Ever since I’ve stopped playing as much Fortnite around a month ago, I’ve started to play a lot more osu! which I’ve made posts about before. The game is basically clicking circles to the beat of different songs.
Around a month ago, I went from the gap of rank #150,000 to #140,000. I’m also closing the gap on accumulating 2k pp (performance points) on my profile. Currently, I’m sitting at 1,944 pp which is a few hundred more than I had a few months ago. However, with these improvements, I’ve noticed that ever since I’ve gotten out of that #150,000 range my progress has slowed down. It shouldn’t really be because of school either because the plateau started only a little more than a month ago, and school has been going on for around two months now. In my opinion, I think I know why.
I think the reason why I was doing alright even after school had started was because I still had the consistency from playing over the summer. However, once I started to only play on weekends my consistency has gotten a lot worse. I mostly started noticing last week when my aim felt really off. Since I’ve started playing more 5-6 star maps, there’s a lot more aiming involved. I can pass some 6-star maps, but can’t pass even a 4-star map if it has a lot of jumps. I feel like since I’m not playing as much I used to, I’m using the mouse a lot more for other things like normal web browsing. However, using the mouse for osu! feels a lot more different. Now, whenever I get on once the week ends it feels really weird to adjust back to using the mouse to jump to random points of the screen.
The reason for inconsistency would be me using a mouse to play in my mind. A large part of the osu! community uses drawing tablets to aim which usually provides greater accuracy and more refined movements. Since tablets also use absolute location, wherever you point on the tablet is where your cursor goes on the screen. This resolves the problem of mouse drift where sometimes you run out of mousepad space. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of great players like AngelSim and FunOrange who use mouse or at least used to and were successful. However, in their cases, they were/are able to play almost every day and play competitively. In my case though, I just want to get better at the game and have fun. As such, I’ve been looking at some drawing tablets for osu!.
The tablets that I’ve looked at include two models of Wacom tablets, a Huion tablet, and an XP-Pen tablet. The four specific tablets are the Wacom CTL/CTH 480, Wacom CTL 471, Huion 420, and XP-Pen G430S. The CTL/CTH letters are just the touch functionality of the tablet and whether or not it has it. That doesn’t really matter for osu! though. These four tablets are all pretty well know in the community for being the most recommended tablets for osu! players.
The two Wacom tablets from what I’ve seen are the best of the four. The difference between them is one is slightly inclined and one is flat although if it’s my first tablet I don’t think it’d matter too much. However, the one problem with these two tablets is that they’re discontinued products. The newer Wacom models seem to have lots of input lag and are overpriced for what they provide just for osu!. Being discontinued products you’ll usually have to get them second hand. Specifically, the 480 model is less common to buy. I personally think it’s because of one of the or the best osu! player ever (debatable) Cookiezi uses this tablet. At his peak, he was by far the best player of his time setting numerous records and plays. Even now he’s still within the top #10 rankings. I’d say he’s the most popular osu! player as of now and is a lot of players’ idol. For me, if I do end up getting a tablet it’d be either the 480 or the 471 since the company has a reputation for producing good quality products, and the community has given positive opinions in terms of input lag and the sort for both tablets.
The Huion 420 used to be the same model of the official osu!tablet which the website no longer sells. The company Huion has a reputation for producing good tablets for art at a cheap price, but their history for osu! is a bit controversial. Huion’s 420 model is marketed towards osu! players, but has a small active area of use. Another thing about the tablet is that it’s made of a lesser quality plastic, and people have reported issues with the tablet surface picking up pen movement. Although some people do use the tablet without an issue, I think I’d rather choose another tablet.
The last tablet is the XP-Pen G430S. This tablet has a reputation for being a good tablet of people that use smaller active areas. For me, I’m not too great with my pen/pencil precision in tight areas represented in my handwriting. Therefore, I think I’d prefer a tablet with a little more room to work with. If it wasn’t for that, I think I would choose this tablet instead of the Wacom ones. Overall it holds a good standing amongst the osu! community for its reliability.
In conclusion, I’m still not completely set on getting a tablet even though I’ve been thinking about it for a while. However, if I do I’ve come to a decision. I’ll see how things go with the mouse for a bit longer, and then perhaps we’ll see about the tablet.