Hello, I'm Jaegii. I'm a student who started playing this game about 2 months ago, and since that time, I've spoke on forum posts, played hundreds of maps, modded, mapped, watched osu content, help manage a tournament, and learn more about the osu! community.

2 months is nothing in the osu world, lots of players have been playing for several years. Even though lots of players have been playing for less than a year, or a bit more than a year, they usually aren't allowed to have much of a voice in the osu community. Avid osu players who have been playing for several years have put lots of time into osu, and are really attached to the game (understandably), but an unfortunate thing I've noticed about these avid players is their dislike towards new players. And this certainly isn't everybody, but I can think of some examples.

1. Nobody wants to mod a bad map. New Mappers struggle to get feedback and mods from real modders, usually having to rely on players with similar mapping experience to get feedback from, which leads to bad feedback and new mappers not getting anywhere, despite them wanting to. I have posted on several modding queues, but it's completely up to the modder on what map they want to choose to mod. There isn't anything wrong with that, but these modders never want to mod these new mappers maps, because the truth is these new mapper's maps are simply bad. But without modding and proper feedback, we never know why our map is bad, and in cases where we are told why our map is bad, we rarely know how to make it better. This then turns into modders telling new mappers to map more, and sometimes this works, but there's also hundreds of wannabe mappers who have 100 graveyarded beatmap sets and no ranked sets. New mappers are told to map more, follow the ranking criteria, and then they are left alone to their own demise. These new mappers don't know how to map, but blindly mapping more and blindly following the ranking criteria doesn't help, we need good feedback from experienced mappers to know what is good and bad. I'm still a new, bad mapper, but something that has helped me learn more about mapping is Pishifat's videos. I'm kind of rambling my thoughts, but I believe that if more new mappers get better feedback, more feedback, and better instructions on how to map (great example of this is Pishifat's videos), that we will have more mappers who are creating rankable maps. The more mappers we get, the more modders we get, because lots of mappers need mods and decide to mod other people's maps in the process. Less stigma on new mappers = More mappers creating rankable maps = more modders modding maps and giving good feedback = more mappers = more diverse maps with each mapper's personal touch. The hardest step is undoubtedly the first, but if we can find a way to efficiently do this step then I believe the next steps will follow smoothly.

1. How do we complete the first step efficiently? That is the biggest question. This is just an idea, and whether it is a good idea or not is up to the community's decision, but what if we add a 5th option in the Beatmap Submission System that says Having trouble in the modding queues and want some tips on how to improve your beatmap? Check these videos by a mapping expert! Then next to that, will be the button you can click that will bring you to a pinned forum topic with pishifats beatmapping advice videos. This is simply an idea that I believe will help osu move forward, somebody might immediately disagree with me and click off this forum after seeing the first couple of words "I've been playing this game for 2 months." Because like it or not, their is a certain level of belief of supremacy among more experienced players and mappers, somebody might read the beginning, conclude that I am inexperienced and new before reading the rest of the post, and click off.

TLDR, new beatmappers don't get enough good feedback leading to new mappers changing their mind about mapping and sometimes even quitting the game, new beatmappers need more feedback and better feedback and from this, we will get more mappers and more ranked maps. To complete this task we can encourage more new mappers to watch pishifat's videos through a PINNED FORUM POST if they don't get the answers they need from modding queues.


Note. I do not believe all experienced players and mappers downgrade worse players/mappers, what I'm saying is is that we need more people that advocate for new players and help them like Pishifat, this will bring more players into the osu community and the more players osu has, the further it progresses, and if you don't want osu to progress, I understand, but it can be good for you too. If osu gets bigger, more players will be motivated to push the limits, such as aetrna for example, if osu gets bigger, tournaments will have higher prize pools, and if you don't want osu to grow bigger because you want it to stay casual, it will stay casual, there will just be more humans in the world enjoying the same game you enjoy. Osu is a community game, and I believe it will always stay that way in an amazing way, no matter how much Osu grows.



I'm open for discussion about this topic, maybe I'm completely right or maybe I'm completely wrong.


P.S, if anybody is trying to mod my Ikari map, feel free ; )

True.

this whole situation is like a 50/50 instance for me. Yes, we do need a better way to give them mapping documentary for beginners, and no, there are lots of modding queues that accept new mappers (some are even from BNs), and most of us still care about giving new mappers specific feedback (#modhelp chat for example, tho not a good one) and give them everything they need. If what you only have from a mapper was just "Your map is bad", "Map more" or something like that, you met the wrong person to rely on.

There are even a pinned thread right in this subforum dedicated for this, I think you should take a look: community/forums/topics/1122383

Remember, no matter how high or low the position we are in this game, we're still human. Don't afraid to contact.

Hmm, there's always the option of talking to a mapper who knows the nooks and crannies enough to rank a map. There're many mappers who maps well but still has 1 ranked map or even none and I think those are the mappers who have still free time to entertain new mappers and gladly share their knowledge.

Find someone who can teach you personally- a mentor for short. Some here has taken mentee(s) like me and Li Syaoran, the usual situation is always a new mapper going to #modhelp asking for assistance but ends up getting mentored by a guy from the said channel.

BN and mappers with tons of rank are likely too busy to help fresh mappers, that's why you shouldn't hold a grudge against those people.

Personally, I'm lazy to check a map that's posted in #modreqs or in forum. 95% I will check map that are sent straightly to me.

Edit: I won't talk about applying as mentee in Osu Mapping Mentorship since its common sense.

Asphyre wrote:

Hmm, there's always the option of talking to a mapper who knows the nooks and crannies enough to rank a map. There're many mappers who maps well but still has 1 ranked map or even none and I think those are the mappers who have still free time to entertain new mappers and gladly share their knowledge.

Find someone who can teach you personally- a mentor for short. Some here has taken mentee(s) like me and Li Syaoran, the usual situation is always a new mapper going to #modhelp asking for assistance but ends up getting mentored by a guy from the said channel.

BN and mappers with tons of rank are likely too busy to help fresh mappers, that's why you shouldn't hold a grudge against those people.

Personally, I'm lazy to check a map that's posted in #modreqs or in forum. 95% I will check map that are sent straightly to me.

Edit: I won't talk about applying as mentee in Osu Mapping Mentorship since its common sense.

This makes sense, I really appreciate the perspective!

More people would need to make pishifat-esque content for this to really work. You want to see more mappers with different mapping styles, and so do I, but that kind of diversity comes from exposure to lots of different perspectives. Pishi's videos, being made by one person, only provide a single perspective. He does have videos where he talks about and/or interviews other prominent mappers, but they're still mostly viewed through his eyes as well as too short to give a viewer more than a taste of the other mapper's perspective.

I've seen lots of people, myself included, end up with the same boring ideas about mapping after a while of mainly using pishi's videos as a reference. That's the opposite of diversity Every time, the way they progress from there is getting exposed to other people's views by talking about mapping with them, or even just by seeing them talk about mapping a lot. That's something you just can't get from the educational mapping content that exists right now, since pishifat is responsible for the majority of it. A few other people (Mo and SonnyC are the first ones that come to mind) have made some, but they can't hold a candle to pishi in terms of volume, and there aren't enough of them.

As it stands, I think any kind of official "watch/read these people's content to learn mapping" message would be counterproductive for your purposes due to pishi's overwhelming prevalence. As Asphyre said, speaking directly to other mappers is a good way to learn; I think encouraging that is more worthwhile.

lewski wrote:

More people would need to make pishifat-esque content for this to really work. You want to see more mappers with different mapping styles, and so do I, but that kind of diversity comes from exposure to lots of different perspectives. Pishi's videos, being made by one person, only provide a single perspective. He does have videos where he talks about and/or interviews other prominent mappers, but they're still mostly viewed through his eyes as well as too short to give a viewer more than a taste of the other mapper's perspective.

I've seen lots of people, myself included, end up with the same boring ideas about mapping after a while of mainly using pishi's videos as a reference. That's the opposite of diversity Every time, the way they progress from there is getting exposed to other people's views by talking about mapping with them, or even just by seeing them talk about mapping a lot. That's something you just can't get from the educational mapping content that exists right now, since pishifat is responsible for the majority of it. A few other people (Mo and SonnyC are the first ones that come to mind) have made some, but they can't hold a candle to pishi in terms of volume, and there aren't enough of them.

As it stands, I think any kind of official "watch/read these people's content to learn mapping" message would be counterproductive for your purposes due to pishi's overwhelming prevalence. As Asphyre said, speaking directly to other mappers is a good way to learn; I think encouraging that is more worthwhile.

I've really thought about this too, that's why I was kinda against that video thingy.

I don't (for now) have enough time to put in osu! so on the spare time I have, I map for myself. I'd like to try out some of the things here on this post or mod more but the time isn't right for me.

Asphyre wrote:

Find someone who can teach you personally- a mentor for short.

Not only the ranked mappers are good for this, that's good to keep in mind. We often forget graveyard maps though, so it's difficult to find someone based on that.

lewski wrote:

More people would need to make pishifat-esque content for this to really work. You want to see more mappers with different mapping styles, and so do I, but that kind of diversity comes from exposure to lots of different perspectives. Pishi's videos, being made by one person, only provide a single perspective. He does have videos where he talks about and/or interviews other prominent mappers, but they're still mostly viewed through his eyes as well as too short to give a viewer more than a taste of the other mapper's perspective.

I've seen lots of people, myself included, end up with the same boring ideas about mapping after a while of mainly using pishi's videos as a reference. That's the opposite of diversity Every time, the way they progress from there is getting exposed to other people's views by talking about mapping with them, or even just by seeing them talk about mapping a lot. That's something you just can't get from the educational mapping content that exists right now, since pishifat is responsible for the majority of it. A few other people (Mo and SonnyC are the first ones that come to mind) have made some, but they can't hold a candle to pishi in terms of volume, and there aren't enough of them.

As it stands, I think any kind of official "watch/read these people's content to learn mapping" message would be counterproductive for your purposes due to pishi's overwhelming prevalence. As Asphyre said, speaking directly to other mappers is a good way to learn; I think encouraging that is more worthwhile.

Yes I agree that more people would need to make more content like Pishi. I meant to say that in this post, but I wrote it at 2 a.m in the morning so I didn't portray those thoughts correctly, I hope that in the future more prominent mappers will make educational videos, I know lots of mappers that stream themselves mapping which is helpful. Another point I was trying to make in this post that I didn't portray well because I wrote it at 2 am was that less mods need to give new mappers blanket statements like "map more, fix the rhythm, and watch pishifat," and instead actually help them, like Asphyre said.


But Asphyre is also right, most Modders won't mentor you unless you privately dm them, and the reality is that not every new mapper will get that 1 on 1 treatment even if they ask around, but if we have more educational mapping videos, like pishifat, but by different mappers, it in my opinion is more realistically likely to help a wider audience of new mappers. It's something that more people will see, a pinned forum post, and I know that if there is a pinned forum post saying "if you don't get any feedback posting in modding queues, dm Modders until they mod your map" will not go smoothly with modders, they'd get several dms and the more and more they get (on top of their modding queues) they will not want to respond to any dms.


I completely support what Asphyre is saying, but telling people to do that will reach a smaller audience of new mappers compared to the more efficient way of experienced mappers creating simple educational videos. I support both of these ideas. I apologize for misportraying my thoughts in my post, I meant to show that I believe more mappers should create educational videos rather than only pishifat.

I don't think making more maps from "experienced new mappers" is a highly prioritised right now. Most are just so lazy to map something new since it costs more ideas, so they only map the easy Sotarks' style and include 1-2 jumps, new and old mapper. I've seen some mappers that join the "mapping for pp" trend, thinking of only gaining reputation as their maps getting ranked. Heck, even the songs they choose are 30s for the sake of farming. As results, no diversity.

We have seen so many 9* and 10* FCs. But almost every single of them, are PP farm (props to Merami for not farming). People love watching top players farming so much that mappers are also influenced into mapping jump/farm maps. Some even start to think top players are capable of FCing 10*, while ignoring the 10* is a FARM map. While in reality, the actual 10* has so little passes and yet to be A'ed.

So, what I'm trying to say is: players and mappers are so heavily influenced on generic farm mapping. To me, that's the problem we need to fix (but how??), rather than helping new mappers so the diversity is increased. Since even if we help them, in the end most of them will result to PP mapping since it is the easiest mapping style out there.

I personally don't think that people shouldn't 'mod' new mapper's maps because 'modding' ,in a sense, would be something related to the ranking process and not general feedback. If new mappers want something to help their mapping, they should ask for feedback at #modhelp or look for people who are open to give feedback (like me :flushed)

Honestly, I don't think there's much you can do about raw aim farm being popular. Maps like that have been getting lots of attention for close to half a decade now because of pp, and sure, if raw aim got nerfed to oblivion, you wouldn't be able to gather hype around those kinds of plays for pp alone. However, high-profile maps tend to be what new players are interested in, so lots of (most? maybe) new players naturally grow to genuinely prefer raw aim over other difficulty elements. Sure, it is what created the horribly unbalanced environment we have today, but you can't fault individual players for liking what they like. Trying to force large-scale change here would be a waste of effort and potentially even harmful for the game.

So what can be done? I feel like everyone just has to be the change they want to see in this issue. Bring attention to plays you find impressive. Show other players maps that aren't just cookie cutter farm maps but that are still accessible to those players to possibly broaden their horizons just a bit; pick those maps in multi or straight up recommend them to friends or whatever. When giving feedback on other people's maps, be honest: If you think the map is overly simple compared to what the song offers (or straight up ignores the song), say so! Learning a simple, generic style gives the mapper a good foundation for learning more advanced stuff, but the simplicity of modern aim farm tends to be way beyond what's necessary or even useful for that foundation.

As a sort of side note, the rising popularity of the tournament scene and tournament mapping gives me a bit of hope. High-profile tournaments highlight lots of different skillsets, and the recognition custom maps get in those tournaments is likely to attract more mappers to that environment, possibly exposing them to lots of new perspectives. Case in point: this year's Corsace Open has around 70 mappers making maps for the tournament. That's a great environment for getting exposed to lots of different perspectives on mapping, both because of the sheer number of people involved and because of the difficulty element centric focus on mapping that's inherent to tournament mapping.

tldr be the change you want to see, there are no easy solutions

truly agree what lewski said, i dont think that generic maps are bad if:

1. song is plain, consists of anime drum arrangements which mappers are obliged to do 1-2 (or just ignore and go for 1-4)

2. theres no room for an edgy and unique placements

its not the mapper's fault if the 1-2 NCs accumulate tons of pp since it had to do with system (ig) but exploiting those without showcasing what the song could possibly offer is what's bad. you cant blame someone for having a generic mapping style if their song choice isnt even musically unique or anything that fits the description.

just imagine Neo-Aspect being mapped with a tech-ish or complicated pattern. you could see how eiri-'s taiko has only simple patterns consisting of K d d K, it would be the same when you map std itll just be some 1-3 spams with some simple object placements / pattern and what you brand as "pp jumps" (correction theres set by Underdogs and he really mapped it well)

idk but im gonna do TheKingHenry shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Modding in general is not a good way to improve as a new mapper as modding means spotting specific problems in detail. New mappers need bigger general explenation what they are doing right and wrong. The best way like i did it back then when i was new is to ask a bunch of experienced mappers for help it will work out.
Its also just trial and error you learn from mapping alot, playing around editor and watching other ranked sets to get a idea. What also helps alo t is to find good mapping stream of someone experienced as they tend to show someones logic on how to map.

Good luck with mapping

PaRaDogi wrote:

watching other ranked sets

pls play them too

lewski wrote:

PaRaDogi wrote:

watching other ranked sets

pls play them too

Ye

You know, everytime we get a post like this, we get insanely long replies.

FFT

how to rank your first map

step 1. cry

step 2: sleep

PaRaDogi wrote:

Modding in general is not a good way to improve as a new mapper as modding means spotting specific problems in detail. New mappers need bigger general explenation what they are doing right and wrong. The best way like i did it back then when i was new is to ask a bunch of experienced mappers for help it will work out.
Its also just trial and error you learn from mapping alot, playing around editor and watching other ranked sets to get a idea. What also helps alo t is to find good mapping stream of someone experienced as they tend to show someones logic on how to map.

Good luck with mapping

That makes sense, thank you!

no problem :3

step 3: make a drama

step 4: ???
step 5: pp

renzthegreat wrote:

FFT

FFT? Fast Fourier Transform?

Asphyre wrote:

idk but im gonna do TheKingHenry shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was already mentioned that you should contact people for feedback and whatnot, but I'd like to add to this that if you're looking specifically for more capable feedback via experienced people, there are plenty of veterans who explicitly state on their profiles that they are open for general feedback especially for new mappers. I can't remember names but I remember seeing bunch of profiles with that kinda stuff, including quite a few BNs and the like

Of course the also mentioned flip side does exist too, these people are likely in minority in their group - if general feedback is not mentioned on their profiles, for example BNs will probably not have much time for that