Ascendance's Ultimate osu!catch Mapping Contest II
March-April 2018
Discord Link: https://discord.gg/hacdQgF
Contest .osz Post: p/6554207
Introduction and What's Changed from UCMC #1
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of the Ultimate osu!catch Mapping Contest. With the notable success of the first contest as well as the desire to help the mapping community grow even further, I've decided that from here on out, these contests will be held in 2-month periods over the course of the year. This means January, March, May, July, September, and November will all be host to a mapping contest, as long as there is interest and people willing to support it.
For more important things, here's what's changed in this contest.
- UCMC II will play host to the first collab competition. Teams of no more than 2 (solo teams are now allowed) will be able to compete and win prizes together!
- To register a team, both you and your teammate will need to send Ascendance a forum PM to confirm that you both agree to be on the same team.
- The song will be of any genre, but will be a song over 4 minutes long. This is intended to give ample time for both mappers to be able to map an even amount of parts.
- The "Structure" category will now involve a consistency aspect. This is a measure of the synergy between the two mappers. If the parts flow together nicely without abrupt changes, this will result in a higher score, for example.
- Teams can contain international members. You do not have to be from the same country to be on a team.
- If one teammate is defined as an "Expert" mapper and one teammate is defined as a "Novice" mapper, the team will be participating in the Expert competition.
The Schedule
- March 1, 2018: Announcement and judge recruitment / supporter donations
- March 17, 2018: Song selection and rule change cutoff
- March 24, 2018: .osz release
- March 24 - May 7, 2018: Mapping Phase
- May 7, 2018 - May 21, 2018: Judging Phase
- May 22, 2018: Winner announced
The Format (Copypaste ayy)
Well Ascendance, what the hell is goin' on around here, I'm not quite sure I follow! How can a new mapper stand up against an experienced mapper in a contest?
Well never fear friends! In this contest, there'll be two "divisions" of judging - new mapper, or the Novice category, and experienced mapper, or the Expert category. These two categories will allow mappers to square up against people of similar abilities to them and test their limits in a way that won't make them discouraged.
For people in the Expert category, you won't need to worry. Novice category mappers will not be able to win the same prizes as the higher echelons of competition, simply because it wouldn't be fair. We aren't undervaluing the newer mappers, but rather promoting mappers to aim for the top in the highest level of mapping.
To qualify as a Novice, you need to fit the following criteria. Breaking any of these criteria will cause you to be moved into the Expert category:
- No Ranked Maps (osu!catch)
- No Ranked Guest Difficulties (osu!catch)
- Under 40 submitted osu!catch mapsets
- Cannot be a Beatmap Nominator (osu!catch)
- Cannot be a Winner of a previous Novice competition
Expert:
1st place: Profile Badge (tentative), 2mo Supporter Tag, BN assistance in the ranking of the map
2nd place: 2mo Supporter Tag
Novice:
1st place: Profile Badge (tentative) 2mo Supporter Tag, Additional assistance through the ranking process
2nd place: 1mo Supporter Tag
In addition to the above, the winning mapsets are encouraged, but not obligated, to incorporate other contest entries into their mapset to showcase the best that the contest has to offer!
Judging Criteria
- Judges will first be voting individually based on the following criteria:
- Creativity (10 points) - The creative portion of your difficulty. This can come down to simple things such as aesthetics, or something more advanced such as an overall theme or unique patterning.
- Structure (10 points) - Did your map fit together well or did it feel random? Are the ideas you introduce consistent throughout the entirety of the map? How well do you and your teammates' parts flow together? Is there a noticeable difference between the two parts?
- Expression (10 points) - How accurately does the difficulty of the map represent the song? Points in this category are awarded based on the cohesiveness of the difficulty as a whole, as well as determining if your map fits the song at all stages.
- Hitsounding (3 points) - Does the hitsounding of your map make sense? Does it add or detract from the difficutly and do the various settings make sense (samplesets, volumes, etc)?
- Judge's Opinion (7 points) - This category is based on the judge's personal opinion of your difficulty. There is no innate criteria for it, but the judge may have their own personal criteria to fit the 7 points.
Rules
Registering to participate:
- Registration is needed this time. To register a team, both you and your teammate will need to send Ascendance a forum PM to confirm that you both agree to be on the same team.
- Maps will consist of 1 difficulty of ANY level, but be reasonable. Lower difficulties will not score as many points as generous attempts at higher difficulties. (Platter and above is recommended. With the winning mapset, staff members will be willing to fill out the lower difficulties of the set before it is pushed for rank, if the mapper desires). Example set - The top diffs are all other participant's entries, the other diffs are filled by the winner's friends and staff members.
- Submissions with more than 1 difficulty submitted will have only the highest difficulty judged.
- Maps are allowed only to use default hitsounds. No additional custom sets will be allowed, and the presence of custom sets will detract from score.
- Maps are to be submitted through .osu format only. This means storyboards and custom backgrounds will not be permitted until the contest ends.
- The mapset collab parts can be no more than 60%/40% in either direction between mappers. This will be counted, so please be sure parts are split as evenly as possible.
- The map only needs to be submitted by ONE teammate. Please choose who submits it and make sure both participants are listed. Example: (UCMC 2 SUBMISSION : Ascendance / Ascendance 2)
- Mapsets cannot be submitted until the winner of the contest is announced. Submitting your mapset or sharing your entry with any other participant is grounds for a disqualification.
- Mapsets submitted past the cutoff date (UTC+0) will not be accepted whatsoever.
Staff
Assistant:
Judges:
Supporter Donators: Please support, I'm a poor college student with not enough money to pay this much
PM Ascendance with any questions you may have <:
