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How to improve at osu!

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Zare
Also, for mouse users:
The lower the DPI the more accurate, thus the better.
Even tho using 2000 dpi might seem to be more comfortable for some beginners, getting used to lower will always improve one's movement.
I recommend using not more than 800 dpi. If u're used to 800 try to lower it even more. As for me, I'm using 450 dpi and am constantly getting better.

And yeah, I don't think the people asking this question will check out such threads but it's worth a try. Great work, jesus.
Aqo
Thanks for the help jesse! <3
Already feeling the improvement thanks to your advice yay

stream advice from jesse is gdlk
mash mash mash;; lewa's accuracy advice is very good to survive this map too

whatever

jesus1412 wrote:

Other...
Approach rate 10

Too lazy of adding these right now
Here's an advice for beginners to high AR which is probably shitty but oh well this worked for me when I started practicing it:
lets say you played only AR9 until now and want to learn AR10 but you feel like you can't react in time to notes that appear. Basically, just always assume there will be a note 1/2 of a beat after the last note you saw, and only try to react to the location where it appears. This makes it less pressuring to play in an AR that feels too fast for you. If it never came, assume that the next note is within 1/1 beat time spacing. Only streams will be hard to read like this, so just assume for starters that everything that appears with very small distance spacing is within stream speed. Eventually you'll just get used to that approach speed and you'll be able to read everything comfortably including streams and 3/4 timings and whatever.
thelewa
Well Aqo the trick is to practice accuracy in maps that you are able to FC ie. easier Insanes or just normal Insanes (it's pretty damn boring if you don't like it but it works)
Aqo

thelewa wrote:

Well Aqo the trick is to practice accuracy in maps that you are able to FC ie. easier Insanes or just normal Insanes (it's pretty damn boring if you don't like it but it works)
I agree, it's impossible to practice accuracy on maps that have BPM/speed higher than your physical speed limit. But no matter how accurate you get on a certain speed that you choose as a checkpoint/stoppoint, you'll be back to ground zero once you start playing on a higher speed; that's why I prefer working on pushing the speed limit up first and postponing accuracy training for later.
Wishy
Wrong.

<-- Living example. If you want accuracy do what lewa says.
thelewa
Aqo if what you say is right, then me being good at accuracy is impossible. I practiced my accuracy first and THEN started building up my speed. My accuracy was at my current level like 1,5 years ago, when I could only stream 150bpm for a few notes before getting tired. Once you get good at accuracy it never goes away.

edit: I know it sounds stupid to use myself as an example, but I've been giving this advice to everyone who ask me for help with accuracy, and people never complain about it not working. Besides, I was never talented in rhythm to begin with, it's all hard work and guts. So I'm fairly certain that it works.
ann_old

thelewa wrote:

Aqo if what you say is right, then me being good at accuracy is impossible. I practiced my accuracy first and THEN started building up my speed. My accuracy was at my current level like 1,5 years ago, when I could only stream 150bpm for a few notes before getting tired. Once you get good at accuracy it never goes away.
yes, if you get like crazy speed for a while and you quit osu! for too long you'll have a GREAT MASSIVE chance of losing that speed. Been there.
It's best to listen to thelewa's advice, burning accuracy into your body is the best thing to do(also the best for a rhythm game)
Aqo
lewa I do agree with your advice, that wasn't my point.
back when you had good accuracy with 150bpm, could you still have the same good accuracy with 230bpm? I don't think it's possible to have good accuracy in a speed you can't go at
thelewa
It seems that your understanding of rhythm and accuracy in osu is flawed. Yours seems to be based on muscle memory. Also obviously I can't have good accuracy in a speed that I can't go at, but the instant when my fingers get strong enough to go at that high speed, my accuracy is already there. I wouldn't even need to reach that speed by practicing with streams, I could do other stuff to strengthen my fingers and still have the same accuracy. And I'm saying that it's something anyone else can do, it just takes a lot of time.

Accuracy is all in a person's head, that's why it's so tedious to learn but will never go away once you get it down.
silmarilen

thelewa wrote:

Aqo if what you say is right, then me being good at accuracy is impossible. I practiced my accuracy first and THEN started building up my speed. My accuracy was at my current level like 1,5 years ago, when I could only stream 150bpm for a few notes before getting tired. Once you get good at accuracy it never goes away.

edit: I know it sounds stupid to use myself as an example, but I've been giving this advice to everyone who ask me for help with accuracy, and people never complain about it not working. Besides, I was never talented in rhythm to begin with, it's all hard work and guts. So I'm fairly certain that it works.
this is exactly the way i have been playing from the beginning
kriers
The most frustrating thing about building accuracy is realizing how limited you really are as a player if you're going to play osu! like thelewa does.

I was foolish enough to consider myself faster than thelewa only because I could play faster maps. In truth, using his streaming technique I'm vastly insuperior in everything.

Since I really wanted to play like the best keyboard players, I decided I'd do whatever it takes to get there eventually. To my surprise, I was forced down to 120, one hundred and twenty bpm if I was going to maintain an accurate stream using keyboard. I had just finished mad machine at 90% the other day and now I realized the only way to hit a perfect stream was going that low ._. 10 months later and I'm slowly gaining stamina, completing long 180 bpm streams and gradually increasing my maximum bpm while maintaining perfect accuracy of course. Good thing I can play mouse only or I'd never bother ever.

tl;dr: spam =/= real streaming ability :(

@Aqo: I realize you don't really find any joy in the accuracy aspect of this game, but expanding your rythmical understanding pays off massively for insane shit as well. I'm sure that if you ever experience mastery in rythm, you'll get instantly hooked like the rest of us

@silmarilen: my scrub days of spamming DT is one of the main reasons I'm comfortable playing harder maps than you :P
Aqo
wait so you mean to say accuracy isn't muscle memory resulting from practice per bpm
what

everything you say is nice in theory but in the end didn't you just get your accuracy from having 10,000s of plays of experience
kriers

Aqo wrote:

wait so you mean to say accuracy isn't muscle memory resulting from practice per bpm
what

everything you say is nice in theory but in the end didn't you just get your accuracy from having 10,000s of plays of experience
muscle memory is vital, but you can't achieve perfect motorics without holding rythm. Meaning you'll die less if you play high bpm a lot, but you won't get perfect 300
thelewa
I'm telling people the best way to get good at accuracy and Aqo of all people is rebuking me

sdfgsdfgsdfg
silmarilen
because someone who can only get 85% acc on maps totally knows better than one of the most accurate players every
lolcubes
Just a mention: if you want to be good at accuracy, you should be playing with hitsounds.

:D
Aqo

thelewa wrote:

sdfgsdfgsdfg
I never said you're wrong dfsdfsdgjhfgfhjd you have crazy good acc (as well as being insanely good at other stuff as well) and I take your advice to heart
darkmiz
Aqo, you may be good at jumps and high AR but I must say you know little about accuracy.

First, please use hit-sounds. This is a rhythm game, and like taiko you need to match every beat or else it will sound bad. I strongly recommend everyone play some taiko (with hit-sounds, of course) to improve accuracy.

Second, practice slow streams. Playing too much fast streams will get you bad habits (like mashing through slider-streams or fast parts you can't read) which is bad for accuracy. The only way to improve is to play these same streams/parts in a slower speed and read them perfectly and get 100% accuracy. You can use the edit-mode and pratice reading these streams/parts with slower speed. When you get comfortable you will read them at a faster speed. That is the real way to improve accuracy.
winber1
If you are taking his advice to heart, then there is absolutely no reason to be arguing about his advice not working at different BPMs >_>

The only time when accuracy becomes becomes muscle memory is when you have extremely long streams when the music is a blur (as in you can't really hear the beat very clearly). Other than that, by learning the slower tempo streams you begin to develop a sort of mental clock that keeps track of the beat along with music. Also looking at new combos is a very helpful way to know where you are in relation to the beat. I would just look at the new combo and the distance away from it I am, and adjust accordingly to be able to reach that note at the correct time. Sometimes the combo is really long and so it gets a little harder (and it becomes muscle memory for you cursor moving hand, but you are still able to hear the beat and stream with accuracy if not your cursor be accurate).

Also, I have learned this lesson many times when playing piano. Going fast first isn't going to help. Doing so results in very unstable and insecure playing. You tend to mess up randomly a lot more. But if you practice slowly first and get that very solid and exact, speeding up the tempo to the current on will not be hard and it will greatly increase stability of my piano playing. Sadly, I still don't give enough of a shit sometimes and still do it anyways. And I'm not some mediocre piano player saying this, not to be arrogant or anything, so I have a lot of experience in such things.



tl;dr Playing fast stuff all the time will result in muscle memory accuracy, which will make it hard to be accurate in other BPMs. Playing slow stuff will mentally develop a clock that will aid your accuracy through conscious thought, not muscle memory, which will be able to adapt to other BPMs.
Kanye West

lolcubes wrote:

Just a mention: if you want to be good at accuracy, you should be playing with hitsounds.

:D
Yeah this.

1. Get obnoxiously loud and clear hitsounds (ping pong)
2. Turn hitsound volume up and music volume down (100/70)
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!
buny
DON'T adjust to what other players use just because they said so, adjust to whatever yourself feels comfortable with rather than using the excuse "oh I suck it must be how I play".

The only way to improve at a noticeable rate is to play maps that are just out of your skill level; that means maps that aren't too easy for you and maps that are way too hard for you (wants to stab everyone who suggests playing a map that would take said user 999999999 retries to get pass the first 5 seconds).
Tom69_old
fast singles
Singles are the counterpart of streams which can either be jumps or spaced normally. It is advised to only use your fingers for slow singles (singles that are about half as fast as your comfortable streaming speed) and to tense up your hand and use your whole arm for faster singles. That way one can easily exceed ones BPM limits in terms of streams.

The most efficient method of playing singles with your arm that I found is to
  1. Tense up your finger
  2. Lift your wrist from the table a bit
  3. Move your elbow up and your hand down at the same time
  4. Move your elbow down and your hand up at the same time
  5. Repeat last 2 steps. This essentially is rotating your forearm around the point between your elbow and hand back and forth.
It can be very tiring and hurtful for your arm in the beginning if you are not used to it. But don't worry, it will stop after a few days.
Here is an example video:


squares
Squares are some of the hardest patterns you can find in osu!. Nearly every player has problems with properly doing them.

They can appear in any kind of spacing and rotation.
Some mappers even go a step further and map multiple squares in a row in the form of tornado jumps.



There are several methods that helped me succeed certain square patterns. The most important thing that all of those methods have in common is:
Don't look at the pattern as a whole. Ever.

However this can be quite hard. What really helps is trying to see the square as 2 lines instead of a square or alternatively 1 HitCircle, 1 line and another HitCircle. Another method is to sacrifice accuracy and hit the first 2 HitCircles of the square too early on purpose, this is not recommended unless you absolutely need to fc the pattern.


[... Not finished yet, more illustrations coming...]
thelewa
coolbeans
silmarilen
well shit ive been looking at squares as a whole pattern for 2.5 years, no wonder i suck at them
winber1
I've realized that actually myself too quite a while ago, I use this sort of thing for a lot of other patterns as well.
Soly
.
thelewa
Actually Soly I have the same problem with retrying :D
winber1
Not be a nerdy scientific noobynoobnoobfagnew, but sleep is apparently where you learn most of the daily activities that you practice, especially for things requiring muscle memory. So, in some ways, some people are just luckier and more fortunate than others. After you practice something for a decent amount of time a certain day, you will learn somethings immediately, but the vast majority of muscle memory and improvement just comes randomly overnight (some days, it doesn't really happen, but other days it just kind of happens.) Taking breaks from osu! kinda aids in this process a bit.

about the retrying, well after a certain point you reach your limit for that time of the day, at least for that time period.

wait, what am i saying. just practice. okay
Jordan

darkmiz wrote:

Second, practice slow streams. Playing too much fast streams will get you bad habits (like mashing through slider-streams or fast parts you can't read) which is bad for accuracy.
Omfg now that I think of it it could be my problem.I remember I always used to play DT on maps I couldn't pass, and now whatever the BPM is all I do is smashing keys without following the BPM or rhythm of the song and that's why I'm really bad at stream accuracy... I guess I should try playing low BPM stream maps until I have good accu
ann_old

winber1 wrote:

Taking breaks from osu! kinda aids in this process a bit.
not just a bit, terribly much.

Jordan wrote:

I remember I always used to play DT on maps I couldn't pass, and now whatever the BPM is all I do is smashing keys without following the BPM or rhythm of the song and that's why I'm really bad at stream accuracy... I guess I should try playing low BPM stream maps until I have good accu
Remember that it's a rhythm game, keep rhythm to play rhythm games properly. It's not always easy though.
Zare
Someone stickie this, please
Frizz
bump

Tom69 wrote:

There are several methods that helped me succeed certain square patterns. The most important thing that all of those methods have in common is:
Don't look at the pattern as a whole. Ever.
My main problem of all time tbh. I'm suffering from this problem a lot while trying to clear the square patterns on Masterpiece, however AR8 keeps me away from not reading them as a pattern while AR10 make it like a walk in the park.

And the other problem is panic that got out of control. There are several approval maps which I almost fc'd and with good accuracy too. However as I'm getting close to finishing the map, I just couldn't stop panicking. My hand's shaking and my heart cannot stop beating and finally I ended up with a miss which is later followed with more misses or even fail.

also lol @Aqo this is a rhythm game, accuracy and timing matter the most.
I also tried lewa's advice and it actually worked. My accuracy has been improving compared to how it was like 4-6 months ago though it doesn't make anyone goes "wow" or anything, there's a real significant difference right there. There are several Insanes in which I FC'd them with an A long time ago but now I'm able to FC them again with an S easily.
darkmiz
Play this map 100 times and you'll be master of squares.
winber1

darkmiz wrote:

Play this map 100 times and you'll be master of squares.
no
Wishy
Agree.
Macacito
you forgot this
How to improve at osu: having fun
ann_old

winber1 wrote:

darkmiz wrote:

Play this map 100 times and you'll be master of squares.
no
No, that one is just easy compared to Atama no Taisou [Nogard]. :l


Macacito wrote:

you forgot this
How to improve at osu: having fun
Best method out there.
Frizz

Macacito wrote:

you forgot this
How to improve at osu: having fun
+1
nrii_old

Macacito wrote:

you forgot this
How to improve at osu: having fun
you forgot this
How to improve at osu: flashlight hack
macacito = cocococo
Macacito
not
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