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DAE Think that osu! is unfriendly towards new players?

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I Give Up
1,648 posts
Joined January 2014
I Give Up
@OP I admit I joined around Jan but quit because of similar reasons. Luckily I was one of the few who returned. Yes just about every player above the 500k rank have only played a couple times then quit.

To get serious, I had to search through tons of posts to find relevant solutions to my problems and search through various youtube video tutorials all which probably consumed a good hour of my time. This is a pretty hard deterrent for casual players. I also had a friend to help me out with choosing good starter maps and to be honest I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my friends.

If we can give new accounts some sorta bone to pick, it may encourage them to stay at least for a little while longer. I agree with your premise, but the practical solutions need a little work.
silmarilen
5,579 posts
Joined February 2010
silmarilen

Loves wrote:

silmarilen wrote:

there are about 800k people with at least 1pp right now (people who havent set a score in at least 3 months have 0pp)
that's 20% of all people who registered. just because there are only around 10k people online at any time does not mean there are only about 10k active people.

i think a good idea would be to add an extra "tutorial" not for gameplay, but for the user interface. like you said, you never heard of the other modes until way later, so the first time you log in ingame it could give you a litle tour through what everything is and where you can find what.

as far as setting scores being harsh for new players is concerned, i agree with riince, there is no point tryign to compare you to people who have been playing for years. compare to your own scores, or to your friends.

advanced gameplay techniques (streams, how to tap, all that sort of things) can be found on the forum rather easily, i see no reason to add that ingame.
You see no reason to anything. Thats why GoldenWolf means more to me!

i see no reason to like goldenwolf more than me :^)
YukinoDesuDesu
164 posts
Joined April 2012
YukinoDesuDesu
I agree with you Loves.

Back then I somehow returned 4 months after installing. Right after installing I thought 'wow way too hard for me'.
RaneFire
1,181 posts
Joined May 2011
RaneFire
I seem to remember peppy saying that the amount of active users was actually about 10% of the player base. I think this statistic refers to the number of users who play on a monthly basis at least. It's not that bad at all considering it's only a game. People quit games for more reasons than just "hard" or "uninviting" - they register to try it out and find it's not what they want to play, simple. It doesn't mean it's a bad game, this happens all the time.

Loves wrote:

Once the early stages is done, the real beauty of osu! comes out. That's a disappointing thought, that most people don't play long enough to experience this with us.
Some of my favourite games of all time are like this, where you have to be good enough to truly enjoy it. I find it appealing, but others don't, probably because they don't understand how skill progression works when they start.

It's not a bad thing to have a high skill ceiling, there just needs to be accommodation for a low one too. The rankings are the main drive for people, and that's the problem. Many people set their sights on where they want to be, not truly enjoying the game, only desiring to finally be good enough to compete with people waaaay above their level..

It's about time osu! gives players unrestricted access to mod-specific scoreboards per map, because not only is no new player aware of this feature for supporters, no one else really will really look at them unless they're "interested", which face it, they aren't. Ideally the "selected mods" ranking should be the default setting for new players to give them a much better idea of where they are at, since easy maps don't get much harder unless you use mods, and its very demotivating for many to see full mod SS's on easy maps done by players who are essentially "too good" for those maps, but keep playing them. This would be the better alternative instead of a new top 50, which no one else will look at.

While you should only compare to your friends and yourself, some people don't have friends playing (surprise!), and you already know that you're shit at the game because you just started, so to see where they could eventually be, they watch the pro's pla... holy shit wtf /ragequit. And then they either come back with the desire to be that good, or just to play the game for themselves, or don't come back. Many people choose the first one.
Last edited by RaneFire , edited 1 time in total.
FlyingKebab
339 posts
Joined July 2014
FlyingKebab
You really shouldn't play for scores at first that is what new people should know from day 1. There is no point in that because it takes up too much time in early stages. I'm in the early stages still and I don't really give a damn about top scores. The most i retry a map is about 3 to 4 times because I really don't see a point in doing it more. FC or S/SS either happens or it doesn't, if so then i try a few times next day.
Bauxe
1,624 posts
Joined August 2012
Bauxe
If we make new players feel like they are better than they are, when they realise they aren't, they are probably more likely to quit.
Rewben2
996 posts
Joined November 2012
Rewben2
Yeah, there isn't really many resources available to those who want to learn about the game. There are things that are very simple to experienced players that a new player would have no idea about, even something like downloading beatmaps and finding certain beatmaps. Figuring stuff out on your own is not something that a lot of people enjoy doing, especially if you have absolutely no clue. But there is osu!academy which is nice.

A lot of new players usually resort to asking questions to other players such as here on the forums. The thing is, because the same questions are seen over and over, people respond in a salty manner... Not really something a new player wants to hear.

A channel/forum for noobs like you suggested is a good idea. A place where people would expect the same dumb, generic questions to be asked over and over lol.
B1rd
2,974 posts
Joined December 2013
B1rd
I didn't read all of the text block. But I didn't have any trouble learning the game. Sure it took me a long time to become familiar with all the aspects, but I just played and accepted that I'd learn more as I played more. Honestly, there are tougher challenges in life.
Ethelon
76 posts
Joined May 2013
Ethelon

Bauxe wrote:

If we make new players feel like they are better than they are, when they realise they aren't, they are probably more likely to quit.
It's really the mentality of all "competitive" games.
Unless you're the top minute % of players, you're not considered anywhere near good. In league no one that knows will care unless you're higher than Diamond 1 50LP (Roughly as of now). The good news is that the vast majority of players don't know that, so you can get away with "only" being low Diamond and you'd be considered good. Even Gold/Platinum is considered a good milestone.

Same with osu!. You're not considered competitive (at least from what I know) until you're under #1,000. But there aren't any external milestones for the player. They have to set those themselves (and those can be easily torn down on the forums).

Anyway here are my thoughts (Long post incoming):

Context:
Popular games have changed quite a bit over the years, and that affects the expectation of gamers.

When I was helping out some indie developers awhile back, one of their pet peeves was that a majority of gamers nowadays expect a lot of babying (at least in their genre). They had to implement tons of training wheels for new players so that they would have to explicitly learn everything before going off on their own, and if they tried to do anything creative with letting the player choose how to learn and explore, they were flooded with terrible reviews of confusion.

The point here is that players just have less incentive to invest themselves into a game on their own from the beginning, and usually have to be force-fed at the start before they'll head off on their own.

And osu! is a game that has nothing to do with force-feeding. The burden is on the player to search for maps he'd like to play, figure out the nuances of the game, improve himself.etc. I'm sure the majority of players that stick around probably are more self driven in improving at this game for whatever reason.

So I think the problem isn't osu! being unfriendly, but gamers expecting to do less initial investment.

Problems ...?:
Is it worth peppy's (or others) time to set up training wheels in game? I think that depends on whether it'd make a difference worth the effort, and what the problem actually is.

How many players leave because of the music (1), community (2)(or lack of one), or actual difficulty (3)?
-If (1): It wouldn't be worth it because there's not much peppy could do. It's mostly what the community maps.
-If (2): There'd need to be a joint effort on peppy's end to provide more ways of friendly communication, and the community's end to not trash up the place.
-If (3): Most of the work would be on peppy to set up training wheels and/or other ways to mask the difficulty e.g. categorical rankings (divisions, visible milestones.etc).

Of course it's probably a combination of those.

Solutions ...?:
There are indeed ways that peppy could try to hit all those points, and here are some of my ideas:

In regards to (1), he could make it easier to find maps of your taste and difficulty. Incorporating a system that could recommend you maps based on your previous plays would go a long way. Of course you'd have to search for your first maps, but it could be tuned to help out with that process in the beginning as well.
Tillerino's bot already does this in a way (https://github.com/Tillerino/Tillerinobot/wiki). Adding language and genre settings in there could further that.

In regards to (2) and (3), he could add ways that make it easier for players of similar skill level (and language) to meet each other and play together.
+A matchmaking system that sets you up with a multiplayer (locked or unlocked?) room of people of similar ranking.
+A matchmaking duel system that sets you up with a similarly ranked opponent where you take turns picking maps and winning tournament/world-cup style. You could have a team matchmaking system as well.
-Rewards for the above duel system?

Final Thoughts:
I don't think solutions have to appeal only to newbies. They don't have to be boring tutorials on how to do things. If you take a look at just the quick solution suggestions I threw out, they're all things that I wouldn't mind having myself.

Thoughts on this? If we can get some good discussion rolling we could even throw up a feature request topic with some good arguments and details, unless I'm being too optimistic here.

*Edit for clarity.
Last edited by Ethelon , edited 3 times in total.
lolcubes
osu! Alumni
4,437 posts
Joined November 2010
lolcubes

Rewben2 wrote:

A channel/forum for noobs like you suggested is a good idea. A place where people would expect the same dumb, generic questions to be asked over and over lol.


This can't be THAT invisible. Good thinking though.

The reason why this game is deemed so unfriendly today is because in pretty much all games you are being held by your hand, and walked through everything. As soon as people have to do something on their own, they get lost and immediately ask for guidance from another or just plain quit with bitter feelings.
The guidance from another can be seen in the above threads (hell, even regular topics have many duplicates, yet another one is being made all the time), or even in the FAQ section.
Today you even have mechanisms like map recommendations based on difficulty, etc.

Obviously it's the player's fault here. If someone needs to do everything for them, what's the point? Pointing them towards the right direction is pointing them towards the forums, the FAQ, or giving a tip on your own, but if they start complaining about how unfriendly this game is towards them (that even with that they get their ass kicked), they are better off quitting now, else they will do it later with more complaints.
winber1
4,520 posts
Joined February 2010
winber1

Loves wrote:

Just look at the stats, 4 800 000 users, only 6- 12k online at any time. I'll also note that I rarely see anyone above 30k rank post on the forums actively.
Why would getting these people to reply and post help them improve in any way? The only thing anyone will ever say to them is essentially play more. If for instance we were able to feed the thoughts of these players into the forums, almost all of it will be something along the lines of "How the hell are these people so good?" or "How do I get better/play this map?" And, what do you know, we have a bunch of these useless threads threads.

If you have a competitive mind, perhaps you don't want to dedicate time to osu! this late to the party. However, although the difficulty curve is steep at first, once you find the ropes, you will understand the mechanics. Doesn't matter how bad you are, anyone can at least reach Hard and easy Insane difficulties. And playing a game just for the competitive scene isn't the right thing to do. Play the game because it's fun (and if the competitive scene approaches, that's their decision to enter it).

I'd say people quit because they aren't sucked into the game that much. The difficulty curve is just an extra deterrent.

Personally, when I started, I was all like "Why am I so bad?" But I still liked the game. I saw Cookiezi (who the hell is this?) on multiple insane difficulties with mods at the top, and I was like I can't even beat these insanes no-mod, how the hell can he DT this. I didn't expect to become good, I just played, and nor am I really that good at this game anyway. I'm still pretty meh but that's beside the point.
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko

lolcubes wrote:

The reason why this game is deemed so unfriendly today is because in pretty much all games you are being held by your hand, and walked through everything. As soon as people have to do something on their own, they get lost and immediately ask for guidance from another or just plain quit with bitter feelings.
The guidance from another can be seen in the above threads (hell, even regular topics have many duplicates, yet another one is being made all the time), or even in the FAQ section.
Today you even have mechanisms like map recommendations based on difficulty, etc.

Obviously it's the player's fault here. If someone needs to do everything for them, what's the point? Pointing them towards the right direction is pointing them towards the forums, the FAQ, or giving a tip on your own, but if they start complaining about how unfriendly this game is towards them (that even with that they get their ass kicked), they are better off quitting now, else they will do it later with more complaints.
starting to feel like a badass for playing osu seriously now, like im some sort of old school EVE Online player. Oh god, that game was the epitome of noob unfriendly and hard to get into.
winber1
4,520 posts
Joined February 2010
winber1
the only thing hard to get into is a girl

huehuehue
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko

winber1 wrote:

the only thing hard to get into is a girl

huehuehue
thats what my black friend said once but i wasnt sure what he meant but he said i shouldn't worry about it because I won't have the same problem he has. I guess that's a good thing?
MostDakka
79 posts
Joined March 2013
MostDakka

lolcubes wrote:

The reason why this game is deemed so unfriendly today is because in pretty much all games you are being held by your hand, and walked through everything. As soon as people have to do something on their own, they get lost and immediately ask for guidance from another or just plain quit with bitter feelings.
The guidance from another can be seen in the above threads (hell, even regular topics have many duplicates, yet another one is being made all the time), or even in the FAQ section.
Today you even have mechanisms like map recommendations based on difficulty, etc.

Obviously it's the player's fault here. If someone needs to do everything for them, what's the point? Pointing them towards the right direction is pointing them towards the forums, the FAQ, or giving a tip on your own, but if they start complaining about how unfriendly this game is towards them (that even with that they get their ass kicked), they are better off quitting now, else they will do it later with more complaints.

I think its also the case that nowdays mappers dont really care about mapping normals/easy and those diffs are just bad. generally maps are better quality sure, but on easier diffs they are just bad and dont teach you anything. For example in taiko you dont really learn anything before you start playing oni's and abefore you can do that you need to learn patterns that exist only on oni's/insanes.

Imo what we need is some official mappack that is geared towards newbies and introduce them to diffrent patterns and concepts, something like EBA single player mode, with each map slightly harder to smoothen learning curve. So when you complete it you are ready to go and explore for yourself. Tutorial that doesnt even cover all modes and few maps from monthly contest that are also std only simply arent enough.

And i'll agree with quote that Its part of players fault too, many players are simply lazy and quit at slightes sight of difficulty, but its designers work to give them reasons to stay. Thats why games like TF2 have those popups when you die, telling you what you acomplished, or achivements and other stuff.

Newbies must see progress, and if they dont see it they must be shown that they are progressing, dont tell them that they are bad, tell them that they did well cause they had 1% more acc than last run. Not all people are competitive and strive to get better ranks.
Raz
24 posts
Joined December 2013
Raz
Welp. Sitting in class in university so why the hell not write a block of text about this? :s

Osu has a steep learning curve:
All of my yes. I'm 9k and still feel this is true after playing for just short of 9 months. That is just the nature of the game, along with most other rhythm games. However, there is plenty of people that are perfectly happy to play lower difficulties than insane/extra because they arent going to invest the time in "Training" in order to play at that higher level. (I did and it was a rough road for the first 2 months I played osu... 5-7 hrs/day of playing maps i could almost pass but couldn't)

New players quit quickly
I find it hard to believe that there isn't still newer players though because I have a REALLY hard time finding multiplayer lobbies which aren't playing hard/normal diffs, though I can understand that based on numbers, there isn't that high of a of a retention rate of new players. I think part of this is due to the whole rankings issue (not being able to reach top ranks) but also part of the nature of rhythm games in general. Rhythm games are a very "quick fix" kind of game; you jam out to a few awesome songs and you are good for the rest of the day.

Also take into account that many gamers these days are spoiled with choices and, as such, we only hear the loud minority in games where the lesser percentage of the veterans are actually involving themselves within the community. With so many other games to play (usually with goals/achievements based on a timeframe, set either by the game itself or by the clans/guilds/etc players within those games belong to) many people don't actively dedicate their time to playing osu because it is used by people as a secondary timesink moreso than a main dedication. (IE lots of MOBA/MMO players waiting for queues)

Is Osu in general unfriendly towards new players
Sure it is, but not by the fault of Peppy or the community. There is plenty of resources on how to improve in osu. AT LEAST once a week there is a decent thread showing up on the topic with plenty of decent input, along with all the stickied topics talking about such things as well. Rhythm games in general are unfriendly to new players because the only limiting factor in how well somebody is doing is based on themselves mentally and physically! If your friend in an MMO is falling behind or having issues, you group up with them and run them thru a dungeon for some loot, give them some gold/items etc. make their character stronger. If an FPS player is falling behind, you can join a clan/team to practice with, play to level up and get access to better equipment and the like. In a MOBA, you can carry your friends to a win and assist their lane as the fall behind. But with a rhythm game, none of that exists and it is the player's responsibility to learn how to play better! No amount of equipment or guidance will ever help that player get into top ranks if they don't dedicate tons of time to practice and a little research and then practice and practice and practice and practice some more and more m***** *****n' practice.

Can we help Osu be more newbie friendly?
Maybe. A few extra tutorials for other game modes and how to get around the game to get the best experience they can would help, but I can't imagine it would turn 10k players online into 50k players online. As it stands, Osu has about the same amount of players online and active (on a weekly basis) as a medium (maybe even larger) server of an MMO (WoW, Aion, Tera), and for a rhythm game which has no real clan/team/guild system that is damn good.


TL;DR: rhythm games are, by nature of the game, unfriendly to new players. Osu is already pretty big considering it isn't a mainstream game nor game genre
nrl
1,402 posts
Joined October 2011
nrl

lolcubes wrote:

The reason why this game is deemed so unfriendly today is because in pretty much all games you are being held by your hand, and walked through everything. As soon as people have to do something on their own, they get lost and immediately ask for guidance from another or just plain quit with bitter feelings.
You're not wrong, but you're glossing over the fact that this is the result of the industry changing, not the players.
Nameless
517 posts
Joined April 2014
Nameless
Agreed. I started 5 months ago but quit on my first hour. I'm glad I came back to it a few weeks later. The reason I came back is the community. Not many communities are as friendly as this one. I got plenty of guidence on multiplayer. New players should be made more aware of the community and the guidence the friendly players can give.
Woobowiz
412 posts
Joined March 2014
Woobowiz

Loves wrote:

Just look at the stats, 4 800 000 users, only 6- 12k online at any time. I'll also note that I rarely see anyone above 30k rank post on the forums actively.
Cuz it only takes 1 person to say "play more" :^)
Ichi
277 posts
Joined July 2013
Ichi
Although i agree that osu! is unfriendly towards new players i think that´s actually what pushes most of the competitive people to play and keep improving. This is one of the main reasons why y believe osu! to be competitive, there are games which apply to the casual community and people who play once in a while and these games have many options to "help" him out against others who know more. Those games are not competitive to me, i don´t know why i believe its because i actually have to search for things myself because i care. When i first started playing, back to like 9 or 10 months ago i can say that yes, i didn´t understand shit about: Ar, switches, tablet, OD or whatever, but i did know that i had to click circles tapping fast and with accuraccy... and that is enough to get good if you really want to.

If what you are trying to achieve with this idea is to expand the community in a casual way then fine, i personally prefer it the way it is now, small and with many competitive players trying to top their ranks. Also don´t forget every beatmap you play is copyrighted in some way or another, so its not like we can go and advertise the game everywhere because then you know what would happen...

On a side note. Don´t get me wrong i do want the game to grow, but i don´t think that´s the best way although some improvements on those areas can still be made, but should not be the main focus.
Mythras
255 posts
Joined February 2010
Mythras
Osu isn't hurting for new players, everyone i've introduced to osu either instantly hates it or plays for a year +. That is decided pretty fast during day 1. 99% of people aren't going to look at a forum for a game they decide sucks within an hour, they're going to uninstall it and move on w/life.
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko

VioletMaid wrote:

99% of people aren't going to look at a forum for a game they decide sucks within an hour
t/238694
Mythras
255 posts
Joined February 2010
Mythras

Riince wrote:

VioletMaid wrote:

99% of people aren't going to look at a forum for a game they decide sucks within an hour
t/238694
well, you've found part of the 1% lol

edit: also probably the 1% of the playerbase that has downs, wow
Last edited by Mythras , edited 1 time in total.
Top Bunk
212 posts
Joined March 2010
Top Bunk
I never really saw a problem getting into the game itself. Despite the fact that I played the tutorial and quit right after until 3 years later. But that was due to being too poor to buy headphones and I didn't want to blast animusic through the house and the huge pink flashy logo of the main screen glaring in a dark room could give off the wrong impressions on my family. Not to mention when clicking/tapping really fast and loud. But then I got a laptop and headphones and all became well.

That aside, there's plenty of tutorials and guides for new players. Not really sure how to make them easier to find unless blatantly advertised everywhere instead of 90% of G&R filled with things.
winber1
4,520 posts
Joined February 2010
winber1

Riince wrote:

VioletMaid wrote:

99% of people aren't going to look at a forum for a game they decide sucks within an hour
t/238694
this man is a god

promote to dev pls
Pettanko
246 posts
Joined September 2012
Pettanko
When I first picked up the game I knew I was going to be hooked on it the moment I played the tutorial. After that I joined multiplayer rooms to meet people while learning the ropes of the game. I rarely touched the singleplayer mode for at least a month or two and just constantly played in multi and that was a lot of fun.

I don't think osu! is more unfriendly towards new players as much as newer games are too friendly towards them. Is the learning curve steep? Of course, since it's a difficult game to pick up even though the fundamentals are simple: you see a circle on the screen and move your cursor towards it and click it. Would more in-depth tutorials when you first launch the game be helpful? Definitely. But even as it is now I don't think there's a problem with how the game is structured towards first time players. Maybe games nowadays are just too user-friendly and players developed a dependence on the excessive hand-holding that other games provide which osu! doesn't.

When you're a new player you don't need to worry about guides, you don't need to worry about having the optimal setup, you don't need to worry about playing the right maps. You just download whatever song you like and play. If you enjoy the game after trying it for a bit then you keep playing; if you don't then the game isn't for you.

If I were to name a problem it would be that when new players search for a map to download there are times when they end up downloading a 2008 map and judge the game based on that map which doesn't at all reflect the current state of the game. It's unfortunate but it happens.
winber1
4,520 posts
Joined February 2010
winber1

Pettanko wrote:

If I were to name a problem it would be that when new players search for a map to download there are times when they end up downloading a 2008 map and judge the game based on that map which doesn't at all reflect the current state of the game. It's unfortunate but it happens.
my first map ever played was a 2007 map
it was fun.

better than drugs, and i've done plenty
#420badass
nrl
1,402 posts
Joined October 2011
nrl

Pettanko wrote:

I don't think osu! is more unfriendly towards new players as much as newer games are too friendly towards them.
And that's your right, but refusing to make osu! as friendly towards players as other games shouldn't be taken as anything other than stubbornness on the part of our developers. Making the non-gameplay operations of a game more intuitive and user friendly is universally beneficial to both the players and the overall health of the game.

Pettanko wrote:

Is the learning curve steep? Of course, since it's a difficult game to pick up
People should really take a little care in throwing around the term "learning curve." osu! doesn't have a learning curve; there's very little to learn about its gameplay that can't be gleaned from a few minutes of reading on readily accessible wiki pages. What osu! has, which many posters are mistaking for a learning curve, is a high skill ceiling, and it's only a problem for new players because of how long the metagame has had to develop.
Arctan
2 posts
Joined May 2014
Arctan
I think what would keep some new players that enjoy osu! for their first few hours would be a little community for beginners. This way they can actually make friends and compete with each other.
Last edited by Arctan , edited 2 times in total.
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko

Xyyzzz wrote:

I think what would keep some new players that enjoy osu! for their first few hours would be a little community for beginners. This way they can actually make friends and compete with each other.
Multi is like 80% new players running easy/normal rooms.
nrl
1,402 posts
Joined October 2011
nrl
^^

The rooms are even pretty lively too. I rarely go a session without finding a talkative room (though I don't stick around if they aren't playing hard enough maps, which is always the case).
Holorin
Holorin

Riince wrote:

VioletMaid wrote:

99% of people aren't going to look at a forum for a game they decide sucks within an hour
https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/238694
Riince, this is the first non shitposting post you have ever made. Damn, don't lose your way man :(
On a positive side, that edit of the userpage is absolutely glorious. I praise you for that quality post xD

OT: Yeah, osu is not exactly friendly toward people who have none experiences in rhythm game. I was lucky to encounter TTR4, Deemo, Cytus before plunging my head into this little piece of shit game. I didn't have it that rough and so did my friend who only played Deemo before. But yeah, the noob channel definitely sounds nice :D
Sylveon
321 posts
Joined April 2014
Sylveon
at the end of the day, if you want to succeed in something then you will continously try over and over, with or without guidance.. it doesnt take much to retry maps, at begginer level and thats the only way to learn. These people who quit don't want it enough... Heck I played 8000 playcount in my first month without much guidance and i felt fine with my progress. I think people over think this game a bit at the lower levels... YOU NEED TO PLAY THAT IS IT nothing else, you dont need some 'special training course' you learn as you go along, you learn triplets, alternating taps between sliders, spins and experiment. its all part of the growth progress. You can say oh but this that or the other.. if your playcount is below like 1k and your ALREADY COMPLAINING then just leave... or realise and ACCEPT that you dont try hard enough and that alone is the reason you dont improve as a new player..
loldcraft
106 posts
Joined June 2012
loldcraft
This is going to sound cynical and blunt, but facts are facts.

Disheartening explanation of why new players quit/have a hard time
There's NOTHING you can "learn" or "study" in osu to make you better. Really. beyond the tutorials and "how to improve" threads, there really is nothing to learn, no amount of video/text walkthroughs, guides, how tos, or tips and tricks are going to make you substantially better, excluding hardware related issues (ex: turn of mouse acceleration). This is the nature of rhythm games, because its impossible to make it "more forgiving", in that a miss will be a miss no matter how easy the map is. While you can offer new players huge health bars to compensate for the time it takes for them to react to dangers in other games, you can't pause the music and wait for the player to react.

This absence of a solid guide to success and not knowing what goes into making a good player it made worse by the fact that osu is a particularly demanding game, requiring skills in 2 areas (cursor control+music). Since most people gravitate to one genre of games (fps/moba for cursor control / rhythm games for music) it would be even harder to pick up osu due to them lacking more or less 50% of the skill required to play the game, while expecting much better results based on the area they are good in (imagine a IIDX player's frustration of having to go from really hard songs to very slow songs simply because he's struggling to keep up the cursor, or an fps's gamer's inherent frustration with the "when to click?" issue).

Final issue is just the psychological stress of seeing all the SS on the scoreboard being contrasted with your low score, and the forgiveness in general. There's no "Made it anyway.", there's only "I screwed up, and here's a D grade to go with it!". Every mistake is recorded and put on the final screen, with no chance of correcting (other than starting over). There's just too much "whoops I just got shot in the face, I'll just walk behind a crate and sit there till my eyes stop bleeding, then continue as if nothing happened. " and checkpoints every 2 mins in games nowadays that people expect that second chances are handed to them on a platter every time they screw up. Did you just get a 100? wave bye to your SS, no "safe to fine" converters around here to save you.

However, this is not to say that there's no way to help the issue as for the only way of improvement being via raw skill/practice, its really a mindset issue, some people like challenges, some don't. Sad to say that if you like staying in your comfort zone, picking up a new genre isn't quite for you.
As for the skillset issue, we could prompt new players to try things like relax mode to focus on developing their cursor control, and that listening to the hitsounds on auto mode is helpful. Also, telling players early about the existence of AR would greatly help, as slow AR does NOT help a new player decide when to hit, in fact anything lower than ar 8 is just pointlessly slow, clutters the screen and just makes it harder to judge when hit the notes.
As the the psychological effect, we could by default place the scoreboard to show the players ahead/below them (+- 10 positions?) to give them a sense of progress (that flash when you pass someone on the scoreboard), and label the global rankings as global highscores, or "top players". Sounds more like something one would expect themselves not to be in when they first join, and thus less disappointing to be not part of.
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko

loldcraft wrote:

slow AR does NOT help a new player decide when to hit, in fact anything lower than ar 8 is just pointlessly slow, clutters the screen and just makes it harder to judge when hit the notes.
but making it harder to judge when to hit the notes is the definitive way it teaches them when to hit :?
MostDakka
79 posts
Joined March 2013
MostDakka

Riince wrote:

loldcraft wrote:

slow AR does NOT help a new player decide when to hit, in fact anything lower than ar 8 is just pointlessly slow, clutters the screen and just makes it harder to judge when hit the notes.
but making it harder to judge when to hit the notes is the definitive way it teaches them when to hit :?
except is useless skill cause new maps dont do it anymore. How often you see a map that focuses on reading stacks, notes under sliders and such compared to sick jumps/streams/triples/etc. Its easier to train Using HD if you want to improve your rythm and accuracy cause no one maps low ar on hard/insanes. Unless you plan your rank on beating older maps scores then its usefull but how many new players choose old maps vs new ones. Its even stated in beatmappack page that is better to download new ones.

We dont get to see maps like tsurupettan or such anymore. In fact i belive that if we got introduced mode that lowers ar instead of increasing [like easy only with more points instead of less] many players would flip out cause it would be impossible for them.

There was a point when people called anyone who played with easy mod "pro"
Its fun really i tried it wth 5 star maps and holy shit I got skins without numbers on circles and was like "shit 10 cirles on screen what do i click?"
10x harder than any hard rock map.
Last edited by MostDakka , edited 3 times in total.
Vuelo Eluko
5,484 posts
Joined October 2013
Vuelo Eluko
i think the benefits of being good or at least passably competent at lower ar do carry on to high ar maps because it definitely helps you understand patterns better than higher AR, and to an extent rhythm as well.
CXu
osu! Alumni
3,558 posts
Joined March 2009
CXu

loldcraft wrote:

slow AR does NOT help a new player decide when to hit, in fact anything lower than ar 8 is just pointlessly slow, clutters the screen and just makes it harder to judge when hit the notes.
No. I think you're forgetting how AR8 looked when you first started playing (or have experience with other games that require good reflexes).
In 2009-2010 most maps were around AR8, with AR9 being fastashell and AR10 being more or less impossible. Obviously people have improved since then, but essentially the AR8 then is similar to how AR9 is today. There's no reason to assume new players today have better reflexes than then.

Also, clutter happens only on harder maps. Newer players will likely start at around Easy/Normal, and high AR will make any patterns indistinguishable, making it just a reaction game where you click on whatever pops up, and you learn nada when it comes to reading. Basically, there are less notes in easier difficulties, so they need to stay onscreen longer for any patterns to really emerge.
nrl
1,402 posts
Joined October 2011
nrl

CXu wrote:

There's no reason to assume new players today have better reflexes than then.
There's also no reason to think players back then didn't have the necessary reflexes to pick up AR9 easily if they really wanted to. People picked up AR9 because they played it more as mappers started to favor it, not the other way around.
Blueprint
654 posts
Joined January 2014
Blueprint
Some people simply don't like a challenge when it comes to games
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