Started playing 2011, banned in 2014 (peaked #2000 before cheating, with 4400pp), unban in 2019. This means all my stats from before (medals, score statistics, playcount) are gone.
users/1953876 self explanatory. Ego mapper, 0 improve, should fall into a ditch and never get out.
users/16368505 boring, uninspired, no general concept of introducing ideas. Low quality that looks high quality due to simple visuals, but there is no idea behind anything
users/3552948 boring maps. Rather drink KFC oil at the end of the day than play their maps
users/11322604 not because they cant map, but their fanboys are very aggressive and judge maps by pp and clout rather than objective metrics (and inadvertanly land in your dms if you say a word)
users/5404892 close to no mapping improvement in 4 years. Early maps and new maps all look like they were either made by somebody extremely inexperienced (perhaps getting carried in their mapping tournament for which they have a badge?), which i hope is the case, or intentionally bad map design and execution. Im really not sure. Every map looks like its been modded from a sub-par state to one barely rankable.
What worked for me in the beginning was to have friends of similar time investment. People to call rivals, push each other, even if it is in their own way. The important part is to not compare pp, but pick maps and set scores to compare. SV1'd but higher Acc? Thats the better play. Managed to cheese a difficult map with vastly more combo? Thats a good score.
Keep in mind that everything is relative.
What has NOT WORKED is to keep mindlessly spamming the same map to force a random FC. Thats a time waste most times, and is more about overcoming the mental state of "I have to FC this". Time is not a factor (unless you are terminally ill).
Playing multiple times a day, even if the sessions are only 10-30 minutes, is an insanely powerful way to improve and stay good. A small example of a random day:
Get home from work/school, eat something. Maybe watch a bit of youtube, twitch or whatever. Start up osu with a type of map in mind. Be it light-tech, tech, jumps, consistency, stamina. Stick to that theme for the session. If it doesnt work out, you dont enjoy yourself or the gameplay you bring, stop and try again later. If it works out, play until you dont have any maps in particular where you go "Hey, i really want to play that right now."
Take a break, watch anime, youtube, twitch, make the dishes, cook food, spend time with family, friends or discord call somebody.
Another session, this one the same as the last one.
Its not as important to play constantly, a few days, maybe a few weeks of break have little to no impact. What is important to care about your quality of gameplay. If its just not a day for gaming, then dont. If you dont enjoy yourself, then do something else.
And most importantly, dont let anyone tell you that spamming maps everyday for hours on end will improve you. Lifting the wrong, different weights everyday doesnt help nearly as much as keeping consistency between sessions and building up the weights.
Only retry maps if you notice misses from lack of attention. Not lack of skill or ability.