Ok, I think I can give you some basic advice. First of all, I understand your eagerness and excitement to make new beatmaps for everyone to enjoy, and by no means do I wish to discourage you or anything, but if I were you, and a moderator made this comment on my second beatmap:
Eiji wrote:
Sorry for the honesty, but there is nothing right about your beatmap. I encourage you to read our FAQ...
I'd probably read the FAQ again and focus on improving that beatmap before making other beatmaps. That way, when I started on a new beatmap, I would know a bit more from my previous experience. The way it stands now, you have submitted a lot of beatmaps one after the other, and all of them have the same problems.
I could just stop here and tell you to read the FAQ and try again, but for this time only I'll go over things in detail. Let's take your Apollo Justice "Objection!" beatmap as an example:
- The most important thing is correct
timing. I can tell you try to place beats as right as possible by ear, and you succeed in a few places, but correct timing will make your task FAR easier because then most beats will fall on the whole (white), half (red), and quarter (blue) lines of the timeline. Timing, both as far as offset and bpm are concerned, is essential. I admit it's a difficult task, but as long as you calculate it pretty close, moderators and others will help you fine-tune it. Timing which is far, far off the mark makes a beatmap difficult, frustrating and unfair to play and might give the impression of "sloppiness", discouraging people from playing and commenting on your beatmap.
For example, in your Apollo Justice "Objection!" beatmap, try a bpm of approximately
126.00 and then play the song in Timing Mode. Can you hear the difference, how the metronome ticks coincide better with the music? Perhaps you were confused by the
notes of the music; what you should pay attention to when timing a song is the
beat, or rhythm. In this particular song, every time a whole tick is heard (in other words, every time the first out of four windows in the upper right part of the screen lights up), it should coincide with the bell-like sound in the song. You know which one I mean, right? It's also the first sound heard in the song. The same principle usually applies in other songs, although there are some songs where the bpm can change to a faster or slower one in some parts. Your Ace Attorney Court Suite is one such example, since it is a medley of three different songs.
- Whenever you change the timing, always remember to choose the
Resnap command from Options, which will try to move your beats to their new correct positions. You should also check the beatmap yourself from beginning to end and nudge manually to the left or to the right any beats which weren't placed, or Resnapped, correctly.
- Moving on, we have
Beat Spacing. This means that beats which happen close to each other in time should also be close to each other in distance, and vice versa. Wrong Beat Spacing deceives the players and makes the beatmap unintuitive. The solution to this is fortunately simple: if you press the Distance Snap button on the right part of the Compose Screen, you can never go wrong with Beat Spacing.
- Then we have the
random placement of your beats. If you have played Elite Beat Agents or the Ouendan games, you must have noticed that the beat circles and sliders are arranged in various patterns - straight lines, slanted lines, curves, and the like. This helps to guide players along the screen as they play and makes the beatmap look more "clean" and beautiful.
- Many of your
combos are too long. Every time a player clicks a beat, his Health Bar increases a little, but there's also the Health drain to take account. Every time a combo ends, the player receives a larger boost to the Health Bar. This means that too long combos, even in Hard difficulty beatmaps, deprive the player from much-needed health boosts. Try to keep your combos under 15-18 beats at most.
- The song is almost two minutes long, but there are
no breaks. Even the best player will get tired of moving the mouse and clicking around for so long. The Court Suite is over five minutes long, which means that even with breaks, it will be really, really long! I doubt the Court Suite will ever get ranked at this length. Anyway, for the rest of your beatmaps, try to have a small space, roughly at the middle of the song, where for a few seconds no beats are placed. Then click the Insert Break Time button at the upper right part of the screen.
- At the end, the
song fades out, but you still place beats. Isn't it unfair for the player to try and hear the fading music to click on the beats correctly? Stop placing beats before the music starts fading out.
- At some points, you place
too many beats, and they're also on top of each other. First, there aren't really so many hits in the song, and second, usually when beats are placed on top of each other, they are three or four at most, and even if they are more, they almost always have the same time distance between them, otherwise they're apart, because that way is more helpful and intuitive to the player.
Please understand that all of these things, which are also covered in the FAQ, are basic and important. Without them, it's safe to say that a beatmap will not be ranked. It's ok if you don't get everything right from the beginning - moderators and others will help and guide you, as they do with everyone. But try to improve as many of the above as possible, especially the timing and Beat Spacing, to show that you're really making an effort.
Apart from re-reading the FAQ, I'd also recommend you read
this. In addition, play some Ranked beatmaps, to see how a beatmap should look and feel. If you are a rookie and find playing beatmaps to their end difficult, you can click on one of the high scores that appear to the left when you hover your mouse on a beatmap, and then select "Watch replay" to watch another player play that beatmap and study it. Finally, Test your beatmap often. If, when test-playing your beatmap, you find yourself confused by your own creation, imagine how difficult it will be for players who aren't familiar with it!
Don't make all these words I typed go to waste...go over your beatmaps again and try to correct as many of the above as you can. Don't rush - if you're really desperately trying to get better like you said, I'm sure you can do it. Good luck!
So, I am asking two things. Please, play and comment on my beatmaps. You probably already know this, if you are reading the forums, but search my name in the All section of the beatmap forums to get my maps. Second, if you have any advice, please give it to me! 