I'm far from great at this game. I see people talk about FC'ing 5* a few hours into the game. Crazy. I can only do mid-3* somewhat consistently. But the times when I noticed the most improvement was from playing maps way above my level. When I was struggling at high-2*, I took the advice of nearly everyone here and tried FC'ing lower star maps. The idea is to build solid fundamentals, I get it. The difference between playing Osu and a music instrument or sport is the lack of opportunities to observe people better than you do it. You could work all day at perfecting a 2.4* map but are you necessarily building good habits? It's hard to tell without any guidance.

Well, my solution was to play 3.5* maps and get wrecked, and adjust between the levels until I find maps that I could follow but it was hard for me to pass. By doing this, I see what's coming next. I see that if I hit triplets the way I did in that 2* map, it wouldn't work when it's faster or there's more of them, or if there's more consecutive circles, my hand would get tired. Playing maps that I can't pass gave me better habits because I can strategize about what I needed to do to get there.

When I struggled passing a 3.3* due to streams, I turned to 4* maps, and as I adjusted my reading speed, going back to 3* became easy. I no longer froze up on long streams. They were slow. I learned to alternate keys out of necessity. It was hard to convince myself I needed to alternate keys instead of just clicking the mouse on those lower star maps. Because I was able to pass them by clicking the mouse... until I can't.

Still, nearly everyone here are suggesting players FC then move up. In my experience if I followed that strategy, I would still be struggling at 3.0* because there's no way any lower star map could prepare me, FC or no FC. That would be like playing basketball with your buddies for years, finally beating him consistently, but having no orientation versus another better player. All those habits you picked up in those friendly games may or may not have been what you needed. I'm not saying to play Kobe Bryant and get destroyed and lose all hope, but surely seeking out players that consistently dominate you, yet you can find a way to close the gap, is more instructive than mastering Happy Birthday on the piano. Unlike a recital, no one's going to judge you if you miss a few notes.

Just giving a different perspective.

i still dont get why people tell newer players "just go for fc" and thats it like are you people that into the "no fc no pp" mindset or what lmao
doesnt help that saying said thing would end up making the person on the recieving end just retry spam until fc most of the time which is detrimental for improvement

brute forcing while maintaining yourself to actually play the map instead of flailing cursor randomly is def better yea

I had the "You need to FC maps in order to improve" mindset when I was a 6 digit and that got me nowhere, so I did the opposite and focused on accuracy while playing harder maps and I think it worked out ok.

play maps you can kinda do but not really, aka outside your comfort zone and focus on acc>combo because acc shows your mastery on a map not combo

Sounds like solid advice. I heard Idke say once that the best maps for improvement are those maps you could pass with 2 misses on a good day, which is basically what you do now. I guess it never hurts to gain some pp through the maps you can play with your new improvement now and then though :p It just shouldn't be your focus if you actually wanna improve

I've noticed as well that playing harder maps help me improve, but I'd need a warm up period to get back into it. There was a time when I could pass a 4* map but I'd need to warm up on high-2* for an hour to get into the zone. Then I went back and FC'd a bunch of 2*-3* maps and now I can just jump into a mid-3* with limited warm up. So I do feel both are necessary, but definitely pushing my limits and then going back was far more effective for me than just trying to FC maps or mindlessly button mash.

Right now, I play maps I either can't pass, but can do well for part of it, or pass with a C. And I do that for half a star to a star up. Then I go back and convert those C's into B's, then A's and S's and so on. I've found that just being able to follow 1/3 of a 4.8* map makes a 3.6* 10 times easier than just playing the 3.6* all day and never having attempted anything higher.

what I do is mentally find three ranges:
High Accuracy, FC, and Pass

I think each range offers different ways to improve and so I play all of them (some days I favor certain ranges more but I try not to neglect any).

[Arc] wrote:

what I do is mentally find three ranges:
High Accuracy, FC, and Pass

I think each range offers different ways to improve and so I play all of them (some days I favor certain ranges more but I try not to neglect any).

Yesterday, I grinded a 4.76* map and barely passed it in a dozen or more tries. Then I went back to a 4.44* map with a section in the middle that I always had trouble with, where I would pass it I got lucky. For the first time, I could follow it, and beat that section without any mistakes. It was night and day. Even this morning, I was still able to follow. I played a 4.02* that I was always excited to get through, but this morning it seemed slow. I'm not saying I can suddenly FC it or anything magical, but I could follow it. Then I thought about what you said about the 3 ranges, and decided there are indeed 3 ranges.

Here's mine:
3 Ranges of Improvement

1. Sight Reading -- Maps I barely pass, but are able to play through some section of it if I get lucky. (I do not mean maps where I die in the first few seconds.)
2. Muscle Coordination/Response -- Maps I can pass with a B-C if I grind it anywhere between 3-15 times. I am able to follow these maps with some effort and see where I'm messing up, and target those points to improve each time.
3. Accuracy/Focus -- Maps I can pass with an S-A somewhat consistently, within 3 tries. I will try to FC these maps over time.
4. Waste of Time/Warm Up -- Maps I can easily FC, maybe FC with a few tries with HR/HD mods.

I never use Relax, Easy, No Fail, or Half mods, so button mashing would probably get me to fail out in a few seconds. If I have to mash through a short section in a Sight Reading map, it's fair game. The point there is not to pass gracefully, but to train to follow faster maps. Although if mashing was needed, then I would at least reflect on the sequence so I can try doing it the right way little by little. Sometimes, rewatching that section with Auto helps.

Even though I spend a lot of time on the Accuracy/Focus maps to increase my percentage and build PP, I am convinced that a person that wants to improve in the shortest amount of time possible should primarily cycle through Sight Reading and Muscle Coordination, and play for Accuracy only on off/relax days.

I'm not that great or anything, but I feel like 90% of my gains occurred within just a few weeks over the past 3 or whatever years I've been playing this off and on. It always started with me pushing myself to play maps I have no chance of beating, and then coming back and finding that the maps I've been struggling on became much easier. But I came on the forum and couldn't find anyone that share my experiences.

Sorry for being so wordy.

katsucats wrote:

[Arc] wrote:

what I do is mentally find three ranges:
High Accuracy, FC, and Pass

I think each range offers different ways to improve and so I play all of them (some days I favor certain ranges more but I try not to neglect any).

Yesterday, I grinded a 4.76* map and barely passed it in a dozen or more tries. Then I went back to a 4.44* map with a section in the middle that I always had trouble with, where I would pass it I got lucky. For the first time, I could follow it, and beat that section without any mistakes. It was night and day. Even this morning, I was still able to follow. I played a 4.02* that I was always excited to get through, but this morning it seemed slow. I'm not saying I can suddenly FC it or anything magical, but I could follow it. Then I thought about what you said about the 3 ranges, and decided there are indeed 3 ranges.

Here's mine:
3 Ranges of Improvement

1. Sight Reading -- Maps I barely pass, but are able to play through some section of it if I get lucky. (I do not mean maps where I die in the first few seconds.)
2. Muscle Coordination/Response -- Maps I can pass with a B-C if I grind it anywhere between 3-15 times. I am able to follow these maps with some effort and see where I'm messing up, and target those points to improve each time.
3. Accuracy/Focus -- Maps I can pass with an S-A somewhat consistently, within 3 tries. I will try to FC these maps over time.
4. Waste of Time/Warm Up -- Maps I can easily FC, maybe FC with a few tries with HR/HD mods.

I never use Relax, Easy, No Fail, or Half mods, so button mashing would probably get me to fail out in a few seconds. If I have to mash through a short section in a Sight Reading map, it's fair game. The point there is not to pass gracefully, but to train to follow faster maps. Although if mashing was needed, then I would at least reflect on the sequence so I can try doing it the right way little by little. Sometimes, rewatching that section with Auto helps.

Even though I spend a lot of time on the Accuracy/Focus maps to increase my percentage and build PP, I am convinced that a person that wants to improve in the shortest amount of time possible should primarily cycle through Sight Reading and Muscle Coordination, and play for Accuracy only on off/relax days.

I'm not that great or anything, but I feel like 90% of my gains occurred within just a few weeks over the past 3 or whatever years I've been playing this off and on. It always started with me pushing myself to play maps I have no chance of beating, and then coming back and finding that the maps I've been struggling on became much easier. But I came on the forum and couldn't find anyone that share my experiences.

Sorry for being so wordy.

nofail isn't a very bad mod to use but you gotta know when to use it, like for example don't play maps you get D's on because you probably won't improve from that, but use NF instead on maps you can almost pass but usually die on stupid part or when the hp is too high so you can't pass the map (happens to me with DT mostly)

What I usually do is: click the circles.

Yeah.