Hi osu! friends.

I have been mapping for over a year now and I still suck. Shiyzo said I need to make this post long but I have no idea what to write. How do I improve at mapping? I don’t get it. My mapping is so boring. I don’t know how to make a sentence that isn’t 1 clause long either. Hi foss if you see this please mentor me.

Thanks for reading!

kalib

kalib

i map 2 year for almost day make bad map so sad i want make good map too sad

If your definition of good is interesting and thus (to most) unique in appeal from a gameplay perspective and well executed in such; then you don't. That's based entirely in the realm of ideas which is pretty innate and can't be taught, best you can do if you're uncreative is rip others off well, and to be fair you can get pretty far with that too and probably have "original" ideas inspired from doing such.

If your definition of good is just an objectively fine map then if you've been mapping for a year you're likely already there. Purely from my observations playing maps and occasionally observing the discussions around them; the few things in mapping that are actually objective seem typically fairly easy to grasp and execute (proper timing, spacing consistency throughout, etc.). So much so they can be summed up in 5 minute pishi vids with little argument over the concepts presented. The only one I would say seems a little difficult is having a good sense for rhythm choice (if the context makes it so), but really I'd say that is in an odd grey zone between subjective and objective. If any part of it is objective it would be maintaining consistency between selected rhythms should those sections of the song repeat unchanged. Everything else though, is pretty much preference and any standard one sets for themselves that are not of their own is merely an act of seeking reaffirmation for that preference, whether it be an individual's or one of a collective (such as a lot of the ranking criteria). However, in the basic objectives of mapping it's likely equally as fine as the rest. As an aside, most of these preferences seem to be over what properly embodies a song and thus the style of the resulting map. I'd argue that the conception of mapping as a trainable skill rather than just an extension of creativity and good sense is fairly misguided and probably plagues a lot. Regardless, just have fun with it, make what you consider to be fun and nothing else, you shouldn't care about anything else. The only scenario I can see where you would is if you want to kowtow to others for ranked status, but if that involves going against what you percieve as fun then shove it.

All that said, you can improve your efficiency and skill with the editor and the resulting workflow. Considering how much of a pain a lot of people find the actual process of making a map is, then improving that may heighten your enjoyment of mapping while also improving your understanding of the constraints of the editor and thus lead you to come up with more ideas as of such. Although this point is even more out of my ass than the preceding ones cause I never improved at such, and thus never mapped much myself. As a final related aside to the above, when I was more inclined I asked Xexxar (I believe it was him) what his workflow was and he stated he mapped out the basic rhythms first to get a general idea of the whole, then thought of patterns after or something along those lines assuming I intepreted it correctly.

As someone who's been mapping for 7 years and counting (though with no ranks, probably my own fault), I can tell you that's all dependent on what you're looking for based on your definition of "good" maps and mapping. Aesthetics is definitely a goal for all mappers looking for rank, though few do it while maintaining difficulty and representing music.

What's really best is just playing some maps, and actually copying the style of maps that you take a liking to. Not copying and pasting the map (don't be Sotarks who copies from himself and seems to "influence" himself), but taking certain ideas of how music is represented through placement of objects, what patterns people choose, circles vs. slider choice, how they deal with odd rhythms, how do they indicate different sections like slider velocity change and extreme spacing, what parts are consistent and what parts have different representations, and how they emphasize certain sounds and parts of a song. New combos could also be an influence. Do you NC based on the song, based on the objects, or based on the rhythm within the song?

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as all mappers had to have been influenced by someone else to a certain degree, and by copying, you also create your own style of mapping because you're eventually disagree with certain representation of music and want to branch off from what one players might do, either thinking your own version of representation, or even taking another player's idea in place. Sooner of later, the many influences of different mappers alongside your own ideas become one concrete style.

Think of mapping like fashion. If you like an article of clothing, you'll buy it. If you don't, you'll buy something else or you'll sew something for yourself and make altercations.

I also heard that playing rhythm games helps. Games that don't have that traditional rhythm game up-down columns or require the players to look ahead to see incoming objects like NOSTALGIA, Beatmania, or Pop'n Music, tend to be good because they not confined to vertical lines of objects. Something like jubeat (that's all I know) uses squares, almost in a similar fashion to osu, actually, to represent music. I think fanzhen0019 gets a lot of inspiration from there.

The hardest part of a map for rank, however, tends to be the idea of playability. If you're looking to make difficult maps, the topic of "playability" will come up a lot simply because people have different ideas of what is playable and what should be considered rankable since everyone has different levels of skill on osu. Especially in the higher difficulties, there seems to be much debate of what is playable, since these kinds of things aren't exactly set and stone in the ranking process. A lot of this will come when you discuss with BATs and NATs since they're the ones that have the power to rank and disquality maps, but with regular players as well. So, the idea of playability is really based on the public reception of a map.

This is my take, and I'm sorry if it's a bit choppy.