BN

2021-08-20

I've traditionally thought of BNs as the kinds of people to help mappers but in reality how much you help people is up to you

so some BNs may be more willing to help you than others but the main reason BNs exist is to have a certain amount of activity/month to keep a consistent flow of newly ranked maps for players

whether or not certain maps get pushed doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, as long as you're doing your part in maintaining the consistent flow of new beatmaps

anyway as a modder I modded a variety of maps since I thought BNs were supposed to be knowledgeable of many different things

in reality the role is less serious than I thought and although there are some knowledgeable BNs, you don't have to know as much as I thought you needed to know to become one

to be clear, BNs I consider knowledgeable are those that are capable of modding/mapping a variety of different songs/maps, and are able to do that consistently well

it turns out that being able to mod a variety of different songs/mapping styles isn't something necessary for the role of BN, and the status quo is that BNs should only push what they like so it doesn't feel like a job

the reason I still haven't accepted the role of BN could possibly be because I still think of them as BATs (or beatmap appreciation team)

I assume the name change to BN was done intentionally to emphasize how they focus on nominating maps (not necessarily appreciate them)

basically I'm still in shock by the industrial nature of the ranking process

I'm guessing there's a lot more maps/mappers than even just 3 years ago so that could have affected things

anyway I feel like my love for osu is getting in the way here since when I played osu I would play every map to set a score on it

the reality is not everyone does that and BNs have a lot of freedom when it comes to choosing what to nominate (e.g. "english only", "4* and below only")

basically the experience sucks for non-BNs unless you map for a certain BN's preferences

I don't doubt that's what some mappers do too btw, although I can't help but feel like some of those maps are "artificial"/"fake"

I think this is a good life lesson for creative work in general since I feel like once you get good enough in other fields the same topic comes up