FPS's - Why Am I So Rubbish
- Thread starter Cmdr Mander
- Start date
anyone else think age is directly proportional to being rubbish at FPS's
Of course it is! My nephew was raised on Halo and by the time he was 13, there was a clear shift in the balance of FPS in my brother's house. He was no longer in awe how his dad and uncle could compete... he was thrashing us.
There have been some good suggestions you should look into... tactics over twitch. I still find Overwatch fun and can compete (or at least contribute), BF1 is still good fun, and I find I do much better in Fortnite than BO4 - if you can handle the cartoony nature, there are many creative ways for an old guy to win in Fortnite.
I used to be King of the Hill back in the early day's of Rainbow Six (late 90's). But now in my mid 50's I'm completely rubbish.
Put few hundred hours into PUBG and every time it's the same: Jump out of plane > Find gun > Die.
Anyone else think age is directly proportional to being rubbish at FPS's
Sure is and I m certain this is the case for everybody, just some people accept and admit it and others dont. Remember when first physical limitations became noticable? I am talking about being a bit slower on your regular 2 mile run, or being a bit more out of breath after that hike. Feeling groggy for hours on the next morning after drinking with your buddies? Stuff like that. Getting old is a slow and gradual process.
Twitch/reaction times getting slower is part of that. And FPS games are all about that, not only clicks per second and how fast you react to something on the screen but its a direct effect on how many bullets you can place on a moving target. You compensate for a while via positioning or take extra aim but the effect will build up and at some point you ll simply be a victim in FPS games when you go against players who are a quarter of your age.
I still like FPS games, just not the PvP ones. I prefer to be able to adjust my challenge accordingly to stay in tune with my capabilities. If somethings too easy its boring, if its too hard its frustrating. Playing against other players is always the max difficulty and thats not counting the ones who cheat. The older I get the more value I put on entertainment and less on challenge or self-validation. I dont feel like I need to participate in contests anymore to prove something. And there are enough games out there where twitch/reaction time isnt the number one factor enabling me to be competitve....just the range of available options is smaller.
My last attempt into FPS PvP was Overwatch. It was very appealing because of the different heroes/classes and the focus on teamplay. I dont think I put in more then 20 hours because I was usually mopped the floor with regardless how hard I tried.
Yeah my old WoW buddies were too chicken to come with me and playing it with strangers is a wild roll, often resulting in even more frustration and truth be told when I watch some high skill players on stream it just drives home the point that I am hopelessly outclassed = no fun
Through sheer dumb luck I managed 2nd place in a PUBG match. I saw the last guy prone behind a tree and in my excitement I cooked a grenade, threw it, hit the tree and it bounced back and blew me up
Grown man crying - not pretty.
Grown man crying - not pretty.
Deleted member 110222
D
My medication is not good for FPS-play. I'm actually surprised I pull in viable DPS numbers in ESO TBH.
LOL
Actually yes, I think age is very important. I was able to check it with a few of my older friends that are not really cool in Apex and some other FPS just in cause of age. I will be very surprised if there is someone over 50 years old on this list https://apexstat.net/leaderboards.
Actually yes, I think age is very important. I was able to check it with a few of my older friends that are not really cool in Apex and some other FPS just in cause of age. I will be very surprised if there is someone over 50 years old on this list https://apexstat.net/leaderboards.
Overwatch is my favorite PvP game these days. It's as much a chess game as an FPS. Maybe you were trying too hard. Assuming you're playing 6v6 and you have a decent team, there's no reason to be "mopping the floor" once you pick and learn a character that's more of a support role. You probably won't ever be able to play as Tracer, but you could play as Symmetra, for example. Don't underestimate the power of well-placed sentry turrets!
Regarding the chess side, Overwatch is all about countering your opponent's strengths. I recently played a match against a team with a Widowmaker who was particularly deadly. Nobody on our team, including myself, could match her sniper-v-sniper, and it gave the enemy a huge advantage. That's when I changed rolls and switched to Sombra, making my primary purpose to frustrate and assassinate that Widowmaker. Long-distance sniping skills don't help against and invisible opponent who can empty an Uzi into your head at point-blank range. That one strategic decision helped shift the game into our favor. That's the key - every player has a counter, and a change in team composition can radically swing the outcome of a game.
As someone who finds Overwatch to be incredibly frustrating I find this insight great. It's nice to see people using brains and that using brains actually matters.
I've never even once had the luck of having a decent team.
Probably mostly because me being a total noob, I'm getting paired with similar noobs. Also I've only played a couple dozen games, so I don't exactly have a good enough sample size.
Maybe I'll try again, one day.
As late as my mid 40's i used to be able to log on to a quake 2 server and clean house. I can remember getting 75 kills in under 20 minutes. I regularly got death threats and had a key bound to type "neener, neener, neener" into the chat. Good times
Now, at 63, i log on and its spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die ad nauseaum.
Its all about the reflexes, or lack thereof.
Now, at 63, i log on and its spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die ad nauseaum.
Its all about the reflexes, or lack thereof.
So I had my first Im getting older and the edge is gone moment. I jumped into Mordhau and played a lot the first week and never have I been so dominated and utter tripe at a game. Even after reading up on the mechanics and practicing I seem to get worse lol. The dependance on timing and reading animations, I just don't seem to have the reflexes and speed to compete and that's okay.
The game is fun and the spectacle and chaos of giant melee battles is very amusing to me, I've accepted the fact that I don't really have what it takes to be competitive in games like this anymore.
More and more I'm getting sucked into relaxing slower games I can play at my own pace and can enjoy thinking aspects without the rush and pressure.
I use to enjoy competitve multiplayer gsmes (CS since 1.3) but more and more I'm finding stuff like this just doesn't interest me much anymore.
I'm only 37 but I feel like theres a big difference in my reaction times and twitch ability over the years. Once you start adding in a second or two of hesitation compared to instant reactions it seems to spell doom for being able to keep up.
The game is fun and the spectacle and chaos of giant melee battles is very amusing to me, I've accepted the fact that I don't really have what it takes to be competitive in games like this anymore.
More and more I'm getting sucked into relaxing slower games I can play at my own pace and can enjoy thinking aspects without the rush and pressure.
I use to enjoy competitve multiplayer gsmes (CS since 1.3) but more and more I'm finding stuff like this just doesn't interest me much anymore.
I'm only 37 but I feel like theres a big difference in my reaction times and twitch ability over the years. Once you start adding in a second or two of hesitation compared to instant reactions it seems to spell doom for being able to keep up.
A big part of getting older is acceptance I think. I remember how much more capable I was physically in younger years and how incredible youth was, something I was taking for granted at the time. My parents and older friends were trying to tell me what I experience right now but I always laughed it off....only now when I experience it for myself can I really comprehend what they tried to do. And I m staying before the same problem when trying to transport my understanding to younger people.
Theres advantages in getting older too. For one I m more empathic and able to see things through other peoples eyes. My relationship really has blossomed in the last 15 years once I got calmer and lost my "drive" for competition and my natural agression decreased.
In hindsight its very unnerving when I remember how often I was risking my life or health in unnesseray demonstrations of courage or because I was triggered so my life has gotten more stability.
Its a balancing act between giving up and refusal to accept limits. For example I have had a healthy phase about 12 years ago when I started to eat better, train and generally become more powerful with my decisions. I have since lost a lot of my buff and muscle mass but refuse to accept that I m "old" and instead try to reach whats possible. And doing so only outlines how "good" the young have it without realizing it
At 37 you can and will compensate any lost reaction time with strategic thinking and preperation. You ll also be more patient then somebody 17 years younger then you. You ll eventually lose that too. My final shift to less twitchy games happened around 42 or 44 I think when playing competitive games simply was stressful and not enjoyable anymore. I have my memories, that has to be enough
Theres advantages in getting older too. For one I m more empathic and able to see things through other peoples eyes. My relationship really has blossomed in the last 15 years once I got calmer and lost my "drive" for competition and my natural agression decreased.
In hindsight its very unnerving when I remember how often I was risking my life or health in unnesseray demonstrations of courage or because I was triggered so my life has gotten more stability.
Its a balancing act between giving up and refusal to accept limits. For example I have had a healthy phase about 12 years ago when I started to eat better, train and generally become more powerful with my decisions. I have since lost a lot of my buff and muscle mass but refuse to accept that I m "old" and instead try to reach whats possible. And doing so only outlines how "good" the young have it without realizing it
At 37 you can and will compensate any lost reaction time with strategic thinking and preperation. You ll also be more patient then somebody 17 years younger then you. You ll eventually lose that too. My final shift to less twitchy games happened around 42 or 44 I think when playing competitive games simply was stressful and not enjoyable anymore. I have my memories, that has to be enough
I think it's about the whole atmosphere, too.A big part of getting older is acceptance I think. I remember how much more capable I was physically in younger years and how incredible youth was, something I was taking for granted at the time. My parents and older friends were trying to tell me what I experience right now but I always laughed it off....only now when I experience it for myself can I really comprehend what they tried to do. And I m staying before the same problem when trying to transport my understanding to younger people.
Theres advantages in getting older too. For one I m more empathic and able to see things through other peoples eyes. My relationship really has blossomed in the last 15 years once I got calmer and lost my "drive" for competition and my natural agression decreased.
In hindsight its very unnerving when I remember how often I was risking my life or health in unnesseray demonstrations of courage or because I was triggered so my life has gotten more stability.
Its a balancing act between giving up and refusal to accept limits. For example I have had a healthy phase about 12 years ago when I started to eat better, train and generally become more powerful with my decisions. I have since lost a lot of my buff and muscle mass but refuse to accept that I m "old" and instead try to reach whats possible. And doing so only outlines how "good" the young have it without realizing it
At 37 you can and will compensate any lost reaction time with strategic thinking and preperation. You ll also be more patient then somebody 17 years younger then you. You ll eventually lose that too. My final shift to less twitchy games happened around 42 or 44 I think when playing competitive games simply was stressful and not enjoyable anymore. I have my memories, that has to be enough
It's not just that I'm rubbish at quick draw and can't see properly. It's also the type and mentality of people playing with me I can't be bothered with.
For example I used to play World of Tanks and now I play World of Warships. I'd say that WoT has a playerbase median of about 25y/o and it shows in playstyle and manners. WoWs, on the other hand, feels like much more... mature game. Let's say 35+. The fact that it's much more tactical and altogether slower simply draws a different type of player, so although the two games are virtually the same in terms of the game mechanics, I can play one but can't the other, suddenly.
It's really interesting, but one thing that I've noticed is that although this whole shift has happened, I don't feel I have fewer games to play. The devs that were making games for the younger me got older, too, and the type of games they want to make shifted as well. So all's good.
Amen to that. I used to be a big fan of MMO games...nowadays not so much...simply because playing solo and at my own pace is more enjoyable then arguing with strangers who think they know better then me and DPS meter every single second in order to boost their own ego.....brrrr
Developers of course have aged as well but games always have been made by older guys, that hasnt changed. The fact that so many previous generations have become older and didnt stop playing tho has triggered a whole new direction into games catering to them instead.
Developers of course have aged as well but games always have been made by older guys, that hasnt changed. The fact that so many previous generations have become older and didnt stop playing tho has triggered a whole new direction into games catering to them instead.
Short sad story: there once was a kid who used UT's bots at "godlike" difficulty to train for instagib matches. Life got a chore, and that kid is no more. 
Seriously though, back in the golden years of competitive UT-UT24K I used godlike bots as part of the daily training, it wasn't a question of winning or losing matches, just of by what margin it should have been a win. Tried the same for fun about a year ago, I didn't actually end last on every match, but still I was owned in ways I didn't even think were possible by an AI. Damn I felt slow. Damn I am slow.
Seriously though, back in the golden years of competitive UT-UT24K I used godlike bots as part of the daily training, it wasn't a question of winning or losing matches, just of by what margin it should have been a win. Tried the same for fun about a year ago, I didn't actually end last on every match, but still I was owned in ways I didn't even think were possible by an AI. Damn I felt slow. Damn I am slow.
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Talking of age and being well past the sell-by date.... to think I used to jump out of moving aeroplanes and get shot at for a living. Nowadays I struggle going down the steps of a commercial aircraft...it's the landing thing that scares the crap out of me, much preferred jumping out...landing is way too dangerous
I think it's a natural process of getting older. It's probably why there are few F1 drivers past their mid 30s. You get old gradually and don't realise your reactions are going, until something throws that into sharp relief. I occasionally think "Heck, I used to be able to do this a few years ago - what's wrong with me today?" "a few years ago" being 1996....oh.....
The other part of it is the amount of time you get to play as you get older. I used to spend ages - literally hours at a time - several days a week playing games. Now I'm lucky if I get to spend 2 hours a week on a weekend. How is a person who plays 2-3 hours a week supposed to keep up with someone who plays 5-10 hours a day? These days I work more hours, have responsibilities around the house, other social commitments, other hobbies. etc. I can't spend hours memorising the exactly location of pick-ups and practising with weapons - let alone sink hours in to "earn" power-ups and upgrades.
Then there is the sheer number of cheats out there. Not just unsporting behaviour but outright hacking and so on.
Anyhoo. I tried PUBG. To be honest I found it to be pretty rubbish for the reasons stated. You log in, there 2-3 minutes of sodding around loading the level, jumping and parachuting, searching for guns and then - pop - you're dead and you need to restart. As there is no respawn. So it's 10 seconds of gameplay every 5 minutes. It's - frankly - boring. And it doesn't help that the game makes no attempt to level-match players or even work out if they're in the same EU state (so massive language barriers). It doesn't even look nice and if I hadn't got it through CD-Keys, I'd have refunded it. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't see what was so magical about it. I thought it was cr*p. The most fun thing was the training mode, oddly enough. Because the gameplay was continual and flowing in a way that PUBG just isn't.
If you want a FPS where the action is nearly continuous and dying just puts you back to a spawn point, try Star Wars Battlefront or Battlefront 2. You'll still have a lousy K/D ratio but you'll have more fun with that than PUBG. Especially in the blast and strike modes, where they've just cut the number of players needed to start a match in half (and botted the other players until they join). Honestly, this game is pretty good fun in a casual kind of throwaway fashion. It's very, very accessible and when you get killed you respawn in seconds and plough back into the fight.
I think I'm right in saying you can refund any game in steam in 2 hours. So my plan is to pick a one to download. Try it and set a time for 90 minutes. If at 90 minutes I'm bored or uninterested, I quit out and refund it. Then buy something else, until I get something I like for longer than 90 minutes.
The other part of it is the amount of time you get to play as you get older. I used to spend ages - literally hours at a time - several days a week playing games. Now I'm lucky if I get to spend 2 hours a week on a weekend. How is a person who plays 2-3 hours a week supposed to keep up with someone who plays 5-10 hours a day? These days I work more hours, have responsibilities around the house, other social commitments, other hobbies. etc. I can't spend hours memorising the exactly location of pick-ups and practising with weapons - let alone sink hours in to "earn" power-ups and upgrades.
Then there is the sheer number of cheats out there. Not just unsporting behaviour but outright hacking and so on.
Anyhoo. I tried PUBG. To be honest I found it to be pretty rubbish for the reasons stated. You log in, there 2-3 minutes of sodding around loading the level, jumping and parachuting, searching for guns and then - pop - you're dead and you need to restart. As there is no respawn. So it's 10 seconds of gameplay every 5 minutes. It's - frankly - boring. And it doesn't help that the game makes no attempt to level-match players or even work out if they're in the same EU state (so massive language barriers). It doesn't even look nice and if I hadn't got it through CD-Keys, I'd have refunded it. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't see what was so magical about it. I thought it was cr*p. The most fun thing was the training mode, oddly enough. Because the gameplay was continual and flowing in a way that PUBG just isn't.
If you want a FPS where the action is nearly continuous and dying just puts you back to a spawn point, try Star Wars Battlefront or Battlefront 2. You'll still have a lousy K/D ratio but you'll have more fun with that than PUBG. Especially in the blast and strike modes, where they've just cut the number of players needed to start a match in half (and botted the other players until they join). Honestly, this game is pretty good fun in a casual kind of throwaway fashion. It's very, very accessible and when you get killed you respawn in seconds and plough back into the fight.
I think I'm right in saying you can refund any game in steam in 2 hours. So my plan is to pick a one to download. Try it and set a time for 90 minutes. If at 90 minutes I'm bored or uninterested, I quit out and refund it. Then buy something else, until I get something I like for longer than 90 minutes.