It all comes down to user's preference. I know I feel better when resting my wrists on my desk and play decently this way, but I can tell that having your wrists in the air gives better "freedom" - I don't know how to describe this - and allow your fingers to move somewhat faster. That's how I feel it. But many people still play with their wrists resting on a support and pull off some crazy plays.

I think it might be to do with hand straining. As in, when your fingers freeze up going too fast. Playing osu! standard, I move from tapping with my wrist acting as a pivot to hammering at the keyboard with my wrist in the air when I'm streaming like mad. In any case, thanks for the info.

It's mainly because floating wrists is the proper position to do typing (ergonomics), will put much less punishment on your wrists. For some people it also gives a slight increase in speed, and I find it easier to switch between finger/wrist/arm tapping modes when playing with floating wrists.
Resting wrist on your desk on the other hand, might give you more stability. But I think stability can be trained in floating position too, and resting your hand on desk is really bad for hand health. But I guess some people can get away with it.

i play with left hand rested and right hand hovering

Xcrypt wrote:

@Entozer
I play with floating wrists (like piano players) mostly. There are some times I will rest my wrist on my desk, but I try to play floating mostly. You could read my other thread on RSI I made some days ago if you want to know more.

Sorry for the very late reply. I don't check the forums daily.

Hmm, I've seen a lot of players who also plays with their wrists floating but they never experienced their hand hurting a lot after some hours. As for me, I play with my hand resting on the table (but for typing, I don't rest my hands on the table. I just feels weird to type that way). The only time I experienced my hand hurting a lot (and I mean a lot) would be when I'm hitting the keys too hard and moving my hands too fast.

Maybe you are hitting the keys too hard? The only thing you should be feeling after a long hour of mania-ing should be tiredness. If your hands are hurting, you're probably playing songs that are a bit too hard for you (not that it's bad, but too much is never good). Try to play songs that you are comfortable with. For new patterns, I know that sometimes you unconsciously hit the keys hard to get a feel on it but too much is not good.

Anyway, disregard everything I've said if my assumptions are wrong.

You are right, I think. In the past I didn't play with floating hands though, so combine that with me playing hard maps all day and me being senstive to this stuff and you can imagine a pretty bad RSI. I'm trying to adjust my playstyle atm.

Now that I'm playing a bit more frequently, my hands just stay in whatever position is comfortable. For >200 BPM songs on standard, I sometimes push my thumb on the desk to sort of stay closer to the keyboard while streaming. Mania I often pull the keyboard closer to the edge of the desk and rest my forearms on the edge (with floating wrists). But, I don't have a proper technique for either.

I've never had any pain issues, save for my fingers aching after I've played with them freezing up (which only happens very occasionally).

Hey that's actually a great method to stream in standard! solves my balance issues AND ergonomic issues ^^
Can't believe I didn't think of that

I'm like next level terrible at mania. It's so hard, I'm struggling to pass half star easy maps. I'll keep playing though (7k atm) and see what happens.

Don't worry about it scotty, eventually you'll be clearing maps that you previously thought were literally impossible for you. But just focus on having fun it's not good to worry about performance always

The most important thing in mania when you are a total beginner is to get used to the keys and columns. Once that's done, you're ready to go. :>

Yeah my brain can't figure out which button to press :<

It takes around 1 or 2 weeks to begin to get used to it and start to play seriously. In the meanwhile, play whatever you like (even autoconverts, in which case you'll need to turn the 7K mod on). Try to get the notes right, without bothering too much about accuracy. What you want at first is to be able to pass the songs, and when you do so, it means that you're more and more getting used to the keys.
Mania is very hard at all stage of the game, so even though this is just the beginning and you find it a bit hard, don't give up. Practice is key.

PyaKura is completely right - coming from a mania newbie, getting used to the columns and learning to read fast-scrolling notes helped me immensely. Just keep playing songs you enjoy, you -will- improve

I don't know what makes a map "LV 6" or "LV 32" but I can't seem to do LV 15+ maps when they incorporate many more LN into the song D: Should I play in HT or editor?

You could, but whether you go that route, or simply practice on other songs until to you improve enough to be able to do those, will yield the same end result. Though I would personally suggest the latter since I believe you'll improve faster, and in more fields, when working with a larger variety of patterns and maps rather than focusing on a couple patterns featured in a couple songs.

If you keep playing songs that level for practice, slightly bellow to master the basics and slightly above to expose yourself to harder stuff, there's no doubt you'll acquire the skills you need to do the patterns you're having trouble with in time. Just keep at it ^^

I personally think playing the specific patterns you're having trouble with can do wonders.

But I also agree with Drace, it is important that you play entire songs with a large variety because you need to be exposed to different things and variations and combinations thereof. And it is a lot more fun.
Practicing one specific pattern you're having trouble with, can really help you get better at that pattern a lot faster in my experience. But just be sure that you play more songs than you practice specific patterns because mania is still a rhythm game after all.

Also this 'lvl' is just something mappers use to indicate how difficult they think their chart is. There are different standards though, but most will use the o2jam lvl standards (1-50, there are also levels beyond that but they are usually a bit on a weird scale imo. A lvl50 song can be just as hard as a lvl90 etc)

well to me, it seems like theres a huge jump in difficulty for me with a diff that is very straightforward and then a difficulty that is completely unbeatable to me. I can usually get As on level 15ish maps but when I go up to level 20ish I fail almost all the time (unless I resort to button mash orz)

Same. Higher level (O2Jam) maps (and I think BMS also) combine rhythms in songs, so you might be doing left-right scales while playing chords. The "chord-burst-chord-burst" example in the Reading Methods box is similar.

Yes until now (rather, even now) I still use horizontal reading but I feel like this way of reading is becoming less and less effective... Time to train on vertical reading for several months !

Good luck then ^^
I also use horizontal reading, but sometimes I will subconciously switch to vertical reading if I find it pretty obvious that there's multiple patterns going on at the same time, though I can only do this with 2 patterns at once atm and it's quite sloppy xP

I've only ever played vertical reading in music games but still so hard D:

I don't think that I ever even have reflected on what kind of reading I use lol. I just kinda' read or something. XD

I usually press keys based on the music...not on the notes' distance from the judgement bar it usually helps but sometimes when I've been playing a certain song many times i tend to anticipate the sound in my mind and that would give me 200's XD (this helped me a lot in Technika,Cytus,etc.)

Yeah, I get horizontal reading now. I Actually do horizontal reading. Vertical reading doesn't make sense to me no matter how much I read it haha.

Hm it's not really something easy to explain since it's not something people actually stop to think about. When you walk you don't think about every single muscle you move in your body let alone think about whether you're contacting or expanding them. But understanding this could help in figuring out where you could cut off movements to be more efficient in your actions. It's pretty much the same thing here/

When you're reading horizontally, it's reading everything in sequential steps. "" This, then this, then this, then that"". You don't take the time to break up everything in individual patterns and instead read the whole thing as a whole.

Vertical reading you kind of look ahead and try to make sense of the different patterns coming at you, then playing the multiple patterns you've identified simultaneously as they reach the judgment line. Instead of the "" This, then this, then this, then that"" mindset of horizontal reading, it's more of a "" This and this and that, then, this and that and this"". Or, ""These 3 patterns, then, these 3 patterns".

Drace wrote:

Hm it's not really something easy to explain since it's not something people actually stop to think about. When you walk you don't think about every single muscle you move in your body let alone think about whether you're contacting or expanding them. But understanding this could help in figuring out where you could cut off movements to be more efficient in your actions. It's pretty much the same thing here/

When you're reading horizontally, it's reading everything in sequential steps. "" This, then this, then this, then that"". You don't take the time to break up everything in individual patterns and instead read the whole thing as a whole.

Vertical reading you kind of look ahead and try to make sense of the different patterns coming at you, then playing the multiple patterns you've identified simultaneously as they reach the judgment line. Instead of the "" This, then this, then this, then that"" mindset of horizontal reading, it's more of a "" This and this and that, then, this and that and this"". Or, ""These 3 patterns, then, these 3 patterns".

I guess I'm in reality doing vertical reading then. But when I come to the point at which I can't devide them notes into patterns I just kinda' lose control and start spamming all over the place, lol. At least until I get to a part which I once again can read like that.

Drace what you're describing there as "vertical reading" is basically how your brain's pattern matching works. You build up a collection of small patterns that your brain recognizes on instinct, and then you break more complicated patterns into collections of smaller ones, usually in multiple levels. Its also a way to do "clustering", as it's sometimes called.

Clustering is a memory technique. It's often mentioned that your brain can only remember 7 things at once, but everyone knows you can easily recall things like 10 digit phone numbers (or however many digits they are where everyone lives) even if they're longer than 7. How do you do it? You break it into sections. Here in Canada, a typical phone number might be something like (684) 721-8632. Your brain would break it into 3 sections: 684, 721, and 8632. Each of those is less than 7 digits each, and there are less than 7 of those clumps there. when you have a whole bunch of notes on screen, this has to get a bit more complicated, but the theory is the same.

You break large patterns into smaller ones, and those smaller ones into even smaller ones over and over. This is all totally subconscious, but as far as we know this is basically how your brain actually processes things.

I think the reason people tend to read "horizontally" is because when you have so many things to try to pay attention to at once, you try to decide how to use your attention, and I think most people try to consciously read each "horizontal pattern" (all the notes that happen at the same time) and try to ignore the other notes around it.

The way I read is that as notes pass through the area I concentrate on, I build a mental picture of the entire pattern and identify all the "sub-patterns" while the notes are moving fro the area I focus on towards the judgement bar. By building a mental image I can identify the patterns, compare them with the music and use that to predict the upcoming patterns. It's a bit hard to describe exactly.

You're still clustering in horizontal reading, it's just sequential instead of simultaneous.



Take a sequence of stairs that go throughout a long section with chords here and there. Reading it vertically you will read/analyze and play the whole stair while simultaneously doing the chords as they come down. Reading it horizontally however you won't analyze the stairs any further than the change in pattern (the chord). The outcome will be the following for each readings;

Vertical => [(Stair) and (chord then chord then chord)]



Horizontal => [ stair then chord then stair then chord then stair then chord ] (Though stairs will most likely be partial or broken at this point)



Both readings utilizes patterns players have learned throughout their playing, but the way they go about analyzing and playing them are fundamentally different. A recent example I've stumbled upon recently was how stepmania colourizes their notes based on beat instead of lane. Like 1/1 notes will be one colour, 1/2 another, 1/4 another, 1/3 another etc etc. This really enforces horizontal reading due to how the notes are.

Clustering isn't really necessary in horizontal reading, at least for 7k and lower (although you're right, it likely happens for everyone except complete novices).

I would call how I read a combination of horizontal and vertical reading. As the line of notes passes by, I read it horizontally, and as my mental image of the pattern builds, I can begin predicting and seeing the vertical patterns, so I see both horizontal and vertical representations of the patterns simultaneously. Well, except on stuff like REALLY dense BMSs where I can't identify the patterns in any term aside from as a series of chords, or a series of chords with bursts mixed into them.

And while stepmania encourages horizontal reading, I could still do vertical reading there (not that there's much need for it in 4k). I used the note coloring as a timing cue, and I always saw it as a separate "layer of information" on top of the column/location/music.

I'll be honest now: I just hit the buttons and hope for the best.

The Muffin Man wrote:

I just hit the buttons and hope for the best.

same. lol

I actually got better at those LNs But I'm not that good still, but defintely better than 8 days ago from that post.

That's great! It's always feels awesome to see improvements.

Even a 1% score improvement on a song I tried hard on feels so rewarding nowadays, haha.

Xcrypt wrote:

Even a 1% score improvement on a song I tried hard on feels so rewarding nowadays, haha.

I know that feeling lol. I always run songs the best the first time I play them as well. It's like I start fearing some parts of the song the next time like "oh right this was that hard part".

When I keep playing a map I can barely combo, I eventually start making the very same mistakes in the same places.. It's like my mind has been polluted with muscle memory and I can't actually read the map anymore .-. Even if I get more skilled, I can't improve at maps I remember. And since mania has very little maps, I'm pretty much stuck unless I stop playing for a few weeks... I'm not good enough for BMS converts and almost all o2jam converts are low quality or mistimed.
And before anyone suggests it, I dislike random mod because it ruins patterns :/ There's very little chance for patterns i'm bad at to appear.

I think I mostly avoid that issue because I have so few plays on most maps I play. I might manage to rack up 20-30 plays on my most played maps, but I tend to search through my collection and play lots of random things since I have a huge collection of o2jam charts.

/me F2 -> Mania charts -> play, :3

ArcherLove wrote:

/me F2 -> Mania charts -> play, :3

This is how you improve lol

Talk much play less think alot, do nothing. Just play