Curation

The Meaning of Curation

Curation highlights fun maps from across the style spectrum that our diverse team hopes the community will enjoy as much as we do! Our Curation team strives to recommend maps that meet our minimum quality standards AND subjectively have that extra “fun factor” for the individual Curator. Not every playable map is curation-worthy, not every curateable map will be curated, and not every map that is curated will have flawless mapping – think of us as Reviewers recommending our favourite maps.

The Curation Team

If you notice a Curator has tastes and preferences that align with yours, you can follow their curations on Beatsaver! Click here for a complete Team Roster, with skill levels and style preferences listed, as well as links to each team member’s Curations Tab on BeatSaver.

Pets!

You’ve got quite a bit of reading ahead of you. In order to prepare you, we’d like you to meet some of our team’s pets! They all believe in you.

OneSpookyBoi’s dog, Bella Phøenix’ cat, Charles nitronik’s cat, Cleo Symphonic’s cats, Echo and Zuko RateGyro’s dog, Rocket Pixelguy’s dog, Gnocchi

For Mappers

While Curation decisions are in large part subjective, the following major playability issues (often referred to as Objective Issues) will bar a map from curation.

  • Audibly Off-time notes. Beat Saber is a rhythm game, so if the rhythm is off, it shows. This determination is subjective, as it must be noticeable during play, not just through editor checking. If a dispute arises about a timing issue in a curated map, a thread will be started so that other Curators can play the map and form a consensus as to whether the timing issues are audible in game, and thus are objective errors.
  • Dangerous patterns. Any patterns that can potentially injure or damage the equipment of the average player shouldn’t be highlighted. Dangerous patterns are listed in the BSMG Mapping Wiki “Forbidden Patterns” list. You can also view the Glossary for definitions and images.
    • Hard handclaps (blocks pointing at each other)
    • Hammer hits (blocks pointing directly at bombs)
    • Hidden blocks (stacked notes, bombs in notes, notes/bombs in walls, etc.)
    • Excessive hitbox abuse (if the pre-path swing of a block is directly covered by a block of the opposite colour with no space in between)
    • Disembodied notes (blocks on both sides of a wall during a wall segment)
    • Danger dash walls (walls that take up the center two lanes, or 3-wide-walls)
    • Rapid dodge walls (full height walls that the player must move to avoid within an unsafe amount of time)
    • Face-punchers (cross-body top row patterns on the same beat)
    • Challenge patterns (loloppes, vibro, etc), are not curatable when in a standard difficulty but are ok to have in a lawless one)
  • Vision blocks with insufficient time to react can be major playability issues. This determination is subjective, as it is dependent on factors including NJS and< offset, the speed of the map, and the intended audience. The VB’s must be noticeable during play, not just through editor checking. If a dispute arises about VB’s in a curated map, a thread will be started so that other Curators can play the map and form a consensus as to whether they constitute major playability issues, and thus are objective errors.
  • Hot starts. (Less than 1.33 sec of time before any interactable-objects)
  • No lighting. (Maps must have basic lighting – at least from an autolighter)
  • NSFW content. If a map has an NSFW cover, title, or description it shouldn’t be curated until the mapper changes the cover or updates the title/description (requires re-upload)
  • “Cyborg” content. Cyborg maps were initially generated by an auto-mapping program like Beat Sage or Lolighter (robot) and then tweaked (human) (robot + human = cyborg… we’re nerds). These maps shouldn’t be syncing to BeastSaber but mistakes happen. Think a map is suspect? You can run it through the public Beat Sage Validator to check.
  • Senior Curator-uncurated content. If Curator Management has uncurated a map with cause, it may not be re-curated without approval.

Maps with objective issues in the Curation Request Queue will be marked with an ❌ reaction and will not be looked at by other curators.

Have a map you’d like to suggest to our Curation team? Fill out our Curation Request Form. See the rules and status of your request here.