I've played this game for sometime and I've realised one thing that is probably noticed by many other players too. I've noticed that your performance in the game is often hindered by external thoughts and emotions.

For example, and one that can definitely be related to by a majority of players.
You are almost at the end of a song that you have been constantly retrying over and over again. You haven't missed an circle yet and your accuracy is your best yet. Suddenly, you become nervous and start thinking to yourself, "Wow I haven't missed yet. I'm bound to miss a circle soon. I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss" and it turns out you actually miss despite the fact that the rhythm and flow of beat has not changed one bit. You could've easily hit those notes but you became nervous and stuffed up. What if you didn't become nervous and let your emotions get to the better of you?

So my question is, to anyone but especially the more successful players, can you control these unnecessary emotions and thoughts and concentrate more on the game itself and if so, does this correlate in your ability to play the game well?

Whell I was the same around your plays so I asked a better player myself and he told me I'll get used to it. I didn't believe at first but he was actually right. Once you have alot of FCs you'll eventually stop caring about missing at the end. Atleast that's the way it worked for me.

Zenarai wrote:

Once you have alot of FCs you'll eventually stop caring about missing at the end.

not me

I am absolutely incapable of FCing anything, even maps that should be child's play.
Whether you get nervous or not and whether you let it affect your playing or not solely depends on your own personality and mindset, which, then again, is related to a ton of factors that have nothing to do with clicking circles.

Zare wrote:

I am absolutely incapable of FCing anything, even maps that should be child's play.
Whether you get nervous or not and whether you let it affect your playing or not solely depends on your own personality and mindset, which, then again, is related to a ton of factors that have nothing to do with clicking circles.

smoke weed it helps

Just sing along and enjoy the song

or

scream as loud as you can

Play more.

Wouldn't call myself a better player but the more I play now, the more I can control the nerves when I'm nearly done FCing a hard map.

I find the only time I experience this is when I'm nearly going to set a really good score on something that is above my level. In other words, not something I can simply FC in a few more plays. In my opinion, the solution is to just get better. That way, I can just reach the point where the map I'm trying to FC is not too difficult and I can do it in a few tries without really thinking about it.

You can also sort of learn how to tune it out and prevent it, but that just comes with practice. I get even more nervous after I've been playing a song for a long period of time without taking a break, so taking breaks and maybe even coming back to that map the next day is also a really good way to deal with this.

i almost messed up this map because of nerves. you will always keep them.

silmarilen wrote:

i almost messed up this map because of nerves. you will always keep them.

but you're bad
can't even pass paradise ghost consistently
pls

Another thing: take deep breaths at the beginning of the song and at the end of breaks.

Usually my thoughts while getting close to FCing a song that I'd been trying for a while is like "wow how much PP am I gonna get" "I wonder if my accuracy is shit" "I should probably FC that other song too". And while you think you can avoid these thoughts and ease yourself and not get nervous, it's hard to, because your body always tenses up when it knows something is coming and you're nervous for it, you can't really avoid it. You just get used to it, and once it becomes easy you'll stop having those thoughts and tensing up.

Evolvation wrote:

Usually my thoughts while getting close to FCing a song that I'd been trying for a while is like "wow how much PP am I gonna get" "I wonder if my accuracy is shit"

Thats the point where i usually look at my acc and make it either worse or miss x.x

Zenarai wrote:

Evolvation wrote:

Usually my thoughts while getting close to FCing a song that I'd been trying for a while is like "wow how much PP am I gonna get" "I wonder if my accuracy is shit"

Thats the point where i usually look at my acc and make it either worse or miss x.x

Haha same, I'll take a quick glimpse at the accuracy to see what it is, and sometimes miss the next note but accuracy isn't the only thing that makes me side tracked, FB message, Reddit, Osu Message, etc

Improve yourself.

A rank #30k player may find a 4 star to be hard to fc, and may struggle because of those thoughts "I've never fc'd before" "don't miss" etc.
A rank #20k player may find the map more natural to them - if they aren't struggling as much as the #30k player they won't be having unnecessary and negative thoughts.
The only reason why you'd have these thoughts is if you had doubt in your own skill

Or you could just get yourself into the mentality that it's just a game and that you really don't care if you fc or not.

buny wrote:

The only reason why you'd have these thoughts is if you had doubt in your own skill

Who doesn't?

Bassist Vinyl wrote:

buny wrote:

The only reason why you'd have these thoughts is if you had doubt in your own skill

Who doesn't?

Cookiezi

Zenarai wrote:

Whell I was the same around your plays so I asked a better player myself and he told me I'll get used to it. I didn't believe at first but he was actually right. Once you have alot of FCs you'll eventually stop caring about missing at the end. Atleast that's the way it worked for me.

u got 93% in big black 3 months after u started playing osu? cheater

I'm not really a good player, but bare with my examples if you care to read them. Everyone focusing on improvement has problems with nerves when you look at it from the right perspective. It mostly depends on how much and far you're willing to push yourself, consistently or not.

Situation 1: If I play something within my limits, I don't get nervous at all. After all, I can just do it again... right? Doesn't take long either.

Situation 2 (nerves): This view is somewhat skewed since we all have skill imbalances (reading, aim, speed, etc.), but... If I play something above my limits, which takes quite a few tries to get right, then that's where time starts to factor in. Time is something "most of us" are concerned about (NEETs are excused), since ultimately our skill level and scores we can achieve are decided by whether we can do it in the allotted time we decided for ourselves. Getting better at this game is, after all, all relative, and a sort of race against each other.
However, very few people really consider that playing a map once is the only true test of skill. While that would be nice, everyone knows there is more time to spend on a single map in 99% of cases. We, individually, decide how much that is. We can also instantly recognise how troublesome a map is to FC based on factors we are already familiar with. This is also why many people say their first plays are their best, where some of these factors remain unknown for most of the play ("WHAT! HOW MANY SQUARES DID I JUST PASS?" as opposed to "I GOTTA PASS ALL THOSE SQUARES AGAIN!").
If we cross that line of what we determine to be "too many retries per FC" and finally get close to FC'ing something, all hell breaks loose in our nervous systems, because we don't expect ourselves to be able to do that again unless at least the same amount of time is spent AGAIN... which was already way too much. It stops being fun and we want to end it quickly (reward), so the mind takes action. That's what the 'boost' is for, which comes in the form of getting nervous (it's an essential survival mechanism that doesn't translate well into competitive activities). There's no way around your nerves in this manner, unless you decide not to do that.

Situation 3: Well, how about very hard maps? No... not really. By playing really hard maps, you have already accepted the fact that you aren't going to perform well anyway, so you don't get nervous at all. The time you want to spend playing it is ultimately already decided (until you get tired or bored) and you see it as just a regimen for conditioning your mind and body for what's to come. No time is lost, since what you aimed for was not an end result, but just a means to an end.

TL;DR: I don't really want to shorten it, but it's basically about time spent trying to achieve and how we see it, recognise it and react to it. If you don't care about the game, you automatically fall into situation 1 or 3, examples notwithstanding.

iderekmc wrote:

Zenarai wrote:

Whell I was the same around your plays so I asked a better player myself and he told me I'll get used to it. I didn't believe at first but he was actually right. Once you have alot of FCs you'll eventually stop caring about missing at the end. Atleast that's the way it worked for me.

u got 93% in big black 3 months after u started playing osu? cheater

what..?

I'm quite sure he meant Airman

BRBP wrote:

I'm quite sure he meant Airman

Airman score is bugged but ok... Also this is my 2nd account 1st one got permed because someone hacked both of my accounts...

we already concluded in a different thread that zenarai cheated (and he admitted it aswell) and apparently the staff doesnt care, so lets drop that subject.

silmarilen wrote:

we already concluded in a different thread that zenarai cheated (and he admitted it aswell) and apparently the staff doesnt care, so lets drop that subject.

^ but it wasnt on airman.. I wrote a ticket about that Airman score like 5 months ago and no answer...

BRBP wrote:

Oh lol, you're that guy. I should start remembering names instead of avatars.

Your name sounds familiar, have you posted in that "slow fingers" thread?

Stop thinking.
Play like a zombie.

Play 1 star below your recommended difficulty and SS everything in 1 try.

The more you play the better you get at controlling those thoughts. I just try to think about how much I've trained instead of how bad I want to fc.