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How can I play 4k faster?

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Topic Starter
Karukami
I've hit a wall with 4+ stars songs :? , that have really fast streams/stairs/ln's. Some have told me that I should change my skin, which is based on f1rst's skin with those really slim notes, but whenever I try to use normal size note skins, I lose a lot of accuracy since I got used too much to my current skin, but with hell-fast patterns everything becomes very blurry :x .
So my question is, for really skilled players, what would you recommend to get faster at reading patterns? do skins matter? and how to read patterns properly?
Thanks a lot! :)
XER0qxx
Your skin is fine, sometimes if you get frustrated with the game, changing your skin can get you past a mental block and help you to do better for a little while, but in general it's best to just keep using the skin that you're used to. It's not like any skin has a point where you can't improve more with that skin, so just keep using your current one, many of the top players use one like that anyway.

You can try using the random mod, it may change the patterns you're having trouble with into easier/different ones that you can do better. Random is an invaluable tool, it's widely used by pro IIDX/LR2 players for improvement, but it's great for 4k too.
For practicing reading patterns more quickly, you can use fade-in. Increasing your scroll speed can make blurriness worse, but with fade-in you can use a slower speed, but still train to read much faster.
Also if you have been using the same scroll speed for a long time, try a slower or faster setting. I used 30 (fixed) for a long time and after switching back to 27 I had much better accuracy.

If blurriness is really an extreme problem you can consider using a CRT monitor which looks much better with scrolling picture.

I'm not skilled by any means but hopefully these suggestions can help.
Hinpoppo

Karukami wrote:

I've hit a wall with 4+ stars songs :? , that have really fast streams/stairs/ln's. Some have told me that I should change my skin, which is based on f1rst's skin with those really slim notes, but whenever I try to use normal size note skins, I lose a lot of accuracy since I got used too much to my current skin, but with hell-fast patterns everything becomes very blurry :x .
So my question is, for really skilled players, what would you recommend to get faster at reading patterns? do skins matter? and how to read patterns properly?
Thanks a lot! :)
Test yourself on harder songs. The only way to actual way to get better at the game is by playing it. There's not much else to it, if you have an issue with speed, you just need to try playing fast songs a little more. I'd recommend Yolomania packs if you don't have them already, and to surf for various 4.8~5* songs, etc. Whatever difficulty you can barely get an A on would be where I would train. As for ranked songs, I wouldn't suggest to dwell on those too much. Those won't help you with heavy streams and etc. If you want to get better at high bpm jumpstreams / dense streams, I suggest to find stepmania converts if you don't play stepmania (I personally have a hard time reading arrows, so I usually play conversions instead.

To sum it up, play lots of stream heavy maps, easy and hard, just get you fingers trained to go at a fast speed consistently and train your stamina so you don't start falling off half way through the song. That's all I can really think of.

I am by no means a professional, but a recent skill boost has made me better at streaming consistently, and I think I owe it to playing easier songs and extremely difficult ones alike.
EtienneXC
Play Stepmania.
Valedict

EtienneXC wrote:

Play Stepmania.
Kamikaze

EtienneXC wrote:

Don't play Stepmania.
akuma123

EtienneXC wrote:

Play more Osu!mania.
[Crz]Player

EtienneXC wrote:

more masterbation
Elementaires

EtienneXC wrote:

more more
Bobbias
Is it actually speed problems, or is it actually reading problems? When you simply can't read somethign at all, it's very obvious, because you can't even understand the pattern fast enough to play it, but when it's only a little bit too hard to read, it actually feels like a speed problem.

Right now I'm struggling to hit patterns such as 150 bpm 1/6 streams properly, but the problem isn't finger speed, but it's reading. The notes are simply too dense for me to read well enough to hit them properly.

It's hard to tell the difference, but if you notice that you can hit the patterns in very short amounts accurately, but it becomes a problem when the patterns last, it's very likely a reading problem, not a speed problem.

For reading problems you can try different skins, or increasing (or decreasing) your scroll speed a bit (1-2 speeds in either direction is usually enough to see a difference), or you can try simply practicing more songs that have those kinds of patterns until they become easier to hit.

If it's a speed problem, you might be tensing up too much when you play. Make sure you relax your muscles and try to keep them as relaxed as you can while you play.
Topic Starter
Karukami
Thank you guys for all your tips! :) yeah I think instead of finger speed, my problem is with pattern reading, and I should try a different scroll speed just to see how it goes. So, as everyone said I should:
-Change my skin to help with the occasional mental block
-Try a slower or faster scroll speed
-Get a CRT monitor
-Play even harder songs with heavy patterns
-Train my stamina
-Play stepmania
-Don't play stepmania

I hope these can help other people too and not only me, time to get better at reading patterns >:(
31Gabe
Stay away from songs with hands (3+ notes). I heard that ALEXIA's "Uh La La La" will throw you off if you don't pay attention to the hand near the end.
Halogen-

31Gabe wrote:

Stay away from songs with hands (3+ notes). I heard that ALEXIA's "Uh La La La" will throw you off if you don't pay attention to the hand near the end.
This is not DDR. Stop giving people poor advice.

Before improving your speed, try to ensure that you've got an optimal skin that allows you to handle what you should be capable of. Get used to reading it and generally increase the density of what you're trying to do. If you want to speed this process up a bit, play maps that you are familiar with on substantially lower densities to emulate what you might see when actually playing more difficult maps. I would say that you should try to get accustomed to reading a noteskin that is a bit thicker, but go back and forth from your normal skin -- that way, you keep accustomed to both and become a bit more flexible in terms of what you can read.

From what I have seen from players who are at my level, there seems to be a reasonable correlation between speed and jacking ability (Staiain, Shoegazer, Etienne, ATTang, etc); you just have to be able to bridge the reading curve that comes along the way.
Shoegazer
I would disagree with what Halogen- would say about speed and jacking ability being somewhat intertwined and would say these things:
- Speed (particularly stream and light jumpstream speed) is extremely heavily based on reading difficulty. Exposure to fast streams/light jumpstreams would help substantially with your reading, which in turn would help improve your speed in general. Try to target shorter streams/light jumpstreams that are a step outside your comfort zone to orientate yourself (I can't give any because I don't have a speed range) and then play longer ones to master said speeds. You do not need that much physical speed (and tension in general) as you might think for fast streams/light jumpstreams in comparison to handstreaming or jacking. Play those and you'd help with reading, as long as you know a good technique to discern patterns accordingly. There are several ways of doing so, but it'd take way too long for me to break down every single way of reading streams.

- Handstreams (streams with lots of triples and doubles) is partially reading difficulty, but it's generally a very physically straining pattern more than anything else. Main reason for this is due to the huge abundance of one hand trills and two hand trills, which creates considerable tension that most patterns don't create. Play those as well and you'd be able to build one hand trilling ability pretty quick. Two hand trilling in handstream is generally not quite as abundant, you can also improve your jacking ability as well but chances are if you can't do handstream at a certain speed despite your one hand trilling being solid, you'd have to work on your jacking instead.

- Jacks are unarguably the easiest pattern to read but it's also one of the more taxing patterning in terms of physical ability. It really comes down to how well you can optimise your technique for jacking. Don't tense up unless you really need to (at a certain point you have to tense up, but your goal is to ensure that you rarely tense up, as tensing up drains your stamina at a considerably faster rate and you end up with locked fingers). Being able to hit fast jacks takes some practice on its own, but it's just playing them to the point that you figure out a good technique to hit them or the speed of the jacks just enter your comfort zone.

Reading, jacking and one hand trilling is all there is to 4K. They are skills that can be trained individually and you'll improve substantially in maps that heavily test said skill if you do, but it's best to work on all of them as all of these skills will be tested in a single map, just to different extents. Jacking and reading goes hand-in-hand pretty often for most maps here (at least from what I've experienced on DT), but for SM converts it's mainly reading and one hand trilling. SMOC converts are an exception, but those charts practice a certain type of jacking, mainly fast short jacks. From what I've seen, it just comes down to how much you practice maps that are heavily testing jacking or one hand trilling or whatever. It's just that most of the players Halogen- mentioned play a good number of maps that test all three skills, with different emphasis on each. Bottom line, just practice those three types of skills by exposing yourself to as many maps as possible.

Also disregard what Gabe said because it is pseudo-elitist toxic dribble. Expose yourself to many styles of mapping, expose yourself to a myriad of maps and you'd be able to become a well-rounded player.
Hestia-
I would like to take a moment of silence for Shoegazer's posting abilities; we are truly blessed.
CelegaS
my reading skill is "i see something going down so i press the good key at the right moment". I never saw pattern in mania/ctb/std.
And i'm playing 4k with osu's skin but it's centered and larger notes and i can clear some 4-4.5 stars.

Skin matter because when i try to change my skin i start to play like a shit.
Rilene
play
play more
play faster
mash faster

Well, I really have no idea what to say.
Hinpoppo

Shoegazer wrote:

I would disagree with what Halogen- would say about speed and jacking ability being somewhat intertwined and would say these things:
- Speed (particularly stream and light jumpstream speed) is extremely heavily based on reading difficulty. Exposure to fast streams/light jumpstreams would help substantially with your reading, which in turn would help improve your speed in general. Try to target shorter streams/light jumpstreams that are a step outside your comfort zone to orientate yourself (I can't give any because I don't have a speed range) and then play longer ones to master said speeds. You do not need that much physical speed (and tension in general) as you might think for fast streams/light jumpstreams in comparison to handstreaming or jacking. Play those and you'd help with reading, as long as you know a good technique to discern patterns accordingly. There are several ways of doing so, but it'd take way too long for me to break down every single way of reading streams.

- Handstreams (streams with lots of triples and doubles) is partially reading difficulty, but it's generally a very physically straining pattern more than anything else. Main reason for this is due to the huge abundance of one hand trills and two hand trills, which creates considerable tension that most patterns don't create. Play those as well and you'd be able to build one hand trilling ability pretty quick. Two hand trilling in handstream is generally not quite as abundant, you can also improve your jacking ability as well but chances are if you can't do handstream at a certain speed despite your one hand trilling being solid, you'd have to work on your jacking instead.

- Jacks are unarguably the easiest pattern to read but it's also one of the more taxing patterning in terms of physical ability. It really comes down to how well you can optimise your technique for jacking. Don't tense up unless you really need to (at a certain point you have to tense up, but your goal is to ensure that you rarely tense up, as tensing up drains your stamina at a considerably faster rate and you end up with locked fingers). Being able to hit fast jacks takes some practice on its own, but it's just playing them to the point that you figure out a good technique to hit them or the speed of the jacks just enter your comfort zone.

Reading, jacking and one hand trilling is all there is to 4K. They are skills that can be trained individually and you'll improve substantially in maps that heavily test said skill if you do, but it's best to work on all of them as all of these skills will be tested in a single map, just to different extents. Jacking and reading goes hand-in-hand pretty often for most maps here (at least from what I've experienced on DT), but for SM converts it's mainly reading and one hand trilling. SMOC converts are an exception, but those charts practice a certain type of jacking, mainly fast short jacks. From what I've seen, it just comes down to how much you practice maps that are heavily testing jacking or one hand trilling or whatever. It's just that most of the players Halogen- mentioned play a good number of maps that test all three skills, with different emphasis on each. Bottom line, just practice those three types of skills by exposing yourself to as many maps as possible.

Also disregard what Gabe said because it is pseudo-elitist toxic dribble. Expose yourself to many styles of mapping, expose yourself to a myriad of maps and you'd be able to become a well-rounded player.
God bless, I'm going to need to frame this on my wall in gold.
Kitsune-kun

31Gabe wrote:

Stay away from songs with hands (3+ notes). I heard that ALEXIA's "Uh La La La" will throw you off if you don't pay attention to the hand near the end.
are you an amputee

is this why you have such an irrational hatred for hands
abraker
It takes determination and time to play better. Train only a shy step above the diff you are comfortable with, take the beating, and say, "I can do better". Honestly, there are no real steps on getting better. It's all up to you.
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