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u/QuailLoverV2

r/osumania r/osugame
▲ 55 r/osumania

Is my progress good for my play time?

Im sure you all are tired of these posts. Every other post is some variation of "hows my progress", "am i doing for x hours?"

I dont blame those who decide to do these kinds of posts. I think its completely normal to ask these kinds of questions out of curiousity. But why the hell is every 5 digit and their mother posting about this, every single day theres posts asking this, im sure that looking at the other previous posts about others profile you can get a pretty good idea of your own progress.

So why is it that there are so many of these individual posts?

Social comparison theory is a psycological concept that posits that individuals assess their own worth and abilities by comparing themselves to others. This can be upward, where they look to those who have incredible progress for motivation, or downward, where they compare themselves to those who they percieve as less successsful to feel better about their own progress.

I believe that the appearance of all of these kinds of posts on this subreddit is a variation of Social comparison theory.

osu!mania itself is a game that gives you a shit ton of things to compare to others, pp, top plays, dans, play time, and there is nothing objective to compare progress to. I can know that I have 5000pp and 200 hours, but there is nothing that tells me wehther the average person has 5000pp at 200 hours, 50 hours, or 500 hours. Because theres no actual benchmark, it makes sense that people would come here to ask others instead to try to gauge it for themselves.

I also think that the subreddit itself is making this problem worse. You could be completely fine with your progression, but when you see reddit and you see "epsilon in 100 hours playtime" and someone reaching 4 digit in half the amount of playtime you have when you're 5 digit, all of the sudden the progression you're happy with becomes much worse in comparison.

Even if your progress itself hasnt changed at all, suddenly you have all these people to compare yourself against and you suddenly wonder whether youre not really all that good and that you shouldnt be happy with your progress because theres someone whos done much more in much less time.

This is upward social comparison, where you compare yourself against people who seem to be doing better than you, and it can change how you view your own performance even though nothing about your actual performance changed.

And because youre uncertain, you ask. You become one of the endless posts in this subreddit asking. Most of the responses to these post should be 'average'. Because statistically speaking, you should be average. If youre not average, looking at the other posts, you should be able to tell where you stand.

I also have to mention selection bias here. People who have unusually fast progression have more of a reason to post about it in the first place. Someone who thinks theyre improving very quickly might want to know just how fast their progress is, or that they might want to show off a bit. Either way, because these posts are more prevailant, the 'average' in this subreddit gets pushed upwards, and suddenly average is not average.

This starts a cycle of progression checking. Somebody posts about having really fast progression, then someone else sees it and starts questioning their own progression, then that person makes their own "am i good for my playtime" post, which gets seen by someone else who then starts comparing themselves too. Also, after seeing enough of these posts, asking whether your progression is good for your playtime starts feeling like a normal thing that youre supposed to care about.

At the end of the day, you are most likely average. If you play better than you do a few months ago, you are improving. If you are enjoying the game, then great, keep playing and progressing. It doesnt matter whether your improvement is slow, or that you are improving at all. If you enjoy the game then really that should be all you need.

Please stop treating pp/playtime as the end all be all of mania. Do you actually enjoy playing mania itself? Or do you just enjoy getting pp and seeing your rank go up? If its the latter, eventually when your progress starts to slow, and there comes a point of stagnation where you dont get any more pp, will you just give up on mania?

I hope that more people will get into the mindset of actually enjoying mania for itself, and treat pp just as a byproduct of playing the game rather than the focus.

I dont think these posts will stop after this one, but thats completely fine, everyone is entitled to ask whether or not their progression is good, even when its most likely average.

Also you might have seen in the original image next to playtime there is a metric ii. This is a metric from an extension that describes how fast you improve compared to the average player. It might be a little inflated for lower ranks, but i think after around ~100 hours it should be decently accurate. You can read more about it and get it here.

Anyways, can someone tell me if my rank is good for my playtime now? Im starting to get a little worried that im improving too slowly

u/QuailLoverV2 — 3 days ago
▲ 65 r/osugame

Once Forgotten, Nothing Remains, Reverie, ZiWEiYUAN, Roars of V.E.N.G.E.A.N.C.E -Take Back Everything-, Stellaria and Inorganic Dystopia have been QUALIFIED (10.00*-11.79*) | NEW HIGHEST SRs IN 4K, 6K and 7K MANIA

u/QuailLoverV2 — 23 days ago
▲ 175 r/osugame

ASecretBox | Ne Obliviscaris - Devour Me, Colossus (Part I): Blackholes [Flesh to Flowers, Blood to Rivers] +HDHR (Val, 8.43*) 99.77% 4677/7207x 2xMiss | 1076pp (1183pp if FC) | (done on lazer)

u/QuailLoverV2 — 27 days ago