So in the past few years there has been discussions regarding what discourages a mapper to rank their set in osu!mania. For that long, there has been a conclusion that hitsounding with spread building is what discourages a mapper. But there is no concrete data on that statement since it is just a speculation passed on by mappers that regularly trying to rank a mapset. There exist other possibilities on what troubles mapper either it is subjective such as the quality of patterning or objective such as timing the song.

With that in mind, I created a survey that lists possibilities of problem that a mapper may face when mapping for ranked. This survey isn't limited to those who are familiar with osu!mania mapping scene. Those who just started or plans to may fill this as well.
Form Link: https://forms.gle/9uRHijZmeBFPfZmM7

I'm aware that there has been another osu!mania survey that went around for some time. The survey digs deep into hitsounding and spread specifically. While it is trying to uncover a detailed information of the already-speculated problems, this survey aims to get a much wider picture of what troubles the ranking scene. Hopefully this could give us a new information we aren't aware of osu!mania ranking scene and decide things more precise in the future.

Kindly fill this and the already-going ones ( https://forms.gle/vtkNx4q3VYQv1auL9 ) as both of these trying to get a different kind of information. Thank You.

In Osu!mania Mapset Ranking Problem Survey, what does this option mean?

It means when a mapper holds back on ranking stuff because they don't know if community wants their maps or not.

I submitted a response to both. While I play with hitsounds, I explicitly disable map specific hitsounds, preferring to use my skin's hitsounds. They do help me time things a bit, but only because I use hitsounds that art short, and have no delay between the start of the hitsound and the loudest part. Custom hitsounds, and even patterns in the hitsounds with my default sounds can be distracting at best, and make the song sound much worse at worst.

I have some maps I would be willing to try to rank if the criteria was made easier, but I have no desire to spend time hitsounding or adding more difficulties to those maps.

My main problem with getting anything ranked is that there are rules at all. In other words I've created what I had to create and because it doesn't fit the criteria for ranked it probably never will be. I don't particularly aspire to changing or adding on to what I've made thusfar because it meets my own personal standard for content that I enjoy playing and sharing as is. With there being no alternative system in place that can accept this kind of mentality, it leaves me and probably plenty of others to our own devices and our maps to graveyarded.

For me, I've never really liked submitting to stepmania packs either though. If you're familiar with the way community driven packs are, there are rules for the specific type of content, difficulty, or song choice sometimes that everyone joins together and usually the packs that the stepmania communities make are very good quality. I view ranked in a similar way that it's basically 1 big pack, with its own rules. I create my own packs in stepmania and have my own viewpoints on what is good to go and what is not.

I hope this may be insightful!

IcyWorld, the problem with having no rules, as you probably know, is that then we would have people making truly awful maps and trying to get them ranked. As an experienced charter for stepmania, you have learned how to judge the quality of your creations.

The majority of maps I play are unranked, primarily because the kind of maps I enjoy are usually not viable for ranked due to various issues (lack of hitsounding, lack of difficulty spread, use of 7 keys at once, etc.) and also usually don't reach the required level of community awareness to even be considered for loved. But when I look for more maps like that, I often run into very bad maps that absolutely have no business being considered for any sort of recognition. And I'm not talking about maps that have patterns I don't like, but maps that feel like a monkey started smashing the keyboard while live mapping was enabled.

Unfortunately there must be some way to keep maps like those from becoming ranked, while still allowing maps that are reasonably charted to be eligible.

if a map gets ranked is because a lot of people tested it

if it's bad it wont get ranked even if theres no rules, you can judge a map by its quality rather than ticking if it follows the rules and accepting it just because it does even if it's not that good or interesting

So when I first created this questionnaire I thought that I'd keep the questionnaire open for a week so I could gather many respondents. But for the past few days the respondent count just rocketed a lot so I decided to extend the questionnaire period.

This questionnaire will open for more respondents until Sunday, December 29th 17:00:00 UTC+7 (10:00:00 UTC+0).
This is a soft deadline so it may be late an hour or two depends on my availability.

Ideally maps should be ranked based on agreement with what the mapper desires, or not at all. Granted mistakes should be corrected, but if the mapper is pointed out an issue and refuses to fix it, then that is forcing a preference that does not align with the mapper's wishes. Tho why even deal with such noise anyway? Why even go through the headache of ranking a map by satisfying the community preferences and changing parts of what mapper created to suite community preferences? Then we complain about there being a lack of higher difficulty maps being ranked.

Bobbias wrote:

The majority of maps I play are unranked, primarily because the kind of maps I enjoy are usually not viable for ranked due to various issues (lack of hitsounding, lack of difficulty spread, use of 7 keys at once, etc.) and also usually don't reach the required level of community awareness to even be considered for loved. But when I look for more maps like that, I often run into very bad maps that absolutely have no business being considered for any sort of recognition. And I'm not talking about maps that have patterns I don't like, but maps that feel like a monkey started smashing the keyboard while live mapping was enabled.

Unfortunately there must be some way to keep maps like those from becoming ranked, while still allowing maps that are reasonably charted to be eligible.

I think an automated system that puts maps with certain number unique plays into a dedicated category would solve the problem of trying to find maps that are not utter shit. That may partially solve the maps lacking community awareness problem, and should filter out a significant portion of the awful maps.

[Ska] wrote:

if a map gets ranked is because a lot of people tested it

if it's bad it wont get ranked even if theres no rules, you can judge a map by its quality rather than ticking if it follows the rules and accepting it just because it does even if it's not that good or interesting

How many people is enough? What's not to say a decent portion of those to be biased in favor of the mapper? There needs to be rules, at least basic ones, but basic ones wouldn't filter out maps that play really bad.

Actually yes, both of these requirements had put me off of making my own charts since if I'm not going to be able to rank them I wouldn't bother making the effort to make them to begin with.

All this stuff was enforced by some small group while not giving a **** about what the community asked for, even during the osu!mania beta.

Also I can't understand why autoconverts are still available to this day, they should've been disabled 1 year after the osu!mania beta.

Edit:

Hitsounds should and must be optional, they should be separated from actual keysounds too. The game should have separate volumes for both generic hitsounds AND proper keysounds.

The main generic hitsound should be applied automatically to every note. Hitsounding could be separated from the chart so anyone could submit proper hitsounding to apply to the chart in an easy way for players who prefer that.

About Diff. Spread, I'd say we should start to think about of restructuring the way Osu! does songs to allow for more flexibility and community effort.
I'd say we should decouple the assets from the charts and build a system in which every chart has its own Ranking Status and anyone can contribute to, while defaulting to this structure in song selection:

Song>Creators>nK Modes>Difficulties.

Thanks for your reply Bobbias! It definitely highlights the issue with how I would do things. I propose a solution could be for osumania at least, to have more than just 1 set of criteria for a map to be ranked. You can have the current rulset, and promote the files that meet this 1st set of rules as such. You can also have rule set 2, that allows for more diversity and may be more lenient than the 1st ruleset, and the files that meet rule set 2 can be promoted as such and still be ranked. This can go on, and would help to set the expectations for what kind of map a player would be playing from each rule set.

I want to be upfront as well, I know that there are rules for ranked, I have never read them, and I don't even know how to submit a file for ranked, or if submitting files for ranked is a process that even exists. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it something like every uploaded map is eligible for ranked but it has to be looked at while it's pending status, and if it doesn't get ranked it's graveyarded? If that's the case there should be a centralized area that mappers can submit their stuff to that serves 3 purposes, it may drastically lower the amount of things a judge would have to comb through, and it would engage the community more, as well as only have those that truly want their maps ranked the opportunity to say so.

IcyWorld, ranked works like this:

1) Any map submitted can go for rank, regardless what section it is in. Modders are more likely to look at maps in pending because those indicate a finished product going for ranked. You can easily ungraveyard a map by updating it, so that's non factor. People don't go searching for maps to rank, the mapper goes searching for people to rank the map.

2) You start by having people look at your map and suggest changes. This is for other people to catch mistakes you didn't catch yourself. Best way to do that is posting in the appropriate threads here: https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/60. This is also probably the most frustrating part of ranking a map because many modders (people who looks at maps and request changes) have specific preferences regarding what maps they want to see. It may happen that your map doesn't fit the tastes of any modder, in which case you'll either need to make sure it has no mistakes on your own or find someone somewhere who will provide feedback on the map.

3) The map needs to have enough hype to indicate people actually want it ranked. A beatmap needs at least 5 hype to be qualified for nomination. There is a button on beatmap discussions that allows people to hype a map, indicating a "vote" that they want to see it ranked.

4) After you feel confident that your map has no mistakes, follows the ranking criteria, and has enough hype, you can ask a beatmap nominator to nominate it. You need 2 nominations for a map to be qualified. A list of mania BN can be found here: https://osu.ppy.sh/help/wiki/People/Beatmap_Nominators

5) After your map is qualified it will remain qualified for around a week or so for people to play it, take a look at it, etc to make sure it really REALLY has no mistakes. If there are mistakes, then it becomes disqualified and you will need to repeat step 3 again.

6) If your map has not been disqualified within that amount of time, then congratz, it's ranked!

Where are results?

Sorry for the late results. Stuff happened that prevented me concluding the result. With that put aside,

Survey Result

Results taken from 72 Respondents.

Summary:

1. Getting Nominators and Modders are the most problematic in ranking a map (50%+ for all category).
2. New mappers struggles with hitsounding the most (54.55%) compared to Regular and returning mappers (36 - 38%).
3. New mappers struggles with creating a spread (45.45%) more than regular mappers (34%) and returning mappers (18.18%).
4. Returning mappers struggles adapting with an updated Ranking Criteria (45.45%) more than regular mappers (26%) and new mappers (18.18%).
5. Regular and returning mappers both have problems with critics from community (30 - 36%) whilst new mappers not so much (18.18%).
6. Timing and Patterning both are a very minor problem for mappers (10 - 18% for all category).
7. A respondent chose 7 / 8 provided problems.
8. A respondent did not choose any problems (doesn't have any problem).

Spreadsheet link: https://bit.ly/37CELf0

Thank you for all respondents that participates in filling these Survey

I think the solution of getting BN/mod problem can be solved if there was a more automated, systematic process to ranking maps.

Imagine, by clicking a button you consent that your map meets RC and ready for mod, and ready for check. Without having to know who are the BNs, what personal rules they have, are they open or not?

Before your map is added to the poll of maps ready for rank, there is an automated process that checks the simple RC stuff like what AIMod does already in game. To filter out the very obvious mistakes that prevents it from being ranked.

Now on the BN/modder side, you can follow specific mapper/artist/genre/tags to receive notification of new maps being submitted for ranked, or manually look at the existing pool of maps ready for rank/mod.

so map status is like below:
1. Work in progress
2. Pending (finished but not for ranked. waiting for graveyard)
3. Ready for Mod
4. Ready for BN check
5. Qualified
6. Ranked

Realistically though, I don't see peppy care enough to add this, or all the BNs agree to using such process

You think BN and modders will find themselves overrun by people wanting to rank their map even more if things get that easy for the mapper? Imo manpower is a preliminary issue that needs to be addressed before your suggestion.

abraker wrote:

You think BN and modders will find themselves overrun by people wanting to rank their map even more if things get that easy for the mapper? Imo manpower is a preliminary issue that needs to be addressed before your suggestion.

you aren't exactly overrun, the stuff you see are filtered by your own preference that you set.
it doesn't mean you need to check every map, just means you are more accessible.

I also believe manpower is the most important issue. But the problem stated by Mega is how to get more mappers to rank maps. We can only get more modders and BNs if we have more mappers trying to rank their maps.

Kinda off-topic but i wish osu beatmap page would have a recommendation system, like amazon/youtube

Not gonnna surprise getting nominator and getting modders is the most problematic in ranking a map. If u are a BN, think about it. Why will u reject a map? Personal taste is a subjective one. Objectively it did have some problem in there map, then u reject it. But how did mapper know. I know some BN will give some comment or reason, but i think it still missing some specific solution/suggestion. Like u doing a mod, u will give solution/suggestion huh? So that mapper can get improve, otherwise mapper will just keep finding modder that cant really fix the problem, doing a couple of loop, the map will become grave. So that i think we miss some experience modder in the community ( I mean except BN, cuz BN will mroe focus on checking, is glad that some BN doing modding q recently).

It is just my experience from me become a new mapper, a modder, even though BN. It might not happen in everyone, but im sure that it happening

The result didn't surprise me. I myself had a struggle to find a modder who want to (at least) take a look on my map.

Indeed, mostly in my experience, personal preference between modders hinders mappers to receive mods. (I forgot how hard it was.) It (even) getting worse if you're mapping something clearly out-of-meta, like key counts.

The alternative is to ask suggestion between testplayers, but note that 'not every proficient players able to create content on game they playing at'.

For nominators, I can't say anything because I haven't opened my eyes again to take a look on nominators, recently.

Cheers. From retired ranked mapper.

Part of the problem is that modding other people's map gives no reward at all (except for maybe self learning or reputation), which basically makes it a charity run community where a small part of the mappers are modding a large part of the maps that want to get ranked. This creates a HUGE unbalance and forces modders to reject maps straight up because they would have too many requests otherwise.

The amount of mods a map needs to be considered 'good' is also quite obscure and subjective. You can have a perfectly fine map with not a single mod but the only reason it can't be ranked is because it needs mods (I guess for validation? => is't this the BN's job to a certain extent?) All these issues seem to scare a lot of (talented) mappers away (including me) into producing good ranked maps.

Mapping is fun, interacting with the community is fun, but the current ranking system is not.

yetii wrote:

This creates a HUGE unbalance and forces modders to reject maps straight up because they would have too many requests otherwise.

Kinda yea, but also kinda no. This definitely applies to new modders that are accepting just about anything. However for experienced modders I see them reject maps based on music preference and mapping style the most, and less modding requests won't guarantee your map will be modded if they don't like music or style.

yetii wrote:

You can have a perfectly fine map with not a single mod but the only reason it can't be ranked is because it needs mods

I don't think this is true. If your map is flawless you can get it ranked without a single mod. You just need 5 hype and 2 nominations. That's it.

abraker wrote:

yetii wrote:

This creates a HUGE unbalance and forces modders to reject maps straight up because they would have too many requests otherwise.

Kinda yea, but also kinda no. This definitely applies to new modders that are accepting just about anything. However for experienced modders I see them reject maps based on music preference and mapping style the most, and less modding requests won't guarantee your map will be modded if they don't like music or style.

As a modder myself for almost 3 years, and also after talking to many people who have been modding before, getting too many requests really affect us modders. It is pretty much a common thing for modders to get burnt out when receiving tons of request every time you open your queue, and the fact that the whole modding is a charity work don’t really give us that much motivation, even though we want to help others too. Also, about how some of us reject requests because of small preferences, it is either because we want to lower the amount work we need to do, or because we simply don’t want to mod stuff that we don’t like in the first place

abraker wrote:

yetii wrote:

This creates a HUGE unbalance and forces modders to reject maps straight up because they would have too many requests otherwise.

Kinda yea, but also kinda no. This definitely applies to new modders that are accepting just about anything. However for experienced modders I see them reject maps based on music preference and mapping style the most, and less modding requests won't guarantee your map will be modded if they don't like music or style.

Yes and they reject the ones they don't like because they have too many requests. If you get only one request a week in a style you don't like you would probably still do it. If you get 50 req a week then obviously you reject everything you don't like and even things you do like just because you don't have the time.

u can have ranked map without mod. but having more mod is always better because quality is quite subjective.

realistically, there are only 2 ways to increase ranked maps.

1) reduce RC to reduce BN workload

2) decrease expected BN quality to increase BN amount

modders dont directly impact whether ur map is ranked or not (unless ur map is really bad) , BN does.

I think the ranking process is way too long for everyone involved, when 99% of people who play ur map dont care about such thing as 1/16 snap being wrong or GD names has changed in tags

I think we need more people so we dont get called mini game before we start worry about quality.

Snaps should be perfect though..

yetii wrote:

Snaps should be perfect though..

Ideally, yes. Practically, doesnt matter not every player can tell 1/16 snap diff. Im just saying we need more casual ppl to join so we can get more mappers and modders. the player size can only be so big if u only want people from VSRG. and casual people only care about their fav songs are available (ranked)

For sake of analogy. Products made in China sell a lot despite being low quality, but they are cheap and most consumers dont care.

Why does bandori has so many players despite having lots of shit map? cuz of art and songs. Bushiroad also spent shit ton on promotion. i have never seen an Ad for osu.

also should get more female streamers and Vtubers to promote game

more casuals wouldnt do anything for the ranking system cuz casual players will not devote the time into mapping or modding - and generally modding is more of a commitment than mapping. also i suspect vsrg players are less accustomed to mapping than osu organic players like in std or ctb anyway. besides simply adding more bns is not a good solution because there is currently a very low number of applicants for the mode in the first place, even if all were accepted no questions asked there would still be significantly more mappers than modders can handle.

also if u rly think 1/16 snaps and having to put gders in tags is what causes bns to be slow at modding stuff thats kinda funny

Nao Tomori wrote:

also if u rly think 1/16 snaps and having to put gders in tags is what causes bns to be slow at modding stuff thats kinda funny

I think the point of mentioning that is because ranking criteria enforces relatively extreme amounts of perfection that don't necessarily align with what majority of VSRG players care about.

dudehacker wrote:

casual people only care about their fav songs are available (ranked)

that's me uwu

abraker wrote:

Nao Tomori wrote:

also if u rly think 1/16 snaps and having to put gders in tags is what causes bns to be slow at modding stuff thats kinda funny

I think the point of mentioning that is because ranking criteria enforces relatively extreme amounts of perfection that don't necessarily align with what majority of VSRG players care about.

yea i would be down to be BN but the criteria to become one are pretty harsh and I really don't have the time to comit myself to that