Play only part or section of the map (practice mod)

[GSculerlor]

Describe the feature: Sometimes players want to try to play only part of the map (where they fail or where the hard pattern appears) and not full of the map. At this point at stable, a lot of players can only create a new diff on the map that only contains a part that they want to play to do that.

Proposal designs of the feature: Add feature maybe like training mod or something like that, specify the start and end point/time on the map that player wants to try so players can play that specific part without creating new difficulty

[ticotaco72]

Or something like Autoplay but you can in any moment change it to normal gameplay

[c0linw]

I think it would be nice to have it implemented as a separate part of the game instead of as a mod. An ability to "scroll" through the beatmap in real time a la McOsu would be nice in a "Practice" mode alongside "Play" and "Edit" out of the main menu.

[MishterKirby]

I agree, and I feel like it should also let you loop a specific part so you can practice it until you're confident that you can play it.

[Aergwyn]

Isn't Target Practice an unimplemented mod for exactly that or am I remembering wrong?

[LeNitrous]

Target Practice is where random targets appear in triangles. Not the one they're looking for.

[szmarczak]

I'd like to propose fast forwarding to 10s before last failure on next try.

[developomp]

osu!lazer 2021.1113.0 added a beatmap testing feature that can be used as a temporary solution for this problem.

[bdach]

not quite yet, as is it will start from the start of the map anyhow - have changes pending that will change that, though

[Feodor0090]

How settings of the mod should be implemented? Via 2 numberboxes (for start and end), or sliders?
Also, how to propertly handle their maximum values (end time must be less than beatmap length)? I tried to set MaxValue on bindables using IBeatmap.BeatmapInfo.Length, but that did not work.

[frenzibyte]

That sounds like not quite good UX, if this were to be implemented, it should include a custom frozen player that allows selecting a beginning and ending point, then a button or something to start playing the selected section. Something along the lines of that, giving the user a better way to know which part they want without capturing the current time and filling it in a textbox.

It could still be added as part of an MVP implementation.

[peppy]

It should be bar/beat based, not time (if it's going to be time based it should still snap to beats, potentially sharing components or logic with editor implementations).

[Tropix126]

On the topic of a "Practice Mod" where one can scroll through a beatmap, it might be interesting to see some sort of keyboard control for live-updating speed, so that someone can practice a specific area at a different BPM to learn it, then gradually speed it up. Alternatively, there could be a UI similar to the difficulty adjust mod added in-game with the practice mod that lets you adjust ar/speed/od/cs/etc...

[Ekischleki]

Sadly, this request doesn't seem active anymore, even though a lot of people I asked would like to see a "Practice Mode" in Osu.
I have some definite ideas for the implementation of this mode.
I suggest that one could get into practice mode via the main menu > play > practice, or get redirected to practice mode via a context menu.
A practice mode like GeometryDash's (where you have checkpoints, which can either get placed manually, or automatically, with an option to disable automatic placement) would be a good start. There are however some improvements that I'd suggest to this system. After failing, or wanting to restart and getting sent back to the most recent checkpoint, it should be that the player doesn't get dropped into gameplay right away, but instead has a small adjustment phase, where they would see gameplay of themselves, or auto mod for a few seconds, and are able to get back into playing, by clicking on a hit object. As in the original proposal requested, the ability to select a start and ending point for practice mode would be another good addition.
Another thing that could improve the UX, is suggesting a practice passage after repeated failures on certain points in the beatmap.

If you like this idea, I'd love to try and implement it. As I don't have much experience with the codebase of lazer, I'd need some help.

[BlockHead007]

That is something like adofai does and i want to see it too

[Ekischleki]

Before this can be implemented, we need to wait for green light from the core devs

[bdach]

@Ekischleki people have tried to implement this as one of their first contributions to the codebase and failed. this is a feature that we do want to happen, but we're going to be particular about UX and it must not be broken which means it's not going to be an easy ride to implement that. i wouldn't try that as a first contribution.

[Ekischleki]

@bdach Thanks for your insight. I see myself, that this is a great task to implement.
Still, I think practice mode would be a nice addition to lazer. I hope, that it can be in the game some day.

[Cruxial0]

Something I came to think of while playing is the idea of "Community Practice Difficulties". Some video/media platforms allows the community to set custom timestamps within a video to mark that portion as being skippable. It's used for some modern anime websites to automatically skip openings/endings. Similarly, I think osu! could benefit from the same idea - allow the community to set timestamps for a portion of the beatmap where the difficulty spike appears, and have it accessible within a dropdown menu inside osu! as a "practice difficulty".

Structurally, I think these community-made beatmap sections should have a title, and should implement a voting system so more relevant (and serious) practice difficulties appear at the top. With this, the community can either upvote or downvote a practice difficulty depending on how useful they find it.

[rainingfishy]

I would love to see the ability to immediately hop into a practice mode upon failing that navigates to just before you fail, with the option to then scrub forwards/backwards x amount of seconds.
A tool that map makers could be given to utilize would be to create named sections that players would be able to hop in and practice, similar to the guitar hero practice feature.
The training mode could have its own section within the game, should the mode prove to be popular, map makers could create beatmaps for specific patterns/genres/playstyles for certain rank ranges.. These already exist in the form of e.g. "Star training maps" "Jump training maps" but still suffer from the inability to pinpoint the exact point of the map the player wishes to work on. (without using editor knowledge which a lot of newer players aren't familiar with)
This could open the door for weekly/monthly/all time upvoted community training maps, players select a skillset they are wanting to work on and can choose varying difficulties of that skillset
Rocket league has a similar issue where there are many different skills and niche playstyles to learn which can benefit gameplay and their built in training mode does a great job of tackling this.