Today, I turned 30. Today, I realized I lost my competitive edge

No point prolonging the inevitable OP, guess it's time for you to take up some new hobbies like fishing, checkers, and waking up at 4AM to drink coffee at fast food chains.
 
I turned 40 yesterday dude.
I used to be a SF2TWW and CE champ in Italy (won countless tournaments, held by the biggest gaming mags, tho back then prizes were MD/SFC consoles/games and not money lol) and now I can't beat the newbiest of the newbies in SFV and suck at fighting games all around :(
 
I'm 30 in 2 months and I think not having good reflexes anymore is a load of shit. I can still compete at a very high level in CS:GO, even though I dont have very much time to play anymore. My reflexes are still competitive, and I think I would be even better if, like 10 years ago, I was unemployed and could just play as much as I wanted.

I think that is the bigger issue: as you get older, you (usually) just dont have the time to play like you used to.

p.s. to clarify I am not saying that your reflexes dont deteriorate as you get older, I'm saying it is not a big factor in the grand scheme of things. at least for me.
 
There is nothing you can do. Im 40. i just told myself dude you are getting older. Just try to play with your head since your reactions arent on point anymore. Nothing yhou can do. just accept it.
 
wreckml said:
I'm 30 in 2 months and I think not having good reflexes anymore is a load of shit. I can still compete at a very high level in CS:GO, even though I dont have very much time to play anymore. My reflexes are still competitive, and I think I would be even better if, like 10 years ago, I was unemployed and could just play as much as I wanted.

I think that is the bigger issue: as you get older, you (usually) just dont have the time to play like you used to.

p.s. to clarify I am not saying that your reflexes dont deteriorate as you get older, I'm saying it is not a big factor in the grand scheme of things. at least for me.
Click to expand...
Yep.

Many things in life take precedence over gaming at 29 so I can barely get maybe a game or two going each month. But I can always go back to FPS multiplayer games like CoD and Destiny for example and I still get 1.5 to 2 K/D.

I think a good test is playing something like Super Hexagon and seeing how long it takes to beat the game. Game relies 100% on reflexes and muscle memory. 5 years ago when it released I was in the top 50 global leaderboards, decided to replay the game last month and I actually beat my previous records.

DJMax Respect just came out and while the first few days were hilariously bad, right now I actually perform better than I ever did in the PSP games from back when.

So yeah. The only thing that could hold you back at 30 is the mindset of not being able to compete with your younger self.
 
JPS Kai said:
My question for you, GAF: How do you stay positive knowing that you just can't be as good at gaming as you used to be five or ten years ago?
Click to expand...

It just comes down to fun for me. I enjoy the overall experience of playing against other humans, I don't feel like I need to be the best to have fun - and I play fighting games

I'm 29, I don't think any of us in this thread would be physically too old at all it's probably just a matter of time and commitments
 
I just turned 31. Still supreme in counter-strike and I hold up fairly well in pubg with a good amount of wins under my belt. Come on OP, we ain't that old.
 
This is why I only compete in online trivia contests about 1980s breakfast cereal commercials.

My kingdom is limited, but within its boundaries I am a GOD

among people who weren't born back then or weren't paying attention or just didn't care about the goddamn Soggies.
 
Anyway to answer the OP's question, I know I'm a better player than I was ten years ago (around 22, I'm 32 now.) because I have a way better mindset. I had a scrub mentality of complaining about shit I didn't understand. Now, I know my faults, how to get better, and understand what I'm looking at when I'm playing something.

Now, I know I suck compared to my 6 year old version because I was bodying fools in the arcades in World Warrior....
 
35 here. I can't repeatedly smash buttons like I used to but I like to think I'm still killing plenty of 10 year olds in Splatoon2 with ease.
 
stop. blaming. age. for. why. you. suck.

It's not reflexes. Y'all arent athletes. It's just a lack of commitment to playing the game that you used to have in your previous years.
 
I don't think my reflexes have ever been very good. Compared to my teens and early 20s the biggest difference I've noticed is that I enjoy high pressure situations in games a lot more. I used to hate those sorts of situations (in games and real sports), but now I enjoy the challenge of trying not to choke when I'm playing something like Overwatch.

I started getting into playing healers in Final Fantasy XIV recently for the same reason, for some reason it's really fun knowing my entire party will die if I screw something up.
 
Getting old means less time for story driven games and more competitive games.

I have like 150 hours on Overwatch season 5 and I am your age OP. Repetition is the path to mastery.
 
29 and I would kick younger me's ass in about any game possible. The only thing younger me has is endurance but I've actually gotten better at FPS and fighting games compared to when I was a kid. I have a friend who is about 38 and he's really really good in FPS games.
 
Turned 30 this year. Still feel like I'm just getting better at videogames, but then, I also feel like I attribute that far more to my mental acuity seemingly improving over time.

I have to wonder if it's a mental thing more than anything -- are you physically less capable than you actually were or are you just burning out and submitting your mind to the burnout when it comes to playing competitive? Have you started drinking more/doing drugs more that might be inhibiting your thought processes as you play? Did you scale back your caffeine intake as one facet to improve your dietary health and have lost some of the mental edge that can provide? Hell, did you turn 30, look back at your life, and just start to feel like videogames might be too nerdy for someone your age?

There's obviously a physical element to some of the above, and I think there is indeed something of a physical element to being competitive too, but I feel like age's biggest kicker at just 30 is probably a change of mental focus and health -- a loss of the mindgame edge. Some physiological changes can start to occur with 30 being kind of an age I feel a lot of us start to consider our dietary habits and maybe start to feel a change in metabolism that makes us react to certain things differently -- for instance, I'm finding I can tolerate the taste of sugar less and less and my lifestyle can get severely hampered by experiencing a sugar crash (high energy -> low energy transition), so I've started to look at alternative sweeteners or just outright stopped eating some sugary foods I'd regularly consumed before. The result is that I feel like I have more consistent baseline alertness, but I don't quite feel like I reach the same peak, either... But I don't feel like the difference has really shown itself in a backwards trend in my gameplay performance.
 
31 think def slower reflexes in cs but make up in game sense . I was always more role player plus clutch than entry fragger/star player .

Not as good tho but then again I don't have q clan and practice multiple hours a day
 
I'm over 30 and have only gotten better too, but only incrementally.

However I'm not huge on competitive gaming and I'm sure I'll really start to droop severely soon enough. Oh well, I do love single player games...
 
I'm 32 and I feel like my twitch reflexes have declined since 10 years ago.

I would wreck my 22 year old self in a fight though.
 
I did some quick google research on this, and it really seems that although generally speaking reaction time and reflexes do begin to slow with age after your mid-twenties, there are frequently exceptions to this rule and there are a number of mental and physical activities that show evidence of slowing the process.

My personal experience is this; I started gaming again in 2008 at age 26 after a 7-year hiatus. I was horrible at everything -racers, fighters, platformers, etc. I constantly got my ass handed to me match after match online playing SF4.
Now nearly 10 years later, I am much, much better at all genres. I am certainly not the best, but I can definitely hold my own. And that's from only 5-10 gaming hours per week. Another interesting note- I've also gotten better at physical sports I've started playing over the past several years; basketball, football, and tennis. I can also play a mean game of air hockey. So it seems like my experience has been the opposite of OP's.
 
I'm 32 and haven't noticed a decline yet. I would imagine reflexes go downward a little later in life. For example, if you're in your 50's you'll probably be terrible at fighting games.
 
I'm 31 and my Battlefield skills are probably better than they've ever been. In BF1 I am very consistently on the top of my team in 64 player Conquest games.

Have I gotten a little worse at other types of games? Sure. I play less games than I used to overall.
 
Evo SFV Results:

1. Tokido (32)
2. Punk (18)
3. Kazunoko (29)
4. Itabashi Zangief (36)
5. moke (21)
5. NuckleDu (21)
7. GRPT|MOV (Over 30 I'm pretty sure, graduate high school in 2010 per his Facebook)
7. FChamp (Probably like, 80)

You might not have the reactions you use to, but it's nothing hard work can't make up for.
 
I'm about to hit 33 and I've lost my ability to play well in fighting games because I'm more involved in my career... I kind of want to retire by the time I'm 40.
 
I think my skills are still there ( 31 now), but the big thing is I don't have the time to play like I used to. I would game for several hours daily, and now I'm usually restricted to weekend late nights once the kids are sleeping. I can't keep my skills sharp!
 
I'm 34. I'm better at games overall now compared to my 20's but I was better at games like Counterstrike and Quake then. Now I get smashed.
 
If you don't sharpen a quality knife, it will go dull over time.

Practice up.

37 and still pretty good at fighting games.
 
I turned 30 last April, got married, have a pretty demanding job.

Still waste fools online in NBA 2K, won a bunch of money matches against local people, still pretty competitive in Battlefield and Titanfall, and I plan to enter a few major tourneys for NBA 2K18.

Just find some time to keep playing.
 
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