Hey all, I was a little bored so I decided to remake my EZ mod guide which I first wrote roughly 4 years ago from today. Since writing that first guide, I realised that many of the things I wrote before are somewhat incorrect. I've also changed the way I play quite a lot, I now play way less EZ mod and spend more time playing AR0 via editting and if I do play EZ mod, I generally pair it up with HD. I'll be adding somethings I've learned from those experiences to the guide.
Skins
Skinning choice is not really too important for standard play but it's quite important for EZ mod and extremely low ARs especially when you first starting learning EZ. EZ is a reading intensive mod which requires a lot of focus thus you want to minimise clutter and maximise visibility.
When you start playing EZ mod, I would highly recommend using numbers that are easy to read. It's extremely difficult when you first start playing EZ mod without numbers as the object density is significantly higher compared to anything you normally see in standard play. The numbers give you an easy way to stay on track. The numbers from the basic skin are a good start if you are looking for something.
I would also highly recommend using contrasting combo colours at the beginning. If you don't use combo colours or use very similar colours, it's easy to get confused. Like with numbers, having the contrasting colours helps you stay on track. I would recommend only using 2 or 3 different colours in your skin as it makes it easier to memorise the order but you can use as many as you like. To change the combo colours of your skin, locate the "skin.ini" file located in your skin's folder and find the combo colour part and change the colours. You can use paint to find the colours you like but here are some example colours to play with:
Finally, a really nice element to use would be a solid line follow point. Bonuses if you use a distinct colour for the follow point. This is especially helpful for EZ + HD and if you do decide to not listen to my advice for numbers and/or combo colour elements. Here is a recommended follow point if you don't have one already. I will discuss this element more in detail later in the guide.
For other skinning aspects, I would recommend making your skin as minimalist as possible. Hide anything unnecessary like 300s and strip your spinners down to the bare minimum (the basic skin spinner is great for EZ!). To hide any graphics, replace the image in your skin folder with a blank image.
Here is an example skin I compiled using many of the elements from the basic skin to get you started. Once you get more familiar with EZ, you can basically use any skin you want. For reference, here is the skin I use to show that you don't really need many of the elements usually recommended for EZ. You can go crazy but I would highly highly recommend learning with what I mentioned earlier.
Once you get more experienced with EZ, maybe try remove some elements. When you play high densities, you are basically trying to solve a puzzle under a time constraint, a game style that's not found in the 'normal' AR ranges people play. From personal experience, I find reducing the elements like numbers and combo colours can improve your ability to sort through the information as fast as possible as you don't need every bit of information. The elements not needed in certain sections can become quite distracting and actually slows your ability to process everything. However overall, I would like to make it clear that playing without numbers and combo colors as a whole puts you at a significant disadvantage. If you are looking to play EZ at a high level, I would highly not recommend playing without numbers.
When you start playing EZ mod, I would highly recommend using numbers that are easy to read. It's extremely difficult when you first start playing EZ mod without numbers as the object density is significantly higher compared to anything you normally see in standard play. The numbers give you an easy way to stay on track. The numbers from the basic skin are a good start if you are looking for something.
I would also highly recommend using contrasting combo colours at the beginning. If you don't use combo colours or use very similar colours, it's easy to get confused. Like with numbers, having the contrasting colours helps you stay on track. I would recommend only using 2 or 3 different colours in your skin as it makes it easier to memorise the order but you can use as many as you like. To change the combo colours of your skin, locate the "skin.ini" file located in your skin's folder and find the combo colour part and change the colours. You can use paint to find the colours you like but here are some example colours to play with:
255,110,110 | 86,255,86 | 170,170,255 | 255,103,255 | 255,255,117
Finally, a really nice element to use would be a solid line follow point. Bonuses if you use a distinct colour for the follow point. This is especially helpful for EZ + HD and if you do decide to not listen to my advice for numbers and/or combo colour elements. Here is a recommended follow point if you don't have one already. I will discuss this element more in detail later in the guide.
For other skinning aspects, I would recommend making your skin as minimalist as possible. Hide anything unnecessary like 300s and strip your spinners down to the bare minimum (the basic skin spinner is great for EZ!). To hide any graphics, replace the image in your skin folder with a blank image.
Here is an example skin I compiled using many of the elements from the basic skin to get you started. Once you get more familiar with EZ, you can basically use any skin you want. For reference, here is the skin I use to show that you don't really need many of the elements usually recommended for EZ. You can go crazy but I would highly highly recommend learning with what I mentioned earlier.
Once you get more experienced with EZ, maybe try remove some elements. When you play high densities, you are basically trying to solve a puzzle under a time constraint, a game style that's not found in the 'normal' AR ranges people play. From personal experience, I find reducing the elements like numbers and combo colours can improve your ability to sort through the information as fast as possible as you don't need every bit of information. The elements not needed in certain sections can become quite distracting and actually slows your ability to process everything. However overall, I would like to make it clear that playing without numbers and combo colors as a whole puts you at a significant disadvantage. If you are looking to play EZ at a high level, I would highly not recommend playing without numbers.
What maps to start with
In my last guide, I mentioned how it's not realistic to post a list of maps to start with. Again, I stand by what I said previously, everyone is starting at differing levels so you must find maps that are comfortable to you. That being said, you will want to tone down the difficulty level dramatically. I would say that starting off below 3 stars on maps with low BPMs is the best place to start.
So what is a 'comfortable' difficulty level? That's a pretty difficult question to answer but you want to find maps that aren't so difficult that you basically fail off the bat but not too easy that you get bored playing it. You may have to start off memorising maps when you start but that's okay. Just play a bunch of maps and get a feel for things. Star rating is a good way to go about things initially but remember, star rating becomes less reliable as a general guide to reading difficulty once you get above 4 stars.
So what is a 'comfortable' difficulty level? That's a pretty difficult question to answer but you want to find maps that aren't so difficult that you basically fail off the bat but not too easy that you get bored playing it. You may have to start off memorising maps when you start but that's okay. Just play a bunch of maps and get a feel for things. Star rating is a good way to go about things initially but remember, star rating becomes less reliable as a general guide to reading difficulty once you get above 4 stars.
Reading tips
Where to look
Reading EZ is easiest when you look at each circle deliberately. What I mean by this is that you want to look at the next circle you need to click on (this goes for streams also). The rest you will look at through your periphery. Doing so will improve your consistency in hitting the circles. Even with the large circles, it is quite easy to get lazy in your reading and miss.
When you get better at EZ, you can also try quickly scout the rest of the field in between clicks. What this will generally look like is a quick scan to appearing objects before quickly looking back at the object you need to hit when necessary. By adding this scan, you can quickly plan your next moves. There are downsides to doing this that you have to be careful of though. First, you open yourself to getting lost in all the noise. And second, some patterns are better played on-the-fly. Patterns involving lots of singles in non-geometric shapes will be highly dense in nature which can cause information overload. This is more of an advanced skill and isn't really necessary when you first start EZ.
Counting
When you first start, the first thing you want to do is get used to counting numbers. This will allow you to get acclimated to the object density without getting too confused. After you get used to the density, you might want to stop counting as much as focusing too much on counting will end up being counter productive later on. The main problems with counting later on is that overlaps can at times make it impossible to count and large spacing paired with high object density can make it difficult to find the next circle. Counting will be just 1 source of information to read off of.
Follow point reading
There are 2 ways of using follow points to read; by following the lines to find the next circle and by using the fade in of the follow point to find the correct order of the circles.
Following the lines is self descriptive, you follow the follow points to find which is the next circle to hit. This is especially helpful when using HD as it gives you a way of 'remembering' where all the circles are.
Follow points appear after the circles appear, a little before you need to hit the circle. From my observation, you generally have 2 or 3 follow points out at a time on the higher densities. By observing the fade in of the follow points, you can figure out the order of the next circles you need to hit. While seemingly useless if you use numbers, it can be handy when the object density gets out of control. You can use the lack of follow points as a hint that a circle is not needed to be clicked for now.
This type of reading is great when there are overlaps, when spacing and object density make it difficult to look for the next circle, playing with HD and when playing without numbers like I do. It's a lot more efficient to read off follow points than counting as with counting, you have to mentally process something else (i.e. counting which number is next) but there is no mental strain involved with reading follow points.
TIP: Try experimenting with the follow point skin with changing color follow points and follow points that appear earlier/later. To do this, mess around with the followpoint-x.png in the skin folder.
Brightness
What you might not have realised is that the circle you need to hit next is actually made slightly brighter compared to all other circles. The difference is very faint so it's difficult to notice but it's enough to pull you through at times.I personally don't go out looking for this phenomena purposefully as it's just too difficult to read off of alone. This type of reading really shines (pun intended) when the object densities becomes really high. The slight shine can point you in the right direction. My rule of thumb when reading is if it's brighter, then that's the circle to hit no questions asked! This aspect of reading is not particularly useful if you use numbers but very necessary if you don't use numbers in my opinion. ****Note that this does not work for McOsu.****
Reading EZ is easiest when you look at each circle deliberately. What I mean by this is that you want to look at the next circle you need to click on (this goes for streams also). The rest you will look at through your periphery. Doing so will improve your consistency in hitting the circles. Even with the large circles, it is quite easy to get lazy in your reading and miss.
When you get better at EZ, you can also try quickly scout the rest of the field in between clicks. What this will generally look like is a quick scan to appearing objects before quickly looking back at the object you need to hit when necessary. By adding this scan, you can quickly plan your next moves. There are downsides to doing this that you have to be careful of though. First, you open yourself to getting lost in all the noise. And second, some patterns are better played on-the-fly. Patterns involving lots of singles in non-geometric shapes will be highly dense in nature which can cause information overload. This is more of an advanced skill and isn't really necessary when you first start EZ.
Counting
When you first start, the first thing you want to do is get used to counting numbers. This will allow you to get acclimated to the object density without getting too confused. After you get used to the density, you might want to stop counting as much as focusing too much on counting will end up being counter productive later on. The main problems with counting later on is that overlaps can at times make it impossible to count and large spacing paired with high object density can make it difficult to find the next circle. Counting will be just 1 source of information to read off of.
Follow point reading
There are 2 ways of using follow points to read; by following the lines to find the next circle and by using the fade in of the follow point to find the correct order of the circles.
Following the lines is self descriptive, you follow the follow points to find which is the next circle to hit. This is especially helpful when using HD as it gives you a way of 'remembering' where all the circles are.
Follow points appear after the circles appear, a little before you need to hit the circle. From my observation, you generally have 2 or 3 follow points out at a time on the higher densities. By observing the fade in of the follow points, you can figure out the order of the next circles you need to hit. While seemingly useless if you use numbers, it can be handy when the object density gets out of control. You can use the lack of follow points as a hint that a circle is not needed to be clicked for now.
This type of reading is great when there are overlaps, when spacing and object density make it difficult to look for the next circle, playing with HD and when playing without numbers like I do. It's a lot more efficient to read off follow points than counting as with counting, you have to mentally process something else (i.e. counting which number is next) but there is no mental strain involved with reading follow points.
TIP: Try experimenting with the follow point skin with changing color follow points and follow points that appear earlier/later. To do this, mess around with the followpoint-x.png in the skin folder.
Brightness
What you might not have realised is that the circle you need to hit next is actually made slightly brighter compared to all other circles. The difference is very faint so it's difficult to notice but it's enough to pull you through at times.
EZ + other mods
EZ and DT
This is a great mod combination for beginners. A major difficulty in learning EZ is getting used to the lower AR. DT gives you an avenue to experience the object density with a slightly less low AR.
EZ and HT
HT is a great mod to give you more variety in the maps you can play as well as help you learn as the reduced speed gives you more time to process things. Also, higher star maps are generally more difficult to read. This means you can get extra reading difficulty without needing the speed and aim.
EZ and HD
This is a great mod to spice things up. Many EZ mod players shy away from HD as it makes the same maps exponentially harder. If you're like me and like a challenge, this is a good one. The key learning difficulties in this mod combination comes from learning how to snap and stream blank space and improving your short term memory. It takes a little bit to get used to but once you learn it, you won't want to go back to vanilla EZ mod again. When learning this mod, play songs you can FC easily on vanilla EZ. If you can't FC the song on vanilla EZ, you probably won't be able to do it with HD on top.
This is a great mod combination for beginners. A major difficulty in learning EZ is getting used to the lower AR. DT gives you an avenue to experience the object density with a slightly less low AR.
EZ and HT
HT is a great mod to give you more variety in the maps you can play as well as help you learn as the reduced speed gives you more time to process things. Also, higher star maps are generally more difficult to read. This means you can get extra reading difficulty without needing the speed and aim.
EZ and HD
This is a great mod to spice things up. Many EZ mod players shy away from HD as it makes the same maps exponentially harder. If you're like me and like a challenge, this is a good one. The key learning difficulties in this mod combination comes from learning how to snap and stream blank space and improving your short term memory. It takes a little bit to get used to but once you learn it, you won't want to go back to vanilla EZ mod again. When learning this mod, play songs you can FC easily on vanilla EZ. If you can't FC the song on vanilla EZ, you probably won't be able to do it with HD on top.
Is it worth learning EZ mod?
Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion over the merits of learning EZ mod with many people saying yes and many others saying no. The yes camp argues that learning EZ improves reading which is absolutely pivotal to playing this game at a high level. The no camp argues that even though EZ does improve reading, the time spent playing EZ does not outweigh the time better spent playing normally and improving other skills like aim and accuracy. Truth be told, who the hell knows? Unless you could grab a large number of people completely new to the game and tested it, we'll never know.
My view on this subject has changed over the years. I used to be an avid supporter of learning EZ to improve standard play but I realise now the far superior option for those wanting to improve their reading would be to just edit AR lower. This gives the benefits of the higher object density without much detriment to aim and accuracy (in fact both become harder).
That being said though, EZ is it's own beast. Even after completely switching to playing AR0, I haven't found any major improvements to my EZ game whenever I do go back to it every now and then. In fact, I would say I have gotten slightly worse as the larger circle size complicates things!
I will add a little caveat to the discuss. There are 2 aspects of EZ mod that I have personally found to have improved my standard playing significantly. The first I found was an improvement to my streaming ability. I didn't understand reading streams until I started playing EZ in all honesty and though I would say you don't need to learn EZ to learn to read streams (as there are countless top players who are already examples of this), it will definitely help you if you are struggling to stream consistently and you know it's not a stamina or speed issue.
The second improvement came to my ability to play HD. This wasn't technically learned specifically from EZ mod but came from the combined EZ and HD mods. As I discussed earlier, this mod combination is not for the faint of heart. It's very difficult and also has a steep learning curve on top of the steep learning curve of learning EZ mod alone. However, you will walk away with the ability to play HD like you've never felt before. You're ability to read the read and aim the mod will drastically improve.
Though you don't technically have to play EZ mod to learn these as you could just use what I suggested and edit the AR down, the large circle size and lower OD will make things a lot easier to learn.
To sum up, is EZ mod worth learning? Yes for fun and no if you want to get a higher rank.
My view on this subject has changed over the years. I used to be an avid supporter of learning EZ to improve standard play but I realise now the far superior option for those wanting to improve their reading would be to just edit AR lower. This gives the benefits of the higher object density without much detriment to aim and accuracy (in fact both become harder).
That being said though, EZ is it's own beast. Even after completely switching to playing AR0, I haven't found any major improvements to my EZ game whenever I do go back to it every now and then. In fact, I would say I have gotten slightly worse as the larger circle size complicates things!
I will add a little caveat to the discuss. There are 2 aspects of EZ mod that I have personally found to have improved my standard playing significantly. The first I found was an improvement to my streaming ability. I didn't understand reading streams until I started playing EZ in all honesty and though I would say you don't need to learn EZ to learn to read streams (as there are countless top players who are already examples of this), it will definitely help you if you are struggling to stream consistently and you know it's not a stamina or speed issue.
The second improvement came to my ability to play HD. This wasn't technically learned specifically from EZ mod but came from the combined EZ and HD mods. As I discussed earlier, this mod combination is not for the faint of heart. It's very difficult and also has a steep learning curve on top of the steep learning curve of learning EZ mod alone. However, you will walk away with the ability to play HD like you've never felt before. You're ability to read the read and aim the mod will drastically improve.
Though you don't technically have to play EZ mod to learn these as you could just use what I suggested and edit the AR down, the large circle size and lower OD will make things a lot easier to learn.
To sum up, is EZ mod worth learning? Yes for fun and no if you want to get a higher rank.
Will EZ mod impact my ability to play higher ARs?
A common concern many people have about playing lots of low ARs is that it will impact their ability to play higher ARs. I won't lie, it will impact you slightly but you should be able to transition back no problem. I can't say much about ARs above 10 as I've never personally been proficient at them but, I personally have no problems switching back to playing AR10 even after long periods of playing AR0. The AR will appear 'faster' than what you would normally be used to but you should have no issues executing.
Is it possible to sight read EZ or do I have to memorise?
To the untrained eye, it might not look possible to sight read EZ but it definitely is even with all the overlaps. Don't get me wrong though, many of the amazing plays that some of the top EZ players have done did require them to memorise large portions of the map. Memorisation allows you to go above and beyond what you would normally be capable of for your reading level. As long as you have the aim and finger speed to play the map, you could technically brute force your way to an FC given enough retries (and with the help of the editor of course).
From my own experience, I believe almost everything is sight readable if you get good enough. The only real exceptions to this would be stupid overlaps that can be found in many troll maps (or maybe those overlaps just require too high of a skill level to sight read). Whenever I get stumped on a pattern, I generally find later down the road to be able to sight read them. Even though it might feel impossible, you'd be surprised.
If you really don't want to put in the effort and memorise, then don't. I personally just play a map a handful of times and move on. Memorisation is tedious and over time, I doubt it's very helpful if you want to improve your ability to actually read.
From my own experience, I believe almost everything is sight readable if you get good enough. The only real exceptions to this would be stupid overlaps that can be found in many troll maps (or maybe those overlaps just require too high of a skill level to sight read). Whenever I get stumped on a pattern, I generally find later down the road to be able to sight read them. Even though it might feel impossible, you'd be surprised.
If you really don't want to put in the effort and memorise, then don't. I personally just play a map a handful of times and move on. Memorisation is tedious and over time, I doubt it's very helpful if you want to improve your ability to actually read.
