Taiko Ranking Criteria wrote:

1. Finish notes
   Finish notes must not be in the middle or at the beginning in a 1/4 or above stream. At the end, finish streams may be allowed if there is a reasonable sound for it. Finisher notes at the end of a stream must have the opposite color of the four previous notes.

change to
This allows proper usage of:
This disallows abusive usage of:

We need to get rid of the notion that finishers at the end of doublets, triplets, quads, quintuplets, and streams is a bad thing. When finishers are used in a proper method where it matches a cymbal type sound in the music, and it isn't in the middle or beginning of a double/triplet/whatever, it does not affect playability or readability.

The QAT should be focusing on abusive cases of this like shown in t/129982, not reasonable cases like shown in t/165562, and this is why I'm proposing this rule change. As it is right now, reasonable pattern usages are being held back from going through ranking as the rule as it stands now does not allow any flexibility with BPM or with pattern usage with finishers.

The reason for 150BPM being suggested as the cutoff for requiring a 1/2 break is that it will weed out abusive cases of finisher use in higher BPMs (Like shown in Loctav's map). The BPM is perfectly open to being discussed, but I personally feel this is the best BPM to have the 1/2 cutoff as anything above 150BPM with a 1/4 break minimum starts to look cluttered.

Similar to my argument on another ranking criteria thread, I do not feel bpm or millisecond values should not contribute directly to or detract directly from difficulty. A map that is faster should only be more difficult because it is faster, not because it is allowed/disallowed to have certain patterns.

Additionally, if this were to somehow go through, I disagree that oO should be disallowed, but I do agree that ...ooO should be disallowed.

I agree with what you're saying about BPM in 99% of cases, but disagree on finishers. Finishers are very bpm reliant as they essentially double the bpm requirements of your fingers. For example, ddddd at 180bpm allows you to alternate fingers. DDDDD at 180bpm however doesn't allow you to alternate at all, which turns it from a reasonable 180bpm pattern into a pattern that feels more like 360bpm due to its nature of essentially being a jack in mania, and the reason oO / ooooO haven't been allowed in any iteration of rules.

I personally don't agree with the rule involving oO patterns, but I understand why it is there and there isn't much community support to allow it, whereas there is community support for many of the patterns I'm bringing up here.

So let us imagine a bpm value x is somehow determined. Will we be allowed to use ooX and such patterns at bpm x-1? x-0.01?

While this objective approach makes me appear difficult, but don't you agree that a pattern shouldn't suddenly be allowed or disallowed upon reaching the threshold of a bpm value x that had to be agreed upon? By all means, if common sense was a little bit more common, you could simply oust this rule and leave all Finish patterns up to the discretion of the BAT!

On another note, oX and oO are equal in difficulty for people that play with only one hit per hand.

This approach isn't disallowing the finisher pattern itself, its making the spacing requirement a tad bit higher when you breach a certain bpm. Yes this is still technically limiting following patterns, but there needs to be some semblance of spacing requirements set for these notes for readability issues, not so much playability issues. Normally I'd say this would be caught by the BAT/QAT but I've lost faith in the team as of late to see what is reasonable and what isn't, so I put in my own thought on what I feel is reasonable to give a standard. I like that this is being discussed however, as I'd like another way to go about dealing with readability issues these notes bring up without having to have a BPM requirement set.

As for your other note (unless I'm misunderstanding), finisher notes are always considered as being hit on both dons or both kats when mapped as they give bonus / double points when hit properly with both dons / kats.

It doesn't matter if a player intends to hit them with one key as they're intended for both, and therefore when looking at oO and oX, dD would be harder than dK because for dD you would be required to minijack on one of the don keys, whereas dK uses three keys and doesn't require a minijack.

I meant that I use left thumb for left don left kat, and right thumb for right don right kat. That'll clarify everything.

As for my final comment, we refer to how 5:00 is the marathon length, but some people would still qualify maps that are 4:59 or 4:58 in length. It is absurd that this is even a possible discussion topic, but it will translate directly onto this one. If the determined bpm is 150, then songs at 149.99 bpm will suddenly be allowed to use this these Finish patterns. I'm not against the usage of Finish patterns at ANY bpm, to be honest; it is ultimately up to the player to learn how to play any pattern given to them (see beatmania iidx).

Considering there's 4 keys in this game, limiting yourself to 2 is your own decision, much like limiting yourself to 1 hand in IIDX is your own decision, even if it makes patterns harder. This isn't authentic taiko where you're limited to your left and right hands alone, you have four fingers available here.

Obviously there's going to be fringe cases, there is in practically any rule. Arguing otherwise would be silly. This issue could easily be rectified by allowing it to be up to the discretion of the QAT, making that particular rule a guideline, or both. Honestly this would probably work better as a guideline for the reasons you brought up, and it'd allow the QAT to deal with abusive cases.

Taiko doesn't need rules, it just needs guidelines

Support

Tasha wrote:

Taiko Ranking Criteria wrote:

1. Finish notes
   Finish notes must not be in the middle or at the beginning in a 1/4 or above stream. At the end, finish streams may be allowed if there is a reasonable sound for it. Finisher notes at the end of a stream must have the opposite color of the four previous notes.

change to

1. Finish notes
   Finish notes must not be in the middle or at the beginning of any 1/4 or above stream. Finishers may only be used at the end of a pattern under four conditions:
   - The finisher must have a reasonable sound to be mapped to
   - The pattern's previous note is the opposite colour
   - If there is a finisher at the end of a pattern in a map 150BPM or above, there must be a 1/2 break before the next pattern. If the map is below 150BPM, there must be a 1/4 break before the next pattern. This does NOT apply to singular finishers.
   - The previous note is not more than halfway overlapping the finisher.

This allows proper usage of:

1. ooX
2. oxxxO
3. oX

This disallows abusive usage of:

1. ooO
2. oxxoO
3. oO

yes please, i agree with this

Tasha wrote:

Taiko Ranking Criteria wrote:

This allows proper usage of:

1. ooX
2. oxxxO
3. oX

Nwolf wrote:

Taiko doesn't need rules, it just needs guidelines
Support

Agree with this
becuase, ooX and oX are seems acceptable
and for a low BPM like this one t/165562
i think it's rankable becuase 120BPM

For obvious reasons I am supporting this. The only reason I would guess why anything shorter than ooooX was not allowed is because you could abuse it by spamming them all over the place (then again it would just make it harder, not impossible in most cases). I do not know why was it banned in the first place, I believe BATs and QATs are not robots and can judge whether something is playable or not. If they don't agree, they can discuss it, bring up ACTUAL reasons why it doesn't fit or why it does and reach a consensus together.

As far as I know we can vote maps and comment on them. If the community is dissatisfied with certain mapping styles, we can just say so, even with a 1 star vote.

Allowing it under a specific bpm or disallow above it is a good start since Taiko depends on bpm but this shouldn't be a rule just a guideline. The BATs are exist to decide whether allow it or not on x map during testplay. And we can always ask for a second oppinion if we are kinda uncertain about them. Having this as a rule can bring up serious problems as those already stated with the example. Yes, we still can be there but in that case we will need to go against the rule when we suggesting removal on 149,99 bpm. Add this as a guideline and remove the rule should be enough, or add a link to the guideline at the place of the rule.

However, if you play with words a bit a nice rule can be created:

Having finisher as a last note is allowed around 130 bpm or under.

Why better like this? Because this way the players can go below or a bit above without reject since 140 bpm is still easy.

I just don't really know if the break portion of the rule/guideline should stay, some cases would support having a note right after the finisher (like xxxxO x o etc.) for reasons depending on the song.

After picking up playing and mapping some taiko, I've been wondering why this actually is a rule in the first place. I mean, if you consider Taiko to be an actual simulation of playing a taiko drum, I'd imagine you'd have patterns where you'll have to hit with both drum sticks.
Also the fact that the finish has to be in a different color seems weird to me; as someone who plays with my two index fingers, the rule seems to favor particular playstyles over others, which I don't really think it should.

But hey, I'm no expert in taiko, so who am I to talk

BPM shouldn't set the limits if this becomes a thing, as it's very subjective, certain BPMs are hard for some people while for others can play it normally, if something the patterns should be where the guideline is set, as they are more universal. Though I agree there's a zone where this could be allowed, below 100-110 BPM, where some songs are fast paced and could be mapped like the double.

Probably this would be more like a guideline than a rule. This comes from a person who dislikes 1/4 big notes, so take this with a grain of salt.

Hi. I'm most likely neutral to this whole topic. After all, it's up to the mapper what he/she is gonna do with the map and what people will think of it as verto mentioned before. But even so, I will still tackle some concerns I have, by looking at the cost and gain of this change, especially modding wise and how it can effect the freedom in mapping after all.

In most points I can agree with what Tasha said. But this whole topic works rather when an experienced mapper talks to another experienced mapper. In most cases, these people understand each others idea and concerns since they gained over the years some kind of sense / feeling for it. But this changes once a modder gets confronted with someone who might be new / less experienced to this kind of mapping. I will explain through a .txt I have prepared before:


That's my current stands on the whole situation. In short you could say: I'm afraid about the way the modding could go. Of course, many rules have fringe cases as Tasha said before. But saying what a low BPM map is or when there is an overuse of patterns is nothing that can be valuated in an objective way. Many rules are based on subjective views from the past, which got accepted by the community and has become -more or less- objective. But on stuff like BPM, where it varriates a lot from user to user(especially time wise), I'm really unsure.

And that QAT thing... I find it vague. Speaking of a view as QAT, I say, this rather works in a perfect world where people accept the decision of the QAT fully. Which in most cases isn't the case and which leads directly to "he / she took my freedom, (possible rule change!)". Which personally, I don't like either. It's not really a community decision anymore(rule) but more of a QATs decision(gudeline/rule change) who suddenly stays -more or less- above the guideline, since he has the decision to say what's fine and what not. But as rule, the QAT is subordenated to that rule.

Current rule we have now makes no difference with BPM or how mapper map. It doesn't favor one mapping above the other(e.g. one oX or bundeled oX). People have no reason to complain since it is mostly fair and BAT / QAT can refair to the rule if anything happens. But with current suggestion, it will be more subjective based.


pooooost alwaaaaaays soooo looooooong, I might have forgot something.

Yes, its really hard to choose one exact bpm to use but once we found it it can be used perfectly. I'm still think we shouldn't draw an exact line because "around" gives a bit more freedom to mappers to choose whether they want to use finishers on 135 bpm (for example) or not if the rule says 130. But patterns like this can be easy for a certain play style while really hard with others. Thats why this shouldn't be an exact rule in the first place.

From other aspect:

The problem brought up by one map. Should we change the rule just because of one map? I mean, okay let's change it to make that map rankable but what about the others? Rule shouldn't be changed just because of one map in the first place. Yes, there are songs where mappers can use this kind of patterns and we take his/her freedom with this rule but allowing something has a serious impact on the futures mapping. Allowing this can lead many unqualification since maybe BATs can think that oX fit but QATs not. And force the mapper to remove them is also a no go.

I don't really understand why harder to press oX than ooooX. I think oX is easier to handle in the first place but I'm kinda new in taiko mapping.

You don't need to draw a straight line where you can or cannot use the oX / ooX et cetera, it's not like we are programming an automatic map-checking-robot which cannot differentiate sensible use or just messing around with finishers. Any differing opinion between B/QATs and mappers can be solved most of the time by COMMUNICATING.

Kurokami wrote:

I don't really understand why harder to press oX than ooooX. I think oX is easier to handle in the first place but I'm kinda new in taiko mapping.

It's not about a single instance of oX being harder than ooooX, but people would put oX xO oX next to each other which is really taxing and hard to read even at low BPM . That's why we should leave it to the modders, BATs and QATs to decide if we used the pattern sensibly, or we are just trying to make the map harder artifically.