Beatmap Playlists: My Experience and Some Precautions & Tips

So recently cavoeboy made a beatmap playlist inspired by an idea for a streamer named Ritaka. The goal is to finish every single map in the list in order as quickly as possible. Every time you FC a map, half the map's duration would be deducted from your time and every time you fail and go to the next map, double the map's duration would be added to your time. More playlists are being made and I myself decided to try the 10 hour Stream/Alt playlist, and boy do I have some warnings to give.

Firstly, do not even consider attempting very long playlists that are 5 hours or longer if you do not have people to keep you company all the way. If you attempt it alone, you will go insane. I woke up and attempted the 10-hour playlist alone. 1 hour in and you will start to lose focus. 2 hours in and you will start deteriorating heavily in skill. 3 hours in and you will want to give up.

Although the primary goal in these beatmap playlists is to finish as fast as possible, you HAVE to take breaks for longer ones. It is more beneficial in the long run not only to prevent your skills from worsening but also to keep your mental health in check. Short playlists that last 1-2 hours are fine to attempt in one go, and it would be really exciting to see some crazy times that people can set.

Now for some strategies. As always, it's important to warm up to your best potential after playing for roughly thirty minutes to an hour before you attempt a run for any playlist. In order to save time between alt-tabbing and looking for the next map in the list that I am supposed to play, I downloaded the maps in groups of 5, conveniently colour-coded in the sheets already. Then I made collections for every five maps titled like playlist1.01, playlist1.02 until playlist1.30. This way, all of the next five maps you have to play are already right in front of you, and all you have to do is alt-tab to see what are the next two maps you have to play, do that again and play the last map in the collection you haven't attempt. This isn't very important, but I would recommend quickly scouting through the list of maps in-game too, to check for any gimmicks like low AR or high/low BPM to prepare yourself. If you miss at the start of a map in a run, you should also consider whether it was an accidental miss on a map that you can comfortably Full Combo, or if the map is just that difficult that your chances are slim. These little things all help to save time which is crucial for the shorter playlists, where FCing and not failing would be the key to getting the best time.

I know this has been a ramble for a gimmick that not many people would attempt. This was made just to help those that do want to try it, as I think playing osu! in this way is much more fun than spamming F2 looking for something fun. Lastly, you can also add your own playlist by contacting cavoeboy via Discord @ cavoeboy#0001 or email @ [email protected]