I started playing osu! about 2 years ago, but my main playtime dropped off after a few months of started, and since that point, I'd pretty much play a few songs here and there daily.

As of now, I'm level 96 with slightly over 15k plays, and I still don't really feel as if I'm really "improving". I can maybe FC some easier Insane maps, but that's without mods of course.

Mostly everyone else I see around or above my level/plays seems... far better than me (lack of better wording).

Is there something I should be doing differently? I know a common answer is "practice", but is there anything else more specific than that? I've stuck with the same beatmaps I've had for months now; maybe I should go about getting more maps? Is there anyone else who's been in this situation?

I know the answer to this question, it's just difficult to explain. So I'll use an analogy of "working out."
Note this does not apply to newcomers, only those who feel "stuck" after years of casual play.

You need to break a boundary, otherwise negatively called "grinding." It's bad for newcomers, because you train 1 aspect and neglect the others, all equally important and to be trained together. But if you have a fairly balanced skill-set and consistency playing most maps, it's likely because you haven't pushed what you already know... past your limits.

This is only done by playing stuff that pushes your limits, and a lot. I know people hate it when I get all nerdnewfaggy on this discussion, but your brain will only get better at things it spends most of its time doing. If you aren't putting in a considerable amount of effort, more so than you would spend on other activities, your body (brain) will not see any reason to improve upon that particular activity past normal requirements - It's almost exactly like working out. You won't put on muscle if you are doing it casually because you can do a casual workout without exhausting your current resources, not needing to improve muscle mass or endurance past what is required to do your casual workout. You have to push yourself.

Likewise if you play a thousand songs a day, you won't improve too fast either because, again, it's just like working out. You have a limit of what resources are available to you, and getting mentally or physically exhausted is an indication of this. Practicing further (excessively) doesn't help at all and you will likely remember very little of how to do anything you learned the next day. (Short to long term memory conversion - cramming).

But it's hard to say how much you actually need to play, because on some days you can manage a lot more than others. More often than not, the people who do play excessively have the fastest improvement rates, and though they may not play an equal amount of "excessive," someone might play slightly less excessively than the other and still improve faster. Everyone is different. Some people just have the ability to handle more than others before getting tired. And compound interest dictates that this is a huge bonus and cuts the time to improve drastically.

Espionage724 wrote:

Is there something I should be doing differently? I know a common answer is "practice", but is there anything else more specific than that?

Not really, practice harder.

Every day after sleep you have to warm up to get on your real level, few plays per day is not enough, usually it takes 25-100 plays depends on a person. You can't push your limits if you're not playing at your limit.

RaneFire wrote:

I know the answer to this question, it's just difficult to explain. So I'll use an analogy of "working out."
Note this does not apply to newcomers, only those who feel "stuck" after years of casual play.

You need to break a boundary, otherwise negatively called "grinding." It's bad for newcomers, because you train 1 aspect and neglect the others, all equally important and to be trained together. But if you have a fairly balanced skill-set and consistency playing most maps, it's likely because you haven't pushed what you already know... past your limits.

This is only done by playing stuff that pushes your limits, and a lot. I know people hate it when I get all nerdnewfaggy on this discussion, but your brain will only get better at things it spends most of its time doing. If you aren't putting in a considerable amount of effort, more so than you would spend on other activities, your body (brain) will not see any reason to improve upon that particular activity past normal requirements - It's almost exactly like working out. You won't put on muscle if you are doing it casually because you can do a casual workout without exhausting your current resources, not needing to improve muscle mass or endurance past what is required to do your casual workout. You have to push yourself.

Likewise if you play a thousand songs a day, you won't improve too fast either because, again, it's just like working out. You have a limit of what resources are available to you, and getting mentally or physically exhausted is an indication of this. Practicing further (excessively) doesn't help at all and you will likely remember very little of how to do anything you learned the next day. (Short to long term memory conversion - cramming).

But it's hard to say how much you actually need to play, because on some days you can manage a lot more than others. More often than not, the people who do play excessively have the fastest improvement rates, and though they may not play an equal amount of "excessive," someone might play slightly less excessively than the other and still improve faster. Everyone is different. Some people just have the ability to handle more than others before getting tired. And compound interest dictates that this is a huge bonus and cuts the time to improve drastically.

let me put this in examples for you.
say you go lift and do some exercises with low repetition and and low sets (basically the amount you play daily).
I can't really say anything about the intensity, including the weight and rest time, of your workouts (in other words the difficulty of the songs you play and how challenging they are for you).

now say you go the gym three times a week (which is a decent amount of time that you may visit osu) but you do these low rep curls 1 set each.
can you really compare yourself with people who are doing well rounded high intensity workouts 3-5 times a week?
also are you only doing bicep curls (playing the same beatmaps=certain patterns, mods, ar, bpm, etc.)?
maybe people around your weight (skill level) can't do as heavy or many reps/sets of bicep curls than you, but maybe you have the leg strength of a toddler because you always skipped leg day (avoiding intentionally or unintentionally certain patterns, mods, ar, bpm, etc.)

unfortunately, you get more gains by how much you push your body rather than the period of time you have been working out.
you need to consolidate more play counts into one day, play higher difficulty songs, as well as playing at least once a week if you want to see better improvements.

tl;dr never skip leg day

ive been playing for less than half as long as you, have almost 10k more plays, and im not as good as i want to be.

practice

Espionage724 wrote:

I started playing osu! about 2 years ago
As of now, I'm level 96 with slightly over 15k plays

that is on average about 650 plays per month, you cant expect to do pretty much nothing and become good. look at all the people near the top, they have multple thousand plays per month, some even into the 10k. play more, making topics asking how to become better doesnt make you better.

hint: its not only total plays that matters, its also how much time it took you to get those plays

So a brief look at your profile spotlights a few things: 1) your accuracy is 92%. 2) you go days at a time without playing a song 3) your song choices indicate you aren't challenging yourself.

Fix #1 first. You need your accuracy to go up to about 97% and as that climbs your skill will improve. How to get more accuracy? Easy. Play simple songs or slower bpm songs that you can get at least 97% on every time. Being accurate is way more important than speed. If you are accurate then you can play faster with more confidence instead of just spamming. It takes patience and discipline to fine tune accuracy but you have to start on slower maps and build up the speed from there.

You need to challenge yourself by playing songs that are slightly out of your comfort zone, or play songs you know well with mods like Hidden/HR to work on accuracy. If you can get around 87% or higher on a tougher song, you should try to practice it and get that % higher.

Bottom line: You need to play regularly to get better and you need deliberate practice to improve. You aren't going to get better by playing a the same few songs a few times a week. I leave you with a quote

"If I don't practice for a day, I know it. If I don't practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don't practice for three days, the whole world knows it."
-Vladamir Horowitz, world famous pianist.

The accuracy shown on usepage isn't over total plays, it averages ONLY the accuracy of your plays that gave you PP (even if it's only 1), so it will naturally increase over time.

i have played 9 months and i have almost 40k playcount. why do you wonder that you're bad if you dont even play the game

Soulg wrote:

The accuracy shown on usepage isn't over total plays, it averages ONLY the accuracy of your plays that gave you PP (even if it's only 1), so it will naturally increase over time.

It doesn't average them, the map that gave you more pp weight more in your accuracy

GoldenWolf wrote:

Soulg wrote:

The accuracy shown on usepage isn't over total plays, it averages ONLY the accuracy of your plays that gave you PP (even if it's only 1), so it will naturally increase over time.

It doesn't average them, the map that gave you more pp weight more in your accuracy

ok than this, still doesn't base off of every play.

Soarezi wrote:

i have played 9 months and i have almost 40k playcount. why do you wonder that you're bad if you dont even play the game

How does one even accomplish this without retrying hundreds of times per day

EDIT: I mean retry button, not retrying completed songs.

iWhorse wrote:

Soarezi wrote:

i have played 9 months and i have almost 40k playcount. why do you wonder that you're bad if you dont even play the game

How does one even accomplish this without retrying hundreds of times per day

EDIT: I mean retry button, not retrying completed songs.

he's actually played 12 months with 37.5k

Soulg wrote:

he's actually played 12 months with 37.5k

I'm aware, i checked his profile.

I've played 10, but i still only have 15k.

That's your problem kid, you are gonna be bad as shit even after 600 years and 30 million plays if all you do is SS easies.

Wishy wrote:

kid

lol

Soulg wrote:

he's actually played 12 months with 37.5k

i have played altogether less than 9 months infact, if i were to play full on 12 months i'd have 50k playcount

Soulg wrote:

Wishy wrote:

kid

lol

I like the word kid!

Thanks for the feedback!

Wishy wrote:

That's your problem kid, you are gonna be bad as shit even after 600 years and 30 million plays if all you do is SS easies.

Was trying to work on accuracy a bit, figured I'd start with some lower difficulties and then move up.

Except Easy and Normal are generally below OD5, you won't learn accuracy by playing them

Having come from there myself, play OD8. Master that first.

OD9 and 10 is just frustrating and doesn't really teach you anything because you can't even tell apart visually or audibly if you are out of sync (or should i say "how to know" - hard to tell which way you are swinging the 100's), because you don't have the rhythm sense yet. Hit error graph only helps so much.

Espionage724 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback!

Wishy wrote:

That's your problem kid, you are gonna be bad as shit even after 600 years and 30 million plays if all you do is SS easies.

Was trying to work on accuracy a bit, figured I'd start with some lower difficulties and then move up.

The only "good" way to work on accuracy is to go to insanes/hards you've already beaten, but with low accuracy, and try to get higher accuracy (also by using HD/HR or both). Easies/normals dont really do anything for you if you can already pass some of the easier insanes