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Happa-tai - Yatta!

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Topic Starter
Makhazol
This beatmap was submitted using in-game submission on Saturday, 29 March 2008 at 1:37:57 AM

Artist: Happa-tai
Title: Yatta!
BPM: 133.85
Filesize: 3728kb
Play Time: 03:58
Difficulties Available:
  1. Easy (1.25 stars, 195 notes)
Download: Happa-tai - Yatta!
Information: Scores/Beatmap Listing
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Okay! So this is my first beatmap attempt here, after discovering the site and playing around with the game for a bit. I must say, I was impressed with how easy beatmapping is - creating custom levels and stuff is usually a pretty involved process that takes a while to learn (at least in my experience), but this was incredibly intuitive. ANYWAY.

I was browsing through the 'requests' thread, and someone mentioned Yatta, and considering it to be a very Ouendan-ish song anyway I thought I'd give it a go. Given it a fairly complete beatmap, but I reckon it still needs a fair degree of refinement.

Firstly, timing. I like to think I've got a fairly good ear for it - I came up with 133.91 BPM on my own, and MixMeister suggested 133.85 (so I adjusted to that). However, it seems slightly out - oddly enough, more to the start, though it seems to be evening out as the song progresses. I'd appreciate a second opinion from a more experienced ear.

Yeah, I've made it fairly easy. I figure it'll be easier to start with an easy version and make it harder later on than the other way around, and I don't like to leave things half done (that is to say, I intend to make sure the song has a full range of difficulties). I've also alternated between having the circles (I call em such to differentiate from 'beats' as they're used with regard to the timing) to the main singer and the background singers at different parts of the song, to keep things interesting.

Anyway, in addition to any technical feedback, I'm interested in hearing about how I've set it up from a gameplay perspective. I've made some various decisions I'm not sure about - for instance, I've spaced circles half a beat apart sometimes 1 grid space distant and sometimes 2, is it reasonable to be able to expect people to make that jump in that time, and on an easier difficulty? I've based my design primarily on my experience of the DS games, hopefully that comes through somewhat, like the 3 breaks roughly evenly interspersed about the length you'd want for an O/X story cutscene. Not that I have the artistic skill to produce any storyboards to accompany this (unfortunately), but I figure it's a good practice. I've also made a concious effort to do things like parts of the song which are essentially repeated use the same or similar patterns, the song getting more difficult after the second break, et cetera.
Sinistro
Welcome to osu! :D First of all, I've got to say I really like the way you write and express yourself. I have heard this song before, so I think I can give you some feedback.

First, regarding the timing, I believe the problem here is with the offset. Try changing it from 15,742 to around 15,678, keeping the bpm at 133.85. You might at first think the tempo's going too fast and it's about to slip away, but skip to later parts of the song and you'll hear it still ticking to the beat. I bet you know this already, but be sure to resnap all circles and then check the timeline again for any circles which need manual resnapping. I think that, after resnapping, you'll just need to select all circles and nudge them one eighth to the left. The time values I list below are after doing the above.

It's obvious you've given a lot of thought and care into the design of this beatmap. You've divided your breaks well, the difficulty settings fit for an easy map, switching between main and background singers does keep things interesting and the similarity of circle patterns to the corresponding song patterns is indeed a reliable staple of Ouendan and EBA design. That said, there are a few parts that I consider too hard for an Easy difficulty map. For example:

- The circle right at the end of the blue slider around 2:34:41 (which also appears like that in other places and at the end in the form of circles at the beginning of a slider).

- The red combo starting at 2:36:43: it has three circles overlapping each other, then two circles overlapping each other, but these two are a whole beat apart rather than half a beat like the previous three, which I think is counter-intuitive and can throw players off, even with the help of the Approaching Circle (or whatever it's called).

- (Perhaps the long orange combo starting around 3:00:86). I'm always keeping in mind that this is the Easy version; in other difficulties, these elements would have no trouble fitting in, I think.

In my opinion, definitely use a constant beat spacing for an Easy map, and quite possibly for all maps, even the hardest. There's challenging, and there's unfair.

Almost all circles, sliders and spinners are placed correctly to the beat of the music, with a couple of exceptions:

-I think the aforementioned orange combo's ninth circle should be moved one half of a beat to the right. Similarly, the second out of the set of three spinners, the one beginning around 2:20:09, should also start half a beat later (but keep its finish where you have it now), since that's when the singer starts talking.

- On the other hand, I think some of your sliders finish too soon, although it might be a subjective thing. For example, let's take the orange slider around 1:22:02, which coincides with the word "Wonderful" but ends before the whole word is uttered, which seems somehow jarring to me. I think it could either extend for half a beat, or you could leave it as is but place a circle half a beat later, thus matching the slider with "Won-der" and the circle with "ful". The same sort of thing happens to the green slider after that.

I think you've made a very good start. I look forward to this beatmap, with storyboarding even - this song does sound like it would belong in Ouendan. It certainly uses the word "Osu!" a lot! I would really like to help with storyboarding, but I lack the necessary artistic skill as well. :(
Topic Starter
Makhazol
Thanks much, particularly for the compliment.

Hn. Yeah, that's a lot better with the timing - I was mostly playing around with the BPM, thinking the inaccuracy was there, but changing the offset like that makes it fit a lot smoother. That was starting to drive me a little nuts...

I've fiddled with the stuff you mention, reworked the orange combo around 3:00, made a bunch of other minor tweaks here and there, and added an appropriate background. Pretty happy with it on the whole, now, other than the obvious lack of storyboarding.

Un. Two things come up now. Firstly, when I go to upload the update with standard submission, it seems to be prompting me to create the forum thread again (even though it's already filled out the with the OP text from this thread) , and I don't want to spam threads. Will doing this create another thread? Is there a way to just update it without that? Should I upload it as completed instead? I'm not sure on how the whole thing works, and I don't want to experiment too heavily for fear of spamming the forums.

Also, creating a new difficulty for it. I know how to make the file at least, modifying the existing file and saving it as a new difficulty. But with new difficulties, should I have a seperate thread in here for each difficulty? Or can I incorporate it into this thread? And should I wait until I have all difficulties done before uploading as completed?

Thanks much for your help. It's surprisingly good fun, this - not to mention that doing the whole thing has only taken a few hours thus far.
Sinistro
This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.
BanchoBot
This modding thread has been migrated to the new "modding discussions" system. Please make sure to re-post any existing (and unresolved) efforts to the new system as required.
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