The last time I made an actual post about the osu! rhythm game was around seven to eight months ago when I was getting my tablet. I actually started playing the game on July 5th of last year, and now it has been just over a year since I’ve started. I think I’ve made a lot of improvements since then, and have definitely learned a lot more about the game.
As of now, I rank around 50,000 out of millions of active users and 2,204 in the country’s 269,000 active users. The numbers may seem good, but I think you’d have to be around the four-digit number in the overall database to actually be a good player. However, I’m pretty sure it’s a very big improvement from when I last wrote about osu!. Part of it is because the way pp (performance points) were awarded was changed a few months ago causing the pp value of certain maps (songs) to change. Luckily the most of the pp values of the maps I already had good scores on went up instead of down.
Recently, the last person out of our main friend group that plays osu! just purchased a drawing tablet to play the game with, and now every single one of us uses a tablet to play the game. Personally, I still don’t think you need a tablet to “get better”, but for some people, it might help. However, I definitely think that a mechanical keyboard with light switches will help you a lot in the game, especially later on. Because of the speed and amount of times you have to press your keys in order to hit the notes, it can become tiring over longer periods of time in rapid succession. I even have a friend who switches his keyboard whenever he plays osu!.
Most other people will say when you ask them, “How do I get better?” is to “play more”. I think that’s true to a certain extent though because once you get the basics down by playing more maps you can try and focus more on certain areas and slowly improve from there. There are even dedicated practice maps that help you practice certain techniques such as jumps and streams. In my opinion, I think the best skill to improve is your (hit) accuracy though because the amount of pp you are rewarded after completing a map will change vastly depending on your accuracy.
Overall, I still have lots of fun playing osu! and I think I can still improve just like everything else in life. It’s not only my friends and me that are improving though because even professional players are making new plays. After a year I can say that osu! is a really fun game with a nice community that I really enjoy.