Your map must comply with this criteria. Unless specified that you may justify a criteria break, these rules must be enforced as-is.
This criteria may be changed at any time. Changes do not apply retroactively, and will be listed in our Discord.
¶ R1. General criteria and map setup
- The map's BPM must be set to one of the song's BPM or a multiple of the song's BPM.
- The map must have lined up the audio’s BPM and the grid’s BPM as best as possible, through audio file setup or through the use of BPM events.
- The audio file must be of acceptable quality, and in the
.ogg format (distributed as .egg is allowed).
- An appropriate cover image must be present, of at least 256x256 px resolution, with a 1:1 aspect ratio, and in
.png, .jpg or .jpeg format.
- Song Time Offset must be unused or set to zero.
- Shuffle and Shuffle Period values must be unused or set to zero.
- All defined (official) color schemes must provide values for all colors.
- Wall width, height, and length may not be set to values of 0 or lower.
- Chain squish factor may not be set to a value of zero or lower.
- Object beat numbers may not be negative or higher than the final beat number of the song in the editor.
- Walls may not extend outside of the song's length (beat + duration <= final beat number of the song in the editor).
- Any map that is dependent on mods or programs that are not explicitly allowed are not allowed.
There are currently no mods that may be set as a map requirement.
¶ D. The map must give sufficient time before and after the last note
- There must be at least 1.5 seconds of time before any interactable objects. (2 seconds is recommended)
- There must be at least 2 seconds of time after the last interactable objects.
- Misplaced notes or mismaps must be fixed when found.
- The map from first note to last note or chain link must be at least 45 seconds in length.
- There has to be a significant difference from one difficulty to another, either from within the mapset or from one mapset to another of the same song. If a difficulty is at least 40% identical to a difficulty in another mapset, only the oldest will be rankable.
This difference may be determined either by differential analysis, or by subjective overview of the difficulties by ranking team members.
- Each note must be mapped within 12ms of a chosen timing point, which must be chosen with substantial reasoning.
- Timing points may only exist on sufficiently audible sounds.
For instruments, the timing point is either the start or peak of a sound.
For vocals, the timing point can most commonly be a point in the vocalization, or breath. Most often at the start of the associated sound.
- The timing point must be consistent across instances of an instrumental sound.1
- The timing point determination must be consistent for vocal mapping. When choosing to map vocals at their first vocalization, this must be done for all vocals that are of a similar style.
- Different styles of vocals that are substantially present may apply different timing point determination, when done consistently.2
- When detrimental to gameplay, timing points may shift slightly more than R2A.1 allows to keep notes snapped to the grid. This should be seen as a backup option, and can only be used when precision mapping the timings is greatly detrimental to gameplay, as determined by Ranking Staff. This must be requested by the mapper in response to a mod.3
1 e.g. if you decide to time a sound at its start, you must always time it at its start
2 e.g. quiet and heavily vocalized vocals may be timed differently, if both see substantial use throughout the song
3 This is very unlikely to be approved for non-vocal timing.
- When a rhythm choice is made in a section, it must be consistently followed until the song section ends. You cannot include or exclude a single instance of a sound without ample justification.1
- Rhythm choice changes can only occur when supported by the music. A change cannot occur if the music does not change as well.
1 e.g. a snare hit that is mapped consistently for 15 beats, may not remain unmapped for exclusively the 11th beat if the section and rhythm choice are still ongoing. And a vocal that is not mapped for 5 beats, may not be mapped on the 6th beat if it will continue to be unmapped after the 6th beat.
- Objects may not be placed in a way where they intersect in the Z dimension. Objects that are placed within 0.5m of one another in the Z dimension on the same grid cell are considered to intersect.1
- Objects (excluding walls) may not intersect with walls.
- Arcs are exempt from these rules.
1 To calculate an intersection: (Beat Duration) / (BPM / 60) * NJS >= 0.5m
- The pre-swing of a note may not be blocked by a note of the opposite color.
- The pre-swing of a note may not be blocked by a chain head or link of the opposite color.
- The top of a note's good hitbox cannot overlap the top of an opposite colored note's bad hitbox by more than 20%
- In a slider, the swing-path of one hand cannot overlap the badcut hitbox of the other hand's notes by more than 20% if the note would still exist before it was hit by the correct hand
- Patterns that involve the use of excessive notes to prolong a swing are not allowed.1
- Multi-note patterns must have a single swing speed throughout. This may be considered instant for multi-note patterns with no duration.
- The minimum effective slider precision is 1/16th (or 1/8th for a 2-note window, as the missing note should be counted for effective precision.) relative to the mapping precision in that section.2
- Slider Swing speed must be consistent per section of the map. This may be overruled with sufficient justification.
- Sliders and window sliders must have the same effective precision within a section.
- The duration of chains should be similar to the average effective slider duration or 150% of that. A longer duration might require justification if deemed too slow by Ranking Staff.
- The duration of chains must be within or equal to twice the effective slider precision used in the same section.
1 e.g. pauls, poodles, dot spam, chain link spam.
2 i.e. mapping at 1/8th precision has the minimums of 1/32nd and 1/16th respectively.
Effective precision is the precision between each note in a slider. For window sliders the left out note should be counted too, as the swing still takes time to travel the distance.
A different section is often signified by a significant change in sound, a change to a different precision, or a significant bpm change.
- Swings must be able to hit all notes of the multi-note swing at their cut angle in the center of the note without deviating more than 45 degrees from the starting angle. Dot notes do not need to be hit at a specific cut angle.
- Swings may only deviate in one direction along the entire swing path.1
- Swing path deviations must occur at a reasonable radius, as determined by Ranking Staff.
- Notes in a multi-note swing are assumed to be cut one by one in the order they are placed. If notes are placed on the same beat, they are assumed to be cut in the optimal order to pass criteria B1-3.
- Chain heads and links fall under the same B rules as notes.
1 i.e a swing may deviate 45 degrees, but may not deviate -45 degrees afterwards in the same swing.
¶ C. Patterns may not encourage hand claps (example)
- Patterns must not involve a handclap risk that is unreasonable for the general difficulty and style of the map, as determined by Ranking Staff.
- Handclap risk may be pointed out based on replays of existing plays. If a similar handclap risk is demonstrated in a notable amount of replays, it may impact the conclusion of Ranking Staff. Replays may also serve as a way to justify a pattern after being deemed an unreasonable handclap risk.
A handclap in this context is recognized as both hands/controllers attempting to occupy the same position in space at the same time.
¶ R5. Vision and Readability
- The minimum time required to avoid vision blocks is determined by an equation that takes star ratings into account. The equation can be found here. This is automated in the AutoModder plugin.
- If the time between the vision blocking object and the blocked object is less than the minimum time, the vision block will need to be evaluated in-game or with ArcViewer, and justification may be required.
- A hittable object in the outer lane that would be considered vision blocked, may be considered visible if it is closer than 150ms to the vision blocking object.
- A note or chain in the middle lane, bottom layer that would be considered vision blocked, may be considered visible if it is closer than 75ms to the vision blocking object and follows parity.
- Bombs are exempt from B1-3 if they are part of a cluster of bombs that is partially visible with sufficient context to determine that it is a bomb cluster from the visible bombs alone.
- Bombs are exempt from B1-3 if they do not force the player to move their sabers or body.
Vision blocks are determined by this equation.
- Notes and chains may not be on the opposite side of a wall or bomb wall compared to where the player will go, assuming that the player will always choose one of the center lanes, and will only crouch if necessary. A player position beneath a crouch wall is not considered to be on the opposite side of that wall.
- Bombs may not be on the opposite side of a wall compared to where the player will go, assuming that the player will always choose one of the center lanes.
- Walls covering the bottom of a lane are considered to be hiding the spawn animations of the objects in the lane from their start to 0.25 beats after their end. Affected objects require justification to be allowed.
- Resets must be backed up by a musical element
- Resets must be intentional and not a byproduct of a different pattern
- Resets caused by triangles must be accompanied by the same musical elements represented by the notes of the triangle
- Resets must have visual aid through the use of bombs or arcs or attempt to indicate how they are played* by:
- Having each note within a reset pattern be rotated within 45 degrees of the previous note
- Each reset is separated 0.5 beats or the next note is moved along the x-axis to accommodate the given rotation required by current parity state
- If a given reset pattern has not been aided visually, a reset pattern must have an odd number of swings (that occur in the same direction) or end on a visual aided reset*
* These rules may be ignored if a similar reset has been introduced before 1/3 of the map's length or 30 seconds, whichever is longer.
¶ R6. Chains and Arcs
- Chains and their links cannot be part of the first 16 notes of the map. This is to prevent a scoring bug related to building combo.
- Chains must not be in reverse direction, the head must always precede the links in time.
- The head of a chain is considered the starting position of the swing and its cut direction must lead into its chain links. If the head is a dot note, the cut direction must be considered down.
- Chains cannot change in direction by more than 45 degrees from the starting position and angle of the head note.
- Chain heads must be inside the 4x3 grid.
- Chain links may extend one additional lane width outside of the grid, but may not extend higher or lower than the grid.
- Chains must be at least 12.5% links versus air/empty-space
- Chains will be judged for vision blocks more harshly if the chain to air/empty-space ratio is above or equal to 33%. Under this amount they will be considered with more leniency.
- The amount of beats between the last link of the preceding chain and the chain head of the subject chain must be equal or higher than the preceding chain’s duration.
- This rule is applied separately per hand.
- Connecting an arc to a bomb is not allowed, as it causes a scoring bug that adds unobtainable note score to the bomb.
- Chains must have a head note.
- Chains must have at least one visible link (chain sc value >= 2)
- Bombs may not be placed directly in the pre or post swing path of a note or chain head/link.
- There must be ample time to avoid bombs after hitting a note if the swing path leads into the bomb's eventual position.
- A light of at least 50 brightness must be active from 250ms before a bomb until it has passed.
- Bombs may not be placed in such a way that a player can only avoid them by putting a saber fully outside of the 4x3 grid.
- Walls should leave enough space between their boundaries to allow a player to comfortably avoid the walls.
- Walls may not give the player less than 250ms of time to avoid their boundaries.
- Dodge walls that force the player to move their head more than 2 times per second require justification.
- Dodge walls that force the player to move their head more than 3.5 times per second are not allowed.
- Walls cannot be placed in a manner that forces the player to move into the outer lanes. One of the middle lanes must be accessible at all times.
- Walls with a duration longer than 13.8ms are legal and may be placed freely.
- Walls with a duration shorter than 13.8ms must trail behind legal walls in the same lane by no more than 250ms;
- Or trail behind any wall in the same lane by no more than 100ms.
- During or after a crouch wall for 0.5 beats, the notes on the bottom row in the 2 middle columns are considered vision blocks.
- During a crouch wall, the middle layer is the highest rankable note placement in all lanes.
- A half wall counts as a crouch wall when all available center lanes are covered by a half wall, forcing you to crouch.
- There must be on average at least one light event per beat, unless discussed with Ranking Staff.
- The use of external tools, such as Lightmap, Lolighter or Automapper, to generate a lightshow is allowed.
- Extreme strobing or other extreme flashing is not allowed if it significantly impacts the visibility of the map.
- Environment manipulation through the V3 lighting system (GLS), or Chroma, cannot significantly hinder vision of the map.1
1 e.g. moving an environment element into the note lane and blocking the notes from being seen, or blocking vision of the notes with a significant number of lasers
- The map's song name must be the name of the song from the official metadata.
- NUCLEAR-STAR
- Up and Down
- Chou*Chou*Kou*Soku*De*Mae*Sai*Soku!!! Speed*Star*Kanade
- If the song name from the official metadata is not searchable (does not use Latin characters), use official translations or romanization.
- "カワキヲアメク" would become "Kawaki wo Ameku" (romanization) or "Crying for Rain" (translation)
- "君の知らない物語" would become "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" (romanization) or "The Story You Don't Know" (translation)
- The map's sub-name must contain the following tags if applicable from the official metadata.
- Remixes
- (Camellia Remix)
- (Fvrwvrd Remix)
- Official speed/duration modifications
- Unofficial speed/duration modifications
- (Short Edit)
- (Sped up Edit)
- Featured artists or collaborations
- feat. Nanahira or (feat. Nanahira)
- feat. Hatsune Miku or (feat. Hatsune Miku)
- May be written with or without parentheses, it is preferred to follow the official metadata
- Covers
- Completed sub-name examples
- (Camellia Remix) (Short Edit) feat. Nanahira
- (P*Light Remix)
- (Nanahira Cover) (Long Edit)
- The map's song author name must be the name of the author from the official metadata.
- If the author from the official metadata is not searchable (does not use Latin characters), use official translations or romanization.
- "かめりあ" would become "Camellia" (romanization)
- "女王蜂" would become "Ziyoou-vachi" (romanization) or "QUEEN BEE" (translation)
¶ E. The map must have the correct mapper(s) and lighter(s) name
- The map's mapper field must include the names of all the mappers and lighters OR the name of a mapper group which includes all the mappers and lighters who contributed to the mapset.
- If the mapper's name is not searchable (does not use Latin characters), use a commonly known translation or romanization.
- If not all mapper/lighter names fit, use "Various Mappers" or reasonably shorten the name of each contributor instead.
- Map difficulty names cannot overlap with each other.
- If there is only one (1) difficulty in the same game mode, the difficulty name may only take up (1) line.
- If there are two (2) difficulties in the same game mode, the difficulty names may take up to two (2) lines.
- If there are three (3) or more difficulties in the same game mode, the difficulty names may take up to three (3) lines.
- The difficulties must be ordered correctly based on overall star difficulty.
- The map's BeatSaver description.
- The map's cover art or difficulty names.
- The map itself through the use of any objects, including bookmarks, bombs, walls, lighting events, or notes.
- Slurs in officially published songs are allowed only in the song itself.
¶ H. The song must be officially available and not under high risk of getting removed
- The song must be officially1 available at the time of ranking through any of the following sources:
- Official streaming sources (e.g., Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, or SoundCloud).
- Official album or single releases, digital or physical, distributed at any point before ranking.
- Official compilations or soundtracks.
- Promotional releases that are officially authorized and/or distributed (e.g., limited editions, event-exclusive CDs, or digital downloads).
- Songs previously subjected to a DMCA takedown on the hosting map repository may not be ranked.
- The mapper is responsible for providing evidence that the song meets these criteria at the time of ranking (if asked).
1 A release is considered "official" if it is distributed or authorized by the artist, their label, or the copyright holder.