====== v6.7.8: Preferred duration and a real maximum ======

**Rolling out October 3, 2026:** This cumulative update prefers maps lasting **1:30–2:30**, while still allowing shorter maps and occasional longer maps up to **4:00**. It includes [[updates:v6_7_7|Noodle-to-Stream fallback]] and all earlier features/fixes. Each room updates only after 30 seconds continuously empty and idle; occupied rooms are not closed. See [[status:start|Live lobbies]] for the actual room versions.

**Verified at 17:48 PDT on October 3, 2026:** Rooms 1, 2 and 3 were running v6.7.8. Room 4 remained on v6.7.7 with v6.7.8 queued at the empty-safe gate. All four workers were healthy with no rollout errors. This is a dated snapshot, not a continuously updated version list.

===== Preference, not a minimum =====
When the current eligible, fresh style tier has both preferred-duration and outside-range choices, the bot chooses the 90–150-second group with 80% probability and the outside group with 20%. The outside group includes maps below 90 seconds and maps lasting 151–240 seconds. This is not a guaranteed quota. If only one group has eligible choices, the bot uses it.

Existing mode-specific minimum lengths still apply, including Mania's 45-second minimum. Length means catalog playable/hit length, not loading time, intro/outro or rate-modified wall-clock duration. **240 seconds is inclusive; automatic picks above that limit are not allowed**, including sparse-pool and AutoDiff length widening.

===== Style and feedback priorities =====
Strict style tiers still precede weaker evidence and exhaustion fallbacks. Duration preference works inside the current tier. Farm, Jump, Rice and Noodle choose their strongest eligible chart within the selected duration group; duration preference therefore comes before comparing scores across the two groups. [[wiki:ratings|Player feedback]] still weights choices inside the selected group. Native key mode, active star range, pass count, age and repeat protections remain. The Mania Variety convert allocation remains capped.

Noodle still falls back through fresh strict Noodle, bounded relaxed Noodle and native Stream before unavoidable repeats. Choosing a preferred duration does not bring weaker-style fallback forward or replace the visible queue.

===== JSON settings =====
The four rooms use these top-level keys in their room JSON files:
<code javascript>
{
  "preferred_min_length": 90,
  "preferred_max_length": 150,
  "real_max_length": 240,
  "preferred_length_share": 0.8
}
</code>
Values are seconds except the probability. Settings hot-load for future picks; invalid or empty-producing changes preserve the working policy. Do not put these new keys inside ''mania_settings'' while the shared supervisor remains on its older tuning-key allowlist. Universal overrides retain their normal precedence.

The explicit ''real_max_length'' takes precedence over legacy ''max_length''. Legacy ceilings remain on disk so older workers keep their existing behavior until the rolling update reaches them. Staff ''.maxlength'' changes the explicit hard cap when enabled, and must keep it at least as large as the preferred maximum. ''.settings'' shows the full policy; [[commands:pool|.pool]] shows the preferred range and active length limit. Removing ''real_max_length'' restores legacy duration behavior.

Passed **511 offline tests** plus guarded production-catalog checks for all four rooms, including shorter, preferred and longer picks. No production/research database rewrite, collector run, shared-supervisor restart or log-retention change is part of this release.

See [[wiki:map_selection|Map selection]], [[wiki:style_fallback|Style fallback]], [[updates:start|Release history]] and [[wiki:room_updates|Update safety]].