been reading and thinking about the convo here
just wanna add that sometimes (varies from person to person) the worst thing you can do to "improve" is to try too hard to improve https://youtu.be/zc0vRDh1ECA?si=UNZJOrseiC-XYzUh&t=1289
it can be tempting to look at the things you can't do, which are unnatural and therefore impressive to you, and try to emulate that, and you can definitely learn a lot from that kind of study. and if doing that is fun then that's great, the game's about having fun after all. but it's also beneficial imo to learn to lean into your own strengths, to get out of your own way and explore what only you can do, what comes naturally--so naturally that you might have taken it for granted
if the current community is too troll-y then yeah that's a problem with the community that might need "fixing" (i personally think it's fine, it'd be nice if they took mapping like 9% more seriously but i really enjoy the variety of comments), but trying to police it via site layout is not gonna have the results you want, especially with such a niche community. the userbase can't produce enough reviews to warrant a review-centric layout--and in fact the fact that there aren't as many people on here as RYM is actually a benefit because even casual back-and-forth discussion is still short enough to not be overwhelming. even going through the comments of some controversial map like downpour's promise doesn't take that long, and i find reading that way more interesting than going on rym and seeing a screenful of 10 paragraph essays one after another. my favorite thing about letterboxd is all the one-liner jokes and offhanded comments people make, or just short interesting observations/thoughts... i love the longer more thoughtful reviews people make on letterboxd as well, but only when they're broken up by a good amount of lighter material from other users. if letterboxd was only long tryhard essays i would tune out of it so fast
tbh i like the random bullshit comments, makes the site fun. i agree reviews should be spotlighted when they are posted but i dont think there will be nearly as many reviews as comments. sidelining comments or trying to move them off-site onto discord or something is going to make the site itself feel empty. in fact i'm almost certain that trying to discourage natural conversation is going to kill the site.
obviously speaking as someone who has written several very long-form review-type posts i do think it's important to give people space to take mapping seriously/genuinely, but comments are what keep me coming back to the site. the freedom of the comments section to engage with a beatmap however one wants--with a quip, with a pithy one-liner, with an ongoing dialogue with someone else--is too important; and then if someone does want to make a more heartfelt post about a map then yeah, it should be given extra visibility, but i still think comments should be the default method of communication here, and should be treated as such. also i would also like to see more than just the newest 20 comments on the frontpage, 20 isn't enough. in fact i'd like to see the latest reviews as well--they're mixed into comments on the frontpage so they're hard to find--but again, not in a way that sidelines comments.
i do feel there is a place for reviews even if they're posted somewhat infrequently, and i don't agree that they'll only be posted on the "top 0.1% of maps," in fact none of the reviews posted thus far afaik are even on the top 50 maps. if someone's going to take the time to write a review it's more likely going to be on a lesser known map which means something to them; most of my own review-type comments haven't been on any of the hyperfamous masterpieces.
i might be wrong but i can't imagine there are going to be that many reviews to warrant them being spotlighted over comments, just by virtue of the fact that reviews are longer and take more effort to write than comments. comments are still important enough to be front and center on the homepage imo. in fact we should be able to see more than the most recent 20 comments, 20 isnt enough for me
some maps with scratches i like
bunch of fullmetal jacket maps: muya, yusomi, as well as yf and fanzhen which were mentioned
rustbell scream squad
yusomi beat juggling mix has some simple but super effective scratch usage
fanzhen fairy dancing in lake
and then fanzhen "Homura chan sorry, I become DJ" lmao
people who map elisha always put spinners on that long backspin(?) scratch in the middle. not necessarily "cool mapping" but ive always loved those
comments for shuu no hazama essentially amounted to "there is some cool stuff in here too bad it doesnt play well"
and i recall comment(s?) for chirality saying stuff like "this might have done well in other contests like aspire but this contest is for ranked." at the time they'd rank the winning entries for each song in one big set
i dont really remember super well but shuu no hazama placed like 7th or something? and i believe skystar gave it a decent score but also gave a judge impression rating of 10/10.
rrtyui's chirality placed relatively low for "playability issues" iirc
very cool
reminds me of some recent maps like schoolboy's tree frog, as well as mattay's lonely rolling star which i particularly love. somewhat freeform visuals but very musically aware, and with especially deliberate movement across the playfield. dunno if these mappers share the same inspirations or if it's just parallel developments. all this is very much up my alley though
i like that the website is so mapper centric. frontpage is just maps and comments, userpages dont have top plays or recent scores, everything is nice and concentrated, you dont have to scroll 10 miles to find what youre looking for. osu website is never gonna have a place where you can see the latest mapping-only-related comments
the 1/4 is technically mapped to hihats, but what the long streams truly do is foreground the vocals while excluding everything else. the mapper even takes care to make the streams fully smooth, with zero angles, so as to avoid emphasizing the drum rhythms
so it feels like it was mapped without music because the singer is only saying 1 syllable every 2 seconds, but there is a real musical perspective there. interpretively i much prefer skystars though
i agree with fatfan kolek
it is a nice map
been reading and thinking about the convo here
just wanna add that sometimes (varies from person to person) the worst thing you can do to "improve" is to try too hard to improve https://youtu.be/zc0vRDh1ECA?si=UNZJOrseiC-XYzUh&t=1289
it can be tempting to look at the things you can't do, which are unnatural and therefore impressive to you, and try to emulate that, and you can definitely learn a lot from that kind of study. and if doing that is fun then that's great, the game's about having fun after all. but it's also beneficial imo to learn to lean into your own strengths, to get out of your own way and explore what only you can do, what comes naturally--so naturally that you might have taken it for granted
good jump practice
saw the thumbnail on the omdb homepage and thought it was a frog standing up with its hands on its hips
if the current community is too troll-y then yeah that's a problem with the community that might need "fixing" (i personally think it's fine, it'd be nice if they took mapping like 9% more seriously but i really enjoy the variety of comments), but trying to police it via site layout is not gonna have the results you want, especially with such a niche community. the userbase can't produce enough reviews to warrant a review-centric layout--and in fact the fact that there aren't as many people on here as RYM is actually a benefit because even casual back-and-forth discussion is still short enough to not be overwhelming. even going through the comments of some controversial map like downpour's promise doesn't take that long, and i find reading that way more interesting than going on rym and seeing a screenful of 10 paragraph essays one after another. my favorite thing about letterboxd is all the one-liner jokes and offhanded comments people make, or just short interesting observations/thoughts... i love the longer more thoughtful reviews people make on letterboxd as well, but only when they're broken up by a good amount of lighter material from other users. if letterboxd was only long tryhard essays i would tune out of it so fast
tbh i like the random bullshit comments, makes the site fun. i agree reviews should be spotlighted when they are posted but i dont think there will be nearly as many reviews as comments. sidelining comments or trying to move them off-site onto discord or something is going to make the site itself feel empty. in fact i'm almost certain that trying to discourage natural conversation is going to kill the site.
obviously speaking as someone who has written several very long-form review-type posts i do think it's important to give people space to take mapping seriously/genuinely, but comments are what keep me coming back to the site. the freedom of the comments section to engage with a beatmap however one wants--with a quip, with a pithy one-liner, with an ongoing dialogue with someone else--is too important; and then if someone does want to make a more heartfelt post about a map then yeah, it should be given extra visibility, but i still think comments should be the default method of communication here, and should be treated as such. also i would also like to see more than just the newest 20 comments on the frontpage, 20 isn't enough. in fact i'd like to see the latest reviews as well--they're mixed into comments on the frontpage so they're hard to find--but again, not in a way that sidelines comments.
i do feel there is a place for reviews even if they're posted somewhat infrequently, and i don't agree that they'll only be posted on the "top 0.1% of maps," in fact none of the reviews posted thus far afaik are even on the top 50 maps. if someone's going to take the time to write a review it's more likely going to be on a lesser known map which means something to them; most of my own review-type comments haven't been on any of the hyperfamous masterpieces.
but maybe now that the feature is here ppl would be more motivated to write lengthier reviews than before idk
i might be wrong but i can't imagine there are going to be that many reviews to warrant them being spotlighted over comments, just by virtue of the fact that reviews are longer and take more effort to write than comments. comments are still important enough to be front and center on the homepage imo. in fact we should be able to see more than the most recent 20 comments, 20 isnt enough for me
some maps with scratches i like
bunch of fullmetal jacket maps: muya, yusomi, as well as yf and fanzhen which were mentioned
rustbell scream squad
yusomi beat juggling mix has some simple but super effective scratch usage
fanzhen fairy dancing in lake
and then fanzhen "Homura chan sorry, I become DJ" lmao
people who map elisha always put spinners on that long backspin(?) scratch in the middle. not necessarily "cool mapping" but ive always loved those
comments for shuu no hazama essentially amounted to "there is some cool stuff in here too bad it doesnt play well"
and i recall comment(s?) for chirality saying stuff like "this might have done well in other contests like aspire but this contest is for ranked." at the time they'd rank the winning entries for each song in one big set
i dont really remember super well but shuu no hazama placed like 7th or something? and i believe skystar gave it a decent score but also gave a judge impression rating of 10/10.
rrtyui's chirality placed relatively low for "playability issues" iirc
hello
hollow WANGS!!! yes
wow what a gorgeous song
didn't know the #2 ranked chad also made house music
Life is Game
just discovered this. so beautiful. goodbye omdb
very cool
reminds me of some recent maps like schoolboy's tree frog, as well as mattay's lonely rolling star which i particularly love. somewhat freeform visuals but very musically aware, and with especially deliberate movement across the playfield. dunno if these mappers share the same inspirations or if it's just parallel developments. all this is very much up my alley though
02:41:395 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13) - rotational awareness is my shit, from the same guy who mapped 02:05:362 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15) - in uncanny long arms. but i actually like this pattern more, especially this bit 02:45:653 (5,6,7) -
dont think ill ever get back into mapping but im feeling kind of inspired by this recent spate of maps
i like that the website is so mapper centric. frontpage is just maps and comments, userpages dont have top plays or recent scores, everything is nice and concentrated, you dont have to scroll 10 miles to find what youre looking for. osu website is never gonna have a place where you can see the latest mapping-only-related comments
wouldnt it still take some amount of work even with the data? but itd be nice if it happened
totally unexpected news, im a lot sadder than i thought i would be. feels so weird having to only look at maps through the osu website
goodbye omdb its been fun to write and read comments
also check out this map
the 1/4 is technically mapped to hihats, but what the long streams truly do is foreground the vocals while excluding everything else. the mapper even takes care to make the streams fully smooth, with zero angles, so as to avoid emphasizing the drum rhythms
so it feels like it was mapped without music because the singer is only saying 1 syllable every 2 seconds, but there is a real musical perspective there. interpretively i much prefer skystars though
always seated for 239hachiman
fun fact the bg is a single frame from the wachowskis speed racer https://youtu.be/3FtBAGMSw-I?si=6m5nCSXHkxTZpM_t&t=126 2:06