For a serious post, I'll give some insight and comments on your original post.
Railey2 wrote:
Talent is very elusive and hard to measure, but there is a simple way to do it.
Think of talent as the thing that caused the difference in skill between two players, that put the same amount of effort into the game. If we think of it like this, we can measure it just fine, because playcount is a decent approximation for effort (hitcount is even better, to be seen on peoples profiles), and pp is a decent approximation for skill. If someone gets more skilled with less effort, we can call them talented.
In the first place, I hate the word talent, because it puts people on a pedestal. There is no clear line between talented and talentless. Everyone does things better than others, with varying degree.
Since you compared two players from each other, your definition of 'talent' comes down to being completely relative and only between the two. If you include the whole playerbase to determine who's talented and who's not, you won't see it as two distinct categories between 'talented' and 'talentless'. You would see it as an ever growing slope of people in order of 'natural skill for the game', thus making the line for 'talent' to not exist at all.
My point?
There is no simple way to measure talent. Railey2 wrote:
Green would be an example of a talented player (lower playcount than everyone around him).
Red is an example of an untalented player (higher playcount than everyone around him).
This one pisses me off the most. You could at least censor the name, you know? The fact that you explicitly called Rayne as untalented was totally uncalled for. That's just completely rude.
Railey2 wrote:
Keep in mind that "talented" is a relative term, which means that it only becomes meaningful in comparison. We call red untalented, because he is less talented than the reference group, other people around rank 5k.
If we went back in time and checked how red was doing when he only had 1k pp, we may have found that red was a relatively talented player.
That is why you can't put 'talent' as a label to determine if you can become pro or not. Fuck off.
Railey2 wrote:
So, why is this relevant?
Simply put: As soon as you find yourself in the "untalented-bracket", it is time to bury your dream of becoming a top-player. This is particularly true if you get there early.
The top-players became top-players through hard work, but they were also very talented. You will find nobody in the top100 who isn't extremely talented, and the overwhelming majority worked very hard in addition to that. As a result, you will never catch up to them, if you are "just" hard working.
Hard work may beat talent, but it can't beat talent and hard work. The top, has both.
So how did you determine that everyone in the top 100 is extremely talented? Holy fucking shit. If that's your subjective opinion, then everyone might as well be talented too, subjectively.
Railey2 wrote:
But if you find yourself in the "average-bracket", or possibly even in the "talented-bracket", go ahead and play more. See how long your talent lasts. As soon as it runs out, you know that you are close to approaching your limit as a competitive player.
Great effort will get you far, but if you lack talent, it will never get you to the top.
Once again, you're treating talent as a 'perk' or a 'unique blessing' similar in video games. You
Railey2 wrote:
Lastly, a word for people that lack talent.
Change your goals. Osu can be an extremely fun game, especially without the pressure of playing for ranks. Discover new music, play with friends, play interesting maps. It's all about what you make of it. A more talented player once said "plz enjoy game", and this is good advice regardless of how talented you are. Settle for less, but enjoy it all the way.
Good luck to everyone! It's a rocky road that leads to the top100. Let's hope that you have the talent to make it there.
exceptionsSPOILERThere are cases where people put effort into the game in wrong ways, such as only playing for SS. In that case, their lack of success is not necessarily a result of them lacking talent, but rather a result of a misapplication of effort. It can be hard to tell the two apart sometimes, but what I wrote above still holds true either way.
Sorry, I already stopped trying to reason with this. Say what you want to say, I'm not stopping you.
Nevertheless, you're doing a pretty good job at discouraging a shit ton of players here.
Hope it makes you sleep at night.