This map is a special case because it's cs, ar, od, hp = 0. Since there is absolutely no reason to play without HR unless the flipped map is easier for the player, you could ctrl+a ctrl+j to have the map played as intended. I can see how this suggestion could be controversial, so if you disagree or have already thought of this, you can go ahead and resolve.
01:21:899 (10) - I'd feel more comfortable if this slider were 1/4 instead of 3/8; 2.25x slider velocity feels ok to preserve structure and match intensity compared to the mapped sound, but it's up to you how you'd like it
This is the most difficult part of the map: 01:47:681 (1,2,3) - . While it's during the kiai, it seems like the difficulty is more than necessary.
Since the rhythm of the start of this line of notes breaks from the previous one at 01:39:836 (1,2,3,4) - , it becomes by far most difficult part of the map when adding it to the spacing increase.
Players who can learn maps at this level won't have any trouble aiming while reading ahead, but still I'd suggest finding a way to make it slightly easier.
As an example, 01:44:577 (1,2,3,4,1,2,1,2,3) - and 01:52:853 (1,2,3,4,1,2,1,2,3) - could rotated 180 degrees to make the spacing more even. I know low ar mapping makes stuff hard to arrange, so it's mostly up to you.
Hi~ heard this map is going for ranked status, so I've decided to try modding for the first time.
First of all, I wanted to thank you and other mappers for trying to push ar0 into the ranked section. This has made me want to spend more time playing online.
This mapset is cool because it adds reading concepts on each difficulty to get to the final diff, which is the most difficult to read—and in a sense—the beatmap in its "final" form: something I really like to see.
I had no trouble one-try and two-try sightread HD full comboing the hard and insane diffs respectively.
The Focus! diff, however, breaks from quite a few concepts with its stack leniency change.
I did notice the stack leniency progression going from Hard (0.2) to Insane (0.1) to Focus! (0.0), which seems like a nice idea, but unfortunately the jump from .1 to 0 is way too large in my opinion.
The 1/8, 1/6, and 1/4 beats suddenly being perfectly stacked is a huge reading difficulty increase, a lot of which seems to be on parts not intended for as much difficulty. This actually makes some of the less intense parts harder than the more intense ones because notes stack perfectly more often when spacing is lower, and there is no aim flow to follow to help with reading.
To put the difficulty difference in perspective, I sightread the map with hd only, played some practice diffs to get a feel for the song. Then, I played it 8 times on stack leniency .2, and then 7 times on stack leniency 0 afterward, leaving the sightread at the bottom.
These were the results:
https://osu.ppy.sh/ss/16041750/3d6b
https://osu.ppy.sh/ss/16041752/5018
Of course, hard memorizing the map would make the stacks trivial after a while, but I feel like this would make for an excellent reading (as opposed to memory) map on stack leniency .2 .
I also tried the map on .1 afterwards, but I believe leaving both the Insane and Focus! diffs on .2 would be the most consistent and fun, while also making the top diff a good test of rhythmic reading.
You could argue that I'm simply not good enough for this diff, or that it shouldn't be much of a problem without HD, so maybe a second opinion could help you decide what's best. Good luck~
Diff name change to Aery’s Special Insane – Reading difficulty taken into account, I believe this map to be of similar difficulty to fanzhen’s Extra, and below Yokes’ Extra. However, until the star rating/pp system takes into account for reading difficulty, it would make sense to rename the diff to Insane. This will put the map in line with other reading-difficult Insanes, such as Deramok’s Hidden Insane on Ding https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/727333#osu/1570419 and fanzhen’s Insane on Mikazuki https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/481703#osu/1430354 .
Complete implementation of New Combo concept – This should help players new to this AR (pretty much everyone) figure out when each note needs to be hit. Due to the abundance of simple rhythms, the map should feel much easier if the player can figure out this concept. Parts of the map were edited to allow the implementation without breaking other aspects of the map.
Approach rate change from 0.8 to 1.8 – This eliminates the need for Stack Leniency < 2 and rids the map of a few unintended overlaps. I agree that 0.8 was too low. Due to the new-combo concept, AR = 1.8 allows the map to show entire patterns without making it too cluttered for gameplay.
HP drain rate change from 5.5 to 4.2 – Since new combos were rearranged to implement the concept, some parts of the map have become more difficult to pass than before, so the drain was adjusted to compensate. While passing should be a challenge, an isolated slight misread shouldn’t fail the player.
Heavy use of linear patterns For obvious reasons, distance-snapped notes that form a path with wide angles are easy to read.
New combos on every note that has a larger than ½ beat spacing from the previous note.
Straightforward bursts and sliders. No need to distinguish between ½ and ¼ rhythms. There is nothing fancy going on here. A sort-of distance snap is used to help the player as well.
Stack Leniency = 2. Not a single ½ rhythm is stacked.
Those who do play maps with AR this low will find this map to be much easier than any other one at a similar difficulty and AR. The approach rate of this map is what makes it unique. There aren’t any ranked maps of this difficulty with AR<5, but with the design of the map, it’s much more straightforward than even recently ranked maps such as dsco’s Don’t Suffer on Dum Surfer https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/716193#osu/1513180 or Arf’s BonuS-TYPE on C-TYPE https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/757146#osu/1596946 , especially with Hidden.
Aery’s Special Insane aims to be different from other gimmick reading/memory maps in the way that it relies on raw density rather than excessive overlaps, visually misleading patterns, or extreme/complex rhythmic prediction accuracy for its reading difficulty. Thanks to this, the map introduces a level of density reading not seen before in the ranked section that builds off of concepts from currently ranked old-style/gimmick maps.
The main goal of this map is to introduce concepts of extreme high density/low approach rate to players who have never played it, but are familiar with lower-than-typical approach rate gameplay (EZ and old-style/gimmick map players). Here, I will discuss 1) why the map belongs in the Ranked Section, 2) why the difficulty of the map is reasonable for the ranked section, and 3) changes from the previous version of the map.