rc wrote:

A long note cannot be released during another long note's body. This requires a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

whilst this rule seems to be fine in most cases and definitely makes sense for an easy diff, it imposes unnecessary restrictions on normal diffs in some scenarios.

1. this rule restricts mapping techniques which can be perfectly acceptable in normal diffs.

a common mapping technique is to use multiple LN releases to represent instruments gradually fading out (usually at the end of a song). most of the time the amount of time between releases is adequate enough so that even the most inexperienced of players would be able to handle these.
example (this is on 152 BPM):



generally, as long as the time between releases is long enough and the releases aren't on the same hand this kind of pattern can be acceptable for this difficulty level.

2. this rule restricts any possibility of having introductory level LN diffs.

using different releases is a core technique in LN mapping. if a mapset already contains an easy level difficulty which is adequate for beginners, why not allow mappers to introduce this technique in their normal diffs?

players in normal diffs are subjected to large amounts of 1/2 and even 1/4 when it comes to rice however players encounter no real challenge when it comes to long notes until the hard difficulty level. at that point the learning curve might be a bit steep considering that hard diffs allow for a large variety of more complex LN patterns and players might be turned off from learning them.

potential changes:

1. change the rule into a guideline.

pretty straightforward, this guideline could even be a bit more detailed in terms of how much time there is between releases, and whether LNs should be seperated on different hands.

or

2. keep this as a rule only if normal is the lowest difficulty.

this way newer players will still be able to play a lower difficulty which doesn't require finger independance outside of their ability.

I would like to cite a sample situation where the inconvenience of this rule would put a detriment to 7k normals in particular.

It would limit mapping options for songs with multiple sustained sounds running.

Say holding a long note at 1 for 4/1 + playing 5675 1/1 ln layer is a perfectly decent pattern for normal but is not applicable under the current rule.

However, it would make sense to restrict ln releases that happen in the same "physical hand" (not to be confused with hand = 3 notes) ex. 12 simultaneous holds where 1 would be released 1/2 after 2.

Col 4 will be a bit of a gray area for this.

Would provide pictures to make explanation easy but im on mobile unfortunately.

alright, time for me to add my two cents to this.

btw thank you scotty, I think I've expressed enough about this rule that it's about time we'd do something about it.

Well, for people who are unfamiliar with this, I've kinda expressed this rule to a couple BNs already who had their opinions on the matter and from the people I've talked to, they've agreed to an extent that the rule can be limiting, ESPECIALLY higher keymodes. Though I say this, I can kind of understand why this rule was put in place to begin with. Especially if you're releasing LNs on the same hand, this can be tricky for many new players getting into normals and might be a little too complicated if it was one huge LN and a bunch of smaller LNs being released. However, keeping into account BPM and hand dependency, I believe this rule should be changed as the rule currently does not exactly take these into account. With low BPM, I feel like this rule heavily restricts what mappers are able to do as there's only so much you can honestly express with BPMs considerably low in which I think this rule takes away. As well as hand dependency, in which Ash brought up in a discussion. If an LN was being released on the same hand as another LN was being held, I can totally stand behind this rule, but a lot of the time from my experience, it's exactly the opposite with LNs being on opposite hands. Through BN checking, I've had to change quite a few normal diffs because of this rule when the pattern wasn't even hard to begin with. The rule is incredibly limiting which is why I would like to see it changed.

That being said, what's the next best step to change it. Well after reading Scotty's post above, he makes some salient points that I think that the: "Keep this as a rule only if normal is the lowest difficulty." is a pretty good alternative actually. I don't entirely believe that moving it to guidelines would be incredibly effective as I could see many new players struggle if people kept putting LNs being released and held on the same hand. However, I was thinking it would be best if we reworded the rule a bit and made it so focused a little more on hand dependency as I believe that's the main source of the problem at hand here. Something like:

A long note cannot be released during another long note's body if on the same hand. This requires a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

Doesn't have to be in that exact wording I put it in but something like this in which it compensates for the rule in place but also allowing LNs to be released on opposite hands is something I think people would like to see ideally. Hope I was able to add to the discussion here a bit.

Unpredictable wrote:

A long note cannot be released during another long note's body if on the same hand. This requires a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

this please

I really like Unpredictables idea. But something still bothers me..

I have the feeling that this could let happen 1/4 releases on long notes.. which really should not be a thing in Normal difficulties.

So if we change this rule, I also would make it that releases should be at least 1/2 beat from each other.

But otherwise, nice idea

AntoriAntori wrote:

Unpredictable wrote:

A long note cannot be released during another long note's body if on the same hand. This requires a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

this please

yes agree

Love this idea! I personally support changing this rule into a guideline so that there’s more flexibility since being able to release LNs on the same hand is a skill that players will need to develop eventually. With large enough spacing mapping out LNs on the same hand isn’t too hard to pull off in a normal difficulty imo.

In response to Feerum’s point: 1/2 theoretically is a good idea but I think that might make things a little more difficult on low bpm maps since a 1/2 gap between releases in a 180 bpm map is very different from a 1/2 gap between releases in a 90 bpm map. Maybe we could use a ms difference between releases? Since 180 bpm is the standard we could have the time between 1/2 releases in a 180 bpm map as the rule instead, just so that things are a little fairer for all BPMs.

Though to be completely honest I don’t think 1/2 LN gaps should be restricted in general since there could be situations where they could work, even in higher bpm maps

-MysticEyes wrote:

In response to Feerum’s point: 1/2 theoretically is a good idea but I think that might make things a little more difficult on low bpm maps since a 1/2 gap between releases in a 180 bpm map is very different from a 1/2 gap between releases in a 90 bpm map. Maybe we could use a ms difference between releases? Since 180 bpm is the standard we could have the time between 1/2 releases in a 180 bpm map as the rule instead, just so that things are a little fairer for all BPMs.

The 180 bpm is just an average guideline so that would mean at 90 bpm you would be able to put a 1/4 gap since this would fall under the scaling BPM stuff: https://osu.ppy.sh/help/wiki/Ranking_Criteria/Scaling_BPM


Anyways I think it would be fair to make it a 1/2 gap for the general normal criteria and maybe make it if you would have a normal as lowest difficulty a 1/1 gap so it would also give a bit more leeway for the lower diff since the hard diff has no restrictions to releasing LNs?

i'd personally prefer going with using guidelines instead of rules as there might be specific scenarios in which same hand LN releases might be acceptable, especially on higher keymodes and with large enough spacing.

Completly agree with making this a guideline, because it affects 7k LN maps in normal difficulty

Alright, most of people who replied here were okay with the change, including me. So here's what i would go for:

1. Move the Rule into Guideline. Guidelines must still be followed normally, additional having it in a Guideline allows a leeway for LN-Heave Beatmapsets (Maps which focus mostly on LNs), plus having some room for drastically higher BPM songs.

2. Wording:

2.1:


or

2.2:


I would preferably go with 2.1 because it covers it as a whole. No matter if played with the same hand or not.
2.2 restricts long note releases on different beats with the same hand.

3. ADDITIONAL EASY RULE CHANGE:

As Leni suggested, if we change this, we should make an rule change to Easy difficulty for more leeway.

3.1:


Or

3.2:


This would be added as Guideline as well.

Seems good. Personally in favor of adding the 2.1 and the 3.1 as guidelines as well because as you stated, both these guidelines cover everything and having it as a guideline gives much more leeway to maps that might need it depending on the song/BPM etc. Might even inspire some mappers to try to map their normal/easy diffs a bit differently now which I'm incredibly in favor of. Really pleased that this proposal went smoothly as it did.

Hello! My first post in this forum but I'm finally here to say that I'm fully in favour of adding 2.1 and 3.1 to guidelines, as Unpredictable has stated. Because this gives a lot more room for LN-centric maps, players may find later LN maps less of a jump in difficulty and perhaps the negative stigma will go away (or at least lessen) as they will finally have experienced LN gameplay before Hard an above.

One little nitpick though in the wording:

Feerum wrote:

Later release timings require a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

While it's easy for most people to understand what you mean, I think the word choice here is incorrect in English as 'later' implies slower rather than faster.

Here is how I would personally put it:

Smaller gaps between releases require a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

OR

Faster releases require a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

I personally prefer using the first because it's clearer but the second is also an improvement imo.

This would apply to both 2.1 and 3.1. Hopefully this helps!

Keiga wrote:

Smaller gaps between releases require a level of finger independence that players of this difficulty cannot handle.

This. The rule reworded to what Keiga put it is more descriptive and less vague than what was currently put down. Either of the descriptions Keiga down I'm fine either way with but I tend to lean towards his first option a bit more.

Yeah okay. Agree that sound better. So it would look now like:



If we cool i can make a pull request in github for that

Edit: Pull request created https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/2990

Proposal is merged and in effect immediately.
Moved to Finalized