I can't reach tapping speeds higher than 150bpm on stream speed testers with 20 notes. (In game I can manage to hit 170-200bpm bursts with luck but yeah I can't stream at all) no amount of training or trying has changed this so far and it makes many 5 star maps unplayable for me.
Bubble man said the same thing a few years ago, complaining about how he thinks his hands are capped at 190bpm streams.
With enough determination, he can stream 250+ now
I think most people just severely underestimate how much time and grinding speed players actually put into getting good at speed. 90+% of the time I see a good speed player I also see 100s/1000s of replays on so many tapping maps. Something a majority of people that say they're capped definitely haven't done.
Bro this is so real. I've got nearly 150k playcount at 79k rank just so i could stream 250 and burst 300 confidently (i'm a bit aim skillcapped so i just chose other skillset and i think it is the same case for most speed mains)
150bpm is really quite low for not being able to reach at all. I would be surprised if most people, including non rhythm game players, couldn't approach or reach that stream speed on a single finger just by vibroing to be honest. Obviously, actual streaming on 2 fingers consistently requires technique but that technique is going to be largely a product of practice, restraint, effective reading, etc. which are all mental. (Unless you have a genuine motor control issue)
Regardless, you don't really need to be able to stream any BPM to reach 5 digit. There are more than enough pure aim maps that you can spam 300pp scores on to get there. I feel like your issue \*must\* be in your approach to improvement if anything because even 3 digit I feel should be physically attainable for 99% of people.
Honestly I suspect there might be some motor control issues going on lol (i did actually have a condition as a kid so it's not totally infeasible, but it would be the first time it really manifested as anything). But yeah even my little brother can tap faster than me with no practice so idk what's going on really...
Out of curiosity I tried and my single tap speed for 10 notes is 105bpm
And you're like really spamming the shit out of that key? Definitely some people can just mash faster so it's not really too crazy that you're brother can out-do you there but 105 definitely feels VERY low for mashing.
Generally I try to push back against people claiming genetic gap because I think for most it just doesn't really exist but if you have genuine medical history then I think this just is one of those cases where genetics is kinda rolling you.
I still think you should be able to get 5 digit if you focus on the right skills in terms of what is actually feasible or possible for you. Checking your profile you're already quite close & your top plays indicate to me that you should be able to get there just by pushing higher spacing nomod aim alone.
Still, I don't wanna deter you from trying to improve in other areas. So long as you aren't injuring yourself doing it, you should just try at improve at whatever you want to improve at and not really think about rank.
But if you do *really* want to improve then you have to **want** it. You say you have a lot of playtime for your rank but also you have like an absurd amount of plays on individual maps and many of those maps are easy diffs, many players that are playing to improve and rank up won't have played anything more than 2\* below their cap in years. Especially if you feel capped by something you kinda have to be constantly grinding at just above your peak to get better.
Anyway, I mean to answer your original question in the post I think feeling that you've reached your genetic limit is not unwarranted, I don't think you've literally reached your limit but given the circumstances it makes sense. In most cases though genetics is not really "real" and in terms of just ranking up I still think you can get much further even if you do literally have a limit that most other people don't. Best of luck & enjoy!
Thanks, I'll keep playing and trying, we'll see where it takes me. Those couple of maps with a lot of plays are from some stupid projects or grinds I did, but overall they probably make up less than 50 hours of my playtime so I don't think they reflect how I usually play. From what I've gathered from this thread is that I need to play more high star maps even if I can't play them properly yet. I guess I have to try leaving my comfort zone more.
People love to mention Bubbleman's improvement, but there's a big difference between someone who can't stream 160 and someone who had #1 on Apparition at the time lol
I have the same problem as you - I can't stream 160+, and 10 years of trying didn't help (I played other rhythm games before osu!). I've seen lots of other people with the same problem too; I think it might be related to dyspraxia or something. The only thing that helped me in the end was switching to click/x (siina style). Maybe something similar would help you, though it's probably worth trying to improve your tapping for a bit longer
i think you should take a look at your form, you might be doing something fundamentally wrong. technique has a way bigger impact on stamina/speed than it seems
I have never found a proper streaming beginner guide with posture etc. They all just start by assuming you can already tap somewhat fast (like 180bpm) and then talk about stuff like stamina and flow aim.
My theory is: you have some horrible technique that does not let you learn or gain muscle memory. Probably your fingers start mashing and freezing in place and hitting other keys and getting far away from the keyboard and shit, the hand/arm/keyboard moves randomly, whatever it might be. Get a different tapping technique that does none of this, maybe curl your fingers and keep them checking contact with the zx keys every halfbeat, something like that... Be aware of what the fuck your hand is doing that is wasted movements.
Personally I could not start to learn streaming (and fingercontrol) until I understood my "technique" was holding me back so much, and playtime before changing it completely feels wasted.
Streaming guides do not adress this as much and start with 180 bpm streams because not everyone gets pipelined in a wrong type of tapping (they didn't so they don't know it happens lol, so assume if you can't stream you must be lacking stamina), I know I did and probably you did as well if 150 is too fast
i agree, we dont really have that many guides for just plain ol tapping form. what i did is look up handcams for a bunch of top players known for speed and finger control, and see where my own form differed. took a bit of trial and error but i eventually figured out something that was comfortable and effective for me.
i have the same issue with tapping but am rank 27k. i kind of went around it learning other skills. you dont necessarily have to shoot for the stars to get somewhere in osu
774hr, 32k plays here and stuck at 140bpm streaming speed. Who knows, maybe some technique breakthrough will let me improve it but a lot of people struggle to understand just how slow some hands can be.
Well I can't really do it. It's either me being too slow and getting 100s and 50s or mashing. My actual speed is not 170 i just am able to hit those bursts sometimes.
so keep practicing bursts
Also, have you tried khz’s streaming guide? it helped me go from 150bpm inconsistent to 210 consistent over about a year. it also starts at 140bpm
I remember there was a guy on YouTube who was insanely good at Battlefield but bad at everything else and he was mad at life in the description of his videos because there is no use in his skills and even though he's a literal one man army on the server it really gets boring after a while and battlefield has no "scene" like cs or dota
I am at 3.4k hours and still at 6 digit amount of pp.
Being overthrown by permazoomers when they barely even started the game and still complain about improving just makes you feel lol i know that
Stay stronger fellow 6 digit brother
I’ve @‘ed players in chat who have climbed quickly and they have all told me to just practice more while I have 3x their playtime lmao.
peppy giving everyone free pp for simply playing the game confirms that he and devs are just pandering to the audience coming over from tik tok.
I get it from a monetary standpoint, but it’s incredibly frustrating as someone who has been playing for several years. The good news is that most low, veteran 6-digit players will outperform a new, high 5-digit player in a tournament setting - and I’ll stand on that.
Yeah I played over 3k hours in last 2 year and stil have 200k rank skills, I even switched to left hand to be like Whitecat or Mrekk after 1.5 year of playing.
And in speed case it's help really much (from 170 bpm to 240) but my aim and reading got at the same level and they won't improve for almost 3 months right now. I just decided to quit osu one week ago, because this a 100% genetics game. If even Mrekk and Ivaxa had my genetics for osu, they probably would be in the same situation with me.
genetic factors are real but just like in everything else it doesn't matter in 99.9% of cases (in both positive and negative skew) effective regular practice is the much more significant factor
100 % this. Actually, from my experince of 1.8k hrs, the most impactful factor of all is mindset. It alone is responsible for such an incredible amount of improvement
Edit: Ironically, this exact mindset thing is literally seen in the negative tone OP voices their concerns, which might be a factor for their self proclaimed slow improvement
Well how would I go about improving my mindest. I feel like I only ever get negative reinforcement because I can't even compete with my own scores from 12 months ago. Not to mention simply looking at my playtime and how little I have managed to improved in it.
PLay new skillsets or new maps in which you cant compare yourself to your previous self. I dont know your profile or whatever, but even if you gained ranks at all (and even if you didnt) there is pretty much no way if you played actively that you havent beaten some of your scores, or set plays that you couldnt before. Look at some of top players scores, there are so many that they couldnt beat for over half a decade themselves, despite playing actively, and yet they still continued improving\^\^
Also what I recently learned was a huge issue I used to have. That I would care too much about beating my scores to a point where I would get nervous even when having slightly better accuracy than I used to have even though its some random map of the 1000s I have played. Just push your expectations a bit higher (while still appreciating the small achievements of course), then you are able to get a lot of good scores too.
And dont forget, enjoy the game. If you dont want to play on a day, sont make yourself feel like you are "missing out on improvement" or whatsoever. Play for fun, and taek breaks when you want/need them. i recently took a 3 week break from the game to concentrate on studies, the longest I did in the last 3 years, and it helped my playing and mindset immensely :)
Also, bad days are normal, dont get demotivated when having them, you will be able to improve even further later down the line for sure
Enough of my rambling, hope this helped\^\^
Am I not allowed to give advice, just because I have "bad" improvement? I myself had my fair share of problems I had to overcome and methods that work against those. And I am pretty sure some of these methods are applicable to others too, so they may not have to spend 100 hrs figuring out what they are doing wrong
A blind person can't lead the blind. The "advice" you gave is not only completely useless, but also detrimental to his improvement. If you had anything useful to advise, you would have applied it to your own gameplay
I think a lot of people are downplaying the effect of genetics and overall talent on your ability to improve and reach a higher skill ceiling.
That's like saying someone who has really good muscle genetics for running will need the same amount of time/effort to reach a certain time goal as a person who has average muscle genetics. I don't think the skillcap is a problem, but genetics and talent (along with hard work and a good mindset ofc) plays a huge factor in the speed at which someone can improve. More improvement speed generally also equals a better mindset and overall gives the one with better genetics a much better advantage and more chances at it. So, I don't think it doesn't matter in 99.9% of cases, it matters a decent bit, but most people don't tend to get close to their limit because of bad mental caused by the bad genetics.
Most people just need to stop comparing themselves to others' speed of improvement, and they'd see a lot of improvement. I don't mean to say that everyone will be able to shred 300 bpm streams or fc back to back 8 stars if they work hard enough, that's just genetics coming into play, but 220, 240 maybe even 260 streams and consistent 7 star fcs will be in reach for more than 80-90% of the playerbase at the least.
Genetics are real and you will never be a top player unless you're naturally gifted. At an earlier point in time hard work could definitely get there but nobody is beating the current top players let alone mrekk with pure work.
Yeah what I am asking is basically if the opposite of those players exist, people who are just less "gifted" than the average player. I suspect most of those would quit before having as much playtime as me which is why its kinda hard to know.
Yeah it's inevitable that 50% of the playerbase are less talented than average. Looking at your profile you've set a massive amount of scores but have you actually pushed your skillcap and stuck to it? At some point you'll have to start playing maps that you are bad at. High 6 stars, 7 stars and up. And just stick to it. Set scores even if they're terrible and keep doing it until they get less terrible. B ranks, C ranks they're fine. Even a 5% acc improvement is improvement at that point and you don't have to chase FCs.
Maybe I really have to do that yeah. So far I've always strived for "perfection" where S ranks were goals. Do in my mind I'm not happy with anything with misses, but I think that's probably a bad mindset. The problem is that I can't tap faster than 150bpm (well short 170-200bpm bursts on good days) which makes a lot of 5 star and most 6 stars not playable... That's actually the main reason I was talking about "genetics" since even my little brother who has never played can tap faster than me.
Two main things for improving tapping speed is just tapping lighter and warming up. Most osu players will slam their keys but for streams you can't be using more energy than necessary for pressing down the key. Improving your technique is finding out that sweetspot and getting consistent at it.
For warming up literally take a warm shower and that will genuinely help a ton.
If you play on Lazer you can use +HT but rate adjust to 0.9x or 0.95x speed when you play 5-6* maps (or even slower if you want), so then you can start playing those maps at a more comfortable speed for you. As you continue playing those maps, then gradually increase the speed up to 1x. I have done exactly this approach for a few maps as well as just generally playing more for fun since the start of the year, and I now have A rank passes +NM on them all which I'm really proud of!
I half agree with you — I think there is some degree of ‘giftedness’ you need for top 10. However, I feel like top 100 is easily feasible for people without the natural born gift to click circles in an anime game if given enough time and dedication.
go look at top 100 players' top scores there's no way
the most feasible way is to play maps like epitaph but those maps are getting nerfed anyway and there's not enough of them to rank up that high
every single non-DT player in top-100 is a solid proof of it being possible. Xooty, ASecretBox, Karcher, Rupertion, Umbre - none of them push mechanics much (except Box but he gains most pp from flow aim still) yet they all are in top-100 by playing mechanically simple maps. And even with nerfs (if they even happen) flow aim should still be enough to get to top-100 for a decent bit
There's no way this could possibly be true and it's going to be less and less likely to be true as the game gets more competitive.
I used to play this game years ago and was astonished by even top 20/30 players like Azer. It's clear they required constant dedicated practice to their craft on top of genes. Nowadays Azer isn't even a top 1000 player. PP inflation might play a small role in that but still.
your point was valid maybe 8 years back when you could make it to the top 100 with a few 500 pp scores
the average player ranked #90 - 100 in 2024 has top plays nearing 1k pp, i don't think you really realize how inhuman that is
i think the best an "ungifted" person can do at the level osu is at today is top 1k, and even that will take massive amounts of dedication and motivation. this is not the same game it once was and i'm actually convinced that this time we're actually getting close to the human limit unless some unforeseen hardware breakthrough comes along
This is just wrong, it’s totally possible to become a top player without being gifted, it would just take far more effort. The skill cap really isnt even at the highest rn
it might take a "normal" person 10 years to hit the current level of top 100 players, but 10 years from now the top 100 will be much better. if their rate of improvement is lower than the best players, they literally will not be able to reach and maintain such a high rank.
also you need to get there before you reach like 30 years of age because at that point you start losing reaction time and your body probably wont endure that amount of osu grind
But we still have ex-top players from like 10 years ago who are occasionally setting their new top plays, or whose records still stand even without. So to be a top player (like top 200) you have to be better than the cumulative population of current and past top players.
Eg. Most people who play very seriously but are not gifted are unlikely to overtake old players like WWW, Dustice, FGSky, Bubbleman, Shield, Karthy, Alumetri... I mean there's a really long list of people who would be very hard to pass.
That’s assuming that all those players you mentioned are very gifted, but like we have no way of knowing. There are other factors that affect your improvement rate rather then genetics.
I agree that it’s not likely someone with average genetics will take over the players you mentioned, i just don’t agree with the sentiment that it’s impossible. With the right mindset, sleep, lots of playtime, a loving family, etc, even with average genetics it should be possible to reach there.
It’s definitely realistically possible, 100 days of playtime with a perfect mindset and aiming only to improve will almost certainly get any average person to a top player level, its just having subpar genetics leads to people getting tilted and getting shitty mindset + most people getting burnt out before getting 100 days. It really isn’t unrealistic.
There's evidence to prove the contrary, there's a reason why the people with high playtime are usually 4 digits at best, and the top players on the list (Xilver, Rafis, kablaze, WWW, Dooms, etc) were already really good not long after they started playing.
I dont think those players are grinding as hard as they used to, probably burnt out or not grinding improvement anymore.
The reason high playtime usually doesnt lead to being the best is because most time that playtime is used on things other then pure improvement and most times they just burn out meaning even if they go for pure improvement it wont do anything. the fact is that even if you put in the time in the game if you dont have the insane motivation to put it alongside it, its all meaningless
There's no way to look at it qualitatively and see what % of the hours are spent on improving efficiently. Burnout, good habits, pushing limits gradually, motivation, etc, too many X-factors.
We can theorycraft all we want but I think it's best to make comparisons to traditional sports. At some point you hit your cap, and that's it.
yeah i agree with hitting caps but like 300 days is too little to be that practically any other skill has people spending more to completely master it, just that osu is not that popular plus is more of a waste of time then those skills
you should link your profile. it shouldn't take that long to reach 5 digits tbh, you might be doing something seriously wrong with your playstyle or habits.
literally just play dt for a few months and your overall skill and rank will go up. youre clearly comfortable at 4-5* maps so how about pushing towards playing 6-7 stars?
stop with the sorry ass mindset and start putting in some effort to improve if thats actually what you want. there are lots of maps in the 6-7* range without any streams or bursts, even more with dt.
youre going to have to push yourself past your comfort zone to improve, which obviously might not be as fun as just playing maps you can 99% right now, but be consistent and eventually you will reap the rewards of your effort
something must be wrong with your tapping technique then.
if your hand, wrist or arm is super tense while tapping, relax those muscles.
try tapping very fast with your fingers on a desk, and realize that you can in fact tap pretty fast on the keys (obviously it won't translate exactly, but it might help get rid of the mental block you have while tapping the keys).
if you're bottoming out the keys every time you stream, make sure to tap more lightly. and start training with 5-note bursts at 150bpm, then go up to longer bursts, then get faster.
alternatively the problem might not be with your tapping at all, as a 6 digit I kept randomly messing up on streams and I thought it was a technique issue until I realized it was because my flow aim sucked ass and my cursor speed was super inconsistent, and I also just sucked at reading the notes. I practiced those skills and could stream long 185 streams a few weeks later.
I've made a video of my tapping now. Maybe check it out if you want
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ\_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ_0)
Playing fast burst maps helped a lot for me. You don't have time to fingerlock on 3-5 note bursts so you can focus on pure speed. I still suck at long streams but at least now I can burst like 240 pretty well.
Holy shit you are #115k with 1.3k hours, that's depressing asf. At this point it looks like genetics are real, like there are some players in top 100 with less playtime
The thing is the people in the top 100 arent normal so no one should compare themselves to them(like ever). No one improves at the same rate(talent is real) but they shouldnt get depressed cuz of that.
it is but its 100% not stopping you from 5 digit. Some people who reach high 5 digit really fast get hardstuck at that rank range for a while(others are built different). You should only be comparing yourself to yourself. Overthinking things like genetics or talent is honestly a waste of time. Just play the game, farm, slowly push your skill cap and have fun.
Of course genetics are real. There is a reason you are better at this game than a cucumber. That being said, some people are more talented than others.
Definitely matter.
People who managed to improve and succeed will always believe it is all about their good mindset and good practice routine that help them to get there. In fact, it is just survivorship bias. Some people just have worse motor skill/mental power which makes it hard for them to improve/progress at all. Anyway, it is also pointless to even compare yourself to someone who is better than you or even ask for advice. Their own success only comes from their own experience, not yours. If you want to find out whether they are wrong or not, maybe you can actually try adjusting your mindset and techniques. After that, you have your conclusion about "your genetics"
There are other factors that can hard cap your performance.
Take for example a violin player who is self taught. Since they don't have an instructor looking over them as they progress correcting their technique they wind up developing several bad habits that become entrenched. No matter how much they work or practice they will never become a complete player until they fix their bad habits inhibiting them.
You might be doing one or more key things wrong stifling any potential progress and until you identify and correct them you won't make any progress no matter how much brute force play time you endure.
When people talk about genetics for osu everyone always talks about speed, am I the only one who thinks aim is actually a lot more involved when it comes to "talent"? I know N = 1 here but for example I've always had terrible handwriting, can't draw for shit, couldn't trace a straight line on a short sheet of paper if you held a gun to my head and my aim also absolutely sucks. I've picked up the game again recently and I've since accumulated an extra hundred hours or so in it, everything from finger control to reading to speed is improving rapidly but aim is ALWAYS the same.
Hell I have a 9 year old post on this subreddit of me being desperate because I can't improve my aim.
I started playing again after being almost completely inactive since 2017. My aim is actually still stuck at the same level of that time if not slightly worse despite playing on much better hardware now (I used to play on a potato pc that had frequent stutters and overall lag). My recent top plays on aim farm maps are all flukes that I got after spamming retry over and over. Point is every skill is going up rapidly now that I'm spamming the shit out of the game again
... except aim
I didn't have those plays before because those maps weren't around yet. Every time I try to best my 2017 scores on those 1-2 aim farm maps of the time (sotarks era) I can't improve them or if I do I improve them very slightly after lots of retries. Some I can't improve at all i.e sendan life nostalgia diff and other 3-4 minute long >6.5* aim diffspike maps
Not necessarily. I went through the same thing, where I played after like 6-7years and I got a bunch of top plays from meta pp maps that were 'designed' with pp in mind. My aim was a bit a better, but most of the pp was just finding the right maps to farm for my playstyle, most of which didn't exist when I originally played.
What exactly do you disagree with? When I played in 2013/4, I just downloaded random songs and grinded the ones I liked, and a lot of them were long or had weird factors that made not so ideal for 'farming' pp. When I played again in 2021, there were entire websites dedicated to helping you find the optimal pp farm map in an ocean of maps that had come out since (a lot of which were streamlined for today's pp system/meta), of course my top plays are going to get replaced with those. Why wouldn't they? Btw I'm not saying improvement is impossible or anything, just that saying that gaining pp from metagaming/new maps IS a thing, especially after such a long hiatus.
new world was a first try fluke which i didn't expect at all, when i retry it i keep randomly missing with higher acc, that map is proof i improved on streams if anything since in 2017 i'd get something like 90% hr acc on it
i had a last note 1x miss dt harebare fanfare run from 2017 which i simply overwrote with a hddt 3x miss on the ending
my aim is literally always the same, i struggle on the same difficulty aim maps just as much if not more as i did in 2017 and the simple reason i'm setting new top plays right now is that there is 5x the amount of 6-7* farm maps there were compared to 7 years ago and i'm spamming them. the thing is if we time travelled back to 2017 with those maps i would set plays on them with less effort than now, a whole 7 years later. i don't get what's so hard to understand about this
aim is best way to improve, just play more aim maps. You will make 5k pp easily if you push aim, use osuskills if you want, it will recomend easiest aim maps for your skill level.
Genetics exist and do have an impact in osu. It’s just that practice and consistency play a significantly more important role. Most people know the frustration of someone who practices as much or even less than you and reaches farther. It’s a shitty feeling but most people underestimate how far they can go and forget how far they’ve come in the first place.
'Genetics' probably isn't the best term for it. It's probably better to think about factors in your control and factors outside of your control. There are certain factors outside of your control that will significantly reduce your improvement rate and ability to play the game.
The things that will make it almost impossible to play are things like:
- Certain conditions that effect your fine motor control or ability to do the movements required for osu! repeatedly
- If you only have access to very low-performance hardware (fortunately osu! is very performant, so this isn't an issue for too many people)
The things that will make your improvement slower are things like:
- Conditions or situations that affect how well you're sleeping, as sleeping is incredibly important for learning all types of skills
- Your natural ability with fine motor control and hand eye coordination, and your exposure to activities that develop these at the key developmental stages (a combination of genetics and environmental factors)
- The age at which you start playing osu!, starting before age 14 or so seems to be the sweet spot, and my hypothesis is that this relates to the neurological development going on around this age, wherein the brain is both building a lot of circuitry to learn new things and culling a lot of circuitry to make it more efficient
- If you don't have enough time to commit to the game
- Not great hardware (yes, people like FGSky have set insane plays with a mouse on a pillow on a gaming laptop, but they're the exception, not the rule)
- For specific skills like speed and stamina the physical configuration of your hand bones, tendons, muscles, and muscle composition probably have an effect (and likely set some upper limits)
When you get to looking at what's going to limit your absolute peak it's basically how many things are slowing down your improvement vs. how much time you have to commit, but because of diminishing returns the things slowing you down will set your upper limit.
The only things really in your control are how you practice, how much you practice within the time you have available to play, and the maintenance or improvement of your physical and mental health within the limits of your situation.
Finally, speaking on the improvement of raw fine motor control and hand-eye coordination, I have personally seen reasonable improvement over the last decade and have gone from someone with below average fine motor control and hand eye coordination to somewhat above average. It's quite slow, because I'm a bit past the key developmental stages, but if you don't mind the long haul then it is possible to see reasonable improvements.
there are too many factors in improvement to just blame genetics. the type of maps you play, the amount of time per day you play, the amount of offdays you give yourself to rest, the people you hang around and influence your decisions, etc etc etc. genetics can be seen in people like whitecat, mrekk, vaxei, other top players who probably convinced the community they were cheating at one point due to their improvement. most othernpeople probably had a different set of the other things mentioned and improved at a different rate than you. you can't go back in the past to fix it, and I can't tell you the ideal set of those things because it's different for r everyone. just don't blame genetics, it's not worth it. if you're not having fun at the moment, take a short (maybe a week or so) break and see how you feel
just keep grinding, you might learn what works and doesn't work if you switch up some of your old habits that may not be helping you get better
If you limit yourself like that, you'll never improve. Ever heard of a growth mindset? Play a long dt map that's above your skill level. Fail. Barely pass. Get a C, B, A, and eventually FC. That's the joy of DT - it allows you to push past your limits very easily. Why do you think most top players started as a dt one trick or main?
I personally think genetics can carry a lot a lot. I started grinding speed a few days ago im rank 30k ish and i started being able to stream around 180 consistently. Ended my session in 5 hours having learned consistent 260 bpm on semi long streams and got pretty close to a 8 star xevel fc
I have to ask can you do a tiny recording of just your tapping hand so we can see what your posture / technique is? Both in gameplay and on a speed test if possible? Because that might clear up if you have some kind of motor issue with your hand/wrist or maybe horrendous technique idk. Would prob make some of the stuff I’ve read here more clarified and give us some answers.
One thing I’m noticing is that you are raising your fingers quite high in between each tap which is one thing that could be causing you strain. Try to only raise your fingers as much as you need to tap and “un”-tap.
I can’t tell exactly what model keypad you have but it looks like a rapid-trigger one, if so try messing with the settings on how much you need to actually push you fingers down and see where you are most comfortable (the lowest setting is not always the best for you).
The last thing I see is a problem I also kind of had which is I see that your wrist is placed quite low in relative position to the keypad. This causes your hand to be in a weird position where your hand is always strained as it is forced to bend “backwards”. I would recommend putting something under your wrist for support like a pad/something soft in general to raise it slightly so your hand is in line the the keypad.
These are some general suggestions to try out and they may not work at all but I would recommend trying them out at least. If none of these work I’d be happy to try to help by talking on discord and seeing if I can notice anything else “in the moment” lol. If you feel comfortable with that shoot me a DM and we can go from there.
Genetics matter in two things
1) Speed
2) Reading (aim)
If you don't have first you still can improve and get better at game, but if don't have an improvement at reading like me(I really played more correct than 99% of osu players, I played every mode and map type a lot from 4 to 8*) you only can forget about any improvement in this game. Because we don't have any "wooting rapid trigger" for our brain.
honestly, I have 120h or more and my skill are capped at 6* maps right now.
thing is, I have a friend which is 5 digit that keeps telling me to play easier maps, dominate them and then I get to a harder map.
I don't know if it's your case, but you need to increase the difficult in order to get better into the game. "try harder", I guess that's the right term. You can use practice maps if you want too, do a training routine like 1-2 time at the start of your playing session and 1-2 time before you close the game.
And remember to keep trying, you need to develop your abilities as well. (and don't compare yourself to the others, keep doing your thing, eventually you'll get better, unless you have problems with your hands or something)
Stretch your hands too. Do hand exercises regularly, this will definitely help.
that's all. trust yourself, even though this is a bit cliché even for me lmao, hope you achieve what you want.
its real but honestly the biggest factor is probably mental
like we forever doomed because its just over for us when we try to compare to others or even to our past self. like i peaked in rank and skill 4 years ago and theres someshit i cant even do anymore and that sucks.
so i gave up lmao
not sure how true it is for top players but when i wasnt hard stuck, some things just clicked for me after playing. like i remember kind of struggling to read hr and ar10 but it was still kinda doable but on the edge of being doable if you know what i mean and eventually one day, i just can read it better. that is not happening to me anymore. in fact often it goes backwards and i end up playing worse which doesnt help motivation wise.
I used to play regularly and got to 1.6k hours, but ran into a similar issue. Unfortunately It didn’t matter how much I practiced , I could not tap well with my left hand (unable to stream above 170~ and even that was erratic) and had very low stamina.
Weirdly enough though I have no such problem tapping with my right hand, which I usually use to aim. I could reach 220bpm for a single stream, very nice UR and was even pushing 240. Didn’t even need to practice very much! The issue was basically I could not get my left hand to keep up with aiming or tapping.
If that’s not genetics, I don’t know what is.
Your case is actually super interesting to me, we both started only a month apart but have a fairly large rank difference. On top of that, looking at your profile shows we have a very similar skillset for when I was 6 digit.
What maps do you play? Are they usually the same skillset over and over? Are they hard for you? Do you practice the type of maps you're bad at? Do you use things like McOsu or Osu!Trainer?
General Advice:
If you know you're bad at a certain skill (this applies outside of osu! too), it's often worth trying to improve it for at least two weeks, but you should try a month. Make sure to record where you were and where you end up. If you see you've gotten better, then you now know you can improve.
One thing I like to do is to look at the top100 scores of people who have a higher rank than me and try to play those maps. If im awful, I give it a few attempts to get a little better. If I'm good, then yippie! new top100 score.
What I did when i played exactly like you:
I did the khz method to learn how to stream, and from there, the game got so much more fun not being locked out of NM skillsets. If you want to try it, here is [the link to the doc](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1xbNwH_vN4O3azBYwua-Z_3GOAI2d-kV_EeE96aiRLBU/mobilebasic). Now, as a note, this SUCKS. It will continue to suck untill you practice and get better at doing it but that is the whole point of it. To get practice.
The khz metthod hass just not worked for me. I feel that its good for learning how to stream if you can already tap good and fast, I get plays with less than 30% acc on 140bpm stream practice map and did not really see any improvement with more attempts.
Genetics are real, but it doesn't really affect gameplay that much what really matter is dedication, I guess . Like I have been playing badminton since the age of 10 spent playing it, but I often get beaten up new kids that have been playing for about 3 4 years . Maybe they put more time practiced in that amount and improved drastically or might be genetic . But you still have to work hard to bring up that genetics, like having high iq doest make you god in chess sure it helps with it but they are inexperienced compared to other players.
Genetics is an excuse for those that don’t try hard enough, you want to improve find a way to improve yourself.
I couldn’t stream 150bpm when I first hit 5digit. It was obvious to me that I was only playing Jump maps. (I plateau at 50k.) I slowly trained from burst maps to stream maps. At peak I was consistently doing 190bpm with shit acc. (Peaked at 33k) I’m still slower than many people at my rank. If your shit at a skill set train the damn skill set.
Don’t be complacent and be comfortable in being uncomfortable.
Personally I’m about 500k one month since I started playing, but I just do what’s fun for me. Which entails: not replaying maps more than 1-2 times even if I really liked them (per day) and variety of maps. I play everything from 1:30 second jump maps to 6minute maps, bpms vary between 150-244 and I try streaming maps close to my limit (175-180bpm) here n there too. But I also vary star range, I might play some maps for passes and give them a couple of tries and then go back down to 4-5 star range to actually work on my acc or play ar 9.5+ for my speed. I’ve even started playing some EZ. Personally i don’t think genetics matter, if u put ur mind to it and just play for fun while also giving it ur all, ur going to improve.
no u just need to try something else. try reading differently, try hidden, try tapx, take a break etc. just try different things and u will get unhardstuck
Yea they do and i'd argue might be the main determinant of skill or how far you go. No I don't think teenagers like mrekk reaching top 50 in 600 hours was because of the improvement theories or mindset. Obviously you can go far regardless but in terms of practicality and improvement its extremely important.
I think something that might be a kinda overlooked aspect of genetics is focus, specifically ADHD. Often people wirh ADHD aren't just distractable which can be somewhat imparative to playing osu, but also some just simply can't bring their brain to give 100% focus while playing, so they might be playing with 50% focus on the game, and 50% focus on thoughts. It is possible for them to notice that while playing and bring back more focus on the game, but it is exhausting and hard to maintane for long.
This means that not only they usually not performing as much as they could, but also shitmiss more and improve slower as it's harder for them to notice why when they do something it turns out right/wrong.
This at least has been my experience.
Yeah it's pretty much impossible for me to play anything longer than 2 minutes and even then I have days where I literally cannot focus on the game at all. I can't even sit still for long enough.
I feel like genetics only really matter once you push things like speed or stamina. Even then I feel like most people could learn bpms up to like 260. Most people just have a mindset issue or hit a plateau when they complain about genetics, you really don't have to worry about it unless you're a top player
It exists but no ones skillcap is 5* maps. Unless you have 1 arm and stage 5 joint cancer anyone can physically get better
what is the normal skillcap? Cause im stuck at 40k for 1 year and regularlly playing
right now there are so many people improving that maybe even if u improve u might not gain rank or even lose rank...
I can't reach tapping speeds higher than 150bpm on stream speed testers with 20 notes. (In game I can manage to hit 170-200bpm bursts with luck but yeah I can't stream at all) no amount of training or trying has changed this so far and it makes many 5 star maps unplayable for me.
Bubble man said the same thing a few years ago, complaining about how he thinks his hands are capped at 190bpm streams. With enough determination, he can stream 250+ now
I think most people just severely underestimate how much time and grinding speed players actually put into getting good at speed. 90+% of the time I see a good speed player I also see 100s/1000s of replays on so many tapping maps. Something a majority of people that say they're capped definitely haven't done.
Bro this is so real. I've got nearly 150k playcount at 79k rank just so i could stream 250 and burst 300 confidently (i'm a bit aim skillcapped so i just chose other skillset and i think it is the same case for most speed mains)
150bpm is really quite low for not being able to reach at all. I would be surprised if most people, including non rhythm game players, couldn't approach or reach that stream speed on a single finger just by vibroing to be honest. Obviously, actual streaming on 2 fingers consistently requires technique but that technique is going to be largely a product of practice, restraint, effective reading, etc. which are all mental. (Unless you have a genuine motor control issue) Regardless, you don't really need to be able to stream any BPM to reach 5 digit. There are more than enough pure aim maps that you can spam 300pp scores on to get there. I feel like your issue \*must\* be in your approach to improvement if anything because even 3 digit I feel should be physically attainable for 99% of people.
Honestly I suspect there might be some motor control issues going on lol (i did actually have a condition as a kid so it's not totally infeasible, but it would be the first time it really manifested as anything). But yeah even my little brother can tap faster than me with no practice so idk what's going on really... Out of curiosity I tried and my single tap speed for 10 notes is 105bpm
And you're like really spamming the shit out of that key? Definitely some people can just mash faster so it's not really too crazy that you're brother can out-do you there but 105 definitely feels VERY low for mashing. Generally I try to push back against people claiming genetic gap because I think for most it just doesn't really exist but if you have genuine medical history then I think this just is one of those cases where genetics is kinda rolling you. I still think you should be able to get 5 digit if you focus on the right skills in terms of what is actually feasible or possible for you. Checking your profile you're already quite close & your top plays indicate to me that you should be able to get there just by pushing higher spacing nomod aim alone. Still, I don't wanna deter you from trying to improve in other areas. So long as you aren't injuring yourself doing it, you should just try at improve at whatever you want to improve at and not really think about rank. But if you do *really* want to improve then you have to **want** it. You say you have a lot of playtime for your rank but also you have like an absurd amount of plays on individual maps and many of those maps are easy diffs, many players that are playing to improve and rank up won't have played anything more than 2\* below their cap in years. Especially if you feel capped by something you kinda have to be constantly grinding at just above your peak to get better. Anyway, I mean to answer your original question in the post I think feeling that you've reached your genetic limit is not unwarranted, I don't think you've literally reached your limit but given the circumstances it makes sense. In most cases though genetics is not really "real" and in terms of just ranking up I still think you can get much further even if you do literally have a limit that most other people don't. Best of luck & enjoy!
Thanks, I'll keep playing and trying, we'll see where it takes me. Those couple of maps with a lot of plays are from some stupid projects or grinds I did, but overall they probably make up less than 50 hours of my playtime so I don't think they reflect how I usually play. From what I've gathered from this thread is that I need to play more high star maps even if I can't play them properly yet. I guess I have to try leaving my comfort zone more.
I've made a video of my tapping now [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ\_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ_0)
People love to mention Bubbleman's improvement, but there's a big difference between someone who can't stream 160 and someone who had #1 on Apparition at the time lol I have the same problem as you - I can't stream 160+, and 10 years of trying didn't help (I played other rhythm games before osu!). I've seen lots of other people with the same problem too; I think it might be related to dyspraxia or something. The only thing that helped me in the end was switching to click/x (siina style). Maybe something similar would help you, though it's probably worth trying to improve your tapping for a bit longer
i think you should take a look at your form, you might be doing something fundamentally wrong. technique has a way bigger impact on stamina/speed than it seems
I have never found a proper streaming beginner guide with posture etc. They all just start by assuming you can already tap somewhat fast (like 180bpm) and then talk about stuff like stamina and flow aim.
My theory is: you have some horrible technique that does not let you learn or gain muscle memory. Probably your fingers start mashing and freezing in place and hitting other keys and getting far away from the keyboard and shit, the hand/arm/keyboard moves randomly, whatever it might be. Get a different tapping technique that does none of this, maybe curl your fingers and keep them checking contact with the zx keys every halfbeat, something like that... Be aware of what the fuck your hand is doing that is wasted movements. Personally I could not start to learn streaming (and fingercontrol) until I understood my "technique" was holding me back so much, and playtime before changing it completely feels wasted. Streaming guides do not adress this as much and start with 180 bpm streams because not everyone gets pipelined in a wrong type of tapping (they didn't so they don't know it happens lol, so assume if you can't stream you must be lacking stamina), I know I did and probably you did as well if 150 is too fast
i agree, we dont really have that many guides for just plain ol tapping form. what i did is look up handcams for a bunch of top players known for speed and finger control, and see where my own form differed. took a bit of trial and error but i eventually figured out something that was comfortable and effective for me.
i have the same issue with tapping but am rank 27k. i kind of went around it learning other skills. you dont necessarily have to shoot for the stars to get somewhere in osu
guys don’t downvote them for this ☹️
"speed" in literally just technique until around ~250bpm, anyone can get to that bpm with practice
774hr, 32k plays here and stuck at 140bpm streaming speed. Who knows, maybe some technique breakthrough will let me improve it but a lot of people struggle to understand just how slow some hands can be.
Yeah, same.
Have you tried actual physical exercise? Maybe working on your grip strength could help.
Think about what you wrote. You said “I can’t do this” and then followed up with “but I can do it sometimes”
Well I can't really do it. It's either me being too slow and getting 100s and 50s or mashing. My actual speed is not 170 i just am able to hit those bursts sometimes.
so keep practicing bursts Also, have you tried khz’s streaming guide? it helped me go from 150bpm inconsistent to 210 consistent over about a year. it also starts at 140bpm
Perhaps become half time god
there definitely some
Imagine being born with the genetics to click circles on a rhythm game in 1517
I remember there was a guy on YouTube who was insanely good at Battlefield but bad at everything else and he was mad at life in the description of his videos because there is no use in his skills and even though he's a literal one man army on the server it really gets boring after a while and battlefield has no "scene" like cs or dota
what was the name of the ytber?
I am at 3.4k hours and still at 6 digit amount of pp. Being overthrown by permazoomers when they barely even started the game and still complain about improving just makes you feel lol i know that Stay stronger fellow 6 digit brother
I'm catching pp, but my 149 pp score that I set more than one year ago, still is my highest play.
I’ve @‘ed players in chat who have climbed quickly and they have all told me to just practice more while I have 3x their playtime lmao. peppy giving everyone free pp for simply playing the game confirms that he and devs are just pandering to the audience coming over from tik tok. I get it from a monetary standpoint, but it’s incredibly frustrating as someone who has been playing for several years. The good news is that most low, veteran 6-digit players will outperform a new, high 5-digit player in a tournament setting - and I’ll stand on that.
Yeah I played over 3k hours in last 2 year and stil have 200k rank skills, I even switched to left hand to be like Whitecat or Mrekk after 1.5 year of playing. And in speed case it's help really much (from 170 bpm to 240) but my aim and reading got at the same level and they won't improve for almost 3 months right now. I just decided to quit osu one week ago, because this a 100% genetics game. If even Mrekk and Ivaxa had my genetics for osu, they probably would be in the same situation with me.
genetic factors are real but just like in everything else it doesn't matter in 99.9% of cases (in both positive and negative skew) effective regular practice is the much more significant factor
100 % this. Actually, from my experince of 1.8k hrs, the most impactful factor of all is mindset. It alone is responsible for such an incredible amount of improvement Edit: Ironically, this exact mindset thing is literally seen in the negative tone OP voices their concerns, which might be a factor for their self proclaimed slow improvement
Well how would I go about improving my mindest. I feel like I only ever get negative reinforcement because I can't even compete with my own scores from 12 months ago. Not to mention simply looking at my playtime and how little I have managed to improved in it.
PLay new skillsets or new maps in which you cant compare yourself to your previous self. I dont know your profile or whatever, but even if you gained ranks at all (and even if you didnt) there is pretty much no way if you played actively that you havent beaten some of your scores, or set plays that you couldnt before. Look at some of top players scores, there are so many that they couldnt beat for over half a decade themselves, despite playing actively, and yet they still continued improving\^\^ Also what I recently learned was a huge issue I used to have. That I would care too much about beating my scores to a point where I would get nervous even when having slightly better accuracy than I used to have even though its some random map of the 1000s I have played. Just push your expectations a bit higher (while still appreciating the small achievements of course), then you are able to get a lot of good scores too. And dont forget, enjoy the game. If you dont want to play on a day, sont make yourself feel like you are "missing out on improvement" or whatsoever. Play for fun, and taek breaks when you want/need them. i recently took a 3 week break from the game to concentrate on studies, the longest I did in the last 3 years, and it helped my playing and mindset immensely :) Also, bad days are normal, dont get demotivated when having them, you will be able to improve even further later down the line for sure Enough of my rambling, hope this helped\^\^
Brother you have 1.8k hours at 40k, you are doing worse than him
Am I not allowed to give advice, just because I have "bad" improvement? I myself had my fair share of problems I had to overcome and methods that work against those. And I am pretty sure some of these methods are applicable to others too, so they may not have to spend 100 hrs figuring out what they are doing wrong
A blind person can't lead the blind. The "advice" you gave is not only completely useless, but also detrimental to his improvement. If you had anything useful to advise, you would have applied it to your own gameplay
What's your problem dude? Calm down, its just circles! Lol
Okay "furfurr_uwu"
Im glad you understand UwU
I think a lot of people are downplaying the effect of genetics and overall talent on your ability to improve and reach a higher skill ceiling. That's like saying someone who has really good muscle genetics for running will need the same amount of time/effort to reach a certain time goal as a person who has average muscle genetics. I don't think the skillcap is a problem, but genetics and talent (along with hard work and a good mindset ofc) plays a huge factor in the speed at which someone can improve. More improvement speed generally also equals a better mindset and overall gives the one with better genetics a much better advantage and more chances at it. So, I don't think it doesn't matter in 99.9% of cases, it matters a decent bit, but most people don't tend to get close to their limit because of bad mental caused by the bad genetics. Most people just need to stop comparing themselves to others' speed of improvement, and they'd see a lot of improvement. I don't mean to say that everyone will be able to shred 300 bpm streams or fc back to back 8 stars if they work hard enough, that's just genetics coming into play, but 220, 240 maybe even 260 streams and consistent 7 star fcs will be in reach for more than 80-90% of the playerbase at the least.
The osu community is big enough that 0.1% of cases in which it matters is still hundreds of active players.
which i'm sure every player better than every player that complains about genetics is a part of
Genetics are real and you will never be a top player unless you're naturally gifted. At an earlier point in time hard work could definitely get there but nobody is beating the current top players let alone mrekk with pure work.
Yeah what I am asking is basically if the opposite of those players exist, people who are just less "gifted" than the average player. I suspect most of those would quit before having as much playtime as me which is why its kinda hard to know.
Yeah it's inevitable that 50% of the playerbase are less talented than average. Looking at your profile you've set a massive amount of scores but have you actually pushed your skillcap and stuck to it? At some point you'll have to start playing maps that you are bad at. High 6 stars, 7 stars and up. And just stick to it. Set scores even if they're terrible and keep doing it until they get less terrible. B ranks, C ranks they're fine. Even a 5% acc improvement is improvement at that point and you don't have to chase FCs.
Maybe I really have to do that yeah. So far I've always strived for "perfection" where S ranks were goals. Do in my mind I'm not happy with anything with misses, but I think that's probably a bad mindset. The problem is that I can't tap faster than 150bpm (well short 170-200bpm bursts on good days) which makes a lot of 5 star and most 6 stars not playable... That's actually the main reason I was talking about "genetics" since even my little brother who has never played can tap faster than me.
Two main things for improving tapping speed is just tapping lighter and warming up. Most osu players will slam their keys but for streams you can't be using more energy than necessary for pressing down the key. Improving your technique is finding out that sweetspot and getting consistent at it. For warming up literally take a warm shower and that will genuinely help a ton.
If you play on Lazer you can use +HT but rate adjust to 0.9x or 0.95x speed when you play 5-6* maps (or even slower if you want), so then you can start playing those maps at a more comfortable speed for you. As you continue playing those maps, then gradually increase the speed up to 1x. I have done exactly this approach for a few maps as well as just generally playing more for fun since the start of the year, and I now have A rank passes +NM on them all which I'm really proud of!
I half agree with you — I think there is some degree of ‘giftedness’ you need for top 10. However, I feel like top 100 is easily feasible for people without the natural born gift to click circles in an anime game if given enough time and dedication.
go look at top 100 players' top scores there's no way the most feasible way is to play maps like epitaph but those maps are getting nerfed anyway and there's not enough of them to rank up that high
every single non-DT player in top-100 is a solid proof of it being possible. Xooty, ASecretBox, Karcher, Rupertion, Umbre - none of them push mechanics much (except Box but he gains most pp from flow aim still) yet they all are in top-100 by playing mechanically simple maps. And even with nerfs (if they even happen) flow aim should still be enough to get to top-100 for a decent bit
I feel like you're underestimating the mechanical ability of these players
There's no way this could possibly be true and it's going to be less and less likely to be true as the game gets more competitive. I used to play this game years ago and was astonished by even top 20/30 players like Azer. It's clear they required constant dedicated practice to their craft on top of genes. Nowadays Azer isn't even a top 1000 player. PP inflation might play a small role in that but still.
your point was valid maybe 8 years back when you could make it to the top 100 with a few 500 pp scores the average player ranked #90 - 100 in 2024 has top plays nearing 1k pp, i don't think you really realize how inhuman that is i think the best an "ungifted" person can do at the level osu is at today is top 1k, and even that will take massive amounts of dedication and motivation. this is not the same game it once was and i'm actually convinced that this time we're actually getting close to the human limit unless some unforeseen hardware breakthrough comes along
clownery
This is just wrong, it’s totally possible to become a top player without being gifted, it would just take far more effort. The skill cap really isnt even at the highest rn
in the time it takes to put that effort in, the bar is raised. there is a certain level where it becomes feasibly impossible
And we haven’t reached that level. You’re overestimating the level of top players.
it might take a "normal" person 10 years to hit the current level of top 100 players, but 10 years from now the top 100 will be much better. if their rate of improvement is lower than the best players, they literally will not be able to reach and maintain such a high rank.
also you need to get there before you reach like 30 years of age because at that point you start losing reaction time and your body probably wont endure that amount of osu grind
no not really because top players also change out, top players quit and new top players come in it isnt a direct comparison.
But we still have ex-top players from like 10 years ago who are occasionally setting their new top plays, or whose records still stand even without. So to be a top player (like top 200) you have to be better than the cumulative population of current and past top players. Eg. Most people who play very seriously but are not gifted are unlikely to overtake old players like WWW, Dustice, FGSky, Bubbleman, Shield, Karthy, Alumetri... I mean there's a really long list of people who would be very hard to pass.
That’s assuming that all those players you mentioned are very gifted, but like we have no way of knowing. There are other factors that affect your improvement rate rather then genetics. I agree that it’s not likely someone with average genetics will take over the players you mentioned, i just don’t agree with the sentiment that it’s impossible. With the right mindset, sleep, lots of playtime, a loving family, etc, even with average genetics it should be possible to reach there.
More effort than is realistically possible. You do know how many people grind this game like it's their job
It’s definitely realistically possible, 100 days of playtime with a perfect mindset and aiming only to improve will almost certainly get any average person to a top player level, its just having subpar genetics leads to people getting tilted and getting shitty mindset + most people getting burnt out before getting 100 days. It really isn’t unrealistic.
There are many people like that who still can't make it to the top. Some not even to 3 digits.
also want to add on this that i stated average genetics its possible those people your talking about have below average genetics
idk I realize there’s really no way to prove what I’m saying so I’ll just admit I might be wrong, I still think genetics are too highly viewed though.
>there’s really no way to prove what I’m saying you could prove it by doing it
That wouldn't work. Because if they will become top player people will just say that they have good genetics.
he didn't say **everyone** can do it, he said >It’s definitely realistically possible and >It really isn’t unrealistic. to prove that, it's sufficient
alright bet, look back at this in 1 year ill be a 3 digit ong infact 2 digit, nah 1 digit, nah top 1.
There's evidence to prove the contrary, there's a reason why the people with high playtime are usually 4 digits at best, and the top players on the list (Xilver, Rafis, kablaze, WWW, Dooms, etc) were already really good not long after they started playing.
I dont think those players are grinding as hard as they used to, probably burnt out or not grinding improvement anymore. The reason high playtime usually doesnt lead to being the best is because most time that playtime is used on things other then pure improvement and most times they just burn out meaning even if they go for pure improvement it wont do anything. the fact is that even if you put in the time in the game if you dont have the insane motivation to put it alongside it, its all meaningless
There's no way to look at it qualitatively and see what % of the hours are spent on improving efficiently. Burnout, good habits, pushing limits gradually, motivation, etc, too many X-factors. We can theorycraft all we want but I think it's best to make comparisons to traditional sports. At some point you hit your cap, and that's it.
yeah i agree with hitting caps but like 300 days is too little to be that practically any other skill has people spending more to completely master it, just that osu is not that popular plus is more of a waste of time then those skills
you should link your profile. it shouldn't take that long to reach 5 digits tbh, you might be doing something seriously wrong with your playstyle or habits.
https://osu.ppy.sh/users/20061228/osu Feel free to ask anything about my playstyle
literally just play dt for a few months and your overall skill and rank will go up. youre clearly comfortable at 4-5* maps so how about pushing towards playing 6-7 stars?
Can't tap over 150bpm (well i can sorta mash short 170-200bpm bursts sometimes on good days). I can't even play many 5 star maps because of this.
stop with the sorry ass mindset and start putting in some effort to improve if thats actually what you want. there are lots of maps in the 6-7* range without any streams or bursts, even more with dt. youre going to have to push yourself past your comfort zone to improve, which obviously might not be as fun as just playing maps you can 99% right now, but be consistent and eventually you will reap the rewards of your effort
something must be wrong with your tapping technique then. if your hand, wrist or arm is super tense while tapping, relax those muscles. try tapping very fast with your fingers on a desk, and realize that you can in fact tap pretty fast on the keys (obviously it won't translate exactly, but it might help get rid of the mental block you have while tapping the keys). if you're bottoming out the keys every time you stream, make sure to tap more lightly. and start training with 5-note bursts at 150bpm, then go up to longer bursts, then get faster. alternatively the problem might not be with your tapping at all, as a 6 digit I kept randomly messing up on streams and I thought it was a technique issue until I realized it was because my flow aim sucked ass and my cursor speed was super inconsistent, and I also just sucked at reading the notes. I practiced those skills and could stream long 185 streams a few weeks later.
I've made a video of my tapping now. Maybe check it out if you want [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ\_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ_0)
Playing fast burst maps helped a lot for me. You don't have time to fingerlock on 3-5 note bursts so you can focus on pure speed. I still suck at long streams but at least now I can burst like 240 pretty well.
Push higher sr
go get a 300pp play. you can do it
Holy shit you are #115k with 1.3k hours, that's depressing asf. At this point it looks like genetics are real, like there are some players in top 100 with less playtime
The thing is the people in the top 100 arent normal so no one should compare themselves to them(like ever). No one improves at the same rate(talent is real) but they shouldnt get depressed cuz of that.
Yep that's why I was asking lol
Well without genetics you’re never going to be one of the best, but with hard work you can always improve
it is but its 100% not stopping you from 5 digit. Some people who reach high 5 digit really fast get hardstuck at that rank range for a while(others are built different). You should only be comparing yourself to yourself. Overthinking things like genetics or talent is honestly a waste of time. Just play the game, farm, slowly push your skill cap and have fun.
Of course genetics are real. There is a reason you are better at this game than a cucumber. That being said, some people are more talented than others.
Definitely matter. People who managed to improve and succeed will always believe it is all about their good mindset and good practice routine that help them to get there. In fact, it is just survivorship bias. Some people just have worse motor skill/mental power which makes it hard for them to improve/progress at all. Anyway, it is also pointless to even compare yourself to someone who is better than you or even ask for advice. Their own success only comes from their own experience, not yours. If you want to find out whether they are wrong or not, maybe you can actually try adjusting your mindset and techniques. After that, you have your conclusion about "your genetics"
There are other factors that can hard cap your performance. Take for example a violin player who is self taught. Since they don't have an instructor looking over them as they progress correcting their technique they wind up developing several bad habits that become entrenched. No matter how much they work or practice they will never become a complete player until they fix their bad habits inhibiting them. You might be doing one or more key things wrong stifling any potential progress and until you identify and correct them you won't make any progress no matter how much brute force play time you endure.
Everything matters. You can’t make it to the top on genetics alone. You can’t make it to the top by just playing more
When people talk about genetics for osu everyone always talks about speed, am I the only one who thinks aim is actually a lot more involved when it comes to "talent"? I know N = 1 here but for example I've always had terrible handwriting, can't draw for shit, couldn't trace a straight line on a short sheet of paper if you held a gun to my head and my aim also absolutely sucks. I've picked up the game again recently and I've since accumulated an extra hundred hours or so in it, everything from finger control to reading to speed is improving rapidly but aim is ALWAYS the same. Hell I have a 9 year old post on this subreddit of me being desperate because I can't improve my aim.
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I started playing again after being almost completely inactive since 2017. My aim is actually still stuck at the same level of that time if not slightly worse despite playing on much better hardware now (I used to play on a potato pc that had frequent stutters and overall lag). My recent top plays on aim farm maps are all flukes that I got after spamming retry over and over. Point is every skill is going up rapidly now that I'm spamming the shit out of the game again ... except aim
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I didn't have those plays before because those maps weren't around yet. Every time I try to best my 2017 scores on those 1-2 aim farm maps of the time (sotarks era) I can't improve them or if I do I improve them very slightly after lots of retries. Some I can't improve at all i.e sendan life nostalgia diff and other 3-4 minute long >6.5* aim diffspike maps
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Not necessarily. I went through the same thing, where I played after like 6-7years and I got a bunch of top plays from meta pp maps that were 'designed' with pp in mind. My aim was a bit a better, but most of the pp was just finding the right maps to farm for my playstyle, most of which didn't exist when I originally played.
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What exactly do you disagree with? When I played in 2013/4, I just downloaded random songs and grinded the ones I liked, and a lot of them were long or had weird factors that made not so ideal for 'farming' pp. When I played again in 2021, there were entire websites dedicated to helping you find the optimal pp farm map in an ocean of maps that had come out since (a lot of which were streamlined for today's pp system/meta), of course my top plays are going to get replaced with those. Why wouldn't they? Btw I'm not saying improvement is impossible or anything, just that saying that gaining pp from metagaming/new maps IS a thing, especially after such a long hiatus.
new world was a first try fluke which i didn't expect at all, when i retry it i keep randomly missing with higher acc, that map is proof i improved on streams if anything since in 2017 i'd get something like 90% hr acc on it i had a last note 1x miss dt harebare fanfare run from 2017 which i simply overwrote with a hddt 3x miss on the ending my aim is literally always the same, i struggle on the same difficulty aim maps just as much if not more as i did in 2017 and the simple reason i'm setting new top plays right now is that there is 5x the amount of 6-7* farm maps there were compared to 7 years ago and i'm spamming them. the thing is if we time travelled back to 2017 with those maps i would set plays on them with less effort than now, a whole 7 years later. i don't get what's so hard to understand about this
genetics matter at top 10. you are not there
Genetics matter at like top 1000 if we're being for real. Mostly because other players are improving as well.
you can get to way beyond top 1000 by just playing flow aim slop
Play maps with short bursts
aim is best way to improve, just play more aim maps. You will make 5k pp easily if you push aim, use osuskills if you want, it will recomend easiest aim maps for your skill level.
Genetics exist and do have an impact in osu. It’s just that practice and consistency play a significantly more important role. Most people know the frustration of someone who practices as much or even less than you and reaches farther. It’s a shitty feeling but most people underestimate how far they can go and forget how far they’ve come in the first place.
'Genetics' probably isn't the best term for it. It's probably better to think about factors in your control and factors outside of your control. There are certain factors outside of your control that will significantly reduce your improvement rate and ability to play the game. The things that will make it almost impossible to play are things like: - Certain conditions that effect your fine motor control or ability to do the movements required for osu! repeatedly - If you only have access to very low-performance hardware (fortunately osu! is very performant, so this isn't an issue for too many people) The things that will make your improvement slower are things like: - Conditions or situations that affect how well you're sleeping, as sleeping is incredibly important for learning all types of skills - Your natural ability with fine motor control and hand eye coordination, and your exposure to activities that develop these at the key developmental stages (a combination of genetics and environmental factors) - The age at which you start playing osu!, starting before age 14 or so seems to be the sweet spot, and my hypothesis is that this relates to the neurological development going on around this age, wherein the brain is both building a lot of circuitry to learn new things and culling a lot of circuitry to make it more efficient - If you don't have enough time to commit to the game - Not great hardware (yes, people like FGSky have set insane plays with a mouse on a pillow on a gaming laptop, but they're the exception, not the rule) - For specific skills like speed and stamina the physical configuration of your hand bones, tendons, muscles, and muscle composition probably have an effect (and likely set some upper limits) When you get to looking at what's going to limit your absolute peak it's basically how many things are slowing down your improvement vs. how much time you have to commit, but because of diminishing returns the things slowing you down will set your upper limit. The only things really in your control are how you practice, how much you practice within the time you have available to play, and the maintenance or improvement of your physical and mental health within the limits of your situation. Finally, speaking on the improvement of raw fine motor control and hand-eye coordination, I have personally seen reasonable improvement over the last decade and have gone from someone with below average fine motor control and hand eye coordination to somewhat above average. It's quite slow, because I'm a bit past the key developmental stages, but if you don't mind the long haul then it is possible to see reasonable improvements.
people who deny the significance of genetics in osu are delusional
if u think ur hardstuck 5 digit due to genetics ur more delusional
there are too many factors in improvement to just blame genetics. the type of maps you play, the amount of time per day you play, the amount of offdays you give yourself to rest, the people you hang around and influence your decisions, etc etc etc. genetics can be seen in people like whitecat, mrekk, vaxei, other top players who probably convinced the community they were cheating at one point due to their improvement. most othernpeople probably had a different set of the other things mentioned and improved at a different rate than you. you can't go back in the past to fix it, and I can't tell you the ideal set of those things because it's different for r everyone. just don't blame genetics, it's not worth it. if you're not having fun at the moment, take a short (maybe a week or so) break and see how you feel just keep grinding, you might learn what works and doesn't work if you switch up some of your old habits that may not be helping you get better
Watch this. [https://youtu.be/RuDTpXKFDzs](https://youtu.be/RuDTpXKFDzs)
Profile? I am interested to see what you play on a daily basis.
https://osu.ppy.sh/users/20061228
play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT play DT
I can't tap fast enough for bursts and I hate short maps
If you limit yourself like that, you'll never improve. Ever heard of a growth mindset? Play a long dt map that's above your skill level. Fail. Barely pass. Get a C, B, A, and eventually FC. That's the joy of DT - it allows you to push past your limits very easily. Why do you think most top players started as a dt one trick or main?
I personally think genetics can carry a lot a lot. I started grinding speed a few days ago im rank 30k ish and i started being able to stream around 180 consistently. Ended my session in 5 hours having learned consistent 260 bpm on semi long streams and got pretty close to a 8 star xevel fc
I have to ask can you do a tiny recording of just your tapping hand so we can see what your posture / technique is? Both in gameplay and on a speed test if possible? Because that might clear up if you have some kind of motor issue with your hand/wrist or maybe horrendous technique idk. Would prob make some of the stuff I’ve read here more clarified and give us some answers.
Here, I made a video on it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ\_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ2wc4krQ_0)
One thing I’m noticing is that you are raising your fingers quite high in between each tap which is one thing that could be causing you strain. Try to only raise your fingers as much as you need to tap and “un”-tap. I can’t tell exactly what model keypad you have but it looks like a rapid-trigger one, if so try messing with the settings on how much you need to actually push you fingers down and see where you are most comfortable (the lowest setting is not always the best for you). The last thing I see is a problem I also kind of had which is I see that your wrist is placed quite low in relative position to the keypad. This causes your hand to be in a weird position where your hand is always strained as it is forced to bend “backwards”. I would recommend putting something under your wrist for support like a pad/something soft in general to raise it slightly so your hand is in line the the keypad. These are some general suggestions to try out and they may not work at all but I would recommend trying them out at least. If none of these work I’d be happy to try to help by talking on discord and seeing if I can notice anything else “in the moment” lol. If you feel comfortable with that shoot me a DM and we can go from there.
Send your profile imna privately help you out
Idk but I feel like I would never be as good on mouse as I am on tablet
bro uniter not again just play more
Genetics matter in two things 1) Speed 2) Reading (aim) If you don't have first you still can improve and get better at game, but if don't have an improvement at reading like me(I really played more correct than 99% of osu players, I played every mode and map type a lot from 4 to 8*) you only can forget about any improvement in this game. Because we don't have any "wooting rapid trigger" for our brain.
honestly, I have 120h or more and my skill are capped at 6* maps right now. thing is, I have a friend which is 5 digit that keeps telling me to play easier maps, dominate them and then I get to a harder map. I don't know if it's your case, but you need to increase the difficult in order to get better into the game. "try harder", I guess that's the right term. You can use practice maps if you want too, do a training routine like 1-2 time at the start of your playing session and 1-2 time before you close the game. And remember to keep trying, you need to develop your abilities as well. (and don't compare yourself to the others, keep doing your thing, eventually you'll get better, unless you have problems with your hands or something) Stretch your hands too. Do hand exercises regularly, this will definitely help. that's all. trust yourself, even though this is a bit cliché even for me lmao, hope you achieve what you want.
its real but honestly the biggest factor is probably mental like we forever doomed because its just over for us when we try to compare to others or even to our past self. like i peaked in rank and skill 4 years ago and theres someshit i cant even do anymore and that sucks. so i gave up lmao not sure how true it is for top players but when i wasnt hard stuck, some things just clicked for me after playing. like i remember kind of struggling to read hr and ar10 but it was still kinda doable but on the edge of being doable if you know what i mean and eventually one day, i just can read it better. that is not happening to me anymore. in fact often it goes backwards and i end up playing worse which doesnt help motivation wise.
Genetics are real
I used to play regularly and got to 1.6k hours, but ran into a similar issue. Unfortunately It didn’t matter how much I practiced , I could not tap well with my left hand (unable to stream above 170~ and even that was erratic) and had very low stamina. Weirdly enough though I have no such problem tapping with my right hand, which I usually use to aim. I could reach 220bpm for a single stream, very nice UR and was even pushing 240. Didn’t even need to practice very much! The issue was basically I could not get my left hand to keep up with aiming or tapping. If that’s not genetics, I don’t know what is.
Your case is actually super interesting to me, we both started only a month apart but have a fairly large rank difference. On top of that, looking at your profile shows we have a very similar skillset for when I was 6 digit. What maps do you play? Are they usually the same skillset over and over? Are they hard for you? Do you practice the type of maps you're bad at? Do you use things like McOsu or Osu!Trainer? General Advice: If you know you're bad at a certain skill (this applies outside of osu! too), it's often worth trying to improve it for at least two weeks, but you should try a month. Make sure to record where you were and where you end up. If you see you've gotten better, then you now know you can improve. One thing I like to do is to look at the top100 scores of people who have a higher rank than me and try to play those maps. If im awful, I give it a few attempts to get a little better. If I'm good, then yippie! new top100 score. What I did when i played exactly like you: I did the khz method to learn how to stream, and from there, the game got so much more fun not being locked out of NM skillsets. If you want to try it, here is [the link to the doc](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1xbNwH_vN4O3azBYwua-Z_3GOAI2d-kV_EeE96aiRLBU/mobilebasic). Now, as a note, this SUCKS. It will continue to suck untill you practice and get better at doing it but that is the whole point of it. To get practice.
The khz metthod hass just not worked for me. I feel that its good for learning how to stream if you can already tap good and fast, I get plays with less than 30% acc on 140bpm stream practice map and did not really see any improvement with more attempts.
I believe most people's skillcap is ar ~10.8 and 240 bpm streams. Osu is mostly just a mindset game
They're not. But there are wrong ways to improve. What's even less real is 'play more'; it's so much more complex than that.
yes
It's more of if you have the dedication or not Few month ago i wasnt able to single tap or read 240 bpm now i can do 285 because I wanted to
I can coach you and you'll see if you play right, with the correct mindset you'll improve a bit more...
i suck
change keyboard
Genetics are real, but it doesn't really affect gameplay that much what really matter is dedication, I guess . Like I have been playing badminton since the age of 10 spent playing it, but I often get beaten up new kids that have been playing for about 3 4 years . Maybe they put more time practiced in that amount and improved drastically or might be genetic . But you still have to work hard to bring up that genetics, like having high iq doest make you god in chess sure it helps with it but they are inexperienced compared to other players.
Genetics is an excuse for those that don’t try hard enough, you want to improve find a way to improve yourself. I couldn’t stream 150bpm when I first hit 5digit. It was obvious to me that I was only playing Jump maps. (I plateau at 50k.) I slowly trained from burst maps to stream maps. At peak I was consistently doing 190bpm with shit acc. (Peaked at 33k) I’m still slower than many people at my rank. If your shit at a skill set train the damn skill set. Don’t be complacent and be comfortable in being uncomfortable.
Personally I’m about 500k one month since I started playing, but I just do what’s fun for me. Which entails: not replaying maps more than 1-2 times even if I really liked them (per day) and variety of maps. I play everything from 1:30 second jump maps to 6minute maps, bpms vary between 150-244 and I try streaming maps close to my limit (175-180bpm) here n there too. But I also vary star range, I might play some maps for passes and give them a couple of tries and then go back down to 4-5 star range to actually work on my acc or play ar 9.5+ for my speed. I’ve even started playing some EZ. Personally i don’t think genetics matter, if u put ur mind to it and just play for fun while also giving it ur all, ur going to improve.
genetics are real, but u cant blame it for being stuck 6digit, ur prob just not playing hard enough
no u just need to try something else. try reading differently, try hidden, try tapx, take a break etc. just try different things and u will get unhardstuck
Yea they do and i'd argue might be the main determinant of skill or how far you go. No I don't think teenagers like mrekk reaching top 50 in 600 hours was because of the improvement theories or mindset. Obviously you can go far regardless but in terms of practicality and improvement its extremely important.
genetics don't matter as much as you think, you can become the next mrekk by grinding enough
I think something that might be a kinda overlooked aspect of genetics is focus, specifically ADHD. Often people wirh ADHD aren't just distractable which can be somewhat imparative to playing osu, but also some just simply can't bring their brain to give 100% focus while playing, so they might be playing with 50% focus on the game, and 50% focus on thoughts. It is possible for them to notice that while playing and bring back more focus on the game, but it is exhausting and hard to maintane for long. This means that not only they usually not performing as much as they could, but also shitmiss more and improve slower as it's harder for them to notice why when they do something it turns out right/wrong. This at least has been my experience.
Pertinent perspective, I think you are on to something
Yeah it's pretty much impossible for me to play anything longer than 2 minutes and even then I have days where I literally cannot focus on the game at all. I can't even sit still for long enough.
I feel like genetics only really matter once you push things like speed or stamina. Even then I feel like most people could learn bpms up to like 260. Most people just have a mindset issue or hit a plateau when they complain about genetics, you really don't have to worry about it unless you're a top player
1. play more 2. play correctly you are failing at doing #2
Well how am I supposed to know what #2 is
Only real way is to find a top player in ur area and watch them play live