i think finishes need to be much much more sparing throughout the map! their placement is great in isolation, and listening back to snippets before writing this I thought maybe i was dumb because actually they sounded totally fine, but the problem happens when you hear a longer section: it is too many cymbal hits! they lose their impact when they're too commonplace
especially in the "quiet" sections, where we practically only have the bass and vocals, the cymbals are much more powerful than what the song is giving: 00:50:805 - 01:01:506 needs no cymbals in my humble opinion, apart from possibly at the notes at the start and or end, and the intro section can only really take about one or two well placed ones before it starts being too much emphasis (i would personally only keep 00:11:060 (1) and possibly 00:06:474 (1))
similarly on the line of thought of "finishes provide a lot of emphasis", that large amount of emphasis helps establish your beats (and in particular your downbeats), which is why i think 00:15:455 (6,1) ends up sounding a bit lopsided, despite being a great idea. the emphasis on 6 is good and helps avoid making the hitsounding sound too straight and march-like, but the emphasis given by the cymbal is so strong that it ends up feeling like 6 is the downbeat, and without any prominent hitsounds on the downbeat, it falls a bit to the wayside and messes with the feeling of the groove of the song, which has a strong point on the downbeats
there are other similar moments where cymbals land before important beats, which similarly i think are good ideas apart from the cymbal being too powerful compared to the hitsounds on the strong beat after, so i would keep the idea but tweak it a bit
alternatively, or on top of reducing the amount of finishes, replacing them with a less intense finish hitsound might help with this stuff (sorry for the wall of text)
really minor thing but i don't particularly love the 1/4 filler here? there's a lot of 1/4 that really accurately reflects some interesting vocals in the song (in particular, I love 00:11:060 (1,2,3,4,5) as a pattern), or drum action, or even just like the undrlying beat, but there's also a couple moments where I think including all the sounds makes for a bit of a weird pattern:
for example, at 00:31:888 (4,5,6) there is technically a sound on 5, but it's a drum sound and it kinda fades into the background because it's part of the backing beat of the whole song, and the map has been mainly following vocals for the past however long. so mapping 5 gives it much more emphasis (for breaking out of that "mapping vocals" pattern that was generally happening) than i think the drum deserves and i'm not sure it worked well for me, but like i say there is technically something there so this is really just a minor personal nitpick
00:19:468 (3,4) - there's a pretty noticeable drum sound between these two, and considering the map has been simplifying vocals and following the drums more so far, it felt a bit out of place to miss the 3/4 drum pattern in order to go for the vocals
I would take the chance to start following the vocals here (00:20:232 (1)). this is a memorable, distinct looking pattern, and you're switching from following drums to vocals on a change between vocal phrases rather than in the middle of the singer's vocals where you have it currently
00:37:621 (6) - I would cut this slider in half, you're focusing on the vocals here (I think at least) and so hitting the vocal at 00:37:812 would be nicer
personally i think it's much more apt as a low extra than as an insane with the longer bursts and bigger jumps (most of the points i brought up would be non-issues for an extra, and indeed the map it reminded me of is also an extra), but maybe the 160bpm offsets that enough for it to be a tricky insane, i'm no spread sage
idk if you already have had it playtested, but that would be good, see if players at an insane level are ready for this one
sick, i love it, the flow is so delicious, reminds me of one of my favourite maps ever and its going straight into my favourites
yeah what i was trying to say is that i like the 1/4s on vocals but i dont like the 1/4s on drums as much because the vocals are much more important/"foregrounded" (whereas the drums are pretty constant throughout the song and i feel they're not special enough for the extra density of a 1/4). advocating for less mapped sounds instead of more
(so for example I would prefer 00:31:888 (4,5,6) without 5)
I'd rather have circles hitting the filler on (2,3) than a slider, because sliders are landing on vocals during the kiai.
(Sliders do also hit some drum&guitar stuff; circles do hit a couple of vocals, but I'd like to keep that to a minimum)
I really don't like mixing stack rhythms, but the difficulty and AR are high enough for it to be perfectly fine I think. Players at this level can most likely read all the gaps in here instinctively!
Closing to try avoid emphasising too many things - I tend to get overfocused on trying to catch all the sounds and I don't really want to do that with this map. I think the drums are most prominent here
I feel like the growing sv + change in rotation and distance works together nicely enough until the big jump emphasis, so closing
Hm I think this guitar sound is soft enough (especially compared to the drums) that I can get away with it - closing! c: