I've been mapping for two years (took a one year break cause my pc died) and I've never felt as stagnant and lost as I feel right now, I feel like whenever I try to map something nothing goes the way I want, the map is horrible, I can't keep a consistent style, song gets me sick, rhythm is bad, and so on.
It's really tiring to start maps almost every single day and not being able to get even 15 seconds in without hating it.
please help me how do I actually improve at mapping? (keep mapping doesn't help since I can't even map)
by mapping more i guess? i don't know if the "play more" advice is applied on mapping as well but if you map different styles and manage to find the ones that are good for you, then it may be a sign that you're improving i guess
The best approach (in my opinion) is to get back to the game first, like spend a couple months (2 at least) just playing. After all, ya didn't start mapping outright when yyou first joined, right?
Anaxii wrote:
i don't know if the "play more" advice is applied on mapping as well
The "play more" approach also works here, yes. Mapping is a learn by doing process, this applies when one first starts mapping, and when one comes back after a break. Unlike when you first started you know the basics, and you got certain expectations, it's just that you need to get used to it again.
My tip on the 15 second map, keep mapping. I took a 3 year break from osu, so I know very well what you mean by hating it (had the same issue), I eventually got rid of it after just pushing through with it a few times (took me like 4 maps?)
If Dr. K's explanation of external concern perfectionism resonates with you, follow his advice.
If you think your issue is more about your personal standards, you'll need to find a way to shift those standards.
To me, it sounds like your goal when you open the editor is to make a good map, and that's a reasonable train of thought. As a long-term goal, I'd even say it's a great thing to aim for. However, if your standard for "good" is beyond what you can make with your current level of skill, it's incredibly toxic to demand a good map from yourself whenever you open the editor. You put yourself in a situation where you cannot win, which only leads to disappointment and frustration.
Luckily, there are ways out of this situation.
The most straightforward option is to just lower your standards. If what you expect from yourself is something you can achieve, finishing maps and feeling satisfied with them won't be an issue. However, forcing yourself to lower your standards can be really hard. It's also kind of complicated to do right, because you don't want to lower your standards for a good map, just for each individual map you make. After all, if the ultimate standard you're aiming for in the long run is something you can already do, you won't improve.
Another way you can try is to change your short-term goals. Leave making a good map as a long-term goal, and focus on things you can actually do right now. Ideally, those things will be what actually drives your improvement and eventually allows you to reach the standard you've been chasing. They can be pretty much anything you want, but they should be something you can do in just one map. For example:
"Just map all of this song, no matter how bad the map is" could help you get over that hurdle of not being able to map more than a bit before getting sick of the map. It's okay even if the map feels like complete dogshit. You're doing it for the sake of the feeling of finishing something.
"Make the best rhythm I can on this song." You don't even need to arrange your objects in any meaningful way, just focus on making rhythm that feels cool to tap. If you're happy with the result, you can also go through the map again and try to make something cool with the rhythm you came up with. Some people actually map like this all the time, so it's good to at least give it a try.
"Just try to keep a consistent style throughout this map." When you're learning, it's often a good idea to focus on one thing at a time. It's okay if other aspects of the map suffer, this is just practice. This way, you get to use most of your brain power on the thing you're trying to learn, which helps you internalise it faster. Soon, you'll be able to do it even when focusing on something else.
"Just make 100 different patterns." You don't even need to make a whole map, you can just do isolated exercises like this and maybe even come up with cool stuff can use in the future. You'll still probably learn something. Depending on what works better for you, you can make the patterns on top of complete silence, or you can map tiny parts of actual songs.
I hope these examples help you come up with your own goals as well. Practice makes perfect, you just need to get yourself into a mindset that allows you to get things done without hating the process.
Finally, after all this talk about ways to make mapping practice itself more doable, I should talk just a bit about the other two pillars of improvement: getting feedback and analysing maps.
Getting feedback on your maps from other mappers is crucial for improvement - it's how you find new things to improve in your mapping, which you can translate directly into more of the short-term goals I talked about above. It's also a good way to see how far you've come: if people stop commenting on something you've gotten mods about in the past, it's probably because you've learned how to do that thing effectively.
Show your maps to all kinds of mappers, see what they have to say about them, focus on correcting the issues they pointed out in the next map you make, rinse and repeat. Don't be afraid to ask "what do you mean" if someone says something you don't understand, most people will be happy to elaborate.
Analysing other people's maps improves you in a fairly different way from feedback. At it's core, it's about looking at a map and trying to understand how it works and what the mapper was trying to do. There are two prominent ways people do this: one is to study maps you like and try to understand them as well as you can, while the other is to mod other people's maps.
The better you get at analysing other people's maps, the better you get at looking at your own maps analytically, which in turn helps you fix or even prevent issues. You can also find cool things in the maps you look at that you can then use in your own maps.
wow huge thanks everyone for taking the time to comment, I will truly try and make the most about what you guys said and hopefully I can overcome this state and become the mapper I want to be.
To me, it sounds like your goal when you open the editor is to make a good map, and that's a reasonable train of thought. As a long-term goal, I'd even say it's a great thing to aim for. However, if your standard for "good" is beyond what you can make with your current level of skill, it's incredibly toxic to demand a good map from yourself whenever you open the editor. You put yourself in a situation where you cannot win, which only leads to disappointment and frustration.
I'd like to add on this and say that self-compassion is important to this process. You can set SMART goals and theoretically engage with all of the "productivity meta" techniques but the negative form of perfectionism Dr K discusses will constantly break your long term vision. When you're working towards something and your brain, trained to reject working at something if you can't see a path that reaches your standards, prevents you from having faith in the process, you have to treat yourself like you should treat others. If someone is struggling at learning some skill, you wouldn't tell them that they don't meet any acceptable standard nor that they are improving too slowly and should therefore quit. You would attempt to help them to further improve or note what progress they *have* made. There will always be someone better than you and comparison for the sake of testing if you meet some standard will get you nowhere. Be mindful of the improvement you do make and that you most likely *will* be able to meet your standard at some point, if you wish to put in the work with the correct practice and help.