Hello, about a year ago I switched over to fully alternating, at the time I was having some bad tapping issues on account of being trash and alternating mediated it. Now being a fully alternate player I was under the assumption that I don't hold a finger preference for tapping anymore, apparently though I tend to start all streams and stacks with my pointer finger, ill even break my alternating to achieve this. I went through some maps trying to start patterns on my middle finger and while i'm not bad after couple stacks without me noticing ill be back to tapping with my pointer as the starter. For others that alternate do you find yourself holding a preference like this also? For those that don't hold a preference, please give me your hands (or perhaps tell me how to trained to do it.)

I fully alternated since day 1, and I don't really have a preference of which finger for which note. Not sure why you'd think it's an issue though if it is not affecting anything.

On maps I do alternate I much prefer start triples or streams with middle finger cause that’s just how I do trills on piano

Wishes wrote:

I fully alternated since day 1, and I don't really have a preference of which finger for which note. Not sure why you'd think it's an issue though if it is not affecting anything.

It does cause issues, I finger-lock on the ends of streams and stacks, cant transition between patterns quickly, and recover quickly.

Oh, this question is for me. I also switched from singletapping to full-alternating in february. I learned to start triples, streams, doubles, etc. with different fingers depending on which came next. But after a month or so, I noticed that I had reverted to always starting triples, streams, etc. with my pointer finger.

This happens because our brains are slightly better at doing triples etc. starting with the pointer finger, and the brain will automatically choose to do the finger movements that are best at producing rewards (i.e. hitting triples correctly is what we want, so it produces dopamine) even when we aren't paying attention.

Most top players who alternate do semi-alternate. Which means that they'll play XZX XZX XZX (semi-alternating) instead of XZX ZXZ XZX (full-alternating) on three consecutive triples. While that works fine, I think full-alternating works better, and I explained some of the reasons why here. The main argument is simply: after having tried both, full-alternating feels more smooth, feels less clunky, feels less like stuttering through complex tapping patterns.

I started learning full-alternating again about a week ago, forcing myself to the XZX ZXZ XZX patterns. It was a really big reset of my skill-level, and even made me worse at aim for a while. If you want to start ful-alternating again, I highly recommend using this AutoHotkey program to force your fingers to use the correct patterns (I asked peppy, and he says it's fine). At the start, I just struggled through this map (Shiki - Angelic Layer) a bunch of times (wasn't fun) until I was competent enough to practice on fun maps.

EDIT: If you want, you can poke me when I'm online and we can play the slow versions of that Angelic Layer map a bunch of times together in multi (I played the slow versions on half-time at first). Even playing them halftime is good practice for me, since I'm really bad at accuracy and low bpm. : )

Mio I should’ve confronted you when you first started the semi vs full alternate thread but where did you get the definition for semi alternating and full alternating? cause depending on bpm ZXZ ZXZ ZXZ is within the domain of single tapping since you start every stream/triple with your dominant single tapping finger, it’s just you’re forced to “alternate” because it’s impractical to single tap all 9 notes of the three 200 bpm consecutive triples. This example itself just doesn’t support what semi alternating is.

From what I can understand you seem to think ZXZ XZX is full alternate cause of the continuation of alternating your fingers despite timing gaps. But what about consecutive doubles like ZX ZX ZX? it completely fits your description of full alternate but it at the same time support single tapping/semi alternating cause you end up starting a pattern with your dominant finger, if that’s the case semi alternating and full alternating is the same thing.

With the two examples in mind I want to ask what is semi alternating? where do you draw the line between single tapping and semi alternating? And where do you drawn the line between semi alternating and full alternating?

N0thingSpecial wrote:

Mio I should’ve confronted you when you first started the semi vs full alternate thread but where did you get the definition for semi alternating and full alternating? cause depending on bpm ZXZ ZXZ ZXZ is within the domain of single tapping since you start every stream/triple with your dominant single tapping finger, it’s just you’re forced to “alternate” because it’s impractical to single tap all 9 notes of the three 200 bpm consecutive triples. This example itself just doesn’t support what semi alternating is.

From what I can understand you seem to think ZXZ XZX is full alternate cause of the continuation of alternating your fingers despite timing gaps. But what about consecutive doubles like ZX ZX ZX? it completely fits your description of full alternate but it at the same time support single tapping/semi alternating cause you end up starting a pattern with your dominant finger, if that’s the case semi alternating and full alternating is the same thing.

With the two examples in mind I want to ask what is semi alternating? where do you draw the line between single tapping and semi alternating? And where do you drawn the line between semi alternating and full alternating?

I think it still counts as "singletapping" when you alternate triples, like XZX XZX XZX. I use the word "semi-alternating" for players who alternate on normal quarterbeat jumps, but who don't alternate everything. So they could for example do XZX XZX on consecutive triples. Doing XZ XZ XZ XZ for consecutive doubles is consistent with both full-alternating and semi-alternating, but full-alternators have to learn to do ZX ZX ZX for consecutive doubles as well, depending on which finger they have to start with.

Emersyne wrote:

You know, it's really weird. I do xzx for triples, but zx for doubles. Why is that?

Emersyne's tapping style is weird! I would call him a semi-alternator or a singletapper, depending on whether he alternates quarterbeat jumps.

I used to be a full alternator when I played mouse only, then I switched to full alternating on keyboard (because, as a smolboi, I was too weak and slow to single tap anything, and I used alternation as a crutch), and now I singletap / semi-alternate.

I feel like semi-alternating is superior to full-alternating because, as WubWoofWolf says, the main difference between semi and full alternating is strength vs. brains, and at the end of the day at a high level, your ability to process what you are playing is the bottleneck to playing, not your physical potential to play. Very rarely is it truly necessary to full alternate a non-stream. It's the same reason why as a drummer, you have a leading and alternate hand, not two dominant hands.

I should also note that I used to use pointer + middle finger for keys, but now I use pointer + ring. I find that it really helps to a. stabilize my hand and b. avoid finger tripping from getting the signals I send to my hand befuddled, since there's a finger buffer between.

Emersyne wrote:

I used to be a full alternator when I played mouse only, then I switched to full alternating on keyboard (because, as a smolboi, I was too weak and slow to single tap anything, and I used alternation as a crutch), and now I singletap / semi-alternate.

I feel like semi-alternating is superior to full-alternating because, as WubWoofWolf says, the main difference between semi and full alternating is strength vs. brains, and at the end of the day at a high level, your ability to process what you are playing is the bottleneck to playing, not your physical potential to play. Very rarely is it truly necessary to full alternate a non-stream. It's the same reason why as a drummer, you have a leading and alternate hand, not two dominant hands.

I should also note that I used to use pointer + middle finger for keys, but now I use pointer + ring. I find that it really helps to a. stabilize my hand and b. avoid finger tripping from getting the signals I send to my hand befuddled, since there's a finger buffer between.

These are good thoughts. I've thought about using index+ring finger as well for very similar reasons, but I can't because I use the Nono keypad.

I also think information processing is the bottleneck at higher levels, so I want to choose the tapping style that makes processing easier. But I think full-alternating has the potential to be the tapping style which requires less processing for fast complex tapping patterns once learned properly.

Relatedly, I think singletapping makes accuracy easier (and possibly aim?) because there are fewer parts to coordinate (therefore less to process) compared to alternating (but I still choose alternating because of speed benefit, and I don't want to learn both). Also, were it not for the physical limitations, I think mouse-only would make it easier to aim and acc, because fewer parts to coordinate and less to process. And I think it's easier to learn aim with tablet-tapping (like Emilia does), also because there are fewer parts to coordinate and less to process.

Edit: Btw, do you have a link to where WubWoofWolf talks about that?

Mouse only is easier to process? Nah too many micro management for a single set of muscles is just hard to pull off

N0thingSpecial wrote:

Mouse only is easier to process? Nah too many micro management for a single set of muscles is just hard to pull off

Oh. Maybe. If you tap with keyboard, you can focus all your hand muscles (including index and middle finger) on moving the mouse to the correct position. If you do mouse-only, you have to perform the same movement except now you're not allowed to use the index and middle finger the same way, because those fingers need to be ready to tap. I guess maybe that means the hand-movement requires more processing with mouse-only than keyboard? With no experimental data and no degree in neuroscience, we have to use wild speculation. Maybe you're right. : P

Ok damn, this turned out to be exactly the type of conversation I was hoping for, Mio Winter I added you ill talk to you in-game when your online, however yes, I realized that I dont identify patterns very quickly, I also have trouble identifying what speed to tap at unless the bpm is made very obvious. Personally semi alternating sounds alot more like what a single tapping player would use to mediate a physical limitation for tapping speed like XXX XZX XXX XZX allowing for returning to the primary tapping finger. I fully plan to play in a full alternate manor ill do any many consecutive triples as needed so that I can focus less on what finger i'm starting with and more on how many times to tap.

Don't need a science project, just move your mouse around using claw grip and you're pretty much guaranteed to move your index and middle finger which makes it harder to develop muscle memory for both aiming and tapping at the same time

And on topic you don't really need to force yourself to practise a certain tapping style, playstyle is not forced out of people, it is the style that you feel natural with, Emilia use tap x cause he said it made the most sense to him and it was natural to him, same with people who full alternate and semi alternate

N0thingSpecial wrote:

Mouse only is easier to process? Nah too many micro management for a single set of muscles is just hard to pull off

That's pretty much the opposite of what I was trying to say.

Semi-alternation requires surplus strength. Full alternation requires surplus intelligence. Fully alternating requires you to think ahead more than semi-alternating, because you have to plan your movements and be exactly aware of your finger positioning. Semi-alternating is just following a simple input rule, it's automatic.

full alternation requires no thought whatsoever. There is no planning involved because you don't have to think about your fingers.

N0thingSpecial wrote:

Don't need a science project, just move your mouse around using claw grip and you're pretty much guaranteed to move your index and middle finger which makes it harder to develop muscle memory for both aiming and tapping at the same time

And on topic you don't really need to force yourself to practise a certain tapping style, playstyle is not forced out of people, it is the style that you feel natural with, Emilia use tap x cause he said it made the most sense to him and it was natural to him, same with people who full alternate and semi alternate

Yes I agree with what you mean about sticking to what feels natural however to problem with me is that im not playing in a grounded playstyle. When the bpm is lower than about 130 I "fully alternate", when the bpm is higher than 160 I about 50% of the time "semi alternate". When playing between those bpm ranges my brain has no idea what style to play causing lockup, confusion, and lack of tapping feedback. I just played some beatmaps that Mio Winter gave me, and I plan to practice ironing out my playstyle in this case I plan to fully alternate seeing as thats what I do when i'm comfortable. All I gotta do now is make everything thats uncomfortable, comfortable through practice.

Here are the maps for those interested: https://osu.ppy.sh/b/366963&m=0

Also IMO when a player has a deeper understanding and awareness of the nuances of thier own tapping and others it allows for better consistency and improvement.

Oh god, Angelic Layer...that's not really good practice if you ask me.
Your actual problem is a certain range of bpm, what you ought to do is finding a way how you can handle it best and then practice, practice and practice.
The reason you're locking up and getting confused is most likely because you are not familiar with these maps and never bothered to play them more because less success = less fun.
This is completely irrelevant to semi-alternating vs full-alternating

Endaris wrote:

Oh god, Angelic Layer...that's not really good practice if you ask me.
Your actual problem is a certain range of bpm, what you ought to do is finding a way how you can handle it best and then practice, practice and practice.
The reason you're locking up and getting confused is most likely because you are not familiar with these maps and never bothered to play them more because less success = less fun.
This is completely irrelevant to semi-alternating vs full-alternating

Well yes ill admit that I tended to stay away from stream, stack, tipple, double heavy maps, especially ones that don't provide time to transition between patterns.

HyperSlayer72 wrote:

Yes I agree with what you mean about sticking to what feels natural however to problem with me is that im not playing in a grounded playstyle. When the bpm is lower than about 130 I "fully alternate", when the bpm is higher than 160 I about 50% of the time "semi alternate". When playing between those bpm ranges my brain has no idea what style to play causing lockup, confusion, and lack of tapping feedback. I just played some beatmaps that Mio Winter gave me, and I plan to practice ironing out my playstyle in this case I plan to fully alternate seeing as thats what I do when i'm comfortable. All I gotta do now is make everything thats uncomfortable, comfortable through practice.

Here are the maps for those interested: https://osu.ppy.sh/b/366963&m=0

Also IMO when a player has a deeper understanding and awareness of the nuances of thier own tapping and others it allows for better consistency and improvement.

Not having a grounded tapping style is absolutely fine, it’s all about complexity and variety of pattern recognition and using the most natural tapping style to accompany those patterns. You finger lock not because your tapping sucks, it’s because your map pool for complex timing maps is not large enough for you to develop the necessary muscle memory for it. This game is always about making a conscious effort to make every aspect of the game subconscious.

Hell for sendan life tv size I alternate the first half of the map then switched to single tapping mid way. For my #1 and #3 top scores I semi alternate and my #2 top play I use single tap

I alternated from the moment I started playing OSU! so I don't really hold a preference for a finger. Honestly, keep going alternate but do what's natural, don't force straight alternating if your fingers don't do it off of instinct. If you see yourself semi-alternating then just stick to that, forcing yourself to straight alternate might do more harm than good since you'll be going back to square one in skill level.

Emersyne wrote:

I feel like semi-alternating is superior to full-alternating because, as WubWoofWolf says, the main difference between semi and full alternating is strength vs. brains, and at the end of the day at a high level, your ability to process what you are playing is the bottleneck to playing, not your physical potential to play.

Are you sure about that? The physical and the mental part of practice is linked, you cannot get better mentally without physically playing.

RSI is a large issue and with the lower strain of fully alternating you can practice for longer building more muscle memory.

The problem with semi alternating is you always have to reset your dominant finger, while for full alternating you can take your time as you always use the opposite finger. Having to reset increases strain and can be a detrimental habit for sliders.

M3ATL0V3R wrote:

Having to reset increases strain and can be a detrimental habit for sliders.

Wut

N0thingSpecial wrote:

Wut

Ill give you an example, for 3 notes followed by 2 notes we have the following case:

semi alternator - ZXZ ZX

full alternator - ZXZ XZ

After finishing ZXZ as a semi alternator, the finger pressing Z has to travel faster for the semi alternator since it has to travel up, then down again to hit Z.

For the full alternator while finishing ZXZ and pulling up from the Z key, they are moving the finger for X down at the same time which means there is more time to move the finger and less force needs to be used to hit the key.


As for sliders this is only an issue for technical maps where there are difficult to read sliders. Alternating allows for longer holding of keys as you can have the opposite finger moving down while a key is still being held. If there are overlapping sliders/notes and you are not sure if they are sliders or not, you can assume they are sliders since you don't need to worry about resetting fingers, since you don't use any particular finger for any pattern.

Does this make sense?

M3ATL0V3R wrote:

Does this make sense?

I agree with the thing about having more time to hold down for slider cause that’s what I do.

But the rest is kinda exaggerated and it really comes down to your physical limitations, BPM and does your map pool even includes maps that push you that far. R U STILL XXX and furioso melodia would be maps that I have stamina issues thus I alternate but 99% of other maps with the same rhythm complexity usually hover around 130 to 200 BPM, which physical stress is less of a problem, where single tapping/semi alternate shines as it cause less cognitive stress.

I started out fully alternating, but then saw a pattern of me starting with my pointer finger on triples. I left it this way since then I won't have to learn both patterns.

N0thingSpecial wrote:

I agree with the thing about having more time to hold down for slider cause that’s what I do.

But the rest is kinda exaggerated and it really comes down to your physical limitations, BPM and does your map pool even includes maps that push you that far. R U STILL XXX and furioso melodia would be maps that I have stamina issues thus I alternate but 99% of other maps with the same rhythm complexity usually hover around 130 to 200 BPM, which physical stress is less of a problem, where single tapping/semi alternate shines as it cause less cognitive stress.

For the pattern ZXZ ZXZ ZXZ ZXZ ZXZ (semi alternating) at 200 bpm your Z finger has to press at 100 bpm and your Y finger has to press at 50bpm (assuming the rests are the same value as the notes)

This means the Z finger has to work double as hard constantly for this pattern.

for the pattern ZXZ XZX ZXZ XZX ZXZ (full alternating) at 200 bpm both fingers vary between 100 and 66 and the load is shared equally.

I disagree that it causes cognitive stress because once it is muscle memory (which is easier to build since you tire less) then you don't have to think. It requires the same amount of actions but the actions are easier to do.

For stamina heavy maps a full alternator will also have equally developed fingers which helps with streaming.

This means that for a full alternator early development is hard, intermediate development is easy and late development is equal to semi alternating.

Both techniques are equal and there is no long term advantage or overall advantage of using one or the other.

M3ATL0V3R wrote:

stuff

But would you agree it’s easier to develop muscle memory for patterns when you single tap? From a pure tapping stand point it is probably more advantageous in the long run to learn alternate, but when aim is in the equation the effort required to learn both muscle memory for alternating and aiming is more than effort to learn single tapping and aiming. Of course you could argue that it depends on what the players look for in this game, like old maps aren’t physically intense to aim compared to modern mapping, and there’s an emphasis for finger control and rhythm sense. But all things considered developing muscle memory for aim is probably more important than muscle memory for tapping, if you’re a common man that just wants to rank up then single tap is just simply easier to learn, it’s simple, repetitive and easy to replicate consistently, so you can focus on aim.

From a logical stand point yes alternate is better, but practically speaking would you actually invest more time on finger control when you can jump start you progress focusing on aim.

But since Endaris exist my argument is invalid

I wouldn't say alternating has much to do with finger control tbh. At least not in the way I understand it.
The current alternating form that players use is much different then what i thought initially.
I think SilviA has pretty much the purest form of alternating , i thought alternators play like him, but it turns out to not be true.

Can't really explain it, but he plays everything like very slow bpm streams, occasionally incrasing the tempo for actual streams.
That is intense on the mind for sure. And that is also very similiar to the way you tap certain patterns after developing a bunch of finger control, regardless of the tapping style.

So i think what Endaris is saying is correct.

I'd say the difference between singletapping and alternating also affects reading.At least it does for me.I read patterns differently depending on how I'm about to tap them.It's only annoying since you have to try both on a particularly pesky pattern and remember how you did it.

But reading is very complex, and that is why there are certain jumps where if the angles are just slightly tilted, it's easier for me to alternate them, even though I'm a single tapper.So i wouldn't say single tapping opens up a secret passage to god-aim city, it's mostly about reading.
And a lot of the differences can be reduced just by improving reading, and being able to read higher bpm also means you're a bit faster, a not so high bpm stream on low ar can look immensely fast. Being able to read something comfortably removes a lot of pressure from hands.
I don't find dropping sliderends when singletapping a big issue, however I do alternate sliders. But there are a couple succesful scarlet rose and the like singletappers as well for sure.

Thread tl:dr: it depends and it’s a preference

hi. i'm the guy who does this all the time


basically, i didn't even know that singletapping was a thing when i joined. so i develop an alternating skill which now allows me to play maps with higher bpm without having stamina issues (i'm BAD at stamina lol).

i don't usually care about which finger taps the circle since it's natural that i'm already used to it. just don't think about your tapping finger at all and you'll used to it at all. if you want to change your preference to full alternate, i think it needs a lot of practice. it gives some advantages though!

Uh i full alt, and i never ever break alt, unless the map is too hard for me to handle, or i get spinners in the middle
the only thing i have noticed is that i always tend to start maps with my ring finger hitting the first note and alting from then on, triples, streams, it makes no difference to my alting
Most of the time my key overlay is the same or 1 less on my index key when i do well on a map
i used to singletap but at like 400pp i switched and forced myself to start streams and triples with either finger
it just became second nature after a small while and now i dont even think abt it

I am kinda copying bubbleman tbh lol

N0thingSpecial wrote:

But would you agree it’s easier to develop muscle memory for patterns when you single tap?

Yes, for low bpm

N0thingSpecial wrote:

From a pure tapping stand point it is probably more advantageous in the long run to learn alternate, but when aim is in the equation the effort required to learn both muscle memory for alternating and aiming is more than effort to learn single tapping and aiming. Of course you could argue that it depends on what the players look for in this game, like old maps aren’t physically intense to aim compared to modern mapping, and there’s an emphasis for finger control and rhythm sense. But all things considered developing muscle memory for aim is probably more important than muscle memory for tapping, if you’re a common man that just wants to rank up then single tap is just simply easier to learn, it’s simple, repetitive and easy to replicate consistently, so you can focus on aim.

From a logical stand point yes alternate is better, but practically speaking would you actually invest more time on finger control when you can jump start you progress focusing on aim.

But if all you learn is single tapping and aiming early on then you get a bunch of players frustrated and stuck at a wall because they cant overcome their high OD DT scores which only have single tapping. They have to learn streams and it is harder for them to transition. For semi or full alternators this is less of a problem as they already have the muscle memory.

A jump start is not necessarily a good thing. I think new players would rather see constant progress