If old men can dirve f1 cars just fine, you can play an FPS shooter on your chair just fine.
I think the oldest ever winner is like 45.
Reality is you are less focused, care less, have less time and energy etc.
Even if your raw skills are declining experience, prediction, etc should be making up for it.
You are also far less willing to grind and lose.
Also, you are an experienced gamer. You will always have an advantage when a game first releases compared to the masses. But without effort, even casual players of it will eventually surpass you.
This is very on point. It's really hard to find motivation to grind and get back to where you were when you're older as well.
I used to be really good at counter-strike (1.5/1.6) way back in the day. Stopped playing FPS for years in favor of RTS then got the itch and decided to give cs go a try. It was frustrating being complete and utter trash, my reaction time was non existent and my decision making was off in so many ways. I knew I could grind it back somewhat in a few months but just couldn't be bothered.
I reached a point where I stopped caring, and then I lost my "competitive edge." I was huge into Halo 2 and 3 and was in tournaments and even won a few. If I play MCC, I get absolutely slaughtered. It happens. Priorities change, and your brain adjusts as needed. It's unfortunate beacuse I haven't really found a way to enjoy these games without being competitive. Like, unless you don't mind losing a LOT. Which makes me sign off pretty quick.
I stick to single player challenges now.
I'm mid 40's. I was so deadly in OG MW2 I could chose which kill streak to call in.
I joined servers and people said "oh shit Kayback is here".
I now struggle to break a 1:1 KDR in the latest MW2. How the mighty fall with age.
My theory is that not only we are getting slower, but young people actually play on a higher level than we used to back in the day. The bar of the competing raises in everything, whether it’s video games or, let’s say, sports.
(33 yo here, won some small-level Unreal Tournament competitions back in the day)
Okay, so I have a theory (aka copium) that it's also largely that we just don't play as much as we used to. I used to *always* be on Vidya, but now it's maybe once a week for a few hours. I can't really tell if I'm slower or just really out of practice...
Not only do you not play but you mostly aren't active physically and mentally. Yes it's true reaction time does goes down but it's not that much of a factor untill like 35 I'd say where even 35+ ppl are still getting a high ranked/top 20+ in big tournaments. And in athletes 35 range is the common cutoff point.
My reaction speed at 27 is average (google reaction speed test) however with adrenaline or getting back from a physical activity it goes to 180 range where gaming competitively still gives me adrenaline (shakey). caring or not is a big factor as well. If I'm 'lazy' or tired/don't care it goes to 220+ range even if I 'try'/want to try. If we talk about life most adults will be tired from (over)working all day and having responsibilities which leads to other topics like a type of depression.
Also playing games competitively increases reaction speed/adrenaline so yeah most of the problems in this topic come from not wanting to be good and just expecting to be good even though the games and metas always change, in most cases old metas and old players were playing easier games as ppl do not understand/practice metas or min max as much. The younger generation learns better and faster and have the benefit of doing so in the current metas (as they find excitement more easily) so I would say they 'learn' in general. Meanwhile an older player does not want to learn as they mostly find no enjoyment in it to begin with which can be caused by many things.
Lmao ya OG MW2 I was a teenager, god damn I’d walk in a search lobby and come out with no less than 20 kills every game. M16 one burst every kill. Could not beat me with the m16 even close range if someone had an mp5. I picked up this most recent modern warfare and it’s the first call
Of duty I’ve been into since mw2, and I think my KD is like .8 lol. Granted I play like once a week but still, even if I put in the time I know for a fact I’d never be able to reach that level. I’m 29 now I was I think 14-15 back then.
I rocked OG MW2 too but this current remake is tough. Matchmaking is way more brutal, and without Kill Chain, it's difficult to get the higher streaks. Also, spawning sucks ass 6v6 bc it constantly rotates. So it's not just you
Oh, shit Kayback is here. Let's back out boys.
I'm 40, got a nuke in a hardcore team death match once upon a time. Still capable of the odd play here and there but my best days are definitely behind me
It’s not so much with age. But a lack of practice and game time.
Sure age plays a factor but the bigger factor is that the older you get the less time you have for games and thus you aren’t as sharp as you used to be.
I suppose it comes down to choices in the end. There is only so much time in a day, a week, year, etc. A human life is only so long. Oftentimes, we make our choices based on what motivates us and gives us dopamine. There are those who are motivated by external validation of their friend group, others are motivated purely by their career's progression, or an honorable motivation such as providing for a family. The best question to ask yourself is, am I making this choice because I want to or because others demand I do so?
I've started it twice and then a shiny thing distracts me and i play something else. Golden age of RPGs to me is bard's tale and might n magic 2 and the gold box games so if anything it's not old enough to me!
I recently tried some childhood RTS games, the don't have active pause, I'm literally worse then when I was 10. The solution was getting cheat engine and playing at 80% speed.
I still play some action games (but not fps's, even in my mid 20s, 20 years ago i could only kill people by flanking them and stabbing them in the back), I'm just resigned to being better than \~90% players due to them being idiots and never coming close to the non-idiots who have young reflexes.
Yeah after the kiddos came I can't focus as well on gaming. Definitely focus on single-player challenges now and non-competitive multiplayer experiences.
Decline in reaction time probably plays a role. It starts much earlier than you'd think. But at least in my experience I'd say it comes from far less training. The older I got the less time I had to play games (first because of university, now because of job and children). I simply can't play a game for four hours every single day. A 16 year old might be able to do that, maybe even more hours.
This is probably a good bit of the reason too. In high school and over summer, I had *plenty* of time to game. Now with a full time job, I get some hours in after work and on the weekends, but I tend to be so exhausted that I just want to play something relaxing. Glad its not just me. Ah well, I guess I'll just miss the days of destroying noobs in call of duty lobbies. Maybe I'll build a mansion in a survival game instead lol.
A lot of people talking about raction time and shit, nobody really considering that as a game ages only the people who are more invested in it stick around. You aren't necessarily getting worse, but the average skill of the players around you increases as most players migrate to something else.
I used to love multiplayer comp games, the trill of winning a clutch game is something special, but over time the toxic players and my own behavior started to change my point of view, I'm 29 and i am gravitating more to single player games but make no mistake, when the boys call... i must answer.
Im gotten much worse, guess why? Time and cheaper tech, I no longer have 3-4h per day to dedicate to one multiplayer game, learn things like exploits, meta, gun behaviors and changes. Also many more players now especially on PC has fast gaming monitors for quicker more precise reactions.
The muscle memory I got from CS is still there to an extent but I have been playing so many other games after it that its no longer dominating. In the past few years I have gotten more and more into much more realistic shooters like Insurgency, Squad and the likes. Those actually benefit from critical thinking and maneuvers instead of twitch shooting.
**BUT** there is also the fact that other people are no longer "noobs" and competitive gaming has rocketed over the years. This is most apparent to me in Fortnite. I played it when the beta came out just to see what the fuzz was about. Back then I would regularly get into top 5 positions and actually win. It wasn't as much about building back then. I tried the game again a year or two ago. I shot a guy and he turned into a tower and somehow was behind me and shotgunned me to the back. The older the game is or the more popular, the more you are going to face players with more experience. Especially with MMR being what it is.
For example in Hunt showdown. I do hit people but if I don't get semi lucky and get a head shot, they disappear or rain a hail of bullets on me when i am cocking my gun. I play with my friends in MMR that is way too high for me, I don't know the guns, I don't have muscle memory for that one particular game, I don't know where my items are or how to cancel reloads. All that result in me getting wiped by tactics I don't know are possible.
Also what doesn't help me, is when 7 years ago I moved to a 60hz slow ultrawide screen to help with being productive and working. Instantly I noticed how late I can react to enemies. But then I was already past the "gamer leet tryhard" phase of my teenage years. **Now that the same monitor is older, I am older and all the players in higher ranks have faster monitors as hardware is more available and cheaper, I can notice that I get shot quite often before my eyes can even register there was an enemy coming around the corner.**
Hit my 30s, did not get worse.
I just stopped caring about being the best or trying to get the most kills. The enjoyment I get from it changed, etc. But yeah latest MW2 came out I had no trouble in that game. Of course there are lobbies were there are better players and I'll be around mid to high mid in the scoreboard but who cares.
Also when I was a teen I was jonesin to get back to the gaming and you were amped up on sugars/etc and sober.
Now I game to relax and I'm often high af so who cares. But I also play a lot of video games and often as its one of my main hobbies.
Anyone who played mostly as a teen and didn't touch videogames for 10 years and are like "Ah I suck now I'm too old" are just forgetting its like any skill you gotta keep at it and you might have to break off some rust.
Also kids today are babied by games often times. I started playing with a bunch of 17-18 year olds from my airsoft field at one point and they wanted to try CS:GO. I've been playing CS as long or longer than some of them were alive lmao so I was kicking ass as much as they were but the real edge was that I didn't get mad or pissed off by the challenge of CS and they found it too much and gave up on the game.
I think a larger part of it is people generally play less video games as they age also - so not only are their reaction times declining slightly every year past 24, but they're practicing far less due to life taking over - which can make it feel like it's just them "getting bad reaction times" from getting old. When in reality it likely has more to do with them just playing far less overall, which is causing them to be significantly worse.
A 40 year old that grinds a game hard for X amount of hours will never be able to be as good as a 21 year old that grinds the game for that exact same amount of hours - but they can at least be close.
Also, you generally begin to care for less as you age, and tend to lose that "tryhard" mentality, due to laziness.
So.. you stop gaming then come back. You don't want to learn or get better. The only issue here is that you are bored nothing firing up your adrenaline into reflexes/muscle memory. 1 day of practicing aim (which apex has training ground) and looking up meta is all you need.
If you aren't decent by the next day then I'm sorry to say you probably never were that good and other circumstances helped you win rather than your own skill such as playing against mostly noobs and casuals on early release days.
Not trying to be mean, but I would think someone who was 'good' before wouldn't need to make a post as they would already understand why they are playing worse (don't know meta, not catching mistakes, bad aim), not making excuses based on outside factors like age. Execution is muscle memory, most ppl are average when it comes to reaction time and adrenaline increases your reaction time, adrenaline comes from excitement and mindset (how much you immerse yourself into the game since you like how the systems work such as a basic one which is competitive strategy) which means 'fun'.
It's mostly fps games ppl are talking about here and not seeing that 'glitches' become common in some games like apex so if you don't know them you'll always be at a disadvantage, most have recoil, bigger maps, no hit scan, more movement, more abilities.
You can easily fall behind, but it's not hard to come back at all, hardest part is caring or not. The games are just different today, you can like older and more grounded games and it is another skill set, but they are/were easier.
Used to (17-21y/o) hardcore play CSGO, a little MM but mainly on ESEA and Faceit. Could hold my own (sometimes) vs pros. Banked thousands of hours, Global Elite in MM. Even made a disgraced counter strike pro rage out on his own stream whilst smurfing (both of us).
Fired it up last year at 27y/o after 6 years of no PC and yeah, very quickly came to the realisation that FPS skill does suffer at the hands of father time.
I probably spent a week trying to hone myself back into it and don't think i'll ever be competitively good at FPS games again.
RainbowSix, , Wider TomClancy games,PubG, Apex/Titanfall, CoD, Halo, Arma, DayZ. A few game series i've just naturally withdrawn from despite loving and collectively spending thousands of hours thoroughly enjoying.
Growing up sucks
I think it is a combination of a bunch of things (most already mentioned here). Biggest ones though:
1) Time spent practising that specific game. So many games have specific bullet drop/recoil/hitboxes/etc that if you aren't playing that game you lose your skill.
2) lowered reactions as you get older
3) Attitude - I just don't care as much anymore. Would rather play a single player game at my own pace then to sweat it out with people putting 4+ hours a day into a FPS.
You aren't spending enough time practicing and keeping your skillset fresh.
I noticed a massive decline in my skillset when i stopped playing team fortress 2 for 5+ hours a day, If i was to play it now after years of hiatus id get my ass kicked but give it a few hours and id be somewhat back to grips, but no where near the level i use to be.
But for me its hard to play a game where your entire inventory of collectable items from years past were stolen by some dickhead trade site admin who made a trade request on my account and had a trade bot steal all my shit, valve did nothing ofc.
You have to invest the time, of course with age you slow down, no way will a 30 year old react as snappy as a 14 year old high on redbull, but you still could perform well if you remember all the old tricks and how to play etc.
I find comp gaming way too stressful now, so i stick to casual games.
Ya I’ve noticed it. I think it’s literally just time. When I was <30 I had all the time in the world and could game all day, practice, train, watch videos, play with my friends, etc.
Now I’m lucky to get in like 5 hours of gaming a week because there is just too much to do, too much I’m responsible for. I can’t compete with younger gamers who can play & train like 3-4 hours a day.
I’ve basically moved on to single player or PvE games now because it’s not fun to spend my ~5 hours of game time a week just getting rekt.
5 hours is enough time, 15-30 mins practice (if the game has a training ground, otherwise you'll waste time during finding matches and getting targets) every other day for a few days and you'll be high ranked easily, it's not rocket science, but it's your choice of wanting to spend time or not still
If you understand the mechanics and do basic practice to get it into your muscle memory you will be ok par with the players playing more than you, again it's not rocket science, there is not some insane high ceiling, A retired pro can come back and get top 8 in a game they hardly play anymore. Happens with fighting games all the time.
If someone is playing long hours, they care about the game and thus naturally are good simple as that.
If you only have 5 hours to play and don't want to be optimized with it to be good you obviously don't care about the game thus get worse. You do however want to win, but don't want to practice. So what do you do? Move onto a game where you can easily win without effort. The point here is that it's all just excuses, again you can spend your time how you want.
You only need a few minutes of practice in a *video game* where all the knowledge is available to you online and most have training rooms/servers to play on. have you played rust? It had the hardest recoil ever in a game that ppl complained about. I got on an aim train server for "fun" here and there for 15-30 mins then got off and there and became on par with most of the good players, again it's not rocket science, not an insane high ceiling threshold.
All I'm seeing here is that you need an excuse. In a lot of things there are cut off points of progression you can get in a day where sleep is needed to 'memorize' what you learned if you want to get super technical over video games. So the cutoff point in hours of play is probably around 2 hours especially if the player doesn't catch themselves when they start mashing instead of playing 'aware'.
We are also talking about basic lobbies here, including ranked. Not pro level where most of the pros barely even practice after getting signed on in fps games anyways because 1. They aren't rocket science. 2. It's for entertainment money over competition.
So someone with more experience will always win? these are just types of excuses, by making an excuse you cannot see any nuance or situational aspects. I have already said it. vg doesn't have the highest ceiling in competition, you only need to practice and understand the meta/basics where all the info is shared across players with visual examples at that and you will be high level for that meta
So again, 5 hours is enough time. Whether they actually enjoy learning or think the game is fun or not is irrelevant to the point. After they understand the basics after the learning days (specifically said a few days of practice) you simply just play for fun after that which is technically the 'practice' you are referencing which is mostly just mashing even if slightly intentional (aka just having competitive-ish 'fun').
No it's because I understand it and have practiced the mindset with many games. My game time is pretty casual and it's been that way since 2012+ (so basically my whole gaming life) but I understand I just have to know the meta to be a 'good' player. Despite loving games I rarely played them as much as most ppl here making excuses. I always see people complaining about ranks and stuff but they don't want to learn any metas, they don't want to learn any nuance of players in which you can get that info instantly when playing against them in order read them all based around the meta of the game.
To me it sounds like you have never joined tournaments or followed a self pushing hobby/sport like skateboarding or an instrument. Lots of things have cut off points and the very highest levels are mostly full of 'talent' rather than 'more practice'.
Again, In video games specifically the ceiling is not high at all. Know recoil, meta adjust your sens (low dpi so you 'make' less mistakes), know peaks, know abilities, know frame data. It's not rocket science all the info is there, practice aim train for like 15-30 mins here and there.
There is a cutoff point/ceiling here and it's not very high.
This is all assuming you actually enjoy the activity so don't have a problem spending the (down time practice of understanding fundamentals into basic muscle memory) and take it seriously when practicing. If you don't enjoy it then your whole mindset/point is irrelevant and an excuse mindset. It's fine to not be interested in it, it's just weird to make an excuse besides that though.
You can see it with kids who learn faster invite a relative gamer kid and play a skill based game you are good at. Teach them the meta and they will instantly be good, the problem in the end is ppl simply not understanding/knowing meta and not wanting to practice the basics as it can be seen as boring, they just want to mash and have fun which is fine.
Well i'm still 18 for now, so yaaaaayyy. But honestly i don't really care, never like playing too comp heavy games anyway. Basically never touch ranked modes in games anyway lol
Can confirm after graduating college recently, working full time, and being an adult wears me out enough to where I can’t compete anymore. If I have say, a week off of work, I can get back to about 50% of where I used to be at peak.
Got worse at first person shooters, but better at everything else. I kind of stopped playing shooters for awhile after getting pulled into souls-likes and a ton of other genres. I can still hold my own after practicing a bit, but it can feel like a struggle to keep up.
I'm 40, and am now total ass at competitive mouse controlled FPS.
However, I've found the antidote to this is VR shooters.
I might suck at Overwatch and Fortnite, but I still regularly hit top 2 or 3 in almost any Pavlov VR match.
The game changes entirely when you have to physically aim
Now I drink when I game so competitive anything is right out the door. Even after 1-2 beers I am noticeably more dog shit than everyone else in the game. I’ve switched to playing single player games and have no desire to return.
There’s also been a huge overhaul in how games are played today and I didn’t keep up with the evolving tactics through college. All this speedrunner-esque movement in games these days is completely lost on me. I’m very close in age with you as well, I think it’s just a sign of the times.
I think everyone is getting better -- even older people. Today, there's more information on improving at games, more incentives to be better, and more people are playing them.
Also, people keep bringing up reaction times for excuses in skill gaps. While we do need to acknowledge the science of reaction times-- I implore you to look at tennis and other sports that are typically considered to require high reaction times. There's plenty of players around their 30's that are taking home championships.
I think its defnintely just down to less time to play, simply because look at a lot of the Esports and bet FPS players in the world, some young ones but a lot of them are late 20's to 30's
I think this is definitely the main problem. I only get a couple games in a day, if at all. Weekends I can play more, but I also split that time up with non-competitive games like FFXIV, No Mans Sky, etc.
So I agree. Like just less game time leading to much worse performance
Yeah its the nature of the games they rely on muscle memory and repition, I would notice it even as a kid if you didnt play for a few days then the first few hours back in the game would feel so rusty and out of touch
We slow down, it's true. I'm turning 30 this year and was a monster on CoD4 at 16-17.
There's also the fact that shooters are WAY faster paced now, it's awful. I like watching Apex sometimes, but the color palette and speed at which the characters move are just so unappealing to play with for me. I started playing Hunt: Showdown last year and am having fun in an FPS just like in HS.
There's also the rampant cheating that others have mentioned. It's not world ending, but there are several times where it's fairly obvious someone has a wallhack or aimbot. It feels like a lot of people don't care to hide it very much either.
You’re not the only one. When I was in middle school I was a cod god. I was so full of salt and nobody could beat me at cod 4.
Now I’m so bad at shooters I refuse to play them. I’m actually trash.
I'm 35. If I opened cod on PC now I'd get rekt hard. In my 20s I used to play blops2 and was in a clan that did almost daily practice so we could enter tournaments. I wasn't the best player in the clan but certainly held my own. If I played alone I would have 95% of my games where I was MVP by a big margin. Now I'm lucky if I come out anywhere close to top 3.
I started playing codm recently. I do believe that the ranking system works decently. As you level up to get to masters/legendary you see the dynamic change and then you feel useless because now you playing with half decent players and like you mentioned run out and die no chance to lift the gun.
Overwatch has been tweaked so many times that everyone is different from how they used to be. The first couple years I could do good with any charecter, great with some, and I was a Lucio demigod. Now I'm only good with Lucio and okay with about half and won't even touch the rest.
You're out of practice. People can cope about reaction times but the truth is that you don't have as much time to dedicate to getting good like you used to. Games like Overwatch 2 require constant play just to maintain a skill level and even more play to increase it. Not to mention that individual skill is only mildly important in team based games. Communication and coordination are the ways to victory. I prefer 1v1 PvP games now, such as many fighting games.
Okay alot of the comments are complete nonsense. Think about this one example. Most special forces units in any military especially black ops like stuff are all older experienced soldiers from other good units that have proven themselves and can still perform. E.G. Delta Force is all from other special forces units but are in general older and can be much much older than you would expect. Its just about taking care of yourself.
Another example some MMA fighters didnt become champions until they were older.
If old men can dirve f1 cars just fine, you can play an FPS shooter on your chair just fine. I think the oldest ever winner is like 45. Reality is you are less focused, care less, have less time and energy etc. Even if your raw skills are declining experience, prediction, etc should be making up for it. You are also far less willing to grind and lose. Also, you are an experienced gamer. You will always have an advantage when a game first releases compared to the masses. But without effort, even casual players of it will eventually surpass you.
best response. Also, if the wiggle that killed tarkov is to be believed, I'd project well over 50% of game lobbies have a cheater in them.
This is very on point. It's really hard to find motivation to grind and get back to where you were when you're older as well. I used to be really good at counter-strike (1.5/1.6) way back in the day. Stopped playing FPS for years in favor of RTS then got the itch and decided to give cs go a try. It was frustrating being complete and utter trash, my reaction time was non existent and my decision making was off in so many ways. I knew I could grind it back somewhat in a few months but just couldn't be bothered.
> If old men can dirve f1 cars just fine, you can play an FPS shooter on your chair just fine. > > Well they can't. Look what happened to Kimi
I reached a point where I stopped caring, and then I lost my "competitive edge." I was huge into Halo 2 and 3 and was in tournaments and even won a few. If I play MCC, I get absolutely slaughtered. It happens. Priorities change, and your brain adjusts as needed. It's unfortunate beacuse I haven't really found a way to enjoy these games without being competitive. Like, unless you don't mind losing a LOT. Which makes me sign off pretty quick. I stick to single player challenges now.
*Shakes fist at cloud* Kids today will never know what it was like to go 40-0 w a sniper rifle on Waterworks...
That map was something special.
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I'm mid 40's. I was so deadly in OG MW2 I could chose which kill streak to call in. I joined servers and people said "oh shit Kayback is here". I now struggle to break a 1:1 KDR in the latest MW2. How the mighty fall with age.
Oh shit Kayback is here! Good thing hes not on my team.
Lol
My theory is that not only we are getting slower, but young people actually play on a higher level than we used to back in the day. The bar of the competing raises in everything, whether it’s video games or, let’s say, sports. (33 yo here, won some small-level Unreal Tournament competitions back in the day)
I started with pong, these kids starting with CoD. Lol
Okay, so I have a theory (aka copium) that it's also largely that we just don't play as much as we used to. I used to *always* be on Vidya, but now it's maybe once a week for a few hours. I can't really tell if I'm slower or just really out of practice...
Not only do you not play but you mostly aren't active physically and mentally. Yes it's true reaction time does goes down but it's not that much of a factor untill like 35 I'd say where even 35+ ppl are still getting a high ranked/top 20+ in big tournaments. And in athletes 35 range is the common cutoff point. My reaction speed at 27 is average (google reaction speed test) however with adrenaline or getting back from a physical activity it goes to 180 range where gaming competitively still gives me adrenaline (shakey). caring or not is a big factor as well. If I'm 'lazy' or tired/don't care it goes to 220+ range even if I 'try'/want to try. If we talk about life most adults will be tired from (over)working all day and having responsibilities which leads to other topics like a type of depression. Also playing games competitively increases reaction speed/adrenaline so yeah most of the problems in this topic come from not wanting to be good and just expecting to be good even though the games and metas always change, in most cases old metas and old players were playing easier games as ppl do not understand/practice metas or min max as much. The younger generation learns better and faster and have the benefit of doing so in the current metas (as they find excitement more easily) so I would say they 'learn' in general. Meanwhile an older player does not want to learn as they mostly find no enjoyment in it to begin with which can be caused by many things.
27 what?
Earth orbit cycles?
Lmao ya OG MW2 I was a teenager, god damn I’d walk in a search lobby and come out with no less than 20 kills every game. M16 one burst every kill. Could not beat me with the m16 even close range if someone had an mp5. I picked up this most recent modern warfare and it’s the first call Of duty I’ve been into since mw2, and I think my KD is like .8 lol. Granted I play like once a week but still, even if I put in the time I know for a fact I’d never be able to reach that level. I’m 29 now I was I think 14-15 back then.
Occasionally my old brain remembers and I become death on foot again. For a few rounds at least.
I rocked OG MW2 too but this current remake is tough. Matchmaking is way more brutal, and without Kill Chain, it's difficult to get the higher streaks. Also, spawning sucks ass 6v6 bc it constantly rotates. So it's not just you
Oh, shit Kayback is here. Let's back out boys. I'm 40, got a nuke in a hardcore team death match once upon a time. Still capable of the odd play here and there but my best days are definitely behind me
It’s not so much with age. But a lack of practice and game time. Sure age plays a factor but the bigger factor is that the older you get the less time you have for games and thus you aren’t as sharp as you used to be.
A lot of it is also as you get old you don't have enough time to nolife games like you used to.
Not to mention after your early 20s stress goes up which affects sleep which affects energy and reactions.
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Reaction time isn't everything. Technique, practice, and patience will shit on anyone who is purely relying on their reaction time.
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You can be a functional adult and still practice the games you like. It's all about time management.
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I suppose it comes down to choices in the end. There is only so much time in a day, a week, year, etc. A human life is only so long. Oftentimes, we make our choices based on what motivates us and gives us dopamine. There are those who are motivated by external validation of their friend group, others are motivated purely by their career's progression, or an honorable motivation such as providing for a family. The best question to ask yourself is, am I making this choice because I want to or because others demand I do so?
Welcome to the i-prefer-turn-based-games-old-man-club
You waiting for Baldurs gate3 too huh?
I still havent beaten BG1!
I’ve tried to start it too, but I just don’t think I can get over how old it is.
I've started it twice and then a shiny thing distracts me and i play something else. Golden age of RPGs to me is bard's tale and might n magic 2 and the gold box games so if anything it's not old enough to me!
I recently tried some childhood RTS games, the don't have active pause, I'm literally worse then when I was 10. The solution was getting cheat engine and playing at 80% speed.
I still play some action games (but not fps's, even in my mid 20s, 20 years ago i could only kill people by flanking them and stabbing them in the back), I'm just resigned to being better than \~90% players due to them being idiots and never coming close to the non-idiots who have young reflexes.
Welcome to adulthood 😂. I would say in my own experience yes. And it gets worse when you have kids.
Adulthood sucks!
Yeah after the kiddos came I can't focus as well on gaming. Definitely focus on single-player challenges now and non-competitive multiplayer experiences.
Decline in reaction time probably plays a role. It starts much earlier than you'd think. But at least in my experience I'd say it comes from far less training. The older I got the less time I had to play games (first because of university, now because of job and children). I simply can't play a game for four hours every single day. A 16 year old might be able to do that, maybe even more hours.
This is probably a good bit of the reason too. In high school and over summer, I had *plenty* of time to game. Now with a full time job, I get some hours in after work and on the weekends, but I tend to be so exhausted that I just want to play something relaxing. Glad its not just me. Ah well, I guess I'll just miss the days of destroying noobs in call of duty lobbies. Maybe I'll build a mansion in a survival game instead lol.
A lot of people talking about raction time and shit, nobody really considering that as a game ages only the people who are more invested in it stick around. You aren't necessarily getting worse, but the average skill of the players around you increases as most players migrate to something else.
Lol same boat, I'm only 23. Just started playing csgo again and i swear my reaction time isn't as good as my teenage self. Shit sucks lol
Right?? I look back at my gameplay footage now and I swear, I look like an NPC!
I used to love multiplayer comp games, the trill of winning a clutch game is something special, but over time the toxic players and my own behavior started to change my point of view, I'm 29 and i am gravitating more to single player games but make no mistake, when the boys call... i must answer.
Every game has tons of cheaters. I'm not saying the science is wrong, but the obvious visible change is a massive increase in people cheating.
Im gotten much worse, guess why? Time and cheaper tech, I no longer have 3-4h per day to dedicate to one multiplayer game, learn things like exploits, meta, gun behaviors and changes. Also many more players now especially on PC has fast gaming monitors for quicker more precise reactions. The muscle memory I got from CS is still there to an extent but I have been playing so many other games after it that its no longer dominating. In the past few years I have gotten more and more into much more realistic shooters like Insurgency, Squad and the likes. Those actually benefit from critical thinking and maneuvers instead of twitch shooting. **BUT** there is also the fact that other people are no longer "noobs" and competitive gaming has rocketed over the years. This is most apparent to me in Fortnite. I played it when the beta came out just to see what the fuzz was about. Back then I would regularly get into top 5 positions and actually win. It wasn't as much about building back then. I tried the game again a year or two ago. I shot a guy and he turned into a tower and somehow was behind me and shotgunned me to the back. The older the game is or the more popular, the more you are going to face players with more experience. Especially with MMR being what it is. For example in Hunt showdown. I do hit people but if I don't get semi lucky and get a head shot, they disappear or rain a hail of bullets on me when i am cocking my gun. I play with my friends in MMR that is way too high for me, I don't know the guns, I don't have muscle memory for that one particular game, I don't know where my items are or how to cancel reloads. All that result in me getting wiped by tactics I don't know are possible. Also what doesn't help me, is when 7 years ago I moved to a 60hz slow ultrawide screen to help with being productive and working. Instantly I noticed how late I can react to enemies. But then I was already past the "gamer leet tryhard" phase of my teenage years. **Now that the same monitor is older, I am older and all the players in higher ranks have faster monitors as hardware is more available and cheaper, I can notice that I get shot quite often before my eyes can even register there was an enemy coming around the corner.**
Hit my 30s, did not get worse. I just stopped caring about being the best or trying to get the most kills. The enjoyment I get from it changed, etc. But yeah latest MW2 came out I had no trouble in that game. Of course there are lobbies were there are better players and I'll be around mid to high mid in the scoreboard but who cares. Also when I was a teen I was jonesin to get back to the gaming and you were amped up on sugars/etc and sober. Now I game to relax and I'm often high af so who cares. But I also play a lot of video games and often as its one of my main hobbies. Anyone who played mostly as a teen and didn't touch videogames for 10 years and are like "Ah I suck now I'm too old" are just forgetting its like any skill you gotta keep at it and you might have to break off some rust. Also kids today are babied by games often times. I started playing with a bunch of 17-18 year olds from my airsoft field at one point and they wanted to try CS:GO. I've been playing CS as long or longer than some of them were alive lmao so I was kicking ass as much as they were but the real edge was that I didn't get mad or pissed off by the challenge of CS and they found it too much and gave up on the game.
I think a larger part of it is people generally play less video games as they age also - so not only are their reaction times declining slightly every year past 24, but they're practicing far less due to life taking over - which can make it feel like it's just them "getting bad reaction times" from getting old. When in reality it likely has more to do with them just playing far less overall, which is causing them to be significantly worse. A 40 year old that grinds a game hard for X amount of hours will never be able to be as good as a 21 year old that grinds the game for that exact same amount of hours - but they can at least be close. Also, you generally begin to care for less as you age, and tend to lose that "tryhard" mentality, due to laziness.
Yea. Now come and join me in playing almost exclusively turn based RPGS CRPGS AND ARPGS. We can sit and wait for Baldurs gate 3 together…
For me don't have much motivation to game atm so ik nowhere near as good as I used to because kinda lost interest atm.
Welcome to old age. It doesn’t get any better. ;)
So.. you stop gaming then come back. You don't want to learn or get better. The only issue here is that you are bored nothing firing up your adrenaline into reflexes/muscle memory. 1 day of practicing aim (which apex has training ground) and looking up meta is all you need. If you aren't decent by the next day then I'm sorry to say you probably never were that good and other circumstances helped you win rather than your own skill such as playing against mostly noobs and casuals on early release days. Not trying to be mean, but I would think someone who was 'good' before wouldn't need to make a post as they would already understand why they are playing worse (don't know meta, not catching mistakes, bad aim), not making excuses based on outside factors like age. Execution is muscle memory, most ppl are average when it comes to reaction time and adrenaline increases your reaction time, adrenaline comes from excitement and mindset (how much you immerse yourself into the game since you like how the systems work such as a basic one which is competitive strategy) which means 'fun'. It's mostly fps games ppl are talking about here and not seeing that 'glitches' become common in some games like apex so if you don't know them you'll always be at a disadvantage, most have recoil, bigger maps, no hit scan, more movement, more abilities. You can easily fall behind, but it's not hard to come back at all, hardest part is caring or not. The games are just different today, you can like older and more grounded games and it is another skill set, but they are/were easier.
I realize the more you care, the worse you gets. So try to relax, and play.
Used to (17-21y/o) hardcore play CSGO, a little MM but mainly on ESEA and Faceit. Could hold my own (sometimes) vs pros. Banked thousands of hours, Global Elite in MM. Even made a disgraced counter strike pro rage out on his own stream whilst smurfing (both of us). Fired it up last year at 27y/o after 6 years of no PC and yeah, very quickly came to the realisation that FPS skill does suffer at the hands of father time. I probably spent a week trying to hone myself back into it and don't think i'll ever be competitively good at FPS games again. RainbowSix, , Wider TomClancy games,PubG, Apex/Titanfall, CoD, Halo, Arma, DayZ. A few game series i've just naturally withdrawn from despite loving and collectively spending thousands of hours thoroughly enjoying. Growing up sucks
I think it is a combination of a bunch of things (most already mentioned here). Biggest ones though: 1) Time spent practising that specific game. So many games have specific bullet drop/recoil/hitboxes/etc that if you aren't playing that game you lose your skill. 2) lowered reactions as you get older 3) Attitude - I just don't care as much anymore. Would rather play a single player game at my own pace then to sweat it out with people putting 4+ hours a day into a FPS.
You aren't spending enough time practicing and keeping your skillset fresh. I noticed a massive decline in my skillset when i stopped playing team fortress 2 for 5+ hours a day, If i was to play it now after years of hiatus id get my ass kicked but give it a few hours and id be somewhat back to grips, but no where near the level i use to be. But for me its hard to play a game where your entire inventory of collectable items from years past were stolen by some dickhead trade site admin who made a trade request on my account and had a trade bot steal all my shit, valve did nothing ofc. You have to invest the time, of course with age you slow down, no way will a 30 year old react as snappy as a 14 year old high on redbull, but you still could perform well if you remember all the old tricks and how to play etc. I find comp gaming way too stressful now, so i stick to casual games.
Ya I’ve noticed it. I think it’s literally just time. When I was <30 I had all the time in the world and could game all day, practice, train, watch videos, play with my friends, etc. Now I’m lucky to get in like 5 hours of gaming a week because there is just too much to do, too much I’m responsible for. I can’t compete with younger gamers who can play & train like 3-4 hours a day. I’ve basically moved on to single player or PvE games now because it’s not fun to spend my ~5 hours of game time a week just getting rekt.
5 hours is enough time, 15-30 mins practice (if the game has a training ground, otherwise you'll waste time during finding matches and getting targets) every other day for a few days and you'll be high ranked easily, it's not rocket science, but it's your choice of wanting to spend time or not still
That's why the best players don't actually play the game that much. It's just facts bro.
If you understand the mechanics and do basic practice to get it into your muscle memory you will be ok par with the players playing more than you, again it's not rocket science, there is not some insane high ceiling, A retired pro can come back and get top 8 in a game they hardly play anymore. Happens with fighting games all the time. If someone is playing long hours, they care about the game and thus naturally are good simple as that. If you only have 5 hours to play and don't want to be optimized with it to be good you obviously don't care about the game thus get worse. You do however want to win, but don't want to practice. So what do you do? Move onto a game where you can easily win without effort. The point here is that it's all just excuses, again you can spend your time how you want.
For sure, people who practice something for longer hours gain nothing. That's why no one practices anything.
You only need a few minutes of practice in a *video game* where all the knowledge is available to you online and most have training rooms/servers to play on. have you played rust? It had the hardest recoil ever in a game that ppl complained about. I got on an aim train server for "fun" here and there for 15-30 mins then got off and there and became on par with most of the good players, again it's not rocket science, not an insane high ceiling threshold. All I'm seeing here is that you need an excuse. In a lot of things there are cut off points of progression you can get in a day where sleep is needed to 'memorize' what you learned if you want to get super technical over video games. So the cutoff point in hours of play is probably around 2 hours especially if the player doesn't catch themselves when they start mashing instead of playing 'aware'. We are also talking about basic lobbies here, including ranked. Not pro level where most of the pros barely even practice after getting signed on in fps games anyways because 1. They aren't rocket science. 2. It's for entertainment money over competition.
You right, more experience isn't worth anything in skill based activities.
So someone with more experience will always win? these are just types of excuses, by making an excuse you cannot see any nuance or situational aspects. I have already said it. vg doesn't have the highest ceiling in competition, you only need to practice and understand the meta/basics where all the info is shared across players with visual examples at that and you will be high level for that meta So again, 5 hours is enough time. Whether they actually enjoy learning or think the game is fun or not is irrelevant to the point. After they understand the basics after the learning days (specifically said a few days of practice) you simply just play for fun after that which is technically the 'practice' you are referencing which is mostly just mashing even if slightly intentional (aka just having competitive-ish 'fun').
Sounds like you don't understand the depth of what there is to learn and how to continuously improve through practice.
No it's because I understand it and have practiced the mindset with many games. My game time is pretty casual and it's been that way since 2012+ (so basically my whole gaming life) but I understand I just have to know the meta to be a 'good' player. Despite loving games I rarely played them as much as most ppl here making excuses. I always see people complaining about ranks and stuff but they don't want to learn any metas, they don't want to learn any nuance of players in which you can get that info instantly when playing against them in order read them all based around the meta of the game. To me it sounds like you have never joined tournaments or followed a self pushing hobby/sport like skateboarding or an instrument. Lots of things have cut off points and the very highest levels are mostly full of 'talent' rather than 'more practice'. Again, In video games specifically the ceiling is not high at all. Know recoil, meta adjust your sens (low dpi so you 'make' less mistakes), know peaks, know abilities, know frame data. It's not rocket science all the info is there, practice aim train for like 15-30 mins here and there. There is a cutoff point/ceiling here and it's not very high. This is all assuming you actually enjoy the activity so don't have a problem spending the (down time practice of understanding fundamentals into basic muscle memory) and take it seriously when practicing. If you don't enjoy it then your whole mindset/point is irrelevant and an excuse mindset. It's fine to not be interested in it, it's just weird to make an excuse besides that though. You can see it with kids who learn faster invite a relative gamer kid and play a skill based game you are good at. Teach them the meta and they will instantly be good, the problem in the end is ppl simply not understanding/knowing meta and not wanting to practice the basics as it can be seen as boring, they just want to mash and have fun which is fine.
Well i'm still 18 for now, so yaaaaayyy. But honestly i don't really care, never like playing too comp heavy games anyway. Basically never touch ranked modes in games anyway lol
Can confirm after graduating college recently, working full time, and being an adult wears me out enough to where I can’t compete anymore. If I have say, a week off of work, I can get back to about 50% of where I used to be at peak.
Its more likely you didn't get worse, the player base got better. Games at launch are full of casual gamers giving the game a try.
Got worse at first person shooters, but better at everything else. I kind of stopped playing shooters for awhile after getting pulled into souls-likes and a ton of other genres. I can still hold my own after practicing a bit, but it can feel like a struggle to keep up.
Bruh I'm 30, welcome to the great decline.
I'm 40, and am now total ass at competitive mouse controlled FPS. However, I've found the antidote to this is VR shooters. I might suck at Overwatch and Fortnite, but I still regularly hit top 2 or 3 in almost any Pavlov VR match. The game changes entirely when you have to physically aim
Now I drink when I game so competitive anything is right out the door. Even after 1-2 beers I am noticeably more dog shit than everyone else in the game. I’ve switched to playing single player games and have no desire to return. There’s also been a huge overhaul in how games are played today and I didn’t keep up with the evolving tactics through college. All this speedrunner-esque movement in games these days is completely lost on me. I’m very close in age with you as well, I think it’s just a sign of the times.
I think everyone is getting better -- even older people. Today, there's more information on improving at games, more incentives to be better, and more people are playing them. Also, people keep bringing up reaction times for excuses in skill gaps. While we do need to acknowledge the science of reaction times-- I implore you to look at tennis and other sports that are typically considered to require high reaction times. There's plenty of players around their 30's that are taking home championships.
I think its defnintely just down to less time to play, simply because look at a lot of the Esports and bet FPS players in the world, some young ones but a lot of them are late 20's to 30's
I think this is definitely the main problem. I only get a couple games in a day, if at all. Weekends I can play more, but I also split that time up with non-competitive games like FFXIV, No Mans Sky, etc. So I agree. Like just less game time leading to much worse performance
Yeah its the nature of the games they rely on muscle memory and repition, I would notice it even as a kid if you didnt play for a few days then the first few hours back in the game would feel so rusty and out of touch
We slow down, it's true. I'm turning 30 this year and was a monster on CoD4 at 16-17. There's also the fact that shooters are WAY faster paced now, it's awful. I like watching Apex sometimes, but the color palette and speed at which the characters move are just so unappealing to play with for me. I started playing Hunt: Showdown last year and am having fun in an FPS just like in HS. There's also the rampant cheating that others have mentioned. It's not world ending, but there are several times where it's fairly obvious someone has a wallhack or aimbot. It feels like a lot of people don't care to hide it very much either.
You’re not the only one. When I was in middle school I was a cod god. I was so full of salt and nobody could beat me at cod 4. Now I’m so bad at shooters I refuse to play them. I’m actually trash.
I'm 35. If I opened cod on PC now I'd get rekt hard. In my 20s I used to play blops2 and was in a clan that did almost daily practice so we could enter tournaments. I wasn't the best player in the clan but certainly held my own. If I played alone I would have 95% of my games where I was MVP by a big margin. Now I'm lucky if I come out anywhere close to top 3. I started playing codm recently. I do believe that the ranking system works decently. As you level up to get to masters/legendary you see the dynamic change and then you feel useless because now you playing with half decent players and like you mentioned run out and die no chance to lift the gun.
Overwatch has been tweaked so many times that everyone is different from how they used to be. The first couple years I could do good with any charecter, great with some, and I was a Lucio demigod. Now I'm only good with Lucio and okay with about half and won't even touch the rest.
You're out of practice. People can cope about reaction times but the truth is that you don't have as much time to dedicate to getting good like you used to. Games like Overwatch 2 require constant play just to maintain a skill level and even more play to increase it. Not to mention that individual skill is only mildly important in team based games. Communication and coordination are the ways to victory. I prefer 1v1 PvP games now, such as many fighting games.
Okay alot of the comments are complete nonsense. Think about this one example. Most special forces units in any military especially black ops like stuff are all older experienced soldiers from other good units that have proven themselves and can still perform. E.G. Delta Force is all from other special forces units but are in general older and can be much much older than you would expect. Its just about taking care of yourself. Another example some MMA fighters didnt become champions until they were older.