mulraf wrote:
idk. i just always wonder. do literally ALL mania players play offline only? i mean there's 1!! 1 player in the top 50 who has got more than 25k plays. more than 15% of the top 100 have a lower playcount than me and i'm not even #60k and can't even pass usual >2.5* maps. if i wouldn't enjoy game this'd be depressing to see D:
Osu only counts plays on ranked maps. You don't have to be offline, you just have to play anything that isn't ranked. (Same goes for the "hours played" stat). I've only got 5.5k plays and 154 hours played according to my profile, but I know I've played a LOT more than that (I've literally played mania since it's release).
On top of that most top players probably have experience with other games such as o2jam, lr2, stepmania, canmusic, djmax, etc. (I have prior experience with both stepmania and o2jam)
And, once you're that good, all the ranked maps are too easy to be very fun, so there's not much reason to play them except to keep your pp up when a new hard map gets released, or to try to snipe the top score on something. While there are some really good players who enjoy ranked maps, most of them only play them for the pp, not because they have any fun with them.