osu!'s Beginner Problem 

this game does explain everything when you open the game. "welcome to osu. click the circles."

Completely agree on the game being too intimidating/unexplanatory to new players. Feel like everyone I know had the game introduced to them by a friend or relative who helped them get started since its basically impossible to figure out without prior knowledge

Introduction is the most 50/50 thing in the game. Many people just drop the game, but those who remains are getting the exploration stage, which is the most colorful time of an osu player

This really shows the overwhelming nature of osu! as a game. But in a way, I think this is one of the reasons that makes the game so special and gives such an unforgettable first impression. It's like your first day in college, not knowing what to do. But as time goes on, your experience gets richer and you've grown accustomed to the weird niches the game has to offer. It may not be great, but it is certainly a unique experience.

I started on osu lazer and honestly I think lazer did a pretty good job of introducing the game since I never stopped playing. The UI and default skin are cleaner and bancho, mania, etc were obviously separated from the start. I liked the versatility of its mods as well.

literally the reason why so many peoples playcount graphs are flat at the start of their profile

nice video, I definitely agree with your points. I find it pretty questionable to just leave the "tutorial" (non existing) as it is from ages ago and not do anything about it because ~look we got lazer!!! and the tutorial in lazer still is kind of eh? I feel like osu is way too dependant on having a friend that explains how things work

EXACTLY, I started playing Osu back a few months ago because I saw all of those videos where everyone is just so good and stuff, and the game looked nice so I thought I'd give it a try. The game opens, and I see everything being thrown at me without explanations, so I'm like "yeah I'll just ignore all of those fancy numbers and words and just do the tutorial to see what everything is supposed to be", logic. I finish the tutorial, get back on the menu screen, and I still have no fkin' idea what everything on my screen is meant for and I'm like ???? Like, it's kinda discouraging when you don't understand anything, didn't even know that there were different rhythm types and be like "wtf is this" when you get a random ass piano on your screen when you thought that all there was were circles, and that you expected to be able to at least bet one 4 star map before your grandma finished mario kart on 50. I gave up a week after.

first step is to make it to where a new player doesn't get their ear drums blown out from first opening the game but fr this really needs fixing when i first started playing I was clueless and my friend had to guide me through every little thing from downloading maps skins etc.

I had luckily been playing rhythm games for 3 years prior to when i got into osu so me getting into and learning the basics of osu wasn't hard but I agree that the game is so unexplanatory for those who have never played a rhythm game before. For most new players, osu is the first rhythm game that they'd have played and so it's for sure extremely overwhelming to see everything that is going on screen with a lack of explanation of what's happening. Spectacular video as always, also i'm telling you peppy you need to hire this man, get Saow on the actual development team.

It took me till I got to 300k to realise there's a draw key in the game

The fact the game had no introduction was one of the few things that hooked me up instantly. Compared to the majority, I LIKE FIGURING THINGS OUT MYSELF. This level of freedom got me to be curious and invested into the game by figuring myself where I had to look.

osu! was originally made to be an emulator for osu tatakae ouendan, so peppy always just assumed the user would already be familiar with how the game works, hence, trying to make the game beginner-friendly would just not be worth the time

if options such as (Mods, Star Leveling Rating,) were hidden throughout the beginning of the game until you’ve reached a certain level then the game would probably be less intimidating from the start. Osu! really needs a more in depth tutorial in game now

I’m still a 7 digit and I fell in love with the game through RU-vid 3 years ago and I play it constantly, great video btw!

I legit didn't know you could download more maps on the website so I uninstalled the game. After taking the time finding that you need to LOG IN to the website to download the maps I'm now 3 digit lol

as always a Saow banger, nice one

I think every osu player had that 1 friend or someone who you wanted to get into the game, just to realize they won't ever pick it up, or even get disappointed in it, then you just fall out and feel so fucking lonely…

i started playing this game TODAY and i agree with every point you made 😭😭 ive grinded through ever guide video possible but even those didnt feel like they explained everything. with time ill learn more but i wish things were more clear and less flashy.

so true! Haven't thought about that topic ever since i got hooked up on the game with my friend group but yea it's still a valid problem. Also wicked animations and editing, keep pumping these 😎

The fact that osu! lazer allows downloading beatmaps in game singlehandedly brought me back into playing the game after reinstalling windows and loosing all the beatmaps from stable.

Lazer does fix a lot of the UX issues, but I definitely think it should prompt you with the tutorial when it's first installed.

Good thing I had a friend to guide me through everything I had to know about osu!

I was introduced to osu! by a friend who had been playing for a few months and was already way out of my skill range. All he wanted to do was multi, so naturally that meant he wanted to pick 5-7* maps. I probably would never have gotten into the game if i hadnt shown it to some of my other friends, who decided to start playing on their own. I suddenly had friends to compete with who were on a similar level as me. Of course, i ended up being the only one still playing after six months, but it was enough to keep me interested lmao

I remember only playing opsu for like a year because i didn't know how to download maps on stable

I wholeheartedly agree the first time I downloaded osu I was somehow playing taiko maps and mania it was all just so confusing and I just couldn't be bothered with it so I just uninstalled it on the spot and later on after so many months I actually tried again and didn't get it again and had to go out of my way to watch a 10 minute video on yt explaining how osu is played and the basic stuff. The game just is really overwhelming for new players who want to start playing. There are just so many things like mods the gamemodes the stuff on the top of left of the map(OD,AR,BPM,etc.) and I think that really kills the thought of starting their osu! journey

thats one of the best osu videos i have watched. it earned you a sub :)

I got into osu from a friend, so he guided me a bit, showing me how to download maps and even giving me a bunch through multi lobbies, directing me to find a new skin to use, turning off hit lighting, storyboards, and combo bursts, and other small stuff. It helped immensely, but there was still a whole load of things I had to learn on my own. Nowadays I'm comfortable with everything, but I couldn't imagine the hell of a new player trying to figure things out with no guidance like I fortunately had.

Really good video, I had the exact same issue when starting and i dropped the game for almost 4 years before coming back and understanding the game. I'm hoping stable can get updated at some point to fix some of these issues but who knows if that will happen.

It's funny cause lazer is even more intimidating

Storyboards and videos are normal in commercial rhythm games, and sometimes they can't even be turned off. Also, even though I agree that the game is hard to get into, most of this will become irrelevant as lazer officially becomes the main client. The default skin is way cleaner, and the menus are easier to navigate.

what happened with me is that I was introduced by one of my friends except they showed me osu catch, I then got the game for myself like 2 years later after searching up "game where you click circles" cause they did show me standard and now I'm 3 digit lol

It was never intended to be huge and competitive like other games, especially with all the copyrighted songs. It's legacy at it's peak will be a monster of the rhythm community and a show off of it's dedicated community to outside events (twitter poles, r/place, streamers, LAN tournaments etc...). When you think about it, maybe it's for the better that osu! is not as popular as Fortnite or others, and also CDawgVA is a bad example this guy didn't even try to understand. Personally, it took me a few days days from the moment i've heard about the game to get used to the mods and passing 3 stars and i didn't play any rhythm game previously.

as one of those beginners who installed osu! as my first rhythm game, sucked at it and quit. thanks for recommending rotaeno, i'll give it a try

This video touches on a side of the player base no one really thinks about. Introducing osu! to my online friends is honestly a struggle and this is exactly why.

Funnily enough, when I was new, one of my favourite things was having an anime background up while I was playing, and I absolutely loved playing anime ops with the video playing

This is a perspective I never thought about. I didn't really had a hard time understanding what to do, and it was also my either first or second rhythm game. I started playing at 2021, I just installed the game and I think I made an account before even making a single play. I picked a random song failed and then I was just looking at the song select and saw the tutorial and said "Oh tutorial" and played the tutorial. Then I played a few catch maps then went to sleep because it was very late and I was barely keeping my eyes open (according to the site I made the account at 2:19 am). Next day I downloaded some anime songs and just kept playing. A few days later I just looked at the keybinds through the settings and found some shortcuts I would use (F1 for mod select, F2 for random song etc.).

props for using options it's a goated mapset

Osu was indeed my introduction to rythm games and it honestly got me into them... I did quit osu pretty early but it was very fun untill it felt like I hit a wall with the maps that had you swinging your mouse all over the place but the game made me realize I really like rythm games.

rotaeno mentioned 🎉🎉🎉 gameplay doesn't stay slow at higher difficulties + a few new packs so i wouldn't count that as a con imo since it might just be charters getting the hang of the game mapping. you can also change the speed notes come in to be faster or even slower. there is also a rating system in the game which acts as a ranking of how good you are. after reaching certain ratings, unlocking the IV difficulties around your skill level are automatically unlocked so the only actual criticism is being unable to skip the tutorial which, if you are completely new to the game, is not a flaw at all and these are all good mechanisms that make sure the experience isn't too much for the new player

I even didn't know what was the laser thing was. Just learned it from the video.

Yeah too bad lazer isnt pushed out more yet, so Connor experienced the awful *default osu experience*😭 I mean for him music is just beeps and bops XD great video!

God damn ur drawing skills went through the fucking roof this vid ggwp, also great vid:3

even after playing other mobile rhythm games for 2 years and playing the tutorial i quit the game after two days originally since the tutorial teaches mouse inputs first instead of zx so i never realized how bad it is to play with mouse clicks. it was only after a friend who wanted me to play with them tell me that i knew that you should use the keyboard instead of mouse clicks

one of the problems is also that so many people just give up on figuring things out instead of just searching it up

this is a kinda random annecdote from when I first started playing but I thought that things like hd and fl increased AR instead of dt and hr because they made the map less approachable/sight-readable

i explored osu by myself alone, yet i was already into rhythm games that i stayed behind and played the game despite not knowing you can have different skins for better/comfortable gameplay

I feel like I was lucky, I watched a lot of videos on the game before playing it, so I didn't have to figure out a lot of the stuff for myself and never had the beginners hiatus. Also, a lot of the issues you presented are fixed in lazer, if only peppy would finish it.

They should update on osu on how to use ui in music selection as well as introduce different game mode like tutorial

2:56 i hate that i reconized every single one of these backgrounds

Not knowing anything at the beginning of the game is part of the charm in my opinion. I barely knew anything about rhythm games when I first started playing osu!, but with time, you learn everything little by little, and that just makes everything more fun.

I really agree with the message of this video. As someone who wanted to improve at osu a lot at first, without any real guidance of how to go about doing that, it led me to make some pretty foundational mistakes relating to my improvement. I developed so many bad habits ultimately to the point where I just gave up after 2 years of pretty consistent playing. Because my improvement was just That. Slow. Maybe I'm just coping but I often attribute my snail like improve at osu to how poor my playstyle was in the first few months of playing, and then the pride hit of having to go back to basics and take time to remove all the bad habits I had (like learning how tap properly and reading low ARs again), it kinda led to the point where I was basically playing on autopilot, not having any consistent way on how to get good and just playing maps randomly, not having confidence in pushing skill cap or fundamentals, because I'd had little luck doing either and every braindead content creator would push their own divisive theories on what you should do. Maybe the addictive nature also played into this, it's hard for a noob to adequately deconstruct their gameplay properly and analyse it when it requires such lazer focus and reactions for minutes at a time. And also I think the often immature nature of the community makes it very hard to have actual discussions on what you need to do. It could be that I just suck and was never built for osu. I doubt it, I feel I could've had at least marginally more success had I had more of an idea of what I was doing, there's definitely a lot more I could've done. I've since transferred that energy I put into osu into some other games and have found much more success. I think in those games I do have potential and my improvement has been relatively quick and steady. In short I do think that there are certain kinds of players whose improvement is actively harmed due to the nature of osu, while I don't think that any of those players would be the next Mrekk it is still very unfortunate. I've not touched osu in nearly a year and I don't plan to ever play again, the game has lost all appeal due to things just mentioned.

Agreed. Been playing (mania) for a few weeks and I barely know most of the features or shit about the community

everything is fixed in lazer fr

Man I remember the first time I played osu I got off and didn't play for like another 3 years after I had found fnf witch is a more beginner friendly mania rhythm game. Although now I play osu mania I'm also trying to get better at standard when I care to lol. The standard osu mode is a really good one differing from the likes of mania. Whilst I may be mad at it because I'm bad its still a really good mode. this was a great vid pointing out the problem's I faced a few years ago lol😄

Idk how but when I downloaded osu, I didn't have any beatmap packs downloaded/included so i had to manually download a tutorial and beatmaps

During the time I began to play this game, I like rhythm game a lot and find this game interesting. I played for a couple months before get bored and start to play more less for a year. Until I came back again because I wanted to improve more. I'm not sure I got lost during my first playthrough, but I do play beatmaps other than osu!tutorial first.

I still find it crazy how I got into to osu with nobody to guide me through any of the gameplay, for my first like 50 hours I thought you had to tap slider ends to not get 100’s lol

I started playing this game quite recently, learned about it from r/Place and a few people in the Geometry Dash community. I decided to give it a shot, since I generally like rhythm and hard games. I played the tutorial and then a random easy level, but was kinda confused why the gameplay elements look so weird (I've never seen the game without texture packs before). I quickly figured out how to install other levels, but I was lost trying to find a decent way to improve (too many levels to choose), which I still think is the major issue when getting into the game. There should be a few selected levels as "main levels", it exists in Geometry Dash and would definitely work in this case!

Been casually playing OSU! since 2016, and somehow just now heard about OSU! Laser for the first time, sounds cool though.

every stable issue is fixed in lazer... right?

I agree on the game having a problem with beginners or new players. when i first tried the game during 2020 lockdowns i didnt understand how to play the new maps i got, i thought i had to place the maps in my file then open the game, which discouraged me alot because i thought of it as a hassle. I also played without a skin because i didnt understand how to get a skin or how it would even change the game gameplay wise. Shout out to my 5 digit friend who thought me how to play the game, and still helps me improve to this day.

Starting out in any rhythm game is hard enough, but osu definitely needs a better tutorial/introduction. It's confusing and unintuitive to find out how to get started and not die after a few seconds all the time. The only good thing about it is that you can find a map for just about any song and you can also just type "beginner" or "training" to easily find some maps to get started. A big thing that bothered me as well was the default mania skin. Dunno how I managed to play with it for this long, but switching to circles gave me instant 3-5% acc bonus on every map lol.

i remember being so confused how to play the game on the first few hours of playing lmao, like when i downloaded it the tutorial was kinda hard to find lol

never played osu, but just watching this footage of the menus stresses me out lmao

This is so true. Osu's beginner experience is quite bad. if I never played Elite Beat Agents I don't think I would've gotten into osu as much as I do now.

Thank God I watched a bit Of Osu Videos to know how this Game Works. But, Even as a Noob Myself, Im Proud of Passing a 5 Star Song. (Currently 13 while Playing this. PP is Nealy 300, Im not going to quit anytime soon)

I agree with this video i got only lucky that i was in my weeb time when i downloaded this game because if that i had very much fun to play all the anime openings. And i startet very early to watch some osu! youtubers like koifishu or binfy

I've been saying this for months, one more thing I'd add is the lack of good songs and varied songs ( western, rap, classical, rock, metal ) for beginners and beginner levels, it's mostly just j rock or j pop or some electronica 🤷🏼‍♂️

Showed the game my friend a few days ago and when he first saw it he was like, wtf

i love how connor playing osu was included lmao

I figured it all out by myself, my first other rhythm game was stuff like bang dream, or piano tiles on the phone

i agree that the game can look pretty hard to understand for newer players but i hate the people who just be like: "what the hell is this, what is happening, i dont know what to do this game is shit im never playing this again" then proceeding to hate on the game and make fun of people who play the game just because they didnt bother to look up how to do stuff or ask someone who can help

I agree, despite having friends that are well-versed in this game, trying to tell me how to play it, I stopped playing after a few weeks. Too much going on, too little explanation, and too many maps that are simply unplayable as a beginner. While osu is not my first rhythm game, it doesn't really make it any easier. I keep saying I will return but I've been saying that for 9 months now and I can't see myself returning anytime soon, if at all.

miraie introduce me to osu

I was lucky I somehow downloaded Lazer insteaf of stable. It wasn't still very polished but it looked very friendly and was very easy to understand.

I feel like with osu! you have to know a bit about it before you can actually play it or have to explore around the game and figure out how things work instead of just downloading or buying a new game and it giving you a tutorial or introduction once you start. I think it would help osu! if they decided to give it a tutorial or easy setup process before you immediately hit play and have the game overwhelm you with things you don't know. But on the otherhand I also feel like osu! not having a proper introduction kind of makes it unique in a way where it's like trying something new for the first time without any help. You have to learn and try it over and over again and get familiar with it in order to truly understand and play the game to its and your full potential. However I do think though that in the future when osu! lazer is fully released (assuming that it will be) it will have a better introduction than osu! currently does. It has a starting setup page/tutorial sort of thing, however I do feel like it would help if they at least made the tutorial the first thing you see once you start the game before it downloads the maps for you after you hit play and do your setup, or have like an introduction video to watch beforehand. But this is all just opinion and some hope

When I recently started playing osu lazer. I thought I was supposed to get the hundred points that always showed up and I thought that there were the highest points you can earn. Now I found out that I need to look at the bar down to see my accuracy.

stable is feature locked, they're not going to change a single thing about it

I guess Im lucky my friend gave the advice of on the beatmap page, “Think of an anime you like and download anything that said tv size, play blue map, then get A, then move up to green and yellow”

It’s a bit demotivating to feel like I suck at the game despite obtaining a few 50pp plays because to others, those kinds of plays are nothing… Yet it’s a journey for me to even set that 100% FC on some rando 2* / low 3* map. Technically, I’m not really a beginner if I’m playing those kinds of maps, but I certainly feel like one considering I’m in the 750k rank range lol

I watched this vid when i first started like in october. and 160 hours and 890 pp later, I've returned to give my thanks

Yeah, I definitely remember being really lost for the first time, and I only knew certain things because I saw them in videos beforehand (like the fact that songs have to be downloaded rather than given) or the fact that tablet is the most popular playstyle. There IS a lot to be improved about osu's introduction system and lack of instruction. I was only able to invest in osu and read guides on the website because I REALLY wanted to play it. There's a similar situation with Minecraft, and since I'm not as interested in Minecraft, I wouldn't like to invest time into reading about the instructions on a separate page rather than being given to me the first time I login like how Connor wasn't willing to do the basics because it wouldn't introduced to him the moment he opened the game for the first time. Although, there should be a system where boosting up the game on a new computer should allow returning players to just skip, of course. We don't want to repeat Pokémon (U)S(U)M.

I tried Osu many years ago. I thought it was pretty fun. But at some point I accidentally hit a button on my keyboard and the mode changed to something completely different. And despite fumbling around for what seems like way too long, I wasn't able to figure out how to change it back. So I stopped playing and haven't bothered playing it since.

i discovered skins after like.. 3 years of playing osu mania... Discovered online chat after a good time too. Until today i'm discovering new terms and such lol. Well, i'm a casual player but i did played a lot (speacially offline). And osu was my first rhythm game. I dont really remember of being lost, I think i've just accepted things and kept playing

I got into the game by myself, wasn't too bad but I also looked up a lot of stuff about the game

All of these ideas would reqiure the devs to add a single feature to the normal build and not force everyone to wait for lazer to come out to have these features Sounds like the exact complaints i had with a certain other game being updated in october

The best TUYU skin user 😫

It would be great when lazer replaces main, because of the in game beatmap downloading and the better skins lol

I remember when I first joined I felt like trash I can understand where ya coming from ngl

as a 3 digit, i approve of this video

I initially first tried the game in 2016 and didnt even last a month but came back in like 2020 also when i started again i would purposefully try to get 100s because i thought that meant i was 100% accurate lmao never played a rhythm game before osu

I've been rhythm gaming for longer than the average osu! player has been alive, and in fact played Elite Beat Agents (and Ouendan) when they were brand new before osu! was even a thing, so I know exactly what it's _trying_ to do. I also downloaded it, spent an hour trying to figure out how to navigate its menus, trying to find maps that aren't catered to people with 5,000 hours in the game and would be good introductions, and trying to figure out why it feels like it needs to be ten different rhythm games at once (when literally every gameplay video online is _just_ the Oendan clone, why is half of the game falling-note or catcher???) and simply could not. So I uninstalled it and never bothered to look back. This game is _really_ bad at onboarding new players.

the only thing wrong with the video is that it's implying lazer is "not out", anyone can play on lazer, just not for ranked purposes (thats coming before the end of the year too). there's not much value in improving the new player experience in stable anymore

5:28 this is kinda implemented in lazer (the star range, not the modal)

my problem as a beginner is why do i progress like 400 ranks maximum per play at rank 1,339,301

Question, how can i put the design like you without colorful things and balls on sliders, how do i do them neon???

I usually tell people to get Lazer when introducing them to osu Edit: Also getting to know the community at least a bit before starting to play helps a lot. Seeing a good player play the game already gives off an idea on how the game works.

as a mania and taiko main, i approve of this video

When i tap too long /or too fast my pinky slowly hurts despite doing nothing,its bothering me and exausting my other fingers that are tapping the keys.