Hey,
I just started playing o!m recently (12 days ago) and today I got really frustrated, because I see that I absolutly suck at reading.
I've read alot of advice before I started mania and didn't want to make the same mistakes I did when starting osu STD (bad habits that hinder me from getting better).
So I set fixed scrollspeed.
Started with 7K and mainly play 7K.
Downloaded beatmaps according to thread slike the "mania maps sortet by difficulty".
I made my collections and named them after my learning curve ("7K absolut beginner"; "7K beginner"; "7K avergae" etc.).
I even checked which would be my best keys to use on my keyboard (current setup is asd (spacebar) iop, because I have really long fingers I get cramps in my thumb, when my fingers are to close to the spacebar)

So today I wanted to play the next level of maps and they are simply too difficult.
Hey no problem, you need to learn and progress and I'm a slow learner it seems, so everything daijoubu.
But I just realized I have ZERO reading ability.
That was my problem in STD too. I never played patterns, I almost sightread everything.
In mania now I need faster scrollspeed, so I don't have too many objects on the screen or my mind simply goes blank and I go spagetthi mode.

Second: I read single notes.
I've read the "how to get better at mania" thread and I've read about reading and that most people read horizontally.
I read single notes, I need to "confirm" the note and then click.
That works really well with less dense maps and single notes like stairs.
But for example LN's combined with notes is absolut hell.
I lift my finger and "forget" the LN in an instant, when other notes appear.
I downloaded a LN's training map from hanyuu and tried the easiest diff. with HT and I still CANT FUCKING LIFT AND CLICK the right key.
I just lift 3 fingers, instead of only my pinky and my middle finger.

After realizing that I replayed all my "A and S" ranks I got before on the easy maps with lowering my scrollspeed to 16 (I played 7K with 23 fixed so far) and I can't even get A's.
My timing is off; to many objects on the screen and I go spagetthi, even on 1,5 star maps.

Now I'm sitting here, getting frustrated about my mistake and tilt.
I know it's "play more" but knowing your mistake; playing more and NOT improve just makes it worse.

Another thing is: I don't know how people learned mania. Most good people come from LR2 and other rythm games and have already aquired skill.
How did people start, what did they do to get the reading abillity, how can you train your fingers to be more independent and such.

Sorry for the massive wall, but I don't want to tilt myself more and get scrunchy over something I want to enjoy.
Cheers

The thing about "confirming" notes before you hit them tells me you've simply not played enough. Once you reach a certain skill level from practice, reacting should become automatic and should no longer require you to think about it in order to hit the key. The main problem is that literally the only way to reach this point is to play until it happens, whenever it does.

I'm a slow learner myself, so I understand how frustrating it can be. Just keep playing. Maybe it would be best to keep your scroll speed as it is for now and focus on playing the harder maps now and then just to see how you do. The key to improving that I've seen is to not let things bother you. If a map's too hard for you right now, it's just too hard for you right now. Come back to it later and try again some other time. Don't focus on trying to get amazing scores, just try to play, have fun, and hopefully get better as you play.

Try to look for maps that have patterns you're not familiar with, or used to playing, but are easy enough that you can mostly play them. If there's one pattern that always seems to kill you, just put on nofail, because I firmly believe that practicing sections that cause you to fail is more effective than letting the song end right when you fail and just trying again later. Maybe you should try playing familiar maps with random mod as well.

Depending on how low a learner you really are, it can take up to several months to really get to the point where you can comfortably play patterns that use LNs mixed with single notes. When I switched from stepmania to o2jam, it took me about 3 months to get to the point where I could play level 10 o2jam charts, which is probably around the 2 or 2.5 star mark in osu!mania.

I also have trouble when there are too many notes on screen, and had that problem where I couldn't time anything correctly at slower scroll speeds. I preferred playing with hidden mod to reduce the amount of notes on screen. After about 6 months of hidden only, I switched to playing flashlight instead, and have stuck with that since, but I don't recommend playing with flashlight mod.

Hey Bobbias!
Thanks man, I really appreciate your post, I really do.
I "revisited" some of my favorite maps with slower scrollspeed (18 now) and try to learn the patterns and try to not "haste" through dense sections of the chart.
I mainly get this "oh shit oh shit so much notes" feeling and go spagetthi mode.

It thought about using the hidden mod too, since I'm forced to watch the top half of the screen, and I mostly look on the bottom half, whcih I think lead to these "oh shit" moments, because I have less time left to identifiy the patterns/notes and then cleanly play them.
If I look at the top, I have more time to identify the notes and play the pattern accordingly.

Btw. I have downloaded all your o2jam converts, do you know any good beginner map to practice these LN's with notes?

Cheers man, your post really cheered me up!

‎

ARCskieZ wrote:

Hey Bobbias!
Thanks man, I really appreciate your post, I really do.
I "revisited" some of my favorite maps with slower scrollspeed (18 now) and try to learn the patterns and try to not "haste" through dense sections of the chart.
I mainly get this "oh shit oh shit so much notes" feeling and go spagetthi mode.

It thought about using the hidden mod too, since I'm forced to watch the top half of the screen, and I mostly look on the bottom half, whcih I think lead to these "oh shit" moments, because I have less time left to identifiy the patterns/notes and then cleanly play them.
If I look at the top, I have more time to identify the notes and play the pattern accordingly.

Btw. I have downloaded all your o2jam converts, do you know any good beginner map to practice these LN's with notes?

Cheers man, your post really cheered me up!

You hit the nail on the head with your own analysis of why hidden helps. It helps keep you from looking too far down. Watching the lower part of the screen can help your accuracy, but also gives you far less time to read the patterns.

When you start to panic, instead of just mashing like that, try to 'mash the pattern' (in other words, try to actually play as much of the pattern as you can). If you can stop panicking so much when that happens, you will find yourself getting more consistent on things you used to struggle to do well on. You do need to make sure you don't learn any bad habits by mashing stuff, but other than that, it can really help. I learned to do this by sticking nofail on and playing all sorts of things I have no chance of passing.

So I played alot yesterday with the new scrollspeed of 18 and I already see improvement.
I tried hidden, but I think I can force myself to watch the top half, I only look down if theres alot of LN's with notes combined, because otherwise I'd miss these.
I think I can work that out with playing more.
So far my Accuracy overall has gone up for around 3%~5% and I get higher combos on maps.
I'll make updates if I see other changes.

ARCskieZ, you just started recently and haven't hit a wall yet. As long as you are improving I don't think you need to worry about it.

Yeah Walls are so bad :./ i was hitting a big wall as soon i reach 3 star diff on 7k i guess about that point many Chords and a bunch of rice suddenly occurs and i wasnt able to get used to it for like 4 month that was disturbing but finally i can pass some of the 4 star maps and recently i was able to clear a 6 minute lvl 30 map on o2jam with Random i was so happy

all i can say to your problems they seems all normal for beginners the only advice that helped me a lot was switching around skins, dont play sleepy and taking brakes. sometimes its like crazy taking 1 days brake and i was able to improve some scores.

Sry for my bad english