Hello!

First thing first, I'm deeply sorry for, once again, another topic talking about another newguy's skilling problem but right here I'm actually in the need of help.

So over the past 4 weeks now (it's important), I've been trying to play taiko. I was on and off of osu!std and mania 4k and never had any single trouble advancing and learning on these two modes. As well as any other game as a matter of fact.

When coming back 4 weeks ago I wanted to play taiko, so I picked it up, looked around the internet to get some tips and well to learn the right way.

My first problem was reading, I constantly would follow everything and had to make posts on reddit and stuff to actually get over that problem. I've been overcoming it, but...

4 weeks and I still cannot play any futsuu song properly. And when I mean I cannot play them, I get a C, or D. In 4 weeks of time with 2 hours of playing minimum per day, I still cannot get over damn futsuu map.

So I've tried going to harder map, to perhaps force my brain to train but nope. Completely unable. It's even worse when I go on harder maps actually lol.

I have not the slight clue of what I am doing wrong. I do not even play converted map, I just downloaded all the taiko (and only taiko) maps that I could and just dived into it straight. And yet no improvements.

I play kddk, not full alt, I'm trying hard to go full alt but it's quite difficult (especially when the map seems completely random with its patterns, like there's none and it just screws my brains off so damn hard)...

I'm genuinely desperate by this point, what am I doing wrong? What should I actually do?

Thank you for your future answers. I'm just desperate and would like to improve at a game I actually enjoy.


PS: I have an old OS, that's why there are no records on my profile (and never will be lol)
PS2: I've only got an account recently. Never had one before. Explains alot as well lol

Are you an offline player ? Cause you only have 21 minutes of playtime in your profile. Not being able to pass futsuu after 21 minutes of playtime is completely normal lmao, just play more of those and you'll be just fine.

playing 21 minutes and not being able to pass futsuu is normal. A lot of us could not even do that

There is a taiko starter guide that you should look at. They have maps starting from futsuu up to like hard 4 star oni's. When I started I was the same way when I hit muzukashi. They also have pattern practice maps you can use to see what kind of patterns you will encounter in the future. community/forums/topics/175867

Make sure you arent overcomplicating your play by trying to alternate every single note as that is more advanced, unless you find that to be the most comfortable. In futsuu up to high muzukashi you would usually be single tapping with your dominant hand until you start playing triples and doubles. You wont need to full alternate until high 5* like 5.8+ if the song is extremely fast.

Thank you alot for your kind answers everyone!

I do play offline like... 99% of the time actually lol. That's why I have such little play time. Like I said I do play around 2 hours a day and well, so far yet, still not passing futsuu (even since I made this post, I'm still somehow completely stuck).

honestly don't focus too much on learning full alt as the benefits of it aren't that much at lower levels of play. As for improvement you'll just have to keep playing and build the muscle memory for different patterns just like in standard or mania, there's no shortcut for this apart from some patience and practice, after all everyone improves at different speeds. Also just out of curiosity what causes you to miss when you are playing? are there certain patterns that you struggle to read?

Hello!

I sincerely do not know. Futsuu does not seem to have any pattern actually, and that's what seems to bother me alot. I played hundred of songs by this point, all with different bpm and so forth, and weirdly: it seems like they're completely random to me.

For example, when I watch the computer make perfect scores on harder songs, I can clearly hear that all the notes actually follow a certain rythm, which make it absolutely perfect to me because I can simply follow that rythm and play. But when it come to futsuu: it follows nothing. Or if it does follow, it follow completely different notes every single time which make it a complete mess.

I literally came to the point that I do better on converted map, rather than map specifically made for taiko. Because at least the converted map follow one rythm, one note, or simply the singing: which is perfect and I do "okay" on converted maps that are 1 to 2 stars. But specifically made for taiko maps? I just do complete trash.


Here is a good example for what I mean: the map "UNDEAD CORP -The Empress [Kantan]". The map start over the notes of the synth. So far it's fine. Then when the guitar hits, it switch to the guitar notes. So far it's fine. Then it switch over the singing of the woman: gets complicated for the brain but still fine.

Then, when the scream hits...? It follows nothing. At least to my ears. It just seems like the dude who made the map simply threw random parterns just to fill in the music, like if he, the mapper himself, didn't knew what the f*** he was supposed to follow/do lol.

And this is what most of futsuu map seems to me: as soon as something more complicated is sent, then you cannot hear what it is supposed to follow, and so nothing make sense. But with higher difficulties, you can clearly hear what the notes are following.

There is always some kind of rhythm even if you think its not there. Converted maps are usually not good because they do not follow the way regular humans would play a song. Look at the taiko starter guide and take a look at some of those pattern maps as well as songs for your difficulty level. Focus on staying on rhythm no matter what it is, but dont just replay it 1000 times until you memorize the entire map as that will only slightly help you compared to being able to recognize what the rhythm is.

Benediv wrote:

Hello!

I sincerely do not know. Futsuu does not seem to have any pattern actually, and that's what seems to bother me alot. I played hundred of songs by this point, all with different bpm and so forth, and weirdly: it seems like they're completely random to me.

For example, when I watch the computer make perfect scores on harder songs, I can clearly hear that all the notes actually follow a certain rythm, which make it absolutely perfect to me because I can simply follow that rythm and play. But when it come to futsuu: it follows nothing. Or if it does follow, it follow completely different notes every single time which make it a complete mess.

I literally came to the point that I do better on converted map, rather than map specifically made for taiko. Because at least the converted map follow one rythm, one note, or simply the singing: which is perfect and I do "okay" on converted maps that are 1 to 2 stars. But specifically made for taiko maps? I just do complete trash.


Here is a good example for what I mean: the map "UNDEAD CORP -The Empress [Kantan]". The map start over the notes of the synth. So far it's fine. Then when the guitar hits, it switch to the guitar notes. So far it's fine. Then it switch over the singing of the woman: gets complicated for the brain but still fine.

Then, when the scream hits...? It follows nothing. At least to my ears. It just seems like the dude who made the map simply threw random parterns just to fill in the music, like if he, the mapper himself, didn't knew what the f*** he was supposed to follow/do lol.

And this is what most of futsuu map seems to me: as soon as something more complicated is sent, then you cannot hear what it is supposed to follow, and so nothing make sense. But with higher difficulties, you can clearly hear what the notes are following.

I know my reply is quite late, but heres my take on what you just said. I will try to go through some specific points that stand out to me from what you said. Also sorry for the long read but I wanted to go into as much detail as possible for you.

"Futsuu does not seem to have any patterns" - From what I know, taiko mapping usually follows pitches, although this may not be the case due to a lot of things such as the mapper improvising, following drums, creating variation and so on. You've probably encountered these concepts in other gamemodes. for taiko copying and pasting a set of notes just because the song repeats a certain melody isn't the best thing as it already goes against one of the requirements for getting a map ranked (variation). I also think the patterns you are thinking of aren't really what most of us think of when we say "patterns". We mostly think of the combinations of notes you can have with say a group of 3 notes such as having DDD, KKK, DKD, KDK and so on, the same can be said for a sequence of more notes as well. I'm guessing you are referring to maps sometimes having sections where the notes almost feel like they are showing up in randomly generated sequences of 3-5 notes or something along those lines. This could be anything from the mapper improvising or trying to create variation in a repetitive part of a song, maybe even both.

"when the scream hits...? It follows nothing" - Since you have an example map I will use that for reference. I'm going to assume that the screaming part you are talking about is the first scream part, the reason that part doesn't seem to follow the vocals(screaming) is because it doesn't, or at least not in the way you might expect. Firstly it is a kantan difficulty, there is only so much you can to with very few notes to try and represent a complex part of a song. From what I can figure out from that map is that the part in question is improvised, at most it only follows the song when an instrument kicks in that is slow enough for the given difficulty. Lets pay attention to the notes more carefully on the first scream section(i.e. 00:56.590 to 01:11.256 in the editor). The first 8 notes, namely a group of 3 notes followed by a group of 5 notes are mostly improvised, but notice how the group of 5 ends on a blue note, this note is the same note the violin kicks in which relatively speaking is much higher pitched than all the other instruments but is also the slowest in pace. This then leads to the next group of 5 notes which now follows the violin and in this case following its pitch, the first 2 notes being blue for the higher pitch of the violin, then the next violin note is a lower pitch which then is mapped with 2 red notes and then the violin pitch raises back up which is mapped with a blue note. The next group of 5 notes is improvised and the group of 3 following is mapped to the what ever that lower pitched instrument is, again following its pitch(mostly). Those next 2 notes that are almost stand alone just follow the same instrument and those last 3 notes grouped much closer together are almost like a short drum fill that both follows the same instrument and its pitch. Those last 2 parts come together as a sort of simple buildup leading into the next part(notice in that part the notes are all red but build up in speed then change to blue on the last note for the pitch change) and thats the whole scream part.

"But with higher difficulties, you can clearly hear what the notes are following" - As for this, when you have higher difficulties you can have more notes coming at you at higher tempos (i.e. greater density) thus when mapping you can follow more complex parts of the song or you can follow simple parts with more detail. But with easier difficulties you have way less notes coming at you and usually at slower tempos (i.e. less density) as a result of this, there is only so much you can do with so few notes usually resulting in the mapper following the slowest parts of a song or trying to simplify complex parts.

"it follow completely different notes every single time which make it a complete mess." - The mapping meta in taiko is certainly different to that of standard and mania which I guess is whats troubling you. This is just the nature of different rhythm games. If you pay attention to how different gamemodes in osu as well as other rhythm games try to represent a song, they all do it differently.

comparison to other gamemodes - This is more of an add on to something you mentioned earlier which is that you have played other gamemodes. The thing with taiko is that, just like all the other gamemodes in osu it tries to represent the song in a different way to all the others. And depending on the person it can either be very counter intuitive to play or be super easy to improve.

Honestly I don't expect me telling you this will fix your problem in playing taiko as what you seem to be describing appears to be a mental barrier. There really isn't any advice that I could give you that could help with this like you said "complicated for the brain", maybe you are just overthinking it? I can really only tell you that you'll just have to try and play more so you can overcome that mental barrier. Well I know this may probably seem complicated but at the end of the day if you are just playing, then you really don't need to think too much about what part of the song it is following, but you should be thinking about is it following the song.

I recommend that you change from dkkd to kkdd, it will be easier for you. Also if you are going to play kantan or futsu, play songs that you like, so it won't bother you with retrying the map many times. Also, do not complicate yourself by reading the guides, without reading anything I could play a futsu with S in 10 minutes of accumulated game