It's weird, I feel like I haven't really improved in the last month at all. I've forced my rank up today by playing a bunch of new songs, but I can't really find any more easy PP songs so I just kind of have to go with the ones I have. As of now, over the course of the past few weeks, I haven't really been besting my scores at all, just kind of floating around the same area. I feel like I'm worse than everyone else my rank. What the hell do I do to start improving again?

play more
challenge yourself

If you're not having fun playing anymore take a break for a few weeks/months and come back later, otherwise play harder songs or learn new keymodes.

>plays easy songs
>complains about not ranking up

P P B O Y S

^
besides improvment in any vrsg is stair'y, you come to a skill wall, get stuck on it and one day you just move through

I had the same thing happen to me awhile ago. I simply took a break from Osu!mania, then came back recently to challenge myself at harder songs. I'm not saying taking a break is what you need to do, but you challenge yourself at harder songs. try to learn what you need to improve at, example endurance or accuracy, reading patterns. this will help a lot. I used to only play 2-3 star songs, now I can play 3-4.

Doctor Bounce wrote:

It's weird, I feel like I haven't really improved in the last month at all. I've forced my rank up today by playing a bunch of new songs, but I can't really find any more easy PP songs so I just kind of have to go with the ones I have. As of now, over the course of the past few weeks, I haven't really been besting my scores at all, just kind of floating around the same area. I feel like I'm worse than everyone else my rank. What the hell do I do to start improving again?

PP is not a good way to determine if you're hitting a skill wall, because of how your PP and rank are actually calculated.

First, you should understand how PP works. You might not be at as much of a skill wall as you think. When you start getting scores in mania, your PP will go up quickly, but once you start filling up your Top Scores list, only your best scores will be counted. As you go down the list, each score is actually worth less points. This effect means that most of your PP comes from your best plays, and your weaker plays are worth a lot less points. Because of this, once you have filled this list up with scores, it's much much harder to gain more than a few points for every score you make, so it feels like you hit a wall, even if you are improving at a steady rate. Instead, pay attention to your scores themselves.

Now, if you have hit a skill wall, don't worry, these things happen. There have been a few threads about this already. It's a very common thing to hit skill walls as you play. There are a lot of different ways to try to break through skill walls.

You can try to challenge yourself and play songs harder than you usually play. This can take some time to work, but will only benefit you by training you to get used to harder maps. It should improve your stamina and your ability to read more complicated patterns. The ability to hit those patterns properly however might take a while to build up.

You can try taking a break. This can be risky, since it doesn't always work, but sometimes taking a break for anywhere between a few days to a month or more can be just what you needed. Depending on how long the break was, it might take a few days (at most) to get back to your skill before the break, but it's common to notice that you just keep improving once you've reached that skill level again.

You can try using different vision modifiers in order to force you to read patterns differently. This is a more indirect approach, but it can work. I made the switch from nomod to playing hidden only early on because of a skill wall. I also switched from Hidden to FL only again because I noticed it actually helped me with patterns I struggled to read before (Note: it took roughly a week of playing pure FL every day to get comfortable playing FL).

Or you can just keep playing things the way you have been and wait it out. Games like this reward dedication. Everyone learns at a different pace, but everyone will eventually get better if they keep playing.

EDIT: I checked your top scores list and PP, just to see what your scores actually look like. PP is still not a great indicator of actual skill, but I want to explain exactly why it feels like you've reached a plateau. You have a LOT of scores in the 60-70 PP range. Take a look at how quickly the value of a score drops off. A 61pp score for you is only worth about 5-6 actual points. A 70 pp score is worth about 25 points. An 80 pp score is worth 47 or 48 points. This gives you an idea of why your PP and rank have stopped going up. I also notice you play only 4k, this will also make it harder to get higher PP/rank because there aren't as many hard songs worth a lot of PP for 4k yet.

I have exactly the same problem. I play a lot of different songs (from easy 2* to 5-6* (which I barely read) , from very fast streams to these cancer'ish heavy LN charts). I spend some time to learn 7-8k too. But nearly all my best scores seem to be achieved by pure luck. I still can't beat some 1-1,5 month old scores. And to demotivate me more, there are some maps like " Nanahoshi Kangengakudan feat. Hatsune Miku - Rubik's Cube [puxtu's HD]" where I can't even get an OK score, no matter how many times I try.

Tfw newbies complain about not becoming pros in 2 months \:D/

Transformau5 wrote:

>plays easy songs
>complains about not ranking up

P P B O Y S

Transformau5 wrote:

Tfw newbies complain about not becoming pros in 2 months \:D/

-

Thank you, kid, for reminding me about ignore function. Very useful

TheGesk wrote:

I have exactly the same problem. I play a lot of different songs (from easy 2* to 5-6* (which I barely read) , from very fast streams to these cancer'ish heavy LN charts). I spend some time to learn 7-8k too. But nearly all my best scores seem to be achieved by pure luck. I still can't beat some 1-1,5 month old scores. And to demotivate me more, there are some maps like " Nanahoshi Kangengakudan feat. Hatsune Miku - Rubik's Cube [puxtu's HD]" where I can't even get an OK score, no matter how many times I try.

To be honest, 1 - 1.5 months is still not a terribly long time for a personal best to last. I quite regularly have scores that last for 5-6 months before I can pass them.

Just look at the top scores in my profile. I've recently hit a skill boost, so there are more recent plays the usual, but mixed in with the more recent scores are ones from 2, 4, even 6 months ago. Hell, my personal best on Smooooch (never playing that again) is a year old now.

TheGesk wrote:

Transformau5 wrote:

>plays easy songs
>complains about not ranking up

P P B O Y S

Transformau5 wrote:

Tfw newbies complain about not becoming pros in 2 months \:D/

-

Thank you, kid, for reminding me about ignore function. Very useful

Improve instead of crying, kk thx bye

Bobbias wrote:

To be honest, 1 - 1.5 months is still not a terribly long time for a personal best to last. I quite regularly have scores that last for 5-6 months before I can pass them.

Just look at the top scores in my profile. I've recently hit a skill boost, so there are more recent plays the usual, but mixed in with the more recent scores are ones from 2, 4, even 6 months ago. Hell, my personal best on Smooooch (never playing that again) is a year old now.

-

Yeah, I get that this can take A LOT of time.. It's just my overall level is pretty low to have these skill walls. I play a lot, while so many people just rush to something like 3-4k with ease and spend much less time without any rhythm game experience. I'm starting to doubt about my playstyle or maybe it's just my body that stubborn and doesn't want to learn faster. I don't know. Of course it's a big disappointment to have this "slow-learning" problem, but I'll keep playing while I have fun with this game. Anyway thanks, I appreciate any advice.

I know what slow learning feels like. I've been playing rhythm games off an on for about 12 years now. I played stepmania and then o2jam before eventually finding osu, and spending 2 years on standard until mania came out.

When i transitioned from stepmania to o2jam it was like I'd never played a rhythm game, I was back to the beginning. I had to start with level 1 charts, and it took me about 3 months to feel comfortable playing level 10 charts (my guess is level 10 lies somewhere around the 2-2.5 star level here, just a guess).

Everyone learns at different speeds. Some people learn really quickly, like jxyden, who started with no rhythm game experience and rocketed past my skill level in about 6 months. Think about that, 6 months and he's better than someone who's spent roughly 12 years on rhythm games. You need to learn what your normal learning speed really is, and then measure things against that.

And yeah, it's unfortunate, but skill walls can hit you at any time, regardless of your skill level.

I've felt like I've hit a wall before.
And then I realized that I did, in fact, punch my wall.

Hitting walls is normal for mania progression.

With enough diligence and practice one day you get through it and ur like w0t I did that on purpose and everyone else is like wao so et.

It's just how increasing map difficulty works in mania, it's not linear - as you go from not being able play a harder pattern to being able to play it, it'll feel like you "jump" past your skill wall, but really you're just working hard everyday to increase your mechanics until you can play an extra note on top of your current pattern repertoire.