there is score which is based on accuracy and combo.

then it gives you a letter like D, C, B, A, S, etc. What does the letter mean?

then it gives you "pp" and there are two "pp" tabs in the results screen. I know that those are mysterious "performance points" that are awarded "based on the difficulty of a beatmap and a player's performance", but I don't know why are there two different "pp" tabs.

I've completed some maps and got letter "B", after that I replayed them and got better score but it somehow gave me "C" and in level selection screen it shows "C". How is that possible?

I also noticed that when I got "C", it showed less "pp" in both tabs even though I had better score, I am guessing the omniscient "pp" calculation algorithms decided that I did worse. So does the letter depend on "pp", on score, or on both, or does it have its own evaluation methods?

I also noticed "section complete/section failed" messages, what do those mean and how do they affect the aforementioned scoring methods?

I am pretty sure I understand nothing about the OSU scores, but I am also convinced there is a oversight. In level selection menu it thinks that my best result is my highest score, and then shows the letter associated with that highest score. It appears, however, that the letter is corellated with the all-mighty "performance points" more than it does with the facile brute force score. As such, despite my score being higher, "pp" algorithms might deign to express their wisdom by certifying my performance as being worse compared to the previous one. The level selection is, unfortunately, unable to comprehend the infinite computational complexity of pp points, so instead of devoting themselves to the sapience of the algorithms it falls into the trap of believing the foolish combo based scoring and shows the highest score run. Devastatedly, all "performance points" can do is to show their apodictic verdict for the run the misguided level selection menu was deceived into believing was the best.

wiki/en/FAQ#grades (on the left under "Scoring" click on "Grades") this should help with the letter ranking (silver S and SS's come from FL and HD).

As for the PP tabs I'm assuming you mean the beatmap ranking and overall ranking. beatmap ranking PP is just the PP amount you get from the beatmap itself, while overall PP is the PP amount you get from the PP amount being weighted while also showing your total PP.

The grades wiki I linked should help with that, but the later you hit a 100 or 50 the less score it's going to give, which is why you can see lets say a 99.20% FC be above a 99.50% FC, while the 99.50% FC will be worth more PP

PP is affected by things like patterns, diff spikes, accuracy, 50s, misses, etc. And letter ranking is evaluated by only 300s, 100s, 50s, and misses. The higher score play will always be submitted whether it earns more or less PP.

Section complete/section failed I believe just has to do with your HP, so if your HP dips below a certain threshold it'll say "section failed". Completing/failing a section has nothing to do with score and PP themselves, but obviously if you get a section failed you've either missed or have gotten a lot of 100s and 50s which will affect score and PP in their own way, and even passing a section you're likely going to get 100s and the occasional 50 which is going to decrease accuracy which causes score and PP to also decrease in their own way.

combo based scoring is the best

MrSparklepants wrote:

combo based scoring is the best

I'm pretty sure you mean this satirically, but I like it, personally.

Also, yes, Section complete/failed is only correlated to your HP level. That, in turn, has no direct relation to pp except to indicate that you had a lot of misses/50's/100's/a combination thereof and therefore will have a pretty significant drop in pp value.


I am curious why someone who joined in 2020 is only asking about this now, nearly a year later, though.

Finally, as I managed to parse your overly poetic final paragraph, you don't necessarily have to care about pp or anything (even if your assumption there is completely false)? I, for instance, play for only SS ranks, and the pp gains are generally a distant 2nd to that. And since the only greater thing I can do is either get a silver S or silver SS after a regular SS (and the former is irrelevant because I don't play for those), there's usually no disconnect between the pp I gain and the rank I achieve.