Improving Accuracy

[Forlorn Radiance]

Okay, I've been around for a while. I know what's up for the most part. The more you play the better you get. And its true. I'm not an outstanding player in this community, but I have come a long way from where I started.

I've noticed my speed is getting better, so is my arrow reading (minus funky backgrounds on some songs), but for the life of me, I can't improve my accuracy. I can FC a good portions of the 10s and lower, my best AAA is a 7 (only 2 of them) and there are some longer songs (anything over 600ish arrows) that are 5s and lower, that I still cannot AAA.

Is this about the normal spot to be at for someone at my level? Is there any better ways to build up accuracy? I've tried setting the auto fail up, to force me to hit perfects, but I find myself never going more than a minute or two into any song with it...and its never the same arrows that I miss. Its always very random. Any advice/help is appreciated.

EDIT: Current Speed Mod is 1.75x and Play set up is spread DFJK

[kmay]

increase speed mod or find a new set up

[rushyrulz]

Hit the keys semi-loudly for trills and stream, this helps you stay on beat. Hit keys lightly on fast sections (usually if you hit all the arrows, you'll get pretty good accuracy, starting and ending at the correct time). What is considered fast is always changing. You might think Vertex BETA is fast, so you hit the keys lightly, but I already have a lot of speed (due to years of practice) so I can comfortably hit the streams semi-hard so I stay on beat with the stream/trills.

Another key factor is hand position. If your hands are situated below your elbows, it's generally an akward position resulting in poor accuracy. Keep your wrists grounded on a desk or table at around elbow level with some space to rest your wrists and part of your forearms and play primarily with your fingers. It also helps to prop your keyboard up to about a 30 degree angle with either built in stands in the back of your keyboard, or it can be propped up with ..something.. This is a natural, more comfortable position for your hands. Only come out of this position when attempting hard patterns such as jacking.

I hope this helps you!

[Myattboy]

Watch your replays to see where your making the mistakes. You should be able to see whether your hitting the notes too early or too late.
Auto fail can be a nuisance as you tend to panic more knowing that you've made it so far without screwing up

[Forlorn Radiance]

Yeah myattboy, I've been learning that about autofail, and its not about studying what I'm missing. It's not that I don't have a certain pattern down...its just random goods that come for really no good reason.

I'm trying the elevation thing now on my keyboard as well. I'm going to give that a whirl for a while.

[Patashu]

On FFR, it's important to know that the perfect window, which spans 3 frames at 30 FPS, is one frame 'earlier' than one would expect. This makes it a good habit to hit 33.333... milliseconds early.

[Forlorn Radiance]

Yea Patashu, I read the thread on the timing windows, and the relavance of what frames make a perfect, good, etc. My problem is executing, tho for the most part, I try to be early rather than late.

[Charlo]

I agree with what rushyrulz said about hitting the keys loudly. If you can hear the beat extremely clearly, that helps develop an internal beat and it gets easier to hit perfects.

I find that bobbing my head, to accentuate the beat, also helps with accuracy.

[TheSaxRunner05]

I have similar problems with PA, I'll try some of these suggestions.

[i love you]

Also, don't turn your music up so loud when playing. You have to be able to hear your keytaps so you'll know if you start to get offbeat. Also, try to stay calm when you're about to AAA or get a good score. Your heart tends to start beating really fast when you're about to get a good score so try to overcome that by ignoring it and continuing to focus on your keytaps. Once you get really used to the game, that fast heart beating stops (for most people) since you have learned to remain calm.

[OneHandNow]

DFJK is the problem.

Either stick closely (VBNM, ZXCV, etc)

or spread further. (QWOP, QW NumPad 8/9/6, ASKL, etc)

Orrrrrr. Increase speed mod to 2.0 slowly (this really helps.)
And try to keep a constant beat in your head.

[Forlorn Radiance]

Originally Posted by OneHandNow

DFJK is the problem.

Either stick closely (VBNM, ZXCV, etc)

or spread further. (QWOP, QW NumPad 8/9/6, ASKL, etc)

Orrrrrr. Increase speed mod to 2.0 slowly (this really helps.)
And try to keep a constant beat in your head.

Just up'd my speed mods to 1.875 and its helping. I am aiming for 2. I'll give ASKL a chance. Thanks for the advice.

[foxfire667]

Auto fail is, as other people have said, not a great way to try to improve skill. Auto Fail is generally a mechanism I would only consider using if you have attained a black flag or similar score and will accept nothing less than an AAA. Personally myself I usually set my Auto Fail a 1 miss, and if I feel my run is not to my standards, I just let go of the keyboard. This way, you aern't forcing yourself to acertain a certain level of score, but if you feel you aern't where you want to be, you can just fail and restart without F5'ing or mahing boos and misses until you fail.

I would also suggest to try to play for a while without thinking at ALL about your stats, try to completely forget about how well you are doing and try to focus on enjoying the charts and completeing the songs. If you play without regard for skill, you will probably be more calm and at ease when playing, which in turn will end up giving you better results in the long run. If you are focused on your stats, it can be quite straining on you and actually make you play much worse than you would being calm. Whenever I go for an AAA, I always try to think about the song or the quality of the step instead of how good I'm doing, and because of this I usually can AAA a lot of the harder and longer charts. Obviously this might be tough to do because your mindset is quite focused on learning how to improve, but when you are focusing less on this concept try to distance yourself from stats. You'd be suprised how much better the mind can read things when it's not under pressure.

[Patashu]

Don't use auto fail. It puts you REALLY on edge because it's so frightening to fail suddenly, and you won't play better.

[rushyrulz]

I rage when I autofail. I'm just like WTF?!!

Playing on a flash 8/9 standalone helps tremendously.

[OneHandNow]

You'll be like when you see improvements.

[who_cares973]

there isnt any reason to force yourself to get better accuracy. it'll come with time so dont worry about it. me for example i didnt have my first decent(decent being a 5-7 lmao) AAA until i was able to fc mid fmos

[badman7772]

I pretty much went up to a higher speed mod, played songs with it, watched myself use more energy with my eyes to read it all, then went back to the normal one and I was using less energy and it feels like you're more accurate on your arrows. Helped me get some AAA's.

[rushyrulz]

you'll be able to AAA .

[TheSaxRunner05]

Originally Posted by rushyrulz

It also helps to prop your keyboard up to about a 30 degree angle with either built in stands in the back of your keyboard, or it can be propped up with ..something.. This is a natural, more comfortable position for your hands. Only come out of this position when attempting hard patterns such as jacking.

I hope this helps you!

Dude! Just doing this makes me tire so less quickly, and it's so much easier to do fast streams. Got this full combo from propping my keys up.