What happened to the ranked 4-player osu! maps?

Once upon a time there were ranked maps in osu! that could only be played by 4 people. How could this be? Find out as I go over the history of the ranked TAG maps and where they ended up today.
#osu! #osuhistory

[@VariousHero]

Hello. This is Louis Cyphre There were quite many TAG maps from other players, but for some reason none of them reached to ranked status. Well, i actually know all of those reasons: Let's get back to 2009. During that period osu! community ranking system worked in different way. There were Mapping Assistant Team (MAT) and Beatmap Approval Team (BAT). According to the rules in order to get your map APPROVED you needed a "bubble" from two members of BAT. If one of those bubbles gets popped then you should again get two bubbles. The one who popped the bubble should give it back once all mentioned issues get fixed. And you could ask the previous BAT to bubble your mapset again. I'm telling this to you just to let you imagine the weight of difficulty in "ranking system". And Approval maps are special, they are unique, so they require BAT with a pair of iron balls, bcz, ya know, responsibility and etc. That was the reason why there are almost no TAG getting maps ranked, especially such maps. DJPop has a big name in the community and he was very first person to implement TAG specific idea. During that time such creative ideas were appreciated by really big dudes (peppy for example). That is the reason why DJPop has so many TAG maps. People tried to play solo such specific mapsets and TAGs were extremely cool either to watch or play. Naming your difficulty "TAG" has given to you a God Hand while making the difficulty. Cz you can do almost whatever you want. That's the most terrific thingy that bothered and bothers osu! team. Lesjuh's Tag in DJ Sharpnel mapset was a big luck to get on. However the map itself hasn't "death streams" or other transcendent patterns like DJpop liked to do. In 2011 i decided to take a big shot and to include myself in the board of maps who own TAG specific difficulty in their mapsets. And i had really many ideas how to move TAG maps into "Transcendet" category. And again however... such ideas were completely disliked by many "big boys" of approval and even higher team. And right when TAG4 in Cirnos Perfect Math Class was finally set ranked/approved by peppy (cz he is the only person who can combine approved/ranked in single mapset) TAG specific maps were completely restricted. They made a very stupid rule like "TAG specific maps cannot be approved or ranked". Then tones of questions popped up on "what we consider as a TAG map? May i make a TAG map and not name it TAG - would that mean that i'm not breaking rules?". I had a lot of trouble in my DM Ashura - Classical Insanity, as some people (not going to mention who) considered that mapset as a TAG and yea, it was unranked and then ranked. After 10 years, sometimes i watch what people do and make today. This kind of future were predicted 10 years ago, but unfortunately the team decided to stay in a single spot right when TAG maps got banned. I still don't understand why it wasn't possible to allow them, so today we could enjoy them? Oh well, what's done is done.

[@icephonex]

I still play lots of tag4 with my gf, it's so fun

[@luisluisytshorts]

@@icephonex fake

[@icephonex]

@@luisluisytshorts no bitches?

[@TheKevinGDX]

@@icephonex fake

[@icephonex]

@@TheKevinGDX actually, yes, fake cause I retired from osu! Because of RSI

[@DaskyAiko]

Fun Fact : On Louis Cyphre profile, you can still see 2 of tag4 maps in his top pp plays, but doesn't show how many pp he get from there.

[@DaskyAiko]

(Only on his catch the beat profile, forgot to mention)

[@MasterAnimit]

I still have a picture where Exgon still has 2 of his top plays on TAG4 maps in 2019. Looks like Tom94 forgot that most of them allowed for convert and erased PP only from Standard mode.

[@sihamhamda47]

Just tried to see his top CTB plays after seeing your comment, and it seems it was fixed in the recent updates, because I couldn't find any [TAG4] maps in his best performance list

[@dkub3522]

Willy: while there were some people going for the scores, the one that make the most impact was... *willy show ExGon score* Me: it must be ExGon Willy: *Kuvster*

[@droid1008]

"that could only be played by 4 people" badeu: nah lmao

[@RandomGamePlayO]

I hope people start playing more of this amazing maps and tag mode. Great video Willy :D

[@Nyanaro]

TOUCHSCREEN GOT NERFED THEY MUST BE RERANKED NOW. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERANK TAG4

[@1thGrader]

TAG4 will be ranked 2/15/22 (:

[@warenwakolj]

How and why

[@tsubakiwelfare9120]

In case this ever happens,Im gonna leave this comment here.

[@Arancinoo]

@@tsubakiwelfare9120 same!

[@leg912]

???????

[@zunky242]

Coming back to see this on the futurr

[@Khetomi1]

the end/peak of osu will be when the u.n. owen tag4 pattern gets hit without any cheeses

[@marvinpanvan]

When looking at the list of the highest star rating maps you'll come across a few very strange entries. These weird maps each have a difficulty, labeled with the word "TAG", which is upwards of 9, 10, or even 11 stars yet were ranked from 2009 to 2011. The maps themselves have some very mundane looking patterns separated by many new combos with sections which greatly increase in spacing to an absurd degree. Looking deeper the "TAG" difficulties are all Loved while every other diffuculty in the sets are ranked, something that no other ranked maps have. You may have heard about TAG or TAG4 maps in passing, but to get the full story we have to go back more than a decade. TAG team multiplayer was added to the game in December of 2008. In this mode only one player is able to hit notes at a time and after each new combo this rotates to the next person in the lobby, just as the namesake suggests. The release of TAG allowed everyone to enjoy multiplayer in a completely new way, but this wouldn't stop the best of the best from attempting solo runs on these maps for show. DJPop would be the first and most successful TAG mapper, creating the first of many TAG specific maps which in his own words could only be played by 4 people. To get an idea of what these maps are like I'll go over each of them in chronologial Ranking order and show a clip of the craziest TAG sections. BARUSA of MIKOSU would be the first TAG map pushed for Approval by DJPop, meaning the set would have a leaderboard but not reward ranked score for the time being. Even peppy would end up trying this map out, and after some minor changes the map would end up in the Approved section at last in February 2009. Later in the year the same would happen for DJPop's U.N. Owen wa Kanojo nanoka? (Nico Mega Mix), another TAG4 map. This map is quite famous as it for a long time was the highest star rating map in the game due to its incredible spacing making it a staple "impossible" map. DJPop followed these up with a relatively easier, yet still extremely difficult TAG4 map of Don't say "lazy" (Full ver.). A few players have gotten very good scores on this one, and this may be the next TAG map to be full combo'd with enough attempts. In September legendary mapper Lesjuh would take his own shot at Approving a TAG map with his rendition of StrangeProgram. Although not as spacing intensive as the others, the patterns would be hard enough for players of the time and still offers a challenge to players today. Returning once more, DJPop would get Utage wa Eien ni ~SHD~ TAG4 Approved only 10 days after the last TAG map. This one featured the classic, over the top, inhuman TAG jump patterns once again. The only ranked TAG2 map is a DJPop rendition of Renai Circulation (Full ver.) which was Approved in March 2010. Being TAG2 this is much easier than any of the other TAGs actually, and has many DoubleTime FCs from over the years. DJPop came back once again with his last TAG set, a map of Night of Knights TAG4 in May 2010. Very much reminiscent of BARUSA of MIKOSU this map contains the same types of patterns while still upping the difficulty. Almost a year would pass until Louis Cyphre would come in with his own set of Cirno's Perfect Math Class with his first and only Approved TAG map. This is, as of current, the only TAG4 map with nomod full combos, and even a high accuracy Hidden FC from -GN. That is every TAG map that was ever Ranked in osu!. By the time that the pp system became favored over score, TAG maps would be put in a unique position due to being Approved. They would now reward ranked score as well as pp going forward, but buy and large these maps were so difficult that no one could gain much of either from them. As players began to grow better a way to abuse these maps for pp was finally found: touchscreen. Touchscreen can make jumps, especially those that are repetitive, much easier at the cost of finger control and making hitting faster stacked patterns harder. The biggest offender of the TAG maps would be U.N. Owen wa Kanojo nanoka? (Nico Mega Mix) with it's quick corner jumps in the start to bring up the star rating. While there were several touchscreen players going for scores on TAG4 maps the one that made the biggest impact was Kuvster. Kuvster wasn't a high ranked player but after this he ended up gaining a lot of pp. There was massive untapped potential for many TAG maps even with difficulty reducing mods because the star rating was just so high. Utilizing the exact map mentioned before and playing with Easy and HalfTime along with his touchscreen laptop, Kuvster would try many times getting better and better runs. This all came together on February 1, 2015 when he would get 577pp for his 93.39% 1xmiss score which was the highest pp play at the time by a significant amount. Seeing that touchscreen players would be able to abuse maps like this further osu!staff knew something needed to be done. There was no easy way to detect if someone was using touchscreen at the time and it seemed to only be an issue for TAG maps so the solution was clear. They opted to created a new category of map, where maps would keep a leaderboard but not reward any pp, which turned into what we know now as the Loved category. That's pretty much the basics of the once ranked maps meant to be played by 4 people. Top players still try for scores on these all the time since they are first and foremost challenges for a single person, and they are the defacto maps to play in TAG multipayer. Their status has also inspired others to map their own TAG maps, some of which have also ended up being Loved as well. At the end of the day all of these maps now sit in the Loved category as relics of the past with lots of interesting history behind them.

[@gatoraids8603]

0:52 stairs 😱😱

[@tsune1602]

Great video! I loved watching you edit it on stream.

[@storm_at3039]

wtf no matter what I try this video refuses to play, when everything else on YT works. guess I'll come back later? anyway I've wanted to know more about tag4 for a while now so cheers for making this :)

[@Vale-gz3mu]

Watch on browser yt

[@aadesh_kale]

Really interesting video willy

[@ammarfaiz4307]

came here after watching Ekoro's Fc on dont say lazy tag4. now I get why he didnt mention amount of pp gained on the title. I quit back in 2018 and came back 3 yrs later so didnt know TAG4 is not a thing in ranked anymore.

[@DivyanJain]

Didn't know this is why loved was made. Super cool video

[@yrmosi]

They are fun to play tho ngl, no matter singleplayer or with friends(which some people don't)

[@derppy]

osu droid bc dont had laptop and friends :(

[@MasterAnimit]

3:31 Nope, even for releasing moment; GN FCed StrangeProgram in 2016

[@gmailaccount1233]

That one is just called TAG (not TAG4) because it's not really intended for a specific amount of players; it just has many fast and spaced patterns with NCs in between to make them easier to play in co-op. the video specifically mentions TAG4

[@MasterAnimit]

@@gmailaccount1233 I asked happy30 (couldn't find Lesjuh) a while back and got an answer: Hello! The difficulty wasn't designed with 2 or 4 players in mind, but since the combo colours switch really quickly and even during streams, it is technically not possible to play it with 2 players. So I would say it's a TAG4 So it sounds it was at least prepared as like TAG4

[@e14ph]

some Tag4 maps can be passable in catch mode. some are even 1x miss there.

[@tsubakiwelfare9120]

Badeu and -GN:Can we introduce ourselves?

[@julioromo5849]

Great video!

[@timeless5ilver]

They got peppy'd

[@lawrencebermudez]

still waiting for reranking GN's other 1000pp play

[@Ansel_G]

The way you say cirno though lol

[@gmailaccount1233]

That is closer to the correct pronunciation than "churno" or whatever

[@vancan2rus]

there is a ranked tag 2 map and its the song "ugh" from friday night funkin

[@SeventyThree]

the day you upload this ekoro snipes gn on don't say you are lazy with a 99.4% EZ FC niceeee

[@ImagineBurger]

BARUSA of MCOSU only people who where at his stream will know that one

[@aliaseses]

barusa tag4 is my favorite map

[@tabbyteacat]

4:40 "Untapped" potential you say?

[@_Plebeian]

His japanese pronunciation is like nails on a chalkboard

[@IN-pr3lw]

I was literally thinking about this

[@rrtyuino2528]

man...i miss rrtyui

[@atomikoverdrive9679]

New ranked tag 2 map in Ugh

[@Flux3on]

Re-rank TAG4

[@cbiib]

And I think that's pretty cool...wait wrong channel

[@Slav_Science]

what

[@urcasual6dgitt]

U.N. owen was approved on my birth date

[@urcasual6dgitt]

Same year and month and day

[@mcbussy4053]

love tag4

[@MasterAnimit]

Well

[@weabowoshi]

I've seen this before

[@a76101]

Hey dude leave the osu comment sections for once

[@weabowoshi]

@@a76101I seize existing every few months dont worry

[@sam007gaymer9]

yes

[@SeventyThree]

hi willy im in stream ik you see this

[@Joker447]

I still play these maps if I have 3 mates and we’re bored

[@user-yy5zi4rn3b]

DJpop thailand?

[@jurr9271]

Thats me B)

[@nogardeci]

idk lol