After the rise and fall of PP+, I had the drive to try my own hand at building a difficulty calculator.
There were aspects of ppv2 and PP+ that I thought we’re good, but in general I feel their philosophy of balance patches and tweaks was suboptimal. It’s very likely the most practical way to build a system people are mostly satisfied with, but I think under the surface there should be a way to develop a system based on physics and the core of what actually makes osu! maps difficult, rather than relying on balance patches in a reactive manner to overweighted and underweighted maps.
The way I think about it is similar to treating the disease, not the symptoms. ppv2 and PP+ treat the symptoms, but didn’t address the underlying mechanics. ppv2 does it better these days, but it’s still not great.
In addition to a difficulty and pp calculator, I also built a difficulty-aware score processor, which I still think is the most sensible way to do scoring, if the questions about recalculating upon algorithm changes could be solved.
The systems weren’t ready for real use and the numbers weren’t balanced at all, but the philosophy was the main point of the project so I wrote an essay to explain the system and the philosophy behind it and posted it in February 2018.
The post got great feedback, and I wanted to continue with the project, but I got too busy with university and struggled to balance the difficulty calculator system in particular with the little time I had.
It’s still one of my favourite projects and certainly one I’m very proud of. Someday I hope I get the time to revive it as a part of osu!chan.