certain maps. You absolutely cannot play a 7K map with your 4K key layout - how do you hit the other 3 (or more) columns ?
To make the image better, consider osu! having 4 branches representing each of the modes, but mania is the only one that has more branches coming from that branch.

_Kobii's proposal is valid in that it considers the non-4K playability, thus making the difficulty progression much more fairer by clearing up the grey area between an Insane and Expert diff for higher keymodes - which is all explained in his proposal in the first place.

>if the mapper doesn't intend to map other difficulties, it doesn't mean that they are lazy, it's moreso that mapping other difficulties doesn't showcase or express their interpretation as vividly.

Then how about getting guest difficulties? That's not really a strong argument for me. It's part of osu! for many many years. It's part of the "Ranking" process and part of the game making the content available for a larger audience.
Every game mode has to struggle with this. And there you come to the point where you have to find an agreement. Either you map yourself more difficulties or you ask other people to do so. There are a lot of people out there who love to map all kind of difficulties.
Or, last but not least. And i only say that to cover all possibilities, you simply don't rank the map if you can not accept that rules exist.

It's part of the ranking process and as already said, part of the game itself.

>_Kobii's proposal is valid in that it considers the non-4K playability, thus making the difficulty progression much more fairer by clearing up the grey area between an Insane and Expert diff for higher keymodes - which is all explained in his proposal in the first place.

Sorry but i don't really see the grey area here. You map an Insane according to the Rules. Then you map an Expert which has almost no rules (which is how it should be)
Everything in between you simply use common sense. There don't need to rules and an extra difficulty in the ranking criteria for that. You simply use some common sense to make a proper spread between these difficulties. That shouldn't be hard.

Feerum wrote:

Then how about getting guest difficulties? That's not really a strong argument for me. It's part of osu! for many many years. It's part of the "Ranking" process and part of the game making the content available for a larger audience.

There are songs that are just incapable of being represented by lower difficulties. There are also songs that are capable of being represented that way, but would inevitably be ridiculously boring. Getting guest difficulties doesn't fix these issues.

Feerum wrote:

Every game mode has to struggle with this. And there you come to the point where you have to find an agreement. Either you map yourself more difficulties or you ask other people to do so. There are a lot of people out there who love to map all kind of difficulties.

The issue at hand is in regards to mania I don't know why bringing in other game modes has any semblance of an argument here. Why should you be forced to map more difficulties / get other people to map those difficulties just to fulfill a spread requirement that would quite frankly result in the problems that I just mentioned above?

Feerum wrote:

Or, last but not least. And i only say that to cover all possibilities, you simply don't rank the map if you can not accept that rules exist.

Most mappers already turn to this. Far too many. And you saying this only encourages that, which I think as an NAT you should reevaluate your stance on this because you're enabling the action of giving up because the rules are far too restrictive for people's liking. You're quite evidently driving people away.

Feerum wrote:

It's part of the ranking process and as already said, part of the game itself.

And why should these restrictive criteria be a fundamental part of the game? Oh, and you can't justify it by saying "other modes have it too" either, because that merely extends the issue to those modes as well. It's still an issue.

Feerum wrote:

Sorry but i don't really see the grey area here. You map an Insane according to the Rules. Then you map an Expert which has almost no rules (which is how it should be)
Everything in between you simply use common sense. There don't need to rules and an extra difficulty in the ranking criteria for that. You simply use some common sense to make a proper spread between these difficulties. That shouldn't be hard.

Funny that you mention common sense while you seem to lack it when you say that restrictive criteria that drives people away from ranking maps in the first place is part of the experience in this game

>There are songs that are just incapable of being represented by lower difficulties. There are also songs that are capable of being represented that way, but would inevitably be ridiculously boring. Getting guest difficulties doesn't fix these issues.

Every.. really EVERY song can be represented even by being mapped in a Easy or Normal. This argument is completely wrong. It just needs some proper mapping knowledge plus some fantasy and you can make basically of everything an proper Easy and Normal.

--

>The issue at hand is in regards to mania I don't know why bringing in other game modes has any semblance of an argument here. Why should you be forced to map more difficulties / get other people to map those difficulties just to fulfill a spread requirement that would quite frankly result in the problems that I just mentioned above?

Sure, every game mode is unique in it's own way. But it simply works there. People managed to find an arrangement there and it's not that hard in mania too. People like to make things more complicated than they actually are. If someone really likes a song, there is no problem in mapping lower difficulties for it. Absolutely no problem. And as stated above, every song is able to being properly mapped in easier difficulties.

--

>Most mappers already turn to this. Far too many. And you saying this only encourages that, which I think as an NAT you should reevaluate your stance on this because you're enabling the action of giving up because the rules are far too restrictive for people's liking. You're quite evidently driving people away.

I am not. And no need to bring my position as NAT into it. I am not sure if you understood the change from QAT to NAT. My word doesn't weight much more than the one of a BN. You know that, right?
And no i am not. I just defend the game as that what it is. And i defend the standpoint that the game should be accessible to a larger audience. You know that the most played difficulties are Normal/Hard difficulties?
I was actually already against the change of spread rules based on drain time, but i found an agreement with myself not to say anything against it because it is in favor for the mapping community.

--

Funny that you mention common sense while you seem to lack it when you say that restrictive criteria that drives people away from ranking maps in the first place is part of the experience in this game

No need to attack me, guess we having a civil discussion here?

Feerum wrote:

Every.. really EVERY song can be represented even by being mapped in a Easy or Normal.

You say this yet some of the best mappers find the notion of having to map lower difficulties for songs quite ridiculous. Why? Because of how horribly boring and unrepresentative said difficulties would be. In fact, I mention this in the second sentence! Yet you seem to gloss over that; I wonder why?

Feerum wrote:

Sure, every game mode is unique in it's own way. But it simply works there. People managed to find an arrangement there and it's not that hard in mania too. People like to make things more complicated than they actually are. If someone really likes a song, there is no problem in mapping lower difficulties for it. Absolutely no problem. And as stated above, every song is able to being properly mapped in easier difficulties.

You miss my point; the proposal is mania-specific, you do not have to bring up other modes to justify anything you're saying. And if you have to, that's another issue that pertains more to how dependent our RC is to standard for who knows why.

You really seem to misunderstand the point again. It doesn't matter how much someone likes a song: if they are forced to create boring difficulties just to cater to the restrictive criteria, that's an issue.

Feerum wrote:

I am not. And no need to bring my position as NAT into it. I am not sure if you understood the change from QAT to NAT. My word doesn't weight much more than the one of a BN. You know that, right?

I would not stop at criticizing a BN if they spoke the way you did. That is not excusable in any form. Your language enables the actions of those who wanted to rank a map and give up due to restrictive criteria. This has happened far too often. Though, you don't seem to mind.

Feerum wrote:

And no i am not. I just defend the game as that what it is. And i defend the standpoint that the game should be accessible to a larger audience. You know that the most played difficulties are Normal/Hard difficulties?

The disparity between the number of Hard difficulties and the number of Extra difficulties is jarring. Yet you don't seem to bat an eye when people of higher skillset levels are essentially forced to either squeeze out plays from 4* ranked DT maps or just play unranked.

Feerum wrote:

I was actually already against the change of spread rules based on drain time, but i found an agreement with myself not to say anything against it because it is in favor for the mapping community.

Why? Because you wanted people to map Easy difficulties for 4:59 length songs? Because you wanted people to keep extending their songs with R3 Music Box just to go around the even more restrictive requirements that used to be in place?

Feerum wrote:

No need to attack me, guess we having a civil discussion here?

Maybe if you didn't say that restrictive criteria is "part of the game itself" -- when it can quite literally be changed -- you could have portrayed yourself as someone with common sense

Feerum wrote:

I just defend the game as that what it is. And i defend the standpoint that the game should be accessible to a larger audience. You know that the most played difficulties are Normal/Hard difficulties?
I was actually already against the change of spread rules based on drain time, but i found an agreement with myself not to say anything against it because it is in favor for the mapping community.

What I'm trying to give here is to also widen the accessibility to the audience, be it players or mappers. Sure, we have to cater to beginners learning the keymode, that's why we have lower difficulties in a spread. In other words, those are for "beginners", but what about higher difficulty maps? Higher difficulty maps would have their own audiences as well. The ratio of easier maps to harder maps has a considerably huge difference if you have noticed. There are a lot of the top players are starting to quit the game or even going inactive in playing because there are hardly any hard maps to cater to their needs, this is a fact.

We have more than enough easier maps for beginners in the ranked section, I think it's high time that we should also focus on higher difficulty maps. As I have mentioned in above post, with the current rules, mapping songs with different lengths is entirely up to the one who wants to map it, it's a matter of choice, and we can't really say someone is being lazy for mapping just a single difficulty. The current rule essentially allowed us to do so. If I remember correctly, the spread rules got changed out of the consideration of the workload of making a full spread under 5 minutes, and I believe I'm utilizing the rule to its fullest. That's my standpoint as a player and a mapper.

But let's not deviate from the main topic, shall we? Anything under Insane difficulty would be out of topic. I'm trying to offer a solution here to the flawed difficulty progression for higher keymodes, not to limit the audience. I would like you to have your trust on me on higher keymodes, especially 7K as I have more than a decade of experience at this keymode, I know what I'm saying. When I say Insane is far too restrictive, it is far too restrictive. People should have the choice of mapping a certain difficulty for a map, and of course rules are rules, and that is exactly why I offered a middle difficulty in between Insane and Expert; to have have lesser restrictions compared to Insane, and to also serve as a bridge for the gap, and have specifically placed it into 4:30~5:00 range. I'm tackling the RC's issue itself and I'm trying to fix it. It's like killing two birds with one stone. I believe this is a mania-specific issue, don't think we need to involve other gamemodes into this discussion.

Edit: People still can map lower difficulties for songs longer than 4:30, but that's entirely up to them if they want to map it or not, these are just merely choices, as long as it still follows the rules.

The more i read that i have the feeling that we have a little misunderstanding here.

@kobii: I have nothing against adjusting rules/guidelines in the Insane, i even very welcome them. What i am against is that it's necessary to add another difficulty into the whole spread rule for that. That's what i don't want because it makes everything even more complicated. That why i keep my standpoint that i disagree with adding that.

There should be a way to adjust these rules for "Insane as lowest difficulty" or any other without adding something like a "Light-Expert" or whatever. And you also have to think about it in favor for everyone, not just for "High difficulty mappers/players".

>I would like you to have your trust on me on higher keymodes, especially 7K as I have more than a decade of experience at this keymode, I know what I'm saying.

This sentence kinda ruined it for me where i actually started to think we could get into some kind of proper discussion.
I don't doubt on your experience, you have more than me. I never said anything else. Not with a single word. Ever.

But when you go now "I know it better i know what i am doing" it makes it sound like you do it for just yourself. And using "I know because i know" as an argument is like... totally nothing saying.

--

>We have more than enough easier maps for beginners in the ranked section, I think it's high time that we should also focus on higher difficulty maps.

Disagree because its a weak reasoning. Saying "Okay let's stop that now because i think we have enough". Putting the focus now only on higher difficulties is the wrong way to handle that. What about these who would love to play Song X but oh well it's only available for Insane and Expert. A mapper creates content for the community, if they aim to rank it. And with that said they should try to reach as much audience as possible, but i guess that seem to be something subjective.

tl;dr: I am okay with proposing changes for Insane difficulty RC or whatever but it must happen without adding another difficulty into the spread or changing the length-requirement because these are something general which applies to all modes.

Feerum wrote:

Every.. really EVERY song can be represented even by being mapped in a Easy or Normal. This argument is completely wrong. It just needs some proper mapping knowledge plus some fantasy and you can make basically of everything an proper Easy and Normal.

This is straight up just false, considering that certain rhythms are impossible to represent properly without breaking the rules of the current rc. I've found myself super frustrated making lower diffs that doesn't represent the song well at all because of the current rc.

My personal input on making easier charts for beginners at the game in general, is that song choice should come more into play rather than enforcing an artificial difficulty decrease that does not represent the song properly. Other than that, I think the current restrictions for lower difficulties are way to harsh in general. I think that if we need to enforce making lower difficulties for the sake of variation of easier charts in the ranked section, at least having less restrictions while making them would be fine.

the additional complexity is necessary for higher keymodes because they have less limitation; a lot of 7k spreads tend to have two extra diffs, for example.

in what way does kobi's proposal disfavor anybody? just because it favors high difficulty mappers/players doesnt mean its hurting anyone else.

Feerum wrote:

What about these who would love to play Song X but oh well it's only available for Insane and Expert

you say this but you dont happen to see an issue with galaxy collapse and other marathons? and those are just fine as is.

also, representing some rhythms would be impossible without breaking rules and guidelines.

a mapper's goal in ranking something should not always have to be to reach a large audience. it should be to share the enjoyment they have in their own map with other people regardless of how many people enjoy it.

also, why should mania have the same spread requirements as standard, taiko, or ctb? theres no solid reasoning behind that

Feerum wrote:

But when you go now "I know it better i know what i am doing" it makes it sound like you do it for just yourself. And using "I know because i know" as an argument is like... totally nothing saying.

I'm very sorry if that's how you would interpret my message, but that's totally not the case. The thing about this is that I am not doing this just for myself, I would gain nothing from this. I would never be so selfish as to gain benefit from this just for my own advantage. I said that because I have considered how mappers can actually gain from this. I said that because I want to reaffirm my point, because knowledge and experience comes in handy when making RC.

Feerum wrote:

Disagree because its a weak reasoning. Saying "Okay let's stop that now because i think we have enough". Putting the focus now only on higher difficulties is the wrong way to handle that. What about these who would love to play Song X but oh well it's only available for Insane and Expert. A mapper creates content for the community, if they aim to rank it. And with that said they should try to reach as much audience as possible, but i guess that seem to be something subjective.

I have never said anything about mapping easier difficulties should come to a stop. The point is that we still can map lower difficulties, but we have to shift more of the focus to higher difficulties. Reaching as much audience as possible is not an easy task. With the current drain time rule, that reasoning can be easily countered. People can go like "oh who cares about lower difficulties/higher difficulties? I'll just map what I want that fits to that criteria with a single diff and call it a day!" I mean that's why we have maps that are catered to beginners, and maps that are catered to veteran players. Every difficulty of a map has its own audience, we can't really do anything about it if the intended audience are for beginners, intermediate players, or veteran players. Can't really expect a beginner to play a super high level map right? That's not the intended audience for the map.

Feerum wrote:

tl;dr: I am okay with proposing changes for Insane difficulty RC or whatever but it must happen without adding another difficulty into the spread or changing the length-requirement because these are something general which applies to all modes.

Here's the thing with changing the rules and guidelines for Insane. If the intention is to make it less restrictive for Insane difficulty, wouldn't that be essentially the same as implementing a "Light Expert"? If you were to loosen it, then everything below Insane diff (Hard, Normal, Easy) would have to follow suit as well. Another problem arises, the jump from Easy to Normal to Hard would be noticeable larger than before. Mapping with "common sense" wouldn't work because people would follow the ranking criteria in order to get something ranked. I don't think we would want to see a map with difficulties with questionable jumps.

This is an illustration of the current RC, the numbers are NOT Star Rating by any means, just a representation of a difficulty level.

Everyone wrote:

A lot of words not related to the original point that I'm going to ignore for now and focus on the main post

Any of what was written implies that we have a stable enough SR calculation system in place to allow this.

We don't.

Adding this new rule to the RC isn't going to resolve anything, because people can map around rules and have done for years.

Maybe if we fix the SR problem first, then a rule like this might make more sense but until then, this is just adding more filler onto something we don't need.

Rules were made to be really relaxed and at the minimum to avoid subjective conflict, and to leave judgement up to the BNs, who we should have faith in their judgement (or call them out otherwise).

Stop writing drafts and fix the SR calc system.

A lot of what we are talking about isn't in relation to SR.

But also, this is being proposed under the assumption that SR isn't going to be fixed. There is no visible progress happening on that end. In the meantime, we should work our way around that.

-mint- wrote:

A lot of what we are talking about isn't in relation to SR.

But also, this is being proposed under the assumption that SR isn't going to be fixed. There is no visible progress happening on that end. In the meantime, we should work our way around that.

Well then this whole proposal is pointless because mappers will just work around the proposal, it's not hard to adjust a map to fit just into a difficulty bracket without changing the density

we're not talking in relation to SR though, this is in relation to the guidelines in RC

changing rules in RC around SR (adjusting the difficulty levels) is pointless without a working SR though

The purpose of the new RC exists because apparently people want to get SR out of the equation, simply because we are not having any progress ( for years ) on SR recalculation. Having a workaround right now is not a bad idea to be honest. We can always remake the RC in case a new SR system comes out.

I'm not at all familiar with mania, but from the looks of the conversation here, maybe it'd be better to create a ranking criteria for each keymode? it's not a problem if their content overlaps

regarding this stuff about certain songs being unmappable with low difficulties, I don't understand how this proposal fixes anything, since songs can be any length. like if one of these impossible-to-make-low-diffs songs is 2 minutes long, does that mean we should change the rules to allow any diffs at that drain time? (the answer is no)

work on criteria for the relevant keymodes that express the relevant gameplay mechanics for e/n/h/i/x of each keymode and drop the idea of adding a drain time exception. if star rating doesn't fit your new criteria (like if many insane diffs end up with x icon), this can be modified on the website. standard had its web icons changed last year at some point in this fashion

the way I suggest doing this is making a proposal thread for each category and each keymode (eg new thread for 5k ez, another for 7k ez, another for 5k normal, another for 7k normal, etc)

im all for ranking criteria for each keymode

Back then when we started with the Ranking Criteria (and the UBKRC), i also had the idea of making a Ranking Criteria for every key mode.
But this idea was dropped because while we were at it, we noticed that a lot of the Rules and Guidelines were pretty similar in the key modes. That's why it kinda changed to "Lower/Higher" Key Mode.

Now we know better, that it would be maybe better to have that splittet Ranking Criteria for all modes.

So i wouldn't mind gather the BNs again and doing a re-work (Creating Rules/Guidelines) for every key mode.
Or even creating something like the UBKRC again. While i think 1st one would be logistically better.

pishifat wrote:

work on criteria for the relevant keymodes that express the relevant gameplay mechanics for e/n/h/i/x of each keymode and drop the idea of adding a drain time exception. if star rating doesn't fit your new criteria (like if many insane diffs end up with x icon), this can be modified on the website. standard had its web icons changed last year at some point in this fashion

I like the idea of making new/revising the RC for each individual keymode, it's actually a part of what I've planned to do.
But the question is, is it possible to have different icons for different star rating for each keymodes?

Feerum wrote:

So i wouldn't mind gather the BNs again and doing a re-work (Creating Rules/Guidelines) for every key mode.
Or even creating something like the UBKRC again. While i think 1st one would be logistically better.

The former would definitely be in our favor, in that case I have already prepared a few of the keymodes' drafts for new rules and guidelines, I believe we can continue to discuss this within the BN server.

_Kobii wrote:

is it possible to have different icons for different star rating for each keymodes?

Good question, and I think it can be be answered by creating an issue for that on https://github.com/ppy/osu-web

pishifat wrote:

if star rating doesn't fit your new criteria (like if many insane diffs end up with x icon), this can be modified on the website. standard had its web icons changed last year at some point in this fashion

Difficulty thresholds were updated based on data collected here: https://github.com/ppy/osu-web/pull/4181. If it's possible to have icons per keymode, then it might be worth asking Poyo-SSB whether it is possible to acquire data for 4k and 7k separately. I believe there won't be enough data for other keymodes tho.

@pishifat

I would also need clarification on whether if the black icon (Expert+) is anything official? If it is not official why is it there? If it is then I think it should be used in the creation of RC as well.

_Kobii wrote:

I would also need clarification on whether if the black icon (Expert+) is anything official? If it is not official why is it there? If it is then I think it should be used in the creation of RC as well.

Expert+ is official as it got its own difficulty icon and listed here. There's no point in creating RC for Expert+/Ultra as generally speaking you can do anything with that difficulty and adding limitation with said difficulty would be pointless.

@MEGAtive

Exactly why I need clarification. The RC states that you can map without any restriction starting from "Expert", not "Expert+". If you can do that starting from "Expert", why would you need the "Expert+" then?
It's just pointless to have 2 difficulties that allows you to map without restriction.

_Kobii wrote:

The RC states that you can map without any restriction starting from "Expert", not "Expert+".

AFAIK there's no clause stating Expert may proceed without any restriction, but there's a little restriction e.g. Slider Velocity normalization. Expert+ is where you can express anything you want as long as it makes sense and justifiable. This trend is also prominent in other gamemode as well where Expert has very little restriction while Expert+ is basically the limitless expression medium.

@MEGAtive

I mean as in patterning itself, it doesn't have any kind of restrictions for Expert. I just think that we can do something about it. Just as you said, it's only Slider Velocity normalization, I think it can have something little more than that but I think this should be left for another discussion thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by the black icon being official? it helps users differentiate star rating at a glance, that's mostly it. in standard, there's generally no difference in gameplay elements between purple and black icons (except black ones are more rhythmically dense or spaced). if mania is different, explain

Okay I get it, it's just that it's not clear as to what the black icon is for in mania, but I guess it'd be a decent indicator for SR in that case.

seems like everything is resolved here and we'll have some more keymode specific criteria coming soon

archiving