The game is trying to accomodate for beginners more, I know that. The problem is that I think they do a bad job at it because it's not only me complaining. I saw one post on reddit that was like "Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed. Like super ironic considering that this game looks like its supposed to appeal to everyone considering it has the scooby-doo theme and pop music in its huge library of beatmaps smh. (The mapping scene is much worse in the casual friendliness too.)

The community was always casual-frendly, you just have to find the right people to talk to!

The game is casual friendly, most ranked maps are low stars (<5), if anything there is a lack of higher star rating maps. There is a ranking criteria (which I think is becoming more lenient) that mapsets are required to have a full spread of difficulties between the highest one and the lowest (the minimum lowest is determined based on drain time). This was designed so that the problem you’re describing should not occur.

Man I hope so.

Probably not. I've noticed 2-4* maps are getting increasingly more complex and difficult for beginners. It's not something a lot of people notice because most people play just to push skill and don't often visit lower diffs. When I was trying to break into 4*, I had to play older maps, because so many of the newer ones assumed I knew how to play more advanced mechanics. Almost all of the development discussion is about high-level play, no one is talking about SR calculation, mapping meta, or PP when it comes to beginners. I don't like it either and I don't think it's healthy for the game, but it is what it is.

Gsun wrote:

The game is trying to accomodate for beginners more, I know that. The problem is that I think they do a bad job at it because it's not only me complaining. I saw one post on reddit that was like "Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed. Like super ironic considering that this game looks like its supposed to appeal to everyone considering it has the scooby-doo theme and pop music in its huge library of beatmaps smh. (The mapping scene is much worse in the casual friendliness too.)

That's because you're a high 6-digit among other 7-digits and high 6-digits playing maps way beyond what is your actual ability to play and aren't even learning anything as a result. That's a you problem, not a game problem.

I get it, playing those high-SR maps like all the good players is cool and can impress your friends, but what's the point when you can't even play those maps in the first place? Looking cool comes after you know how to play the game, and that means playing the low SR maps first to learn the fundamentals and building up from there through playing just beyond your comfort. Maybe you don't need to play 1 or low 2* maps in your particular case (high 2*/low 3* seems to be your baseline), but you can barely play mid-high 3* maps to any level of competency and 4*+ is out of your league. You're not learning anything playing those maps.

If all of you high-ranking player got off your high horses and stopped playing [Hard] and [Insane] maps where you rarely get above 90% (and even rarer at 95%+) and learned, you'd realize the game is actually very casual-friendly but you aren't seeing it because your idea of "casual-friendly" is skewed.

Happy Satoko wrote:

Probably not. I've noticed 2-4* maps are getting increasingly more complex and difficult for beginners. It's not something a lot of people notice because most people play just to push skill and don't often visit lower diffs. When I was trying to break into 4*, I had to play older maps, because so many of the newer ones assumed I knew how to play more advanced mechanics. Almost all of the development discussion is about high-level play, no one is talking about SR calculation, mapping meta, or PP when it comes to beginners. I don't like it either and I don't think it's healthy for the game, but it is what it is.

Stuff about low-level pp or mapping meta for the lower SRs is fair enough, but even if 2-3* maps are starting to gain more complexity (I'm not counting 4*'s because I think those were already pretty complex), it's still generally the same until about 2.8* (2.5* at the earliest, and I'm not entirely sure it needs to be lower than that.

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

It's casual-friendly if:
• You can care less about pp and rank
• Ignoring the ultra-competitive types of players
• Be kind to yourself

Starting from 4*, you have an option between normal maps to the most gimmicky unorthodox maps. Osu skill judgement isn't perfect ofc but this is the only game so far where you can be whatever skills you strive to be. Be it having fun with your friend, to healthy sportmanship between players

Nanofranne wrote:

It's casual-friendly if:
• You can care less about pp and rank
• Ignoring the ultra-competitive types of players
• Be kind to yourself

I love playing for pp and rank but I still think that the game is casual-friendly

Anaxii wrote:

Nanofranne wrote:

It's casual-friendly if:
• You can care less about pp and rank
• Ignoring the ultra-competitive types of players
• Be kind to yourself

I love playing for pp and rank but I still think that the game is casual-friendly

Yep. I don't say 'ignore pp, no instant gratification.' types of thing

Voidedosu wrote:

Gsun wrote:

The game is trying to accomodate for beginners more, I know that. The problem is that I think they do a bad job at it because it's not only me complaining. I saw one post on reddit that was like "Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed. Like super ironic considering that this game looks like its supposed to appeal to everyone considering it has the scooby-doo theme and pop music in its huge library of beatmaps smh. (The mapping scene is much worse in the casual friendliness too.)

That's because you're a high 6-digit among other 7-digits and high 6-digits playing maps way beyond what is your actual ability to play and aren't even learning anything as a result. That's a you problem, not a game problem.

I get it, playing those high-SR maps like all the good players is cool and can impress your friends, but what's the point when you can't even play those maps in the first place? Looking cool comes after you know how to play the game, and that means playing the low SR maps first to learn the fundamentals and building up from there through playing just beyond your comfort. Maybe you don't need to play 1 or low 2* maps in your particular case (high 2*/low 3* seems to be your baseline), but you can barely play mid-high 3* maps to any level of competency and 4*+ is out of your league. You're not learning anything playing those maps.

If all of you high-ranking player got off your high horses and stopped playing [Hard] and [Insane] maps where you rarely get above 90% (and even rarer at 95%+) and learned, you'd realize the game is actually very casual-friendly but you aren't seeing it because your idea of "casual-friendly" is skewed.

Happy Satoko wrote:

Probably not. I've noticed 2-4* maps are getting increasingly more complex and difficult for beginners. It's not something a lot of people notice because most people play just to push skill and don't often visit lower diffs. When I was trying to break into 4*, I had to play older maps, because so many of the newer ones assumed I knew how to play more advanced mechanics. Almost all of the development discussion is about high-level play, no one is talking about SR calculation, mapping meta, or PP when it comes to beginners. I don't like it either and I don't think it's healthy for the game, but it is what it is.

Stuff about low-level pp or mapping meta for the lower SRs is fair enough, but even if 2-3* maps are starting to gain more complexity (I'm not counting 4*'s because I think those were already pretty complex), it's still generally the same until about 2.8* (2.5* at the earliest, and I'm not entirely sure it needs to be lower than that.

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

I play these maps to get a challenge, not to impress anyone necessarily. But good tip.

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

> Ever going to be casual-friendly?
> osu! is one of the most casual-friendly rhythm games
I don't know, maybe needs more finger-breaking patterns?

Gsun wrote:

"Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed.

there are 100 000 ranked maps if you're tired of playing the same maps over and over again just get more maps...

From a mapping perspective, not a community perspective:
it feels like there is an invisible barrier between 3 and 4 stars (aka between the noob zone and the just trash but at least close to decent zone), mappers are making bursts way too fast and hard which makes getting into them properly impossible leaving you with having to spam through it until you learn it. no wonder so many new players go for jump maps, they actually have a much more logical progression and how the difficulty rating works you can't really make it "too hard" because star diff will follow with it. Yet there are some absolutely unreal low 4 star and high 3 star burst/finger control maps that barely have FCs on the leaderboard. And there are very few maps with nice and slow bursts to get you into practicing them properly instead of spamming and ruining your hand (happened to me). Most 4 stars feel like "rest" maps for good players who can play higher star rating maps, approaching them from the bottom feels like trying to climb a grease covered mountain. (also they often have somewhat complex aim so it's doubly difficult to get into them)

3 years have passed so I already partly brute forced my way in, if I didn't love music so much I would've quit this game back in december of 2020.

it is already, its only not when it goes from having something to do while listening to nice music to playing the same song over and over to make number go up

Happy Satoko wrote:

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

What do you consider older maps? Maps from around 2010 and earlier have much more complicated rhythms and were harder to play partly because of lower quality standards. I can think of many old 2 star maps which I still can't SS because of how hard they are, but there are no new 2 stars which have the same type of challenge - they're all pretty boring because mappers are just putting in the lowest diffs to their maps for the sake of having them to meet criteria. Older maps had 2 and 3 stars as the highest difficulty in the mapsets, so mappers actually put effort into making them interesting to play (for better or worse sometimes). I would say that there has been a trend of maps becoming more challenging to aim though, but not at or below 2 stars (maybe from high 2 stars, but definitely from 3 stars up).

kaedori wrote:

Gsun wrote:

"Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed.

there are 100 000 ranked maps if you're tired of playing the same maps over and over again just get more maps...

Bro, I play this map for the music, not the map. How am I supposed to know what sounds good?

Gsun wrote:

kaedori wrote:

Gsun wrote:

"Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed.

there are 100 000 ranked maps if you're tired of playing the same maps over and over again just get more maps...

Bro, I play this map for the music, not the map. How am I supposed to know what sounds good?

There is a song preview option, so you can hear a portion of the song and decide if you find it interesting enough to give a try. its the play button on the website.

UPR wrote:

Gsun wrote:

kaedori wrote:

Gsun wrote:

"Either these maps are too easy or they're not hard enough for me to practice progressing to play harder ones." Yeah, I'm kinda wondering if something like that will actually be fixed.

there are 100 000 ranked maps if you're tired of playing the same maps over and over again just get more maps...

Bro, I play this map for the music, not the map. How am I supposed to know what sounds good?

There is a song preview option, so you can hear a portion of the song and decide if you find it interesting enough to give a try. its the play button on the website.

Better than telling me, "Bro, you only play for the music? Why not the map?" Thanks!

This game has been unfriendly to new players for a while. You can find threads all the way back since I joined.

Since osu! is a competitive game, new players can feel unrewarded but that's fine and the general nature of the game.

You have to be at least somewhat good to enjoy the competitive side of the game but there is a decent community here so you can find cool people to be friends with.

Mapping is not meant to be casual friendly either. Quality standards are high to make sure ranked maps are not trash to play. The standards are a bit less strict now and there's a decent community to help you, provided you work hard to map in your own time and make a good effort to learn on your own.

Gsun wrote:

I play these maps to get a challenge, not to impress anyone necessarily. But good tip.

And if you don't really care that you get less than 90% on a 4* map, all power to you. But I don't think it gives you any right to complain about it not being casual-friendly. That's not directed entirely at you, but at anyone 800K or higher who has their plays full of 3-4* maps around 85-95% and complains about the game being too hard or asking for help on how to improve or stuff like that. It sounds nonsensical because the main issue is your/their inability to play those maps, not the maps themselves inherently being "too hard".

Happy Satoko wrote:

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

Unless you are referring to stuff after 2021-22, I have never seen anything in the 2* range that requires slider cheese (or really anything regarding sliders). Even in the 3* range that's still very rare and is only marginally more prominent in the high 3* range.

Biess4 wrote:

From a mapping perspective, not a community perspective:
it feels like there is an invisible barrier between 3 and 4 stars (aka between the noob zone and the just trash but at least close to decent zone), mappers are making bursts way too fast and hard which makes getting into them properly impossible leaving you with having to spam through it until you learn it. no wonder so many new players go for jump maps, they actually have a much more logical progression and how the difficulty rating works you can't really make it "too hard" because star diff will follow with it. Yet there are some absolutely unreal low 4 star and high 3 star burst/finger control maps that barely have FCs on the leaderboard. And there are very few maps with nice and slow bursts to get you into practicing them properly instead of spamming and ruining your hand (happened to me). Most 4 stars feel like "rest" maps for good players who can play higher star rating maps, approaching them from the bottom feels like trying to climb a grease covered mountain. (also they often have somewhat complex aim so it's doubly difficult to get into them)

3 years have passed so I already partly brute forced my way in, if I didn't love music so much I would've quit this game back in december of 2020.

Well, first of all, how about we stop calling 3* the "noob zone"? 1*'s should be the "noob zone" and 3* should be "trash but close to decent". (I know it's probably because of all the aforementioned high-ranked players with nothing but 3-4* maps at 85-95%, but still).

Secondly, while I know I have seen a few maps where bursts are probably a bit too fast for comfort, is it really that widespread in 3* maps? Inversely with slower bursts. I personally would argue that once you're above 3.6* slow bursts are kinda out the door except when the song itself dictates it, at least.

Do agree with the finger control maps somewhat, but at the same time it's high 3*/low 4* so that seems more excusable to me. They should be rarer at lower SRs (the main two I think of are Sakura's Fall and Henrietta (Goreshit remix).

aveil wrote:

Happy Satoko wrote:

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

What do you consider older maps? Maps from around 2010 and earlier have much more complicated rhythms and were harder to play partly because of lower quality standards. I can think of many old 2 star maps which I still can't SS because of how hard they are, but there are no new 2 stars which have the same type of challenge - they're all pretty boring because mappers are just putting in the lowest diffs to their maps for the sake of having them to meet criteria. Older maps had 2 and 3 stars as the highest difficulty in the mapsets, so mappers actually put effort into making them interesting to play (for better or worse sometimes). I would say that there has been a trend of maps becoming more challenging to aim though, but not at or below 2 stars (maybe from high 2 stars, but definitely from 3 stars up).

That's...really sad, honestly. While I get the purpose of the SR spread criteria, if it's only going to encourage more cookie-cutter maps on the low end I don't really feel like it's doing a very good job. On the other hand, I can't think of a way to encourage mappers to spend more time there without making the playerbase itself put more emphasis on playing 2*/low 3* maps so that mappers have a reason to make them engaging and unique.

Gsun wrote:

Better than telling me, "Bro, you only play for the music? Why not the map?" Thanks!

Well, why not both?

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand how this is a fucking music content machine and I'm not hating on your or anyone who puts more emphasis on listening to music, but it's not like you can't try to enjoy the maps, too.

Some of my absolute favorite songs are not just because the music itself is good but because I feel like the map in question plays very much in sync with the music in question--The flow of the map, slider curvature, hitsounds, etc. all feel like they flow in unison. Fever Dream [Hard/Lunatic], Kodomo Live [Hard], Caramel Heaven [Insane] are a few personal examples.

UPR wrote:

> Ever going to be casual-friendly?
> osu! is one of the most casual-friendly rhythm games
I don't know, maybe needs more finger-breaking patterns?

One of the most if not the best casual-friendly game!

Anaxii wrote:

UPR wrote:

> Ever going to be casual-friendly?
> osu! is one of the most casual-friendly rhythm games
I don't know, maybe needs more finger-breaking patterns?

One of the most if not the best casual-friendly game!

frfr, like the 2nd best imo is like project sekai, and even then its pushing it

Voidedosu wrote:

Gsun wrote:

I play these maps to get a challenge, not to impress anyone necessarily. But good tip.

And if you don't really care that you get less than 90% on a 4* map, all power to you. But I don't think it gives you any right to complain about it not being casual-friendly. That's not directed entirely at you, but at anyone 800K or higher who has their plays full of 3-4* maps around 85-95% and complains about the game being too hard or asking for help on how to improve or stuff like that. It sounds nonsensical because the main issue is your/their inability to play those maps, not the maps themselves inherently being "too hard".

Happy Satoko wrote:

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

Unless you are referring to stuff after 2021-22, I have never seen anything in the 2* range that requires slider cheese (or really anything regarding sliders). Even in the 3* range that's still very rare and is only marginally more prominent in the high 3* range.

Biess4 wrote:

From a mapping perspective, not a community perspective:
it feels like there is an invisible barrier between 3 and 4 stars (aka between the noob zone and the just trash but at least close to decent zone), mappers are making bursts way too fast and hard which makes getting into them properly impossible leaving you with having to spam through it until you learn it. no wonder so many new players go for jump maps, they actually have a much more logical progression and how the difficulty rating works you can't really make it "too hard" because star diff will follow with it. Yet there are some absolutely unreal low 4 star and high 3 star burst/finger control maps that barely have FCs on the leaderboard. And there are very few maps with nice and slow bursts to get you into practicing them properly instead of spamming and ruining your hand (happened to me). Most 4 stars feel like "rest" maps for good players who can play higher star rating maps, approaching them from the bottom feels like trying to climb a grease covered mountain. (also they often have somewhat complex aim so it's doubly difficult to get into them)

3 years have passed so I already partly brute forced my way in, if I didn't love music so much I would've quit this game back in december of 2020.

Well, first of all, how about we stop calling 3* the "noob zone"? 1*'s should be the "noob zone" and 3* should be "trash but close to decent". (I know it's probably because of all the aforementioned high-ranked players with nothing but 3-4* maps at 85-95%, but still).

Secondly, while I know I have seen a few maps where bursts are probably a bit too fast for comfort, is it really that widespread in 3* maps? Inversely with slower bursts. I personally would argue that once you're above 3.6* slow bursts are kinda out the door except when the song itself dictates it, at least.

Do agree with the finger control maps somewhat, but at the same time it's high 3*/low 4* so that seems more excusable to me. They should be rarer at lower SRs (the main two I think of are Sakura's Fall and Henrietta (Goreshit remix).

aveil wrote:

Happy Satoko wrote:

Voidedosu wrote:

I am interested to know what advanced tech they're putting into 2-3* maps nowadays, though. More bursts/bigger jumps, or something else?

The most notable thing I notice is that compared to older maps, there are a lot more patterns that require slider cheesing to play comfortably. Which is easy once you've learned it, but many beginners haven't picked up on this yet and play every slider all the way through. In high 2* and 3*, more complex rhythm choices compared to older maps. These are things you learn eventually of course, but if I'd started playing the game with 2023 maps, I think I would have just concluded this is a genetics game and quit, because I wouldn't know enough to know what I'm doing wrong.

What do you consider older maps? Maps from around 2010 and earlier have much more complicated rhythms and were harder to play partly because of lower quality standards. I can think of many old 2 star maps which I still can't SS because of how hard they are, but there are no new 2 stars which have the same type of challenge - they're all pretty boring because mappers are just putting in the lowest diffs to their maps for the sake of having them to meet criteria. Older maps had 2 and 3 stars as the highest difficulty in the mapsets, so mappers actually put effort into making them interesting to play (for better or worse sometimes). I would say that there has been a trend of maps becoming more challenging to aim though, but not at or below 2 stars (maybe from high 2 stars, but definitely from 3 stars up).

That's...really sad, honestly. While I get the purpose of the SR spread criteria, if it's only going to encourage more cookie-cutter maps on the low end I don't really feel like it's doing a very good job. On the other hand, I can't think of a way to encourage mappers to spend more time there without making the playerbase itself put more emphasis on playing 2*/low 3* maps so that mappers have a reason to make them engaging and unique.

Gsun wrote:

Better than telling me, "Bro, you only play for the music? Why not the map?" Thanks!

Well, why not both?

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand how this is a fucking music content machine and I'm not hating on your or anyone who puts more emphasis on listening to music, but it's not like you can't try to enjoy the maps, too.

Some of my absolute favorite songs are not just because the music itself is good but because I feel like the map in question plays very much in sync with the music in question--The flow of the map, slider curvature, hitsounds, etc. all feel like they flow in unison. Fever Dream [Hard/Lunatic], Kodomo Live [Hard], Caramel Heaven [Insane] are a few personal examples.

I don't know man, if it doesn't appeal to them, they DO have the right to voice their opinion or complaints about the game not suiting their tastes and the company can change said game in accordance with majority opinion eventually, right?

Well, sadly this is not something that osu team can easily fix (hell in fact i think they already did everything they could), but rather on what the community are biased to and as far as i can see its still as hyper-competitive as ever (also one of the reason why i started playing Osu really late while i've known this game since 2014).
And with community like this (atleast from my experience with Geometry Dash community), mappers would feel more encouraged to create the "Ehrmagerd super dooper hard levels inhooman skeelz only [put the GD demon icon with tons of horns]" maps than put efforts in a good and fun easy level because the formers gets you more views than the later, in fact if i remember correctly in Geometry Dash the minimum diff for a featured level is a 5 stars Hard so gotta thanks to Osu's spread rules that Normal even exist (though just exist, not making them good as sometimes i saw them just to be a spread filler).

Gsun wrote:

I don't know man, if it doesn't appeal to them, they DO have the right to voice their opinion or complaints about the game not suiting their tastes and the company can change said game in accordance with majority opinion eventually, right?

Not saying they can't, but I am saying they should take a step back and really think about whether their issues are on the part of the game/mappers or an issue with their own views and biases about what's hard/easy or is most likely to get the best reactions.

Given Biess's note about how 2* maps are handled, I'd say it's an issue on both sides but might ultimately be caused by the players. The general player base only cares about the high-SR (min. 5*) maps because they're the coolest or the 1-2* (or 3*, even) maps are too boring or whatever reason they have. In response, mappers start to trend heavily toward only making 5*+ maps unique in any way, whether in the aesthetics of object placement (such as making symbols and the like out of sliders, etc.) or in making hard maps in general, at the cost of basically ignoring the lower SR maps beyond spread criteria. That leads to 1-2* maps generally looking the same and perhaps getting difficulty crept. Then that leads to complaints about stuff no longer being casual-friendly and the like.

Is it likely that there are spiteful/uncaring mappers who really only care about making higher SR maps? Probably, though I don't know any of them enough to name anyone. But if the players aren't showing enough attention for the 1-2* maps, mappers have very little incentive to make them unique or interesting beyond their own personal beliefs or enjoyment.

okay.

what does casual friendly mean?

it was beginner friendly for me.

dung eater wrote:

what does casual friendly mean?

it was beginner friendly for me.

He's asking if this game will ever be something people who don't play competitively on the rankings and such will be able to play without being skill locked. Even though, this game is already pretty "casual friendly"

osu! is a hard game (I don’t see this as a problem, I wouldn’t play it if it was easy to make progress), but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

aveil wrote:

but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

Osu! doesn't need to be an esport to be considered a competitive game.

Voidedosu wrote:

Unless you are referring to stuff after 2021-22, I have never seen anything in the 2* range that requires slider cheese (or really anything regarding sliders). Even in the 3* range that's still very rare and is only marginally more prominent in the high 3* range.

I'm specifically referring to after 2021, which is why I said "compared to older maps". I encounter these more difficult 2-3* maps pretty much every day, there's definitely difficulty creep.

aveil wrote:

What do you consider older maps? Maps from around 2010 and earlier have much more complicated rhythms and were harder to play partly because of lower quality standards. I can think of many old 2 star maps which I still can't SS because of how hard they are, but there are no new 2 stars which have the same type of challenge - they're all pretty boring because mappers are just putting in the lowest diffs to their maps for the sake of having them to meet criteria.

In this conversation I think of "older maps" as around roughly 2014-2018, and somewhat 2019-2020, though that's when I feel the meta began to shift. In a more general conversation I would think of pre-2014 maps as "old maps", which do tend to have more difficult maps because of quality standards, as you're saying. I don't think new 2-3* are difficult for an intermediate player, but I think many of them are too difficult for beginners specifically.

dung eater wrote:

what does casual friendly mean?

it was beginner friendly for me.

It's still beginner friendly

aveil wrote:

osu! is a hard game (I don’t see this as a problem, I wouldn’t play it if it was easy to make progress), but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

The way osu is designed is definitely competitive. The pp system massively encourage and favour FC over pass. There's no clear cut way how to reliably progress and improve one's skill as opposed to candy crush where you know you need to clear level and progress and stuff. Tons of tournaments and competition on daily basis too.

But osu can also be played casually. If the person play ultimately for fun and/or with friends, then it's already casual-friendly in my opinion.

I have no opinion on low star mapping. Even the lowest star diffs can have really weird stuff which tbh not much concern. Most people aren't going to touch it

Nanofranne wrote:

aveil wrote:

osu! is a hard game (I don’t see this as a problem, I wouldn’t play it if it was easy to make progress), but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

The way osu is designed is definitely competitive. The pp system massively encourage and favour FC over pass. There's no clear cut way how to reliably progress and improve one's skill as opposed to candy crush where you know you need to clear level and progress and stuff.

Tons of tournaments and competition on daily basis too.

But osu can also be played casually. If the person play ultimately for fun and/or with friends, then it's already casual-friendly in my opinion.

I have no opinion on low star mapping. Even the lowest star diffs can have really weird stuff which tbh not much concern. Most people aren't going to touch it

osu wasn't designed with pp system, it was designed with ranked score/levels. pp was added (*created, developed as a separate thing, not added to game) by the community/volunteers and integrated (added by peppy) to game after ~~5 years of release. it's still maintained/updated by pretty much volunteers by doing what they want to it and it gets added if it makes sense.

e; ppl really wanted it and they got it, mostly by their own work on it

dung eater wrote:

Nanofranne wrote:

aveil wrote:

osu! is a hard game (I don’t see this as a problem, I wouldn’t play it if it was easy to make progress), but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

The way osu is designed is definitely competitive. The pp system massively encourage and favour FC over pass. There's no clear cut way how to reliably progress and improve one's skill as opposed to candy crush where you know you need to clear level and progress and stuff.

Tons of tournaments and competition on daily basis too.

But osu can also be played casually. If the person play ultimately for fun and/or with friends, then it's already casual-friendly in my opinion.

I have no opinion on low star mapping. Even the lowest star diffs can have really weird stuff which tbh not much concern. Most people aren't going to touch it

osu wasn't designed with pp system, it was designed with ranked score/levels. pp was added by the community/volunteers and integrated to game after ~~5 years of release. it's still maintained/updated by pretty much volunteers by doing what they want to it and it gets added if it makes sense.

Volunteers, eh? That explains everything! So the ENTIRE game is run by volunteers?

Gsun wrote:

dung eater wrote:

Nanofranne wrote:

aveil wrote:

osu! is a hard game (I don’t see this as a problem, I wouldn’t play it if it was easy to make progress), but it’s hardly competitive. Nobody is playing osu! and taking it as seriously as a really competitive esport.

The way osu is designed is definitely competitive. The pp system massively encourage and favour FC over pass. There's no clear cut way how to reliably progress and improve one's skill as opposed to candy crush where you know you need to clear level and progress and stuff.

Tons of tournaments and competition on daily basis too.

But osu can also be played casually. If the person play ultimately for fun and/or with friends, then it's already casual-friendly in my opinion.

I have no opinion on low star mapping. Even the lowest star diffs can have really weird stuff which tbh not much concern. Most people aren't going to touch it

osu wasn't designed with pp system, it was designed with ranked score/levels. pp was added by the community/volunteers and integrated to game after ~~5 years of release. it's still maintained/updated by pretty much volunteers by doing what they want to it and it gets added if it makes sense.

Volunteers, eh? That explains everything! So the ENTIRE game is run by volunteers?

pretty much, but there peppy and maybe one or a few ppl who live off it. if you have some good idea it will probably get added, if you work on it.

open tablet driver for example was integrated to lazer recently (not many years ago), it's a sort of universal driver for tablets. ppl worked on it for a long time, purely community/volunteers.

Gsun wrote:

Volunteers, eh? That explains everything! So the ENTIRE game is run by volunteers?

No, there is a small team working on the game / doing community things. Originally it was just Peppy. The developers have mainly been working on lazer for the past 8 years (this is not a joke), so not many new features have been added to stable. Some current members of the team who I can remember are Flyte (does the UI design etc.), Pishifat, Peppy, smoogipoo, and Ephemeral. You can see the updates to lazer on the official osu! YouTube channel if you’re interested (there is also some older content that is very cool): https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCMeRgqzTfC5ja40B6kM6pdg

The game has always been open to community suggestions and feedback. Volunteers mainly work on nominating beatmaps, forum / chat moderation, and helping with the OWCs.

I hope you're joking, OP. This game has humongous amount of ranked maps for each mode it supports (the only exception is non-4k/7k maps for mania) across all music genres and star ratings. I genuinely can't comprehend how this is not enough.

Anemic Witch wrote:

I hope you're joking, OP. This game has humongous amount of ranked maps for each mode it supports (the only exception is non-4k/7k maps for mania) across all music genres and star ratings. I genuinely can't comprehend how this is not enough.

I don't know where this is coming from, but the problem here is that 1-3 is FAR too steep in the difficulty curve and 4 and higher are just getting more and more difficult from there.

Irritates me how you're calling me out for "joking" when other people are more respectful of my initial post here than you.

osu! isn’t meant to be easy, it’s not the game’s fault that you can’t improve as fast as you’d like. The point is that there are more than enough maps to target whatever is holding you back, it’s just a matter of figuring out what the problem is, finding those maps, then playing more.

aveil wrote:

osu! isn’t meant to be easy, it’s not the game’s fault that you can’t improve as fast as you’d like. The point is that there are more than enough maps to target whatever is holding you back, it’s just a matter of figuring out what the problem is, finding those maps, then playing more.

But do they want to appeal to beginners, though? ALso, I'm doing this for ALL the casuals that want a game for them, not me, so I don't care about "improving as fast as I like." Pitiful you would think that about me. *facepalm*

There are definitely issues with the user experience for beginners (not really anything major related to actual gameplay). This video goes into those issues a bit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1dSmoGUtljs It also explains how lazer addresses some of them.

Everyone was a beginner at one point, the core gameplay is good enough for the game to have survived the past 16 years.

That makes more sense.

Gsun wrote:

ALso, I'm doing this for ALL the casuals that want a game for them, not me, so I don't care about "improving as fast as I like." Pitiful you would think that about me. *facepalm*

What exactly is pitiful? You’re pointing out an issue with the difficulty curve, for most people that’s only an issue if they care about their rate of improvement, whether they are a casual or not. I’m not trying to target you or generalise your opinions. It might seem like that because I used the word “you” back there, but I meant it in a broader sense.

aveil wrote:

Gsun wrote:

ALso, I'm doing this for ALL the casuals that want a game for them, not me, so I don't care about "improving as fast as I like." Pitiful you would think that about me. *facepalm*

What exactly is pitiful? You’re pointing out an issue with the difficulty curve, for most people that’s only an issue if they care about their rate of improvement, whether they are a casual or not. I’m not trying to target you or generalise your opinions. It might seem like that because I used the word “you” back there, but I meant it in a broader sense.

Yeah, I didn't know that (or couldn't tell that, more like). Apologize for how I felt there.

Don't treat star rating as fair difficulty rating. Because it is automated it mostly reflects object density rather than real difficulty of playing a map. Also encountering "walls" in your skill progression is completely normal regardless of what star rating it comes at. I know people who struggled to learn now to press triple stacks in osu!std and pretty much quit the game because of that, good old "play more" advice if you want to get better at the game comes in clutch in this situation. If you don't enjoy repetitive gameplay maybe rhythm games as a genre isn't meant for you.

Anemic Witch wrote:

Don't treat star rating as fair difficulty rating. Because it is automated it mostly reflects object density rather than real difficulty of playing a map. Also encountering "walls" in your skill progression is completely normal regardless of what star rating it comes at. I know people who struggled to learn now to press triple stacks in osu!std and pretty much quit the game because of that, good old "play more" advice if you want to get better at the game comes in clutch in this situation. If you don't enjoy repetitive gameplay maybe rhythm games as a genre isn't meant for you.

I play Museswipr, ADOFAI and other rhythm games. You don't even know me. Nuff said.

Bro thinks this is not casual friendly, wait till he hears about arcade rhythm games

Gsun wrote:

Anemic Witch wrote:

Don't treat star rating as fair difficulty rating. Because it is automated it mostly reflects object density rather than real difficulty of playing a map. Also encountering "walls" in your skill progression is completely normal regardless of what star rating it comes at. I know people who struggled to learn now to press triple stacks in osu!std and pretty much quit the game because of that, good old "play more" advice if you want to get better at the game comes in clutch in this situation. If you don't enjoy repetitive gameplay maybe rhythm games as a genre isn't meant for you.

I play Museswipr, ADOFAI and other rhythm games. You don't even know me. Nuff said.

(Also, are you pissed off? If so, don't be. It's just a game, dude.)