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for those who are in their 40s or above, how's your gaming reflex? specifically for competitive games.

how's your gaming reflex these days when it comes to competitive games.

  • lighting fast. can still compete with the youngsters.

    Votes: 70 26.8%

  • so so. enough to still enjoy playing.

    Votes: 82 31.4%

  • (5 seconds later) oh! it's... not the best. but it's fine.

    Votes: 30 11.5%

  • I don't play competitive games.

    Votes: 79 30.3%
  • Total voters
    261
Robot Carnival

Robot Carnival

Gold Member
just want to see how are my fellow old folks home GAFers doing on this topic

so, I'm in my late 40's and I mainly play Destiny 2, FFXIV and Helldivers lately. I mostly only play PvE stuff but some light PvP from time to time in Destiny 2. I feel that my reflex, when it comes to split second twitch reflex shooting in high level game play, is definitely lacking. maybe even non-existent.

I do find myself able to strategize and plan out alternative approaches to a situation other than head on attack a lot better now because of this and my situation and surrounding awareness is a much better these days. however, I have trouble relaying all the infos to my teammates in a timely manner and that usually would still lead to issues/casualties.

I also used to play DOTA2 about 5 years ago, and even back then, I'm not good with really complex heros that require really fast inputs and I would usually stick to the simpler support ones. I would like to get back into it too but these days it seems DOTA2's pacing had only increased.

how about you folks? how's your reaction time/reflex these days? is it affecting your gaming experience?
 
cormack12

cormack12

Gold Member
iqntvO.gif
 
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I honestly haven't noticed any changes to reaction time. Only thing I avoid is mashing 1 button for a prolonged period of time since it hurts my frail and arthritic wrist. Sometimes my cataracts impair my vision a bit but I just crank up the contrast in the settings and I have 20 year old eyes again. Bladder muscles are a little weak so I tend to wear a backup pair of pull-ups over the 1st pair if I'm playing a Souls game that doesn't pause. Honestly the groin warmth helps relax me in high stress gaming sessions. Most of the kids call me Ice Man online. I do tend to avoid drinking large amounts of water after 5PM though.
 
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Sojiro

Sojiro

Member
I mainly only play Splatoon 3 for a competitive multiplayer game these days, but I feel like I can easily still hold my own against most people despite my age (almost 42). There are people that are just better than me, I can't deny that, but I don't think it's strictly due to just age, but them being a better player and probably having either more time with the game or just clicking with the game better than I do.

If I had reaction time figures from myself 20 years ago and compared them today I wouldn't at all be surprised if they have dropped a bit, but it doesn't feel like it has dropped to the point where I am at a severe disadvantage, or that I can't compete in competitive games because of my age.
 
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Banjo64

Banjo64

cumsessed
I’m absolutely crap to be honest.

If I play Apex for a few hours a day for a week I might get to the position where I can win 3-5 games.

Games like Fortnite, Apex, CoD - if I just drop in for a sesh (which I don’t do anymore) I get absolutely caned immediately.

Rocket League is the only ‘competitive’ game I regularly play and I would describe myself as an ok player. Always hanging in Diamond.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
It was never great, but feels better these days, thanks to experience to know reaction time is a little overrated. I used to think it held me back in fg's but that's just not the case. There are moments when reaction time can turn the round, but not as many as I used to think.
 
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Mattdaddy

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
My reflexes dont feel any different... but Im definitely worse. So I dunno lol.

I think for me its that I dont want to keep pace with how damn sweaty these shooters are now. My gameplay style is pretty casual, im not getting obsessed with metas etc.
 
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F

Feel Like I'm On 42

Member
Crayon said:
It was never great, but feels better these days, thanks to experience know reaction time is a little overrated. I used to think it held me back in fg's but that's just not the case. There are moments when reaction time can turn the round, but not as many as I used to think.
Click to expand...

Def agree with this
 
Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
You probably wont be slowing down your reflexes until you are 60 or above. If you want to keep your reflexes well until your 60s you can follow some celebrities regimes. Just make sure to excerzise and try to stay young as fit as possible

This dude is 63:

GftW7NR.png
 
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Northeastmonk

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I don’t know if I believe people get worse with age. I think they have less time than younger people do. Imagine getting 8-9 hours a day to play 1 game. Of course you’re going to have some advantage over the person averaging maybe a couple hours a night. I look at the pros who win and they’re all in their late 20’s. Then you have all the old school players who are still active in the scene.

I’m not terrible, but I’m not a pro. I’m better than I was during my 20’s. All that CoD and fighting games taught me what not to do. As a teen I saw more and more people break stuff when they lost.
 
Neff

Neff

Member
50 next year and somehow I'm better at fighting games than I've ever been in my three decade plus career. Of course a lot of that is due to the shared knowledge of the internet, high level player videos and labbing in modern practice modes with the benefit of frame data and whatnot, but I feel like my reflexes are just as good as they've ever been.

On a bad day I'm shit though.

intbal said:
Network latency is still more of a factor than any reduction in my reaction time.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I'm still fast enough to feel it when it's slightly off.
 
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NeoIkaruGAF

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I’ll be 42 in a few hours. I can’t be bothered to compete too fiercely in multiplayer games. I win maybe 1 in 20 Smash Bros matches against my friends, but it was the same 15 years ago. The game is just not for me, and apart from Mario Kart which is horribly unpredictable, we don’t play much else in multiplayer. I had my moments in Splatoon 1 and 2 years ago, but I was never world-class material.

I can still outperform my younger friends in many platformers though, and I am doing quite well in NES World Championship considering I don’t know speedrunner strats. I‘m not very good at Souls, but I did quite well in Lies of P which is all about perfect parrying. Figures.

To sum it up: not great, not terrible. If I really put myself into it, I can perform well. I haven had the motivation I had in my NES days for a while, though. I just don’t care about no-hit runs and the like.
 
Danjin44

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I haven’t reached 40 yet but I’m close. Even in my younger days I was never “high skill” player and I’m still same today, the only thing it changed is I’m much more stubborn.

When I was younger I would give up too easily but now I’m much more willing to keep going until I beat difficult game.
 
BigBeauford

BigBeauford

Member
38, reflexes are still as sharp as ever, but I'm starting to notice some inflammation in my thumbs lately which is probably attributable to 30 years of gaming, and it absolutely sucks to know that it's probably going to be too much some day
 
C

Cattlyst

Member
43 here. No idea how my reflexes in gaming have changed or deteriorated but I know I’m physically fitter than most 20 year olds and I’m still able to smash Quake II on the higher difficulties in single player. That’s all I need.
 
Markio128

Markio128

Gold Member
I’m 51 now and I haven’t noticed a drop in my general gaming reactions, but I tend to play games that don’t necessarily need great reactions to enjoy. You do find that as you get older, it’s more difficult to get friends to be in the same place at the same time, so the pull of competitive online shooters diminishes. Recently (at least the last couple of years), I’ve only played GT7 and Helldivers 2 online.
 
A

Archie501

Neo Member
somesang said:
Well, based on https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime I've gotten old. Couldn't break 200ms whereas 5 years ago it measured me 30-60ms. I don't play competitive games much any more though.
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that? I can see in your avatar that you have achieved 36ms on that test, but are you positive that you didn't just predict when it would turn green? Because i believe the quickest recorded reaction time for a human ever was 101ms, and you were consistently less than half that amount of time?

Even the fastest artificially-assisted reaction time is 50ms from stimulus to action, which was achieved using electro-muscular stimulation.
 
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A

alphachino

Member
throwing some money at the problem has helped me close the gap somewhat... 240hz, Wooting 60HE+. I'm not really noticing any slowdown in my reaction times. If anything, they've gotten better... I would say my tolerance for bad frame pacing though has gotten absolutely minscule as time passes which is a curse in a way. I need almost perfect performance to not be distracted.
 
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nemiroff

nemiroff

Gold Member
Interestingly enough I've been measuring my reaction time regurarily for decades and for some reason my reaction time has not changed since I was in my twenties. It's basically the exact amount of milliseconds as it always was.

I don't know the science well but I'm not so sure reaction time is supposed to change, idk.

Some things that have changed is that I have less patience, and I tune out easier than before. I guess it's because I have more stuff going on, and I value my time more.
 
djjinx2

djjinx2

Member
42 here and play Call Of Duty Ranked both WZ and MP.

I'm Diamond 2. Should be Crimson but SBMM is brutal.

How can a D2 with randoms play against someone 8th in the world.

(Sorry for the little rant)
 
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