[Charu]

Y'know, when it comes to easier difficulties, I think the first thing to take note of is the NPS and place the difficulty number based on that for the super low numbers since at that point the patterns shouldn't even be considered unless there's suddenly a burst of 16ths in the middle of a file. If there is, I'd rate the song solely on that one section.

It's only when NPS on average get higher at 4 or so where you'd have to consider if note patterning is flow friendly. That's when you start basing difficulties strictly on note structure and patterning. If there's a sudden extra note in the middle of a bunch of 8ths, I'd raise the difficulty up based on that alone. If there's more than one instance where it happens, bump it up again. Repeat until that one instance happens throughout the file and then rate the difficulty based on pattern choices.

Rinse and repeat as things get faster and faster.

...

It's how I would approach it anyways, lol.