It’s not new. We see fewer and fewer new faces, fewer people excited to climb ranks, fewer maps actually being played. The pp system, which once felt fun, has now become a prison. If you don’t farm, you don’t exist. If you don’t hit 95%+, the game basically tells you your effort is worthless. You can train for days, weeks, even months just to gain 1pp, while someone who has been playing for a few weeks can farm 300pp in an afternoon. That’s not healthy, that’s not motivating — it’s exhausting.
And the worst part? The game keeps selling the idea of “self-improvement”… while shoving rank and leaderboards in your face 24/7. You open the client and it says: “your rank dropped because you didn’t play today.” You open a map and the leaderboard is right there, comparing you to everyone else. The message is clear: “don’t compare yourself”... but in reality, you HAVE to compare yourself.
As for competition? It’s almost nonexistent. We have one World Cup a year, and it’s always the same top pp players from each country. We already know who’s playing, and we already know who’s going to win. Where’s the thrill? Where’s the chance for new names to appear? Where are the stories that keep us watching? Right now osu! is just an endless solo grind, where the only thing that changes is whether you hit one more circle or missed one.
But the community wants more. We need more.
👉 What could change?
The future of osu! isn’t in more pp, more farm, or more forgotten maps. The future lies in real competition. Imagine an official 1v1 Elo system. It wouldn’t just be “farming alone and chasing numbers” — it would be entering matches against players at your level, with maps randomly chosen from a pool by the system itself. If you’re at the lowest Elo, you’d get 1–2 star maps. Climb a bit higher, and you start seeing 3–4 stars, then 5–6, and at the top you face brutal 7–8 star tech and stamina maps.
Victory wouldn’t just be “who FCed” or “who gained more pp”, but who played better overall: higher accuracy, more consistency, better adaptation. Each win gives Elo points, each loss makes you drop. At the end of every season, the ladder resets. That means every month or year starts a fresh race, with space for new names to shine — no more depending on years of pp grinding to be relevant. It’s a system that doesn’t reward only comfort, but forces you out of it. A system where every match matters, every hit counts, and every victory against someone your level feels like an achievement — something the solo grind can never give.
And the World Cup… it needs to change for good. Enough with teams formed just by the top 10 pp of each country. We need a year-round competitive circuit: local qualifiers, regional tournaments, majors, and then a true World Championship at the end. Just like other games do: rivalries, stories, surprises. That would bring osu! back to life, give hidden talents a stage, and even open the door to something that today feels impossible: real osu! teams, with sponsorships, coaches, staff, and maybe even salaries for the best.
osu! is nearly 20 years old now. It’s beautiful that it still exists, that we still have a passionate community, that we still have legends like mrekk, btmc, WhiteCat, maliszewski, and so many others. But even these names are getting tired. The world’s #1 himself has said he can’t take being top anymore, because his pp lead is so huge it kills competition entirely. That shows how broken the system is: it kills the excitement even at the very top.
If nothing changes, what will remain? Only nostalgia. We’ll remember the days when everyone fought for scores on the same maps, when 727pp was a myth, when the World Cup actually felt exciting. But the present will keep fading away.
Peppy and the team have already proven they can evolve the game — osu!lazer is proof of that. But now the most important decision has to be made: to reform how we compete. To give us a real reason to play beyond farming pp alone. To give us an official stage, a calendar, a league. To give osu! a future.
If we want this game to still be alive 20 years from now, we need to talk about this. We need to demand change. Because if we keep pretending everything’s fine… we’ll watch osu! die slowly, circle by circle.
And the worst part? The game keeps selling the idea of “self-improvement”… while shoving rank and leaderboards in your face 24/7. You open the client and it says: “your rank dropped because you didn’t play today.” You open a map and the leaderboard is right there, comparing you to everyone else. The message is clear: “don’t compare yourself”... but in reality, you HAVE to compare yourself.
As for competition? It’s almost nonexistent. We have one World Cup a year, and it’s always the same top pp players from each country. We already know who’s playing, and we already know who’s going to win. Where’s the thrill? Where’s the chance for new names to appear? Where are the stories that keep us watching? Right now osu! is just an endless solo grind, where the only thing that changes is whether you hit one more circle or missed one.
But the community wants more. We need more.
👉 What could change?
The future of osu! isn’t in more pp, more farm, or more forgotten maps. The future lies in real competition. Imagine an official 1v1 Elo system. It wouldn’t just be “farming alone and chasing numbers” — it would be entering matches against players at your level, with maps randomly chosen from a pool by the system itself. If you’re at the lowest Elo, you’d get 1–2 star maps. Climb a bit higher, and you start seeing 3–4 stars, then 5–6, and at the top you face brutal 7–8 star tech and stamina maps.
Victory wouldn’t just be “who FCed” or “who gained more pp”, but who played better overall: higher accuracy, more consistency, better adaptation. Each win gives Elo points, each loss makes you drop. At the end of every season, the ladder resets. That means every month or year starts a fresh race, with space for new names to shine — no more depending on years of pp grinding to be relevant. It’s a system that doesn’t reward only comfort, but forces you out of it. A system where every match matters, every hit counts, and every victory against someone your level feels like an achievement — something the solo grind can never give.
And the World Cup… it needs to change for good. Enough with teams formed just by the top 10 pp of each country. We need a year-round competitive circuit: local qualifiers, regional tournaments, majors, and then a true World Championship at the end. Just like other games do: rivalries, stories, surprises. That would bring osu! back to life, give hidden talents a stage, and even open the door to something that today feels impossible: real osu! teams, with sponsorships, coaches, staff, and maybe even salaries for the best.
osu! is nearly 20 years old now. It’s beautiful that it still exists, that we still have a passionate community, that we still have legends like mrekk, btmc, WhiteCat, maliszewski, and so many others. But even these names are getting tired. The world’s #1 himself has said he can’t take being top anymore, because his pp lead is so huge it kills competition entirely. That shows how broken the system is: it kills the excitement even at the very top.
If nothing changes, what will remain? Only nostalgia. We’ll remember the days when everyone fought for scores on the same maps, when 727pp was a myth, when the World Cup actually felt exciting. But the present will keep fading away.
Peppy and the team have already proven they can evolve the game — osu!lazer is proof of that. But now the most important decision has to be made: to reform how we compete. To give us a real reason to play beyond farming pp alone. To give us an official stage, a calendar, a league. To give osu! a future.
If we want this game to still be alive 20 years from now, we need to talk about this. We need to demand change. Because if we keep pretending everything’s fine… we’ll watch osu! die slowly, circle by circle.
