Introduction
I've been wanting to write a guide on this topic for quite a while but I was too lazy and busy with other things but now I have a little free time and nothing really to do, so here it is.
The question of how one attains consistency is a very common question so I hope I can give a framework and make it clear how one becomes consistent. As a player who is relatively consistent myself, I can only advise on things that worked for me. There will be points within this guide that some people may disagree with me on philosophically but I stress that I will not argue with any of them as I will be making all my points on a purely practical basis.
A couple of the things I did to improve my consistency go against the common narrative of how to improve consistency therefore you may not find everything I say to work for you but that's okay. Just take what you find useful and don't use the stuff that isn't.
With that out the way, let's start!
On consistency
Before I can get into the main points on what to actually do to improve consistency, I have to first give a short discussion on what consistency is. As I mentioned in the introduction, this will only be for practical purposes only.
The image above gives a description of what consistency is truly like. Everyone in truth has some level of consistency in something, it all depends on the difficulty of the map (not to be confused with the star rating).
To begin with on the far left, when you are consistent at something that means you can FC it with 100% frequency (barring any unfortunate circumstances like fps drops or something). This is something that pretty much everyone will agree on. Now, the definition of what makes you somewhat consistent and not consistent at all will vary from person to person.
Personally I uses misses per unit blocks of time as my measurement of consistency. Specifically, my definition of somewhat consistent allows for 2 misses per 1:30 time block on an average play. Therefore, if I 3 miss a 3 minute map, I mentally mark that map as a map I am somewhat consistent at. Any more than 2 misses per 1:30 time block and I consider that map not consistent at all. As you can tell, I do not factor in combo at all. This is because I have personally not found combo to be of any use in measuring my consistency. Whether you factor combo in or not is up to you however factoring in combo will make things more complicated.
The nuts and bolts
To improve consistency, all one must do is play more maps around the consistent and somewhat consistent difficulty areas. Just imagine an imaginary line between the consistent and somewhat consistent areas. You will want to play maps just at the edge of what is consistent and maps that are just somewhat consistent.
Playing maps that you are already consistent at will help you focus on your fundamentals. However, you don't want to spend time playing maps that are too easy as that is unproductive (for example if you can FC 5* maps you don't want to be playing 2* maps). On the other hand, you will want to also play maps that you are somewhat inconsistent at with the goal of slowly bringing those maps to your consistent level.
Playing maps that you are not consistent at all at is counter productive when it comes to learning consistency. If the map is too difficult for you, there is a high chance you are just building bad habits instead. This doesn't mean playing maps that are too difficult is bad in general, you just need to play them in moderation.
Finding the right difficulty
Personally, I like to keep things simple and just stick to star rating. I use a basic filter like "star>5 star<5.2". I like to keep the star rating range around 0.2* and move it up once I level up. To find the right star range for you, it's best to start at a higher star rating, F2 random maps and keep slowly dropping the rating until you start sightread FCing around 80% of the maps you land on.
Star rating is an imperfect difficulty measuring system but it will get you in the ballpark. You can also use other systems like https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/342548?n=1. Just simply, find what works for you.
Long maps
Longs maps are commonly referred to by the community as "consistency maps" however don't let that name fool you, long maps do not necessarily mean they will be good for you at training consistency. Playing long maps that are too difficult for you will not build your consistency. That being said, long maps are a great way of training your consistency provided they have the appropriate difficulty.
If you don't like playing longer maps, fear not as it's still possible to be consistent without playing much long maps. Personally, I do not like playing long maps and spend most of my time playing TV size maps out of preference. Despite this, I do not really have much trouble FCing longer maps if I try.
In reality, there isn't much difference between FCing 2 TV sized maps in a row vs FCing 1 3 minute map besides a short break in between maps (though many 3 minute maps have a short break in the middle too). If you can take this view, then you should be able to translate consistency on short maps to consistency on longer maps. That being said, actually playing longer maps will provide you with a real mental edge over only playing short maps therefore you should play long map wherever possible if your goal is consistency.
Things you can do right now for immediate consistency gains
As I mentioned in the introduction, these are things that I personally did to improve my consistency. I can't guarantee they will work for you but I have seen these things work for many other people.
I've been wanting to write a guide on this topic for quite a while but I was too lazy and busy with other things but now I have a little free time and nothing really to do, so here it is.
The question of how one attains consistency is a very common question so I hope I can give a framework and make it clear how one becomes consistent. As a player who is relatively consistent myself, I can only advise on things that worked for me. There will be points within this guide that some people may disagree with me on philosophically but I stress that I will not argue with any of them as I will be making all my points on a purely practical basis.
A couple of the things I did to improve my consistency go against the common narrative of how to improve consistency therefore you may not find everything I say to work for you but that's okay. Just take what you find useful and don't use the stuff that isn't.
With that out the way, let's start!
On consistency
Before I can get into the main points on what to actually do to improve consistency, I have to first give a short discussion on what consistency is. As I mentioned in the introduction, this will only be for practical purposes only.
The image above gives a description of what consistency is truly like. Everyone in truth has some level of consistency in something, it all depends on the difficulty of the map (not to be confused with the star rating).
To begin with on the far left, when you are consistent at something that means you can FC it with 100% frequency (barring any unfortunate circumstances like fps drops or something). This is something that pretty much everyone will agree on. Now, the definition of what makes you somewhat consistent and not consistent at all will vary from person to person.
Personally I uses misses per unit blocks of time as my measurement of consistency. Specifically, my definition of somewhat consistent allows for 2 misses per 1:30 time block on an average play. Therefore, if I 3 miss a 3 minute map, I mentally mark that map as a map I am somewhat consistent at. Any more than 2 misses per 1:30 time block and I consider that map not consistent at all. As you can tell, I do not factor in combo at all. This is because I have personally not found combo to be of any use in measuring my consistency. Whether you factor combo in or not is up to you however factoring in combo will make things more complicated.
The nuts and bolts
To improve consistency, all one must do is play more maps around the consistent and somewhat consistent difficulty areas. Just imagine an imaginary line between the consistent and somewhat consistent areas. You will want to play maps just at the edge of what is consistent and maps that are just somewhat consistent.
Playing maps that you are already consistent at will help you focus on your fundamentals. However, you don't want to spend time playing maps that are too easy as that is unproductive (for example if you can FC 5* maps you don't want to be playing 2* maps). On the other hand, you will want to also play maps that you are somewhat inconsistent at with the goal of slowly bringing those maps to your consistent level.
Playing maps that you are not consistent at all at is counter productive when it comes to learning consistency. If the map is too difficult for you, there is a high chance you are just building bad habits instead. This doesn't mean playing maps that are too difficult is bad in general, you just need to play them in moderation.
Finding the right difficulty
Personally, I like to keep things simple and just stick to star rating. I use a basic filter like "star>5 star<5.2". I like to keep the star rating range around 0.2* and move it up once I level up. To find the right star range for you, it's best to start at a higher star rating, F2 random maps and keep slowly dropping the rating until you start sightread FCing around 80% of the maps you land on.
Star rating is an imperfect difficulty measuring system but it will get you in the ballpark. You can also use other systems like https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/342548?n=1. Just simply, find what works for you.
Long maps
Longs maps are commonly referred to by the community as "consistency maps" however don't let that name fool you, long maps do not necessarily mean they will be good for you at training consistency. Playing long maps that are too difficult for you will not build your consistency. That being said, long maps are a great way of training your consistency provided they have the appropriate difficulty.
If you don't like playing longer maps, fear not as it's still possible to be consistent without playing much long maps. Personally, I do not like playing long maps and spend most of my time playing TV size maps out of preference. Despite this, I do not really have much trouble FCing longer maps if I try.
In reality, there isn't much difference between FCing 2 TV sized maps in a row vs FCing 1 3 minute map besides a short break in between maps (though many 3 minute maps have a short break in the middle too). If you can take this view, then you should be able to translate consistency on short maps to consistency on longer maps. That being said, actually playing longer maps will provide you with a real mental edge over only playing short maps therefore you should play long map wherever possible if your goal is consistency.
Things you can do right now for immediate consistency gains
- Look directly at each circle before clicking. Your eye can only really accurately tell what is right in front of it, everything else is blurry.
- Reduce your sensitivity. Lower sensitivity means more room for error. For mouse users you will also want to disable mouse acceleration too.
As I mentioned in the introduction, these are things that I personally did to improve my consistency. I can't guarantee they will work for you but I have seen these things work for many other people.
