FAQ of the Quarterfinals mappool and overall stuff related

I'll write down all the frequently asked questions here and try my best to answer. If you have any question that’s missing here, you can ask me by tweeting!



Q1: How do you guys decide on picks? Tell us about the selecting process etc.

A1: Firstly, a draft of each stage has been created for us to throw in maps that we deem having potential to be used in the tourney, and we'll note down with reasons why they're interesting so the other members know the thoughts behind the picks. Once the draft is filled with an amount of maps, we start testing and discussing, which takes the most time in the whole process. We start with a process of elimination, where each selector will drop their opinion as to why a pick is unfit and therefore shouldn't be used. If the other members agree or don't completely disagree, those maps will be filtered out. This step usually eliminates more than 80% of maps, and then we'll start voting for those remaining by their categories.

Finally, the finished mappool will be sent to Loctav to be closely scrutinized and reviewed. Maps he vetoes will be automatically filtered. Then we'll repeat the previous steps again to find replacement for those until everyone is happy with everything.



Q2: How do you guys categorize maps?

A2: Categories is one of the most important factors in mappool selecting. A good tournament mappool should have included diverse maps to cover as more areas of skills as possible, for sure.

In OWC, we divide the slots into different categories on each bracket;

Nomod: Consistency, Streamy, Alternate, Gimmicky/Reading, Lower AR and Higher CS.

Hidden: Lower AR and the other decided based on what’s been picked for the Lower AR one, which mostly ends up being a Consistency pick.

Hardrock: two different types and length of maps. From RO16 and onwards one of them would have a higher CS than usual (>4).

Doubletime: two different types and BPM of maps. Ideally one should be jump-heavy and the other should be stream-heavy. From Semis and onwards at least one AR10.3 pick would be included.

Freemod: FM is the most special bracket and also the most difficult one to select maps for. Our focus on FM maps is to balance the difficulty between HD and HR as much as possible. That's also part of the reasons why so many maps with CS5 + AR8 are chosen; picking either mods is nearly as hard as picking the other on these maps.

Tiebreaker: A tiebreaker should be a special map that, again, tests as many skills as possible.



Q3: What are your criteria while choosing maps? How do you decide which maps are fit and which aren't?

A3: We do have a number criteria, such as:

Mapping styles - As said above, a good mappool should provide as diverse a challenge as possible. So naturally a map will be omitted if another map of a similar style is already chosen.

Categories - see Q2.

Spikes - You wouldn't want to see either ame to asphalt or miraizu in a tourney mappool.

Lengths - Long and short maps should be held in a balanced amount, also maps with long ass intro will have way lower priority.

Song genres - Don't use too many songs from one genre, apparently.

Usage in previous owc - Note that different difficulties of one mapset are treated as different maps, so a same mapset can be reused if it's not the same difficulty as the one that was used in previous owc.

And many more.

Date is not one of them, however. We don't favor or veto a map just because it's new or old. Maps are judged on themselves, not on which year they're mapped in.



Q4: Why are there so many old maps? Did you guys completely forget modern maps or what?

A4: You can say that this mappool is a result of consensus and compromise of all sides. Loctav disliking most modern mapping styles and little girls anime uguu songs isn't even news. Each of our selectors has their own perspective, too. It's rather inevitable to be subjective on this kind of matter.

We didn't forget about modern maps. At least half of each bracket other than Freemod is still based on modern maps. Freemod, as I said above, is a special bracket that will be focusing on balancing difficulty between mods.



Q5: You literally said spikes need to be avoided. What about Illumiscape?

A5: Illumiscape is the pick to fill the CS5 hole. We do realize that the square pattern is a relatively bigger spike than the rest of the map. Nonetheless, we still believe that the spike isn't huge to the point where it’s the only place for all of the players to miss but not anywhere else. It's not a map like best friend or miraizu, where it's all about the screen jumps, and everything else is easy as fuck.



Q6: Scarlet Rose has wrongly snapped objects.

A6: Our mistake, undoubtedly. Scarlet Rose is the alternate pick of this round, and also the pick we've reached a fastest consensus on. All of us were super happy and hyped with it - until rustbell pointed that shit out.

02:07:109 - is lacking a timing section to adjust slider velocity and all sliders are unsnapped there for a second long. This is an objective issue and our mistake for not checking the map carefully.



Q7: Raijin no Hidariude is HP9, what if players fail at the end?

A7: That one was originally planned as a FM pick. However we realized that with HR it's almost impossible to recover your drain if you fail. So we moved it to HD instead, which is less cruel. This isn't the only map that you have a chance failing at the end after all. Players gotta practice maps anyway.



Q8: It's Quarters, and still no 10.3 pick in DT?

A8: We were extremely unsure about this since each mod bracket except FM has been shrunken from 3 maps to just 2 (which I personally disagree with btw, makes mapselecting A LOT harder, but uhh staff's call). But at the end we ended up not using any and kept the 10.3 slot for only semis and finals.



Q9: rog-unlimitation has basically no difference between mods and nomods, why is it a FM pick?

A9: That's exactly the point, as I've explained above. A freemod pick usually ends up with two players using mods, and the others picking nomods. However, if there's a pick that barely has any difference between nomods and mods, you can definitely see that some teams are gonna go crazy with all the players picking up mods to get more points.



Q10: Night of Knights? You're kidding me right.

A10: No we're not. It's again the type of maps that make you go "uhh I'm not gonna do this with HD, but uhh not HR either". A perfectly balanced FM pick in my eyes.



Q11: Illumiscape, Raijin and Yuugure are reused. Same difficulty too.

A11: Uhm... yeah, fuck. In hindsight, I'd want to replace Yuugure with another map, but I still believe Raijin and Illumiscape do a better job at what they're supposed to do than most other maps.



Q12: AR8 Tiebreaker? Explain.

A12: "8. The tiebreaker will be played under FreeMod conditions." - from the tournament rules. But then realisically, other than a few extreme exceptions such as SapphireGhost, Azer, or [Toy] who're sometimes better with Hidden than with Nomod and therefore using Hidden in, let's say, Group Stage, who would even think about using mods on a Tiebreaker? This is our original idea of this Tiebreaker, a very risky and experimental pick, that will actually make you think about using Hardrock. To reach this purpose, it has to be a map that has a lower AR than usual, isn't too difficult in itself, and has a higher circler size to avoid too much advantage on Hardrock. This Dragonforce map then came into our sight and fits all the criteria perfectly.



Q13: Mind telling us which maps are suggested by which selector respectively?

A13: For this round: Go Away, Illumiscape and Connect are suggested by Okorin. Scarlet Rose is by Momoko. Everything else is by me.

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