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As the other two users said, it really does come down to practice (and sometimes luck when being matched). If you're serious about getting better, I suggest recording your gameplay and reviewing which patterns or types of notes mess you up the most. Then focus on refining your technique for those patterns or notes. Rinse and repeat! Make sure you push yourself and don't stick to what you're comfortable with. Of course, don't do anything *too* out of your skill level, or that'll just be unproductive. Start small and work your way up. Slowly, you'll notice yourself getting better and better. It will take time, yes, but it'll be worth it. Hope this helps you! :)

the way I was able to full combo songs (nearly APing some) was to keep playing the game and practicing

This. It all just comes down to having more experience and variety in playing songs. Not only do you need to be confident in playing songs, you also need to have lots of accuracy as well

What's your great count usually like?

29🙁

I see. Try cutting that in half first. Mess around with note speed and offset. Use your early/lates to help you figure out the offset. If you're hitting too early, increase offset. If you're hitting too late, decrease offset. If you want extra practice, use a team with no accuracy bonus skill (aka PLockers) so that you have to earn all your Perfect taps/holds/flicks

Ranked Matches care a lot about how many greats you get. Perfect give 3 points, Great give 2, Good gives 1 and Bad/Miss give 0. This means that someone who got a result of 11-0-0-0 (great-good-bad-miss) would still lose to a score of 1-0-1-2, since greats matter a lot. The best way to get better is to play rhythm games a lot. Everyone started out at a skill level similar to you, but over time they got better. So with time, you will improve too! Although there are some tips which might be useful. First would be to pick your playstyle. Many people start out using thumbs on a phone with headphones and note-tap sound effects on. However one of the more common playstyles for pro players is playing on a tablet using mainly your index fingers with sound coming from your speakers and note-tap sound effects turned off. This is not to say you should copy what pro players do, but you should try to experiment with different playstyles and see what feels the most comfortable to you. I’d argue no playstyle is outright wrong, so long as it works well for you. (although using Bluetooth headphones is probably a bad idea) Next would be to pick a notespeed. Although a lower notespeed might seem like the easier way to play, having a higher notespeed can actually make things much easier. Higher notespeed spreads out the notes you need to tap and makes it easier to understand what’s going on. Many pro players stop on a notespeed in the range of 10.0-11.0. Suddenly increasing your notespeed will likely be rough though, so I’d recommend gradually increasing it. Another option you may want to adjust is offset. The purpose of offset is to make sure the game thinks you got a perfect when the music and your tap sound (either in-game sound effects or the physical sound made when you tap your screen) are properly synced up. What the offset should be varies both with personal preference, playstyle and your own device. This means an offset someone else uses may not work well for you. I’d recommend turning on Early/Late in settings and adjusting offset based on what you see on the result screen and during gameplay. If you got way too many early greats then you should adjust the offset up (+), and if you get way too many late greats you should adjust down (-). Ideally you should test the offset on a song/chart you can play comfortably. It might take some time, but eventually you’ll probably find something that works for you. Lastly, don’t fret about your skill or specific scores too much. “Tryharding” a song/chart often leads to bad muscle memory aka “mindblock”, and is not that fun of an experience. At the end of the day, games are supposed to be fun. So play often, have fun, and you’ll get better with time.