ppy
Future tasks
Editor improvements
Goal is to provide parity with stable, but also implement some features that give the lazer that "edge" over stable so people can feel like making the switch is getting them something of value. Take a look at the third party tools people are using (and the community projects looking to make their own editors) and make sure we are going in the right direction.
In addition, we need to get through the backlog of editor PR review (https://github.com/ppy/osu/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3Aarea%3Aeditor). At least the high quality ones and especially those which will satisfy parity or cutting-edge features.
Shortlist:
- Ability to add break time
- Ability to edit samples (sliders, mainly)
- Fixes to hitsounds / frame stability considerations (https://github.com/ppy/osu/issues/26559)
- Beatmap submission
Song select improvements
In addition to finally getting the design up-to-scratch (using some degree of dev-design shell-be-right since flyte is seemingly redoing everything from scratch but doesn't have much to show, so let's ignore that for now), finally allow viewing of grouped results in the carousel, ie. being able to collapse all 1* / 2* / 3* beatmaps when difficulty sorting. Whether that's done in the same way as stable, or via a new display method.
I also want to start feeding more online information back into song select. A good first experiment would be showing a "currently playing" count on beatmap panels in the carousel. Clicking on this would let you see a list of users playing this, and spectate them if you desire.
Shortlist:
- Design update
- Grouping in carousel
- Fixing rankings retrieval being all over the place (https://github.com/ppy/osu/issues/27609)
- Fixing performance of some sort methods (difficulty sort is an example of worst-case)
- Generally supporting more skin layout editing.
Results screen improvements
Most people who play lazer coming from stable will show discomfort on reaching the results screen. There's an information overload (from showing other users) and the information they want to see is compacted into a small area in the centre. Taking a screenshot doesn't convey the beatmap quickly as the background is blurred and there's no other display of the beatmap background.
I discussed this with flyte ages ago, so there may already be some designs existing, but the results screen should arrive at a default view only showing the current user's scores. There should be multiple view modes you can switch between to get to the view we currently have (showing a score carousel). The default view with only the current score should expand things out to a layout that is reminiscent of stable, so people know where the information they expect is. It could also support stable skins at this point.
Shortlist:
- Fix expanded layout being ugly, especially on widescreens (attempted wip https://github.com/ppy/osu/pull/24153)
- Better allow the local player to compare against their previous plays
- Consider adding multiplayer / playlist specific results screens that convey information more contextually.
Level system improvements
After rolling out the recent bonus PP changes, it's clear that some users that get enjoyment from "score farming" or "completionist" feel like we've let them down. We need to better cater to the audience which knows they have hit their skill cap but still wants to have fun and feel progression playing the game across the diverse beatmap library at the same skill, rather than fruitlessly trying to improve their PP.
I proposed a new system for this (https://twitter.com/ppy/status/1770255206862958910), but maybe we just want to rework the level/experience system to be more meaningful.
This would see:
- All plays contributing to the statistics, not just best x
- Medals being given significant weighting
- Grades being given significant weighting
- Potentially also bringing in something like playcount / playtime to continue moving the statistic upwards even when playing the same beatmap without improvement
- Alongside this, giving the level system more visual presence and flair in the game, so it feels more meaninful and ejoyable to improve.
Related: https://github.com/ppy/osu/discussions/17124#discussioncomment-8909030
Loose ideas from my side - none probably as high prio as above but maybe usable for later:
- Pass on missing legacy skinning features - we're probably still missing a few, especially in taiko/mania
- Pass on storyboarding support (performance / implementing missing features)
- Tournament support features (multiplayer commands etc.)
- Improvements on social features (chat commands, moderation facilities, friend management inside the actual game, updating friend status in real time, online status views matching stable closer wrt extent of data shown)
- Better skin management / in-game skin editing
- Pass on mobile usability (getting android off of osuTK, proper usage of storage on android, better touchscreen handling)
Some of the points I wanted to bring up have already been stated, such as redesigning results screen and implementing missing legacy skin features.
The only points I can bring up, from a UI/UX perspective, are the following:
- Implementing search overlay in-game, to support easily searching for users (that is something I've been struggling with for a very long time now)
- Extending redesign implementations to other screens such as main menu and beatmap info overlay to give osu!lazer a consistent design language
- Once this is seen as worth tackling, I'll return back to my long-standing task of implementing the redesign of beatmap info overlay and tackle all remaining issues with the redesign at the point of implementation by team feedback.
- We should also take time to look back into matching UI measurements between figma designs and game drawable system (see https://github.com/ppy/osu/issues/17940 and https://github.com/ppy/osu-framework/issues/3271), right now web overlays look shockingly off compared to normal screens like song select.
- Improving experience of navigation between overlays (definitely a frusturating experience for user currently)
- already tracked in https://github.com/ppy/osu/issues/5063
Also another thing I thought about from time to time is:
- Implementing tag team multiplayer
That has been quite a fun mode for cooperation between players in osu!, and I used to play it a lot with my friends back in my early days.