Introduced to fairly universal acclaim roughly 7 months ago, Loved was to be the grand solution to the age-old issue of the ranking cycle restricting or otherwise preventing maps that the community adored from receiving scoreboards.



Since then, Loved has gone from being a purely vote-only approach, with polls held in Community Voice every few weeks to determine which out of a set of 10 predetermined maps gets in, to the current system where simply having 100SP and 30 favourites is enough to enter the category at any time.



There has been a fair bit of discussion about the new requirements to enter the category. A fairly vocal portion of the community believes that the requirements are too strict - preventing good maps from entering the category. Others believe that the requirements are too lax, creating essentially a selection of maps that aren't really loved at all.



Let's take a look at the principle issues that are often brought up where Loved is concerned.



Requirements are too high



For some, the task of receiving 100 SP seems almost insurmountable. Unless you are an active modder or mapper, kudosu is a fairly precious resource. Convincing someone to "invest" in your map's future in Loved is difficult, especially if you're not well connected.



There seems to be no way besides either earning the kudosu yourself and dumping it on your map in the event that you cannot find people willing to support your work.



A number of maps widely considered to be loved (but not actually Loved) have hundreds or even thousands of favourites, but only paltry amounts of SP, preventing them from entering the category.



This is something that we can fix. Several commentators on the topic have suggested drastically lowering the SP requirement by half, reducing it to 50 SP - a value that a mapset of significant age is likely to encounter far more organically than 100. I don't disagree with this, and I think this is something that can be done.



Requirements are too low



On the flipside, maps with only 30 favourites cannot claim to be "loved" by any means of the measure, especially when favourites are simply garnered by people clicking a button upon visiting a beatmap listing.



Very rarely is the SP requirement brought up as being "too low", but the favourites argument is certainly more compelling and something that requires further consideration on our part. Raising it seems the most appropriate choice here.



Why is Star Priority even a factor in determining whether a map is Loved or not?



Doesn't this just lock the list of people capable of contributing meaningfully to Loved to the modding community?



In a way, it does. This was something we were aware of when introducing the SP requirement into the system.



For years, kudosu has been almost completely useless. Giving the modding community some well-earned power in determining the contents of a listing that would encompass adored and universally liked maps seemed appropriate, especially given that the modding community most of all has comprehensive experience in vetting these maps for play and helping them improve.



We want to preserve this approach, or at least some aspects of it. Modders should have a tangible and perceptible 'reward' for their efforts, especially when it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of work to obtain the SP required to elevate a map to Loved alone.



What if the mapper is inactive or has left the game?



This poses a conundrum. What if a mapper does not consent to having their map deemed "complete" enough to have a scoreboard? What if they do not or never intended the map to have one in the first place?



At what point do we assume the mapper's intentions for the map in this process? Is this something we should consider at all?



I have no answers for these questions. It is a complicated topic, and we have deliberately erred away from adding very dated maps from the most part after this issue was raised VERY early on in the community voting for the first round of Loved.



There are maps that I would love to see in the category, but with their creative directors long vanished from the game (Larto is a good example of this), often times with unclear intent for their creations that are left behind, it will likely remain a very difficult issue to resolve fully.



How do we solve these problems?



This is why this thread exists. I'd like to hear what you think of the issue, and how you'd propose solving it. Keep in mind what has been said above. Please also remember that favorites are an 'effortless' resource - they only denote the number of players willing to click a button (essentially a like) without any further time investment.



What I would personally propose, is that the Loved requirements are reworked to be thus:



At a base level, a map with 50 SP and 100 favorites qualifies for Loved status.



For every 16 favorites obtained over 100, the SP requirement is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 25 SP at 500 favorites obtained.



A map with 1000 or more favorites immediately qualifies for Loved status, if its mapper asks for the map to be entered into the category.



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What do you think should be done?



This is a lengthy post to begin a discussion with, but I figure it is important to lay out our methodology regarding these choices to make it a little clearer on what we want to achieve with this system, for all parties involved.