In malody catch, drop speed controls the speed of the falling notes, not the BPM. We have some standards that you need to follow if you want to map proper catch map.

Most of old charts don't follow this standard because they are converted maps from osu!, but nowadays charts need to follow to the rules if you want to stable your charts.

To set drop speed, you could go to Menu -> Information. Scroll down until you see 'drop speed'.

Drop speed setting on editor

Most new catch players only use 1 of their finger to play catch mode when trying it for the first time. Dash notes are created automatically by the editor when the distance between notes is big enough so players need to moving fast to catch them. It doesn’t make any sense to have dash notes on low diff as players still struggle to catch slow notes.

Dash notes in game

Copy paste notes in the catch editor will make the notes turn blue, which is the same color as ‘rain’ notes. Players will not be able to distinguish which notes are regular and which notes are ‘rain’ notes. It looks ugly from an aesthetic perspective.

Note colors change if you change snap timing on catch. For example, 1/4 makes notes turn purple, 1/2 turns notes blue, 1/8 turns notes yellow, etc. You can manipulate the snap if you want to make an ‘artistic’ chart but make sure it's pleasant to see when people play it. An example of an artistic looking chart would be most of HxJ's charts and "When I See You Dance With Another" (salad) by Satinubes.

If your catch chart use double notes, you should add + on the version name. For reference take example from catch mapset NceS - Burn by Yakumochen.

For example, if you making mapset with overdose as highest difficulty, you cant skipping rain and platter difficulty. Same as deluge, you cant skip overdose and rain too. All difficulty must be created according to highest difficulty on the mapset.

It's better to treat the same kind of music with similar patterns to better represent what you really want to tell about your chart and players can guess what's coming to them. Sure, it can boring to be repetitive.. but there’s a lot you can do to make it less obvious. You can mirror the notes, you can change the color, you can even move the pattern as long as it's similar with the same kind of instruments/vocals. Example of this consistency would be Honey Come!! by Potarou. The start of the song and the end of song are similar. He makes it the same pattern and just mirrors the notes. Sure, there’s a small difference but overall it's the same pattern.

Start of the chart

End of the chart

For better consistent song, take a lot at FLOWER by kira and Pasta Scat by Yakumochen. Both are very consistent and repetitive song, and the mapper did a good job mapping it consistently.

It's optional, but try to make dash notes appear when strong sounds appear in the music. Of course, there's an exception if you want to differentiate sounds. Dash notes are fine too as long it makes sense. I'll show you an example on how to make dash notes appear on your chart in case you're confused. Let's make an example of an 184 bpm chart.

Let's try to make the distance about 10 grids or more to next note. The first note would be turned into a dash note for sure. (1/2 – white to blue, use 1/4 snapping)

10 grid distance for 1/2

If its (1/4 - purple to blue/white) use a minimum of 7 grids or more. 6 could work too.

If its (1/1 – white to white, blue to blue) use 14 grids or more.

Here, we will explain to you some specific unwritten rules based on common sense for specific difficulties on catch.

1. Cup

o Easiest difficulty on catch, no streams, no overmapped stuff. Most of the time, there are single notes.

o It should be easy for new players to get full combo.

o Distance between notes are 1-3 grids most of time. Make sure players only need to move a small distance to catch the notes.

o Drop speed of 5=>. 5 is recommended

o Note count should be about the same as the salad difficulty.

o Level range for cup most of time is level 1-4.

2. Salad

o Don’t put dash notes in this difficulty

o It should be easily playable with one finger.

o Distance between notes most of time ranges from 1-4 grid distance so players feel at ease when playing.

o Drop speed of 5-6. 6 is recommended.

o No tricky patterns. Streams should be straightforward, except it has a reason.

o Its recommended to just cover one kind of sound in the song instead covering everything as it should be intended for rain or above instead. For example, you can cover vocals only or drums only. Note count should be more than cup, but not more than platter.

o Level range for Salad most of time is level 5-9.

3. Platter

o Platter could have dash note but only in extreme cases. What we mean of this case is you could use dash note sometimes, but not continuously.

o It should be still playable with one finger.

o Distance between notes most of time ranges from 2-6 grids as it's the middle difficulty on catch.

o Drop speed of 7-8. 8 is recommended.

o You can use some advanced patterns like curve streams, jump notes, single dash, etc.

o Note count should be more than salad, but not more than rain. It also means the difficulty should harder than salad but not the same as rain.

o Level range for platter most of the time is level 8-12.

4. Rain

o You can put dash notes in this difficulty.

o It could be playable with one finger, but harder rain should be more favorable towards multiple finger users.

o Distance between notes most of time is 2-8 grids.

o Drop speed of 8-10. 9 is recommended.

o You can put anything as long it's reasonable and makes sense.

o Note count should be more than platter, but not more than overdose.

o It's recommended to try every noticeable sound from the song at this point as rain is the same as insane difficulty. If rain is the highest difficulty in your mapset, you can even cover every existing sound. You can mix vocal and music, etc.

o Level range for rain most of the time is level 11-16.

5. Overdose

o Generally the highest difficulty. If there's a difficulty harder than overdose then called it Special/Extra/Deluge.

o Should be truly hard to one finger at this point and even multiple finger users can struggle.

o You're free to use whatever grid distance.

o Drop speed of 10.

o You can put anything as long as it's reasonable. Do not overmap.

o Note count should be more than previous difficulties.

o Level range for overdose is level 16-20.

6. Deluge

o The highest difficulty. It's advised that you shouldn't map this difficulty, as it's very strict to check and most goes rejected.

o Generic patterns wouldn't be advised, this difficulty should express what catch truly is.

o BPM of the song should be relatively high.

o You're free to use any grid distance, drop speed of 10.

o You can put anything as long as it's reasonable. Do not overmap, it is very easy to do so for this difficulty.

o Note count should be more than previous difficulties.

o Level range for deluge is level 21-22.

Catch is all about catching note that falling to bottom of your screen. Note placement in same place on some period of time doesnt make it challenging and doesnt really represent the concept of catch mode itself. Try to spread note more when mapping, and more balance the spread is more good it becomes. What we mean here all screen part (edge to edge) should be has note and doesnt stay in one place, like mapping put the note on middle of screen isnt really good idea. This rules applies to all difficulty, but its more lenient toward lower difficult (such as cup and salad).

If you use rain on your map, please start and finish it on white/blue line. Do not start it on purple line, or green line (etc). Most note placement is on either 1/2 or 1/1 most of time, putting it on purple line (1/4) doesnt make any sense as theres very rarely happen to note exist on there.

Theres exception for this if the song does a lot note placement on purple line to begin with as main.