How would you order the 11 black maps in order of difficulty?

[anrein]

As of me writing this, there are officially 10 black maps, with my map evenly rounding it out with the close of the change thread. I want to know which one everyone thinks is the easiest and which one everyone thinks is the hardest. I really want to know what everyone thinks is the hardest map on Minr(Heartless, it's got to be Heartless).

Edit: I didn't realize there were now 11 black maps. My bad!

 

[Dumbmutt]

I'll list my personal thoughts from easiest to hardest. (I have not finished ChaosKampf so I can't accurately rate it on this list, so I will not include it.)
1. World Tour 3
2. Outpost
3. Fallen City
4. In Rainbows
5. Rapture
6. Survivor
7. Crimson Planet
8. Ice Age
9. Redstone Ready
10. Heartless
This is just a personal list from my experience playing these maps, it may not be accurate with what everyone else agrees with.
Edit: Redstone Ready and Ice Age feel interchangeable to me.

 

[Big]

I have completed 2 black maps only, so here’s my list:

World Tour 3
Outpost

 

[_Trains_]

I have completed none so here is my list:

 

[swimmy1212]

From the ones i've played (easy -> hard):
Haydon Falls
Bowser's Airship
World Tour 3
Outpost
Evergreen
Rapture
Rsr
Ice Age
In Rainbows
Magisterium: Ash
Crimson Planet
Happy Thoughts
Oculus 3
Box16

 

[Fire]

10. World Tour 3
9. Outpost
8. Crimson Planet
7. Redstone Ready
6. Fallen City
5. Rapture
4. In Rainbows
3. Survivor
2. Chaoskampf
1. Heartless

 

[picklesthecheeta]

Of the ones ive done:

3-Ur
IR
Outpost
Rapture
Survivor
RSR

 

[spolendina]

13. Outpost
12. Halcyon
11. World Tour 3
10. In Rainbows
9. Rapture
8. Redstone Ready
7. Sheol
6. Chaoskampf
5. Ice Age
4. Survivor
3. Happy Thoughts
2. Heartless
1. Crimson Planet

 

[AverageIPA]

The order of the ones ive done
1. Outpost
2. Fallen City
3. In Rainbows
4. Rapture (This was a length thing for me)
5. Chaoskampf
6. Redstone Ready
7. Ice Age
8. Crimson Planet
9. Survivor
10. Heartless
(Rapture probably should be higher, but the fact that all the cps are so short helps me out alot. Im sure my list is probably wack for most)

- Average

 

[KimboBlade_]

Of what I've done:
1. Outpost
2. In Rainbows
3. Fallen City
4. Rapture
5. Chaoskampf
6. Redstone Ready
7. Ice Age
8. Survivor
9. Crimson Planet
10. Heartless

I'm currently stuck at the tower puzzle of WT3, but based off of current progress I would place WT3 in between Outpost and In Rainbows

 

[SIkye]

Idk what it is, but the hardest part for me about outpost on my attempts (before it was fully published and I was checking out the map and trying things) was the vines. And to this damn day it is still the vines. I have no idea how to transfer to them correctly at all.

 

[Big]

Now that I’ve beaten a few more black maps, here’s my updated list!

5. World Tour 3
4. Rapture
3. In Rainbows
2. Outpost
1. Redstone Ready

Yes, Outpost harder than rapture and In Rainbows. Hot take, I know

 

[Mercata]

To rate my own skills as a preamble: I'd say that I'm above average at HH'er timing consistency, well below average on mouse curving precision, and well above average in the strat finding department. I sometimes spend more time in test recreating and fully exploring a jump than I do actually playing the jump. I tend to look at every jump as a puzzle with "what's the least amount of inputs I can get away with to get this consistently?" as the answer. I'm also really prone to choking even the "easier" jumps when there's a lot to lose. If this sounds like you at all, my difficulty rankings will probably vibe with your difficulty perception as well.

	NOVELTY 1 = Familiarity 10 = Headacheyness	ABILITY 1 = Cheesability 10 = Technicality	PUNISHMENT 1= Forgivability 10 = Chokeability	REPUTATION 1 = Delightability 10 = Traumatizability	Total
Gearburn: Alone at Night	10	10	8	9	37
Thrice	9	8	10	10	37
Gearburn: The Savior	8	8	10	10	36
Cataclysm	7	9	10	10	36
Lost Soul	9	9	9	9	36
Affliction	7	8	10	10	35
Happy Thoughts	10	9	10	6	35
The Refinery	8	9	8	9	34
Ragnarok	7	8	9	10	34
Heartless	9	8	8	9	34
Crimson Planet	8	8	9	8	33
Chaoskampf	7	8	9	8	32
Oculus 3	9	8	7	8	32
Magisterium: Ash	4	8	10	9	31
Adventures of the Wool Valley	9	9	8	5	31
Oculus	9	8	6	8	31
Astral Upsurge	7	6	10	8	31
Sheol	9	10	8	3	31
Aqua City	8	9	8	5	30
Sky Runner 2	8	3	9	9	29
The Magic Tower	9	4	6	9	28
FinalE	10	10	1	7	28
Patience	10	10	1	6	27
Resource Parkour Secret	10	2	4	10	26
Vertigo	10	1	5	10	26
Oculus 2	8	7	5	6	26
Box16	10	4	4	7	25
Invictus II	8	1	7	9	25
Halcyon	8	9	2	5	24
Ice Age	5	4	7	5	21
Redstone Ready	3	4	6	6	19
Rapture	9	7	1	2	19
relikvya	9	1	2	7	19
Bowser's Airship	6	5	4	3	18
In Rainbows	5	4	5	3	17
World Tour 3	1	3	6	6	16
Survivor	3	3	4	5	15
Outpost	2	6	6	1	15
Polymerase	4	5	3	2	14
Enigma	5	1	1	7	14
Evergreen	2	3	4	4	13
Dimensions	2	7	1	3	13
Haydon Falls	3	4	3	3	13

First of all, I really loved Bahn's objective attempts at rating these along a number of criteria from an "if this were your very first black map ever" perspective, so I've copied him but with criteria of my own. In thinking about these 1-to-10 factors as a spectrum, there's a few key things to keep in mind about how I've determined my rankings. For one, scores closer to "1" can be considered Easier while scores closer to "10" are considered Harder.

Second, I've tried to come up with general words to describe what I see as opposite ends of the spectrum in gauging the major types of difficulty factors as I experience them. These should mostly be self-explanatory, but here's a brief set of definitions for the sake of clarity:

1. NOVELTY
   • Familiarity: The degree to which the challenges can largely be described as recognizable based on prior experience doing lower-ranked maps.
   • Headacheyness: A measure of a map's freshness in presenting never-before-seen challenges and/or challenges that are so vague and complex as to be extra hard
2. ABILITY
   • Cheesability: A factor that accounts for the density of challenges that have setups or mechanical aspects that are easy (and, often, evident) to replicate on command, especially where the use of Escape Jam setups are concerned
   • Technicality: A ranking distinction that defines how much the average challenge requires technical and/or in-depth knowledge of Minecraft mechanics and parkour (as well as, often, precise and near-perfect mouse control) in order for advancement
3. PUNISHMENT
   • Forgivability: A distinction marked by generosity to the player, usually by way of much failsafing, thoughtful checkpoints, and transitions that aren't meant to be giant setbacks
   • Chokeability: This factor accounts for a map's long length of sections, high death potential, limited checkpoints, or the ability to set a player back majorly upon any failure, often (for me) influenced by nerve-wracking factors such as the floor being lava and/or fire
4. REPUTATION
   • Delightability: Maps that evoke a generally positive feeling and are considered rewarding might be called "delightful," and this is both a measurement of how the community regards a map and how much those expectations lived up to my feelings playing it
   • Traumatizability: Like above, this factor accounts for the collective, often recognized harrowingness of a map or even a single extremely hard section that casts a shadow over the enjoyment factor—again tempered against my experience with the map

Regarding the absence of "Length" as a factor, this is a very challenging factor to qualify, and I don't necessarily consider a lengthy playtime to correlate reliably to any other marker of difficulty. It's also expected by me that any hard+ map is going to take me a heck of a long time to complete, regardless of known quantity of jumps or reputation for particularly harrowing segments. Mileage varies so wildly here by different skillsets that I can't find myself being objective about Length, especially when you consider that an optimal playtime through Heartless (largely considered the hardest Black map) is a 1/4 of the time of an optimal playthrough of WT3 (often considered the easiest Black map). For these reasons, I've excluded Length as a ranking factor.

Spoiler: old thoughts (prior to having done the complete set of 15 black maps as of 12/24/20)

My perspective is going to be quite wonky here compared to the above (as someone who uses Escape Jam and tends to perform better on "set-up" jumps than on endurance PK), but here's what I've got so far:

14. Outpost
13. Rapture
12. Survivor
11. World Tour 3
10. In Rainbows
9. Invictus II
8. Redstone Ready
7. Halcyon
6. Resource Parkour Secret
5. Sheol
4. Ice Age
3. Chaoskampf
2. Happy Thoughts
1. Crimson Planet

Invictus II took me soooo many hours and this was with a ginormous group. That definitely counts for a great deal on this list. RPKS was done in a group of 2, but it was spread over days and challenged my brain as much as it did my dexterity in certain areas, putting it at the fourth hardest map I've played so far. While many would put World Tour 3 as their easiest Black map, my time in Alexandria was miserably long, as my choking near the top lead to some truly epic loop backs. Certain Reds (see below) definitely caused me more trouble than any section of Survivor, but this has so far felt middle of the pack for me. It's a difficult one to assess. In Rainbows was not technically difficult, but my weakness for endurance and choke-y transitions was hard enough for me. Redstone Ready plays similarly to this but is loaded with neos, all of which are unfailsafed. Halcyon is Rapture-like, but more; the precision needed on some very unfamiliar jumps is really restrictive from a skill perspective.

For my #5 and #4: Sheol is bonkers, having no checkpoints, streams of technical jumps with practically no failsafing, and lethality thrown into the mix, but it lags well behind Ice Age and CKF in terms of completion time. Ice Age is brimming with familiar jumps in neos, double neos, neups, cross neos, and various 4 block jumps (a few without good momentum setups), but it's the length of a few of the CPs that make this especially difficult. CP2 and 6 are so taxing, consisting not only of tons of HH'er timing jumps with no forgiveness if you miss, but 6 ratchets up the challenge with a lot of highly technical mouse swivels. The choke factor is high, too, and I admittedly died once on the final cloud jumps and had to do the ladder path all over again—but at least I had that option among 3 paths. Unlike...

Chaoskampf gets a big paragraph of its own: for my skill set, this was undoubtedly the third most challenging map, and it has almost entirely to do with the timed parkour section of the harrowing chimney section. It took me literally days of grinding to slowly level up my ability to even complete this section, and the terrifying nature of what comes after (with all of the spotty "failsafing" and all) made me restart this cp hundreds of times. No other experience at the time of writing this has even come close to stonewalling me so utterly. But it's not as if the rest of the journey is terribly easier by comparison. I spent perhaps longer than average in the maze, going on some really incorrect assumptions about its nature, and I spent hours on God Console trying to make sense of it. Cp 2 was also one heck of a journey, requiring a huge level up in my ability to HH'er time. I literally needed to upgrade my keyboard to make it through this map. Speaking of HH'ers, I twice failed the transition jump from the bridge section and had to repeat quite a lot of parkour... chokiest map I've ever touched.

Before playing Happy Thoughts, I was under the impression that the difficulty was entirely owed to its extremely uncommon effects inflicted upon the character like an ancient curse. No, there are also effects-less transitions between effects caves that are among the hardest parkour segments on the entire server. This map dials up the difficulty from start to finish with no respite throughout. When you finally get accustomed to some new gimmick, the segment ends, and your readjustment is as jarring as finding out that your transitions out of any segment will result in death or a full reset of that incredibly difficult segment. The true gimmick is just how punishing, deadly, and long each area of this map is—Crystal Room, especially, is easily as harrowing as The Chimney in CKF. The rage factor is so high, and you can feel the thought process of the creator at work of "how about this jump.. but harder?" Save for a few rare moments of ingenuity and rewardingness (the final jump in particular), this entire experience is among the hardest and most frustrating on Minr.

Where Crimson Planet starts off as a black map with a familiar difficulty in its jumps and section lengths, the signs in the map promise an experience that gets harder as it goes. The signs are—distressingly—telling the truth, and the final two rooms require an absurd amount of things to go near-perfectly right, with some of the most unforgiving precision on many technically difficult jumps with no failsafing that the server has to offer. Like Happy Thoughts, there's a triple neo-ish jump and more jumps after it that are very much not free, putting both those maps in a class all their own compared to other such sections in black maps. While the difficulty ramps down for a brief moment in the dreaded Lava Room, the choke factor is so high and there's still quite a bit of unfamiliar setups and weird ceilings to account for. The most frustrating bit is that there are a handful of very difficult jumps leading up to this l/d room, a few of which just feel downright lucky (the fence covering the ladder and the 45 degree jump between two fences). This map's reputation as an absurdly technical and harrowing experience is well-deserved.

I'd argue that E3 and Psyche should be up there, based on time and challenge for me. Somewhere in the upper middle of the list for both. For me, Four Elements Air would be the Red border (pretend it's pure), with Wizard's Tower just under it.

 

[Dumbmutt]

Updated List: Pure Parkour
List goes from hardest to easiest.
1. Heartless
2. Crimson Planet
3. Survivor
4. Chaoskampf
5. Ice Age
6. Redstone Ready
7. Rapture
8. Halcyon
9. In Rainbows
10. Sheol
11. Outpost
12. World Tour 3

Heartless in my opinion, is undoubtedly the hardest map on the server. Though yes, a lot less endurance based nor as long as Crimson Planet, it still requires way more technical skill than any other map in my opinion. Descending down the list you hit Survivor, which may surprise a lot of people. I really think this map is not talked about often for just its sheer difficulty. It's long, brutal and many of the sections are incredibly punishing. Chaoskampf is the exact same way (and lets be honest, the map is black because of the parkour.) I listed Ice Age and Redstone Ready next to each-other as I still believe they are somewhat close in difficulty overall. Both maps are very focused towards Head-Hitter Timing, and Force Momentum. This makes both maps very similar in my eyes; but if I were to vote one over the other I think Ice Age is just harder.

Rapture is rated lower than RSR & Ice Age because I feel that rapture is far easier to grind out using trial and error methods. Rapture consists of many "E" like sections with very short checkpoints. This makes it far easier to learn and retry the jumps unlike say, Ice Age, that has very long and drawn out sections with comparable jumps in my opinion. Below Rapture rests Halcyon and In Rainbows. At first I was unsure on which one was harder, but after recent play-through of both I came to a conclusion. Halcyon has many complex jumps (Example: Kyroh Ladders) and several strafe jumps that are required to progress. In comparison, I think even with the weird affects in some of the rooms inside of In Rainbows still have a much more standard base of parkour. (4 block jumps, traditional ladder grabs). This makes me believe that Halcyon is harder than In Rainbows, but not by much.

For the last three I placed Sheol, Outpost and finally, World Tour 3. Sheol places higher than both as I firmly believe you can complete either Outpost and World Tour 3 (mainly World Tour 3) without running into a section that requires the technicality of Sheol. [Point being that a player could feasibly beat Outpost but get stuck on Sheol]. And lastly, though not a very popular opinion, I think World Tour 3 comes last. Yes, it's long and yes it's quite punishing in say one or two spheres; but I do not believe that it has the technicality level that Outpost provides. (Also apart of my opinion that I believe it's a red map extended into a black one).

That's all for my updated list. If you would like me to add Invictus II and compare it I can, but It'd take me a bit to figure out a good method to compare a black maze to black parkour maps. I can also go more in depth on why I believe Survivor is so high on the list.
But for now that's all, thanks.

Edit - I did not include Happy Thoughts as I could not compare it as it's so oddly different from every other map. I was unable to accurately find any general basis or map that came anywhere near close to the odd and complex mechanics used in this map.

- Mutt

 

[UltraOmiga]

Black Map Difficulty List


In order from Easiest to hardest


15. WT3- This is decidedly the easiest black map and if it was even one island shorter it would be red

14. Halcyon- Even though there are some more complex jumps, with the amount of cps there are and the sheer failsafedness of the jumps, it truly just isn’t that bad.

13. Outpost- While I really didn’t want to put it here, it comes down to the fact that it’s not too hard and not too long with plenty of built in paths of choices to decide where you end up going.

12. Chaoskampf- Alright hear me out, this map is honestly not that bad at all. Firstly, it's extremely difficult to die until cp1, and even then, the amount of unfailsafed space between cp1 and cp2 is minimal. Looking at the maze, it's around orange difficulty, and the puzzle is either green or red making for a really trippy experience. Cp2 is really the hardest part of the map, being long and painful, but the hardest sections are ultimately failsafe making the difficulty be balanced by those failsafes. Finally there is Cp3, which people cite as the hardest cp. The fact is, the most technical jumps are either one of the first few making them not too painful to redo when failed, or entirely failsafed completely. Ultimately because of all that, I believe that it should be here on the difficulty scale.

11. In Rainbows- Ok so this one is pretty easy to place for me because of a few reasons. First, the cp placement makes it easy to be failsafe and feel good about what you are doing progress-wise. More specifically, each section that is difficult is failsafe, and the outside sections either have a cp before them or aren’t too difficult.

10. Rapture- The sections are short and specific, with cps before them, nuff said.

9. Sheol- Same thing as rapture, minus the checkpoints with the whole map being short.

8. Survivor- This map is relatively easy, but so long, and the last sections hurt my soul so much.

7. Redstone Ready- This map simply is neos the map. It is pretty difficult and choke-y in many places and makes for a pretty hard black map.

6. Invictus 2- This map is super confusing. Just plain and simple, almost every path you will go on is absolute bs, with everything leading up down and around where you want to go, something that you don’t even really know. And that was doing it with a big group. I can only imagine the hell this is on your own.

5. Ice Age- Imagine Redstone Ready, but with more choke jumps, more complexities, a triple neo, and so… so much pain. Cp2 is the peak of difficulty, but oh my god the peak is so high it might as well be Kilimanjaro.

4. Happy Thoughts- This map is almost the exact same difficulty as Ice Age in my eyes, only being slightly harder because of some of the finicky nature that comes with effect parkour.

3. Resource Parkour Secret- This is a challenge I would never recommend to anyone, ever, period. It isn’t fun, and it's disgustingly unbalanced compared to the normal map. Unless you are going for 100% and absolutely have to do this, I would never ever recommend doing it. The secrets are esoteric and impossibly difficult to find at times. The sheer amount of things is absolutely insane, and just genuinely painful. And then, towards the end, when you inevitably have only two or three items left, you will spend hours searching random areas, combing the entire map up and down, only to realize that it was that one thing that you forgot about when you started the map days earlier. Never. Do. This. Map.

2. Crimson Planet- This challenge is extremely difficult, but ultimately not too punishing. Don’t get me wrong, lava room exists in the mindscape of Minr how it does for a reason, but for the most part, this is a really hard map with really failsafed rooms. Even though I placed it above RPKS, it is still fun and very worth playing.

1. Heartless- Ok so simply put this map is the most difficult. I have never spent more time on sections or one specific jump than I have in this map. It was a blast to play most of the time, but the amount of jumps that if you don’t understand the theory behind them or have an inkling as to how to do them correctly, it is straight up luck, as so many people who called to me said. Simply put, this is the hardest and greatest challenge on minr.

 

[anrein]

I love that people are replying to my post with maps that I have never heard of. So many black maps that have come out this year...

 

[Bahnarli]

Alright, so there are now 15 black maps technically released, and I'm going to be rating all of them according to 4 metrics on a 1-10 scale, length of time to complete, technicality of parkour, failsafing, and frustratingness (used as sort of an X factor here for intangibles). People may disagree with my ratings, but I hope by getting to look at a specific breakdown of ratings it becomes more clear where the disagreements lie

	Length to complete	Technicality/ In depth MC knowledge/ Savvy required	Lack of Failsafing/ Unforgivingness	Frustratingness (X factor)	Total
Heartless	10	10	9	10	39
Crmp	10	10	10	8	38
Happy Thoughts	8	8	8	8	32
Ckf	6	5	6	7	24
Sheol	3	8	9	4	24
FinalE	6	10	2	6	24
Oculus	6	7	5	5	23
RPKS	8	4	1	10	23
Vic2	8	2	7	6	23
Ice Age	5	4	8	5	22
Rapture	5	6	5	5	21
Survivor	7	4	5	6	21
Halcyon	5	6	4	5	20
RSR	5	5	4	4	18
In Rainbows	2	3	5	1	11
WT3	5	1	2	3	11
Outpost	1	3	4	2	10

A little bit more about how I did these ratings:
I did my best to take the perspective of a newer but not inexperienced player of about equal skill level at parkour/maze/puzzle here doing these maps for the first time. This means that mazes and puzzles are factored into the difficulty, mostly adding to length and frustration. I also note that the way I did the table was that each column was done separately, choosing values to get 1 and 10 first, and then filling in the rest of the column relative to those two initial points. Looking at the totals column, I see what I expected beforehand, which is that there is a clear bottom 3 of outpost/wt3/ir, and a clear top 2 of hea/crmp, with hap lagging a little behind but harder than anything else but those 2. The middle section all feels very close to me, and if you feel even slightly different about these maps I could see this whole section feeling quite different to you, after all, there are only 5 points separating #4 and #11.

Of course I can't completely get rid of my own personal biases from my own experience playing these maps and my own unique skillset, but I tried to be as objective as I could and average out experiences I had that I felt from talking to others players was unique (Rapture maze took me under 10 minutes first time, and ckf god console took me 3 days), and I think I did reasonably well. I'd love to hear what other players think of my list, I'm sure people strongly disagree with some of my choices, but I'm fairly happy with how this went

 

[Shadowless]

My turn to tackle the black (parkour) map ranking: I will start from hardest to easiest.

1. Heartless
2. Crimson Planet
3. Happy Thoughts

4. Chaoskampf
5. Oculus
6. Sheol

7. Ice Age
8. Survivor
9. Redstone Ready

10. Final-E
11. Halcyon
12. Rapture

13. In Rainbows
14. Outpost
15. World Tour 3

World Tour 3, Outpost, and In Rainbows were a clear bottom 3 for me. World Tour 3 and IR have the least technicality of any black map, but I say IR is harder due to effects (azure) and the high choke factor of transitions. Outpost is more technical than the two, but it is the easiest technical black and sits right in between the other two.

Moving on to the middle 9 maps (these positions are much more subject to switching around from person to person). I found the forgiving technicals to be the easiest of this group. Rapture and Halcyon have some high level technical jumps, but I found them easiest simply because of how low risk they are. Cps or failsafes around every corner for these two maps, and between the two I thought Halcyon had harder jumps. While Final-E is even more forgiving given its one jump style, there are so many jumps that are truly difficult and outmatch even that of Halcyon, especially j23 for me.

Next I thought the endurance blacks were middle of the road. Redstone Ready, Survivor, and Ice Age are all a good mix of technical and endurance challenges. I thought rsr was the easiest of these 3 because the jumps did not get much more complicated than double neos or some interesting fence jumps. This map had a lot of simple floating block parkour that made it more trivial compared to the other two. Survivor does not exactly get much more technical than rsr, and a lot of it is just long distance jumps. However, survivor is brutally long, both in its sections and the map itself. Most sections are very endurance heavy requiring a lot of jumps to be made. On top of that, the map in general just takes a long time to get through, and the maze certainly counts as another layer of a challenge. Ice Age I thought outmatched the technicality of rsr and survivor with many neos of its own, awkward setups, challenging ladder jumps, and a triple neo for examples. On top of that, Ice Age has a lot of endurance on its own with many lengthy sections, especially cps1 and 2. This puts it above survivor and rsr for me.

On an even harder scale, we have the punishing technical maps. Now for sheol, this map takes another step further than rapture and halcyon for technicality. I would even say this map competes with heartless and crimson planet in some ways. What makes this map more brutal than rsr, ice age, and survivor is that this map has a much greater potential for punishment and choke than halcyon and rapture. This applied a mild sense of endurance to sheol in a way, making it harder for me than rsr, ice age, and survivor. Oculus did not match the technicality of some jumps in Sheol, but Oculus was even more punishing. Multiple cps were a bit long with harrowing jumps, and cp10 was absolutely brutal. Chaoskampf had the same concept for me. A lot of technicality, especially in cp2 and the brutal cp3 chimney, but with so much potential for punishment. This was especially true for the chimney. What puts this above sheol and oculus is the much greater length of chaoskampf. It has a time consuming maze and puzzle to go along with it, and there was certainly many areas of challenging parkour even before reaching cp1.

Moving on to the Big 3. Happy Thoughts. This map is difficult to compare, but I felt it earned the #3 spot. Taking a look at the techniques needed for effects, and especially its traditional parkour (crystal room for ex.) it does not reach the same level as crimson planet or heartless. With that in mind, the wild nature of all the effects pk requiring so much adjustment pits Happy Thoughts clearly above the rest of the competition. There is a lot of comparable pk in this map with other lower blacks, but the added effects makes it that much harder. On top of that, the non-effects pk of happy thoughts alone seemingly has greater difficulty than maps like rsr, ice age, survivor, etc. especially in the case of crystal room.

Crimson Planet has a lot of endurance to it, but it is clearly the most technical endurance map. It has many hh timings, many complicated neos, many interesting curve jumps, and it has its own form of high choke potential in the form of lava room. This map takes a lot of challenging and unfamiliar jumps, hh timings, and other things mashed into some endurancy sections. Certainly the hardest endurance black.

Heartless. This map is not as endurancy as crimson planet and other endurance blacks, but it has the greatest technicality of any. There are many traditionally difficult jumps with long distance jumps, curve jumps, hh timing, and neos. But mixed in are higher level jumps too, such as a gap 3+1, ladder neup but the ladder is another block higher (unsure of the term for this jump), and of course the dreaded butterfly neo. With the technicality in mind, this map still has strong hints of endurance. Cps 1 and 2 in the jungle are relatively very long, and cp6 is the greatest hh timing endurance test you will find on any map.

Anyway, if you read this far thank you for reading into my list, and hopefully this all makes sense and is agreeable.

 

[Shpeckly]

(Disclaimer: my opinions are very different than many other people's)

Well, I'll put in my thoughts on this. Here is my ranking of the black parkour maps from easiest to hardest :
#13 : Outpost
Outpost was a map that gave me some trouble when I first played it, as I was not very good parkour. I especially struggled on many of the tree jumps. But this was then. Now, I believe this to be the easiest black map because of the simplicity of many of the jumps. The difficulty of this map stems from the endurance aspect, but all of the jumps are very approachable by a semi-experienced person. The beginning section, the cave, and much of the castle (minus a select few jumps) are fairly simple. The trees definitely hold the hardest jumps, but most are failsafed.

#12: Sheol
Here is where I stem off from most people. Sheol is very different from many of the other black maps, just because it is so technical yet so short. I personally did not have too much trouble figuring out some (wack) strats for jumps. It definitely holds an endurance aspect to it with many interesting and tight jumps in a row. I do believe this to be a bit harder than outpost, but easier than all the other black maps.

#11: WT3
I have to say, going into WT3 I thought it would be a breeze considering the first handful of locations are not too tough. I was then slapped in the face with Alexandria and Everest. I had the most trouble with Alexandria because of its lack of failsafing on some of the tough outside jumps. The endurance factor greatly outweighs Outpost's endurance because of the difficulty of the jumps. Everest in particular has some very tough jumps that took me a while to complete in one go.

#10: In Rainbows
I don't have much to say about this one. It has some real tough sections and some not so tough sections. The speed section took me a bit of time as I was not and am still not good at effect parkour. Definitely harder than the previous 3, but not hard enough to be above any of the following maps.

#9: Halcyon
I was not given too much trouble by this map, but can definitely see that it can be very tough for players. It contains some pretty tricky jumps right off the bat, but then proceeds to coast to the finish. This map is well sectioned so it is not terribly difficult to progress.

#8: Rapture
In my opinion, this and the following 2 are *fairly* similar in difficulty, albeit rapture definitely has a different style of parkour. Rapture has some of the hardest jumps in the black maps, but checkpoints are very frequent and helpful. Most jumps have strats that can be discovered on rebuilt single player worlds, so cps 0-3 (minus the maze) are relatively fine. The maze is tough, and is part of why this is above some of the previous picks. I do not believe that it is harder than survivor's maze, but nonetheless it is still very challenging. CP4 is the hardest checkpoint as it features some tough jumps and the infamous "long ladder jump". Though, many of these jumps can be practiced.

#7: Redstone Ready
Like in rainbows, I do not have much to say for this one. Checkpoints 0 and 1 are not bad, but checkpoints 2 and 3 hold the bulk of the difficulty. Some of the jumps in the trapdoor are challenging, as well as a select few jumps in cp3.

#6: Ice Age
This was the first black map I ever completed, so I did not perfectly remember it. I recently went back and got most of the way through, and I can confidently put this one in the middle of the pack. It features some very hard sections (namely cp1 and 2), but also contains some not-as-hard sections. There are definitely some jumps you have to be confident at if you want to be this (neos, cross neos).

#5: Chaoskampf
Deciding whether this should be 5th or 4th was very difficult for me, but I'll put this here. I did not have a ton of trouble with some of this map, including the maze and the god console (Thankfully). I did, however, have a lot of trouble with the final sections of this map. It was not just the chimney though, but the checkpoints leading up to it and the magnets. The hh magnet room took me a large chunk of time as well as checkpoint 2. The chimney also took me quite some time on my first play-through.

#4: Survivor
The beginning islands of this map were not bad, but certainly not easy. I especially had a hard time with the dungeon under the jungle island. The reason this is this high, though, was because of the maze and the volcano. I struggled with the maze for a long time, and the proceeding checkpoints also were very hard. I don't have much else to say except that this map is very tough and deserves to be this high up.

#3: Heartless
Here we are! Kicking off the final 3 is ... Heartless. (The crowd goes silent). This map is so, so, so, so difficult. This takes a huge step of difficulty compared to the previous 10 maps. The jumps in this map are among the hardest on the server, but the reason I do not believe this is #1 or even #2 is because of the length and the checkpoints. This map is much shorter than every other map here (besides maybe sheol). Though many checkpoints contain a few jumps that are ridiculously hard, they can all be practiced and many have perfect strats that can be used. The checkpoints are relatively generous, and the player always feels like they are making progress. This is why I believe this is the 3rd hardest map on the server (currently).

#2: Crimson Planet
The main reason this is one step above heartless is that this is much longer with many equally tough jumps. Like most of these maps, the jumps can be practiced and perfected. This map is also much more endurance based than heartless (see lava room and basically every section). I was stuck on the 2nd to last section for so long. It is, in my opinion, the 2nd hardest section of any map on the server. This map is not for the faint of heart, and contains many of the toughest sections in all of Minr. That is why this map lies at #2.

#1: Happy Thoughts
I know this is not what people were expecting for the #1 black map. I have so much trouble with effect parkour. So. Much. Trouble. So many of the effect sections in this map are long and unforgiving. Oh, that is another thing I should mention about this map. It is ridiculously lengthy. The effect sections I found to be the hardest were definitely the levitation and slowness sections. The final section is also very brutal. But, that is not the main reason this is number one for me. The main reason is not even because of an effect section, but because of the crystal room. This room had me stuck for a day and a half. I have not struggled on a section of a map on minr for this long since I did Vil Bo in hardcore. That along with the sheer length and number of sections is the reason this is my pick for #1.

I know my opinion differs from most if not all other players, but hopefully it was interesting to read. I look forward to any new black maps in the future!

-Shpeck

 

[Repacharge]

Ok a while ago I spent a couple of weeks and over 300 hours playing black maps, so I feel pretty qualified to give my opinion on this topic. So without further ado, in order from easiest to hardest in difficulty:



1. World Tour 3