I'll have to agree and disagree, since I don't think anybody has dedicated themselves enough to AR11 to be able to read it casuallyZare wrote:
buny I get the point you're trying to make, but note that at some aspects of the game, certain physically induced limits cannot be broken. The amount of ms it takes for the visual input to appear on the screen, be recognized by our eyes, be transmitted to our brain through neurocytes and be processed by the brain so we can actually react to it ultimately adds up to something between 250 and 300 ms, depending on the person.
AR11 is 300 ms, so we have around 50 ms MAXIMUM for aiming and clicking. It's just not possible to understand complex patterns and rhythmic variations during such a short time while you're still focussing on aiming the previous objects. Emperorpenguin's scores are mostly on extreeeemely simple and straightforward maps (e.g. Koigokoro or Streamline Prism) and even for those he needed a whole lot of tries.
I don't mean to say that one can't react in time when an object appears on screen at AR11, and penguin probably didn't completely memorize every single circle of every map he plays, but as it stands, there's no one who can safely sightread AR11 the way others can casually pull of AR9
Reaction time isn't a very valid point, since playing higher AR we hone our reaction times; hell, my reaction time has gotten much faster since I've played osu.
AR11 isn't just looking at approach circles either. Follow points appear before the actual circle, however I'm not that experienced with follow points so I can't utilise them properly
Also, the effect of HR with high speed maps is much bigger than you think when you're given that small of a window to react.
But that is to say, I'm not saying that it's plausible that people could read AR11 as well as they could AR9 or AR10, but simply it is possible to sightread at AR11.
those AR10 comments were sarcasm anyway.