I can play [Normal] beatmaps with HardRock and Hidden getting A and S ranks. But I can't play [Hard] beatmaps and I don't know what to do. Can anybody give me an advice?
I use mouse(Logitech G9x: USB report rate=1000, DPI=3000)+keyboard(standart laptop keyboard) to play osu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9B2udwOQxw&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX1UwCwwM8&hd=1

1.0x sens, low dpi, tryhard

GL!

keep trying

That you can pass Normal Diffs with many Mods doesn't mean that you can easily pass hard Diffs too.
Being 1# with all Mods on a Easy Diff =/= a good player.

The only way to get better at this game is to keep playing it. Don't play any more Normals; find Hards you can just barely pass (get a good number of songs in the rotation too, like 10-15, not just 2 or 3). It's going to get discouraging, because you'll get a lot of B's and C's and rank like #10000, but you just need to suck it up and graduate from ranking Easy and Normal maps. You'll see notable improvement if you keep at it.

I have to say, I had the same problem. All you need to do is find some hard maps that you can pass with a poor score or barely pass and play with no fail if you need to. Don't get discouraged, if you come back to a certain map every week you might notice that your score improves. Good luck

3000 DPI is way too high. Use LOW DPI settings (with mouse precision off) if you wanna use a mouse. Its hard at first, but you get better accuracy in the long run. Or else get a tablet and use full area. Also try to choose a skin with smaller and less flashy hit-bursts, or you can even use transparent 300 hit-bursts.

retry again and again

Just try to pass various Hard maps and keep repeating it. When you're good enough, try to FC them starting from the easiest one. That's how I personally keep improving from Normal to Hard and finally Insane.

Just try it again and again. Practice makes perfect right?

Ganbatte~!

Keep playing those Hard Maps until you get used to them. Don't mind playcount, accuracy and scores; just keep trying.

Like everyone said, just play a lot and try to S a map that you couldn't do before

As a firm believer of the fact that even equating any level of skill in 'mastering' mod plays on easy/normal difficulties to be a waste of time.
The necessary skill gap between a normal difficulty and a hard/insane to be very much like standing on the ground to flying in the air especially with some maps and the jumps you will have to do in them.

The first and foremost thing you should do is get rid of that spastically high sensitivity first as 3000dpi is much too high and aim for something less than 1600dpi, optimally under 1000k is where much nicer mouse control is.


After you get used to this you can start just doing the same thing everyone else does which is practice, practice and more practice until things become much easier to maintain a high accuracy and full combo.

Try and try until you'll be able pass Hard maps. Although, I admit that I'm still in the stage of practicing Hard maps just like you are, I could still help you ^^ Keep practicing and you'll be able to do it. Wish you all the luck~ same level owo

So I checked your gameplay videos, Toco, and I have some very specific advice for you:

1. Get a new skin. Your current one makes playing way harder than it should be. Get an efficient skin like Nexus or Lithe. (It doesn't have to be exactly one of those, feel free to edit it any way you like, but stuff like the lighting.png and hitbursts should be non-distracting... your current skin makes it impossible to follow the map. Here's what I use for example: custom-skin, pay attention to: followpoint.png, hit300.png, hit300k.png, hit300g.png, lighting.png, reversearrow.png, sliderfollowcircle.png, spinner-clear.png, spinner-osu.png)

2. Don't start playing Hards yet. You're not prepared for it. Ignore the people that told you to retry hards a million times, they probably didn't see your current level. Doing so will not help you learn anything at all right now; Right now you have trouble reading timings of hits on a map - you can't tell where is a 1/4 spacing, a 1/2 spacing or a 1/1 spacing (on timeline). Keep playing normals with HardRock but without other mods until you can get 95% accuracy or higher on every Normal you play every time you play it. Also, focus on playing many different maps instead of re-playing the same one map. This will make your reading improve the fastest.

Once you can get 95%+ accuracy on every normal you play, your reading is good enough to start trying to play Hards. At that point you will be able to follow what's going on and you'll be able to practice them properly and have fun playing them.

Also, DO reduce your mouse DPI like everybody said. Your mouse accuracy will go up instantly if you get a DPI below 1000. 3000 is ridiculous... something in the range of 400-1200 is much easier to play with. If you're having trouble learning to play 800DPI from 3000, do this: set your settings for 800 DPI, but then set the osu modifier to 0.5x, so that you essentially get 400DPI while playing osu. Play like that for 3-4 hours, use NoFail, and finish maps completely, don't retry or anything, try to do the best you can per map and aim for max accuracy regardless of what happens (i.e. keep trying, don't just give up halfway). After you did this for 3-4 hours, switch to 1.0x modifier - and suddenly 800DPI will feel super fast and you'll get natural with it instantly.

Last note: make sure you're playing recent maps (check the map date before downloading), preferably maps made in the last 5-6 months. Older maps will not help you improve as much as newer ones... simply because most of old maps are poorly timed or have other problems.

Hey, people. Sorry for "invading" into thread of TocoToucan, however I am also searching for some help and I only have complementary question, if you don't mind.

Aqo, what is this timeline you are talking about? I already played few times and I read the basic guidelanes, however I fail to see any timelane in my Osu. Thanks for answer.

Fazy wrote:

Aqo, what is this timeline you are talking about? I already played few times and I read the basic guidelanes, however I fail to see any timelane in my Osu. Thanks for answer.

Pretty sure he talks about timeline more like about a musical term, any song consists of beats (which are represented as circles in osu) and has it's own beats per minute count (BPM). Lets say we have 120 BPM song. 120/60=2 beats per second. These beats are 1\1 on the timeline, if we insert one beat between each 1\1 beats we will get 1\2 beats which will be 2 beats per 0.5 seconds on the timeline, 1\4 will be 2 beats per 0.25 sec and etc.
You can make difference between them either by sightreading approach circles or note appearance rate, or by listening to the rhythm, better to do both though

Aqo wrote:

2. Don't start playing Hards yet. You're not prepared for it. Ignore the people that told you to retry hards a million times, they probably didn't see your current level. Doing so will not help you learn anything at all right now; Right now you have trouble reading timings of hits on a map - you can't tell where is a 1/4 spacing, a 1/2 spacing or a 1/1 spacing (on timeline). Keep playing normals with HardRock but without other mods until you can get 95% accuracy or higher on every Normal you play every time you play it. Also, focus on playing many different maps instead of re-playing the same one map. This will make your reading improve the fastest.

Normal beatmaps are slow and boring.I'm not sure that they can improve my skill. +I can pass some hard beatmaps(It looks awful, but i can).
for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_MlQkA88Y&hd=1

Are you still using 3000dpi sensitivity by any chance? I suggest you to lower to between 450dpi-1800dpi. 3000dpi is not good for a long run imho, a little slip while doing jumps can be fatal with such sensitivity.

Also, stop worrying about being awful at playing Hard maps. Just keep doing it and you'll improve somehow.

I am also not so sure about agreeing with what Aqo said. If you really want to improve just play maps, whether it is normal or hard, or what not, with mods or not, that make the map at least somewhat challenging. You don't even need maps that you can barely beat. In my opinion you just need maps that you can't sightread through and full combo without any problem whatsoever.

Also I have no idea if anyone else feels the same way or has experienced such a thing, but I find it more effective to practice using more jagged movements to help increase accuracy of cursor movements (instead of using more smooth curvy movements). A lot of the times I can sometimes just half assedly play a pattern (such as a square) by using a circular motion. This half assed circular motion just fails miserably when the BPM is really high or if the square is extremely largely spaced. So essentially I never truly learned how to play those types of patterns, and I still fking fail at squares/diamonds. They make me want to rage quit this game But anyways, I don't know for sure if you were making smooth movements or anything, but it's just something to me I think makes a difference. So instead of just learning to clear a pattern, try learning to play the pattern by using straight line movements.

In the end, just play maps, not for score or accuracy, but for fun.

I too have reached a wall as well. I don't seem to be increasing in skill at all in the past like 3 months. It's kinda making me rage lol >_> but whatever... I still play lol.

and a final note: if you reach a map or pattern that you just cannot beat and you are just getting extremely frustrated, just take a break and come back to it later (a few hours later, or maybe a day or two later, or even longer). Also, sleep is actually quite important. Not only does it give you more concentration, but during sleep you actually learn a lot of other random things that you have done during the day... sleep is actually kinda like another learning mechanism. Maybe one day you cannot do something for some reason, but the next day after a good night sleep you can.

as an example, I was raging the fk out of myself cuz I coudn't fc this map http://osu.ppy.sh/s/44187, but the next day I got it in like 2 tries. No, I'm not saying sleeping will give you miracles, but seriously, don't frustrate yourself over the game. Take a break and come back if you are getting annoyed.