I guess I'm getting old... can't play certain games anymore:

[Zeze]

I've always taken certain pride that I'm somewhat good at playing games. Of course it wasn't pro by any means, but certainly leaps above your casual crowd.

-I could pump out 200 army in Starcraft 1 with 7 different control groups with impressive macro and respectable APM.

-Pretty damn good at Counterstrike too- nice twitch reaction at fraction of a second. I could land headshots after the very 5 pixels of turning a corner or doing a 360. I kept a consistent 2-2.5:1 ratio.

-I absolutely adored Doom II. There's still no games like it. I could weave and bop around a chaos of 987237 enemies and eventually bring them all down at second highest difficulty (and restart every map with pistol).

-And boy did I love Dota- from Dota 1 back in 2005 to Dota 2 in present day. I was definitely tryhard and danced around your standard pubs. I was 99% percentile.

This was all good in my 20s all the way to even 30. I'm 32 now and I just cannot play at the level anymore. I can feel myself physically becoming old. I got married recently and also have been working a lot (making good $$).

Tonight I fired up Doom II again like in the good old days. In my head, I'm still just as good, yes? WRONG. Holy cow, the game actually stressed me out and I'm sluggish as hell. Also FPS put lots of toll mentally. After playing for an hour, I got super tired and passed out to sleep at 7pm. I just woke up, LOL? (granted I've needed a good rest from this work week).

I just can't play FPS anymore. That POV drawing is just too much for my head & eyes. The only FPS I can handle are those super relaxed non-shooter games like Skyrim. More than ever, I prefer to play top-down or strategy games now.

After nearly a decade, I'm finally sick of Dota- like truly sick of it. Even just 6 months ago, I'd religiously read all the latest patch logs. Today, I don't even give a fvck. What the hell happened?

The only game I play now is the mindlessly simple and relaxing game like Hearthstone (turn based card game).

I guess this is bittersweet. I have good memories of gaming, but it wasted lots of my time (playing them when I shouldn't). It's good to finally let go and typically fall into that "I'm too old to play this much/hardly any" category.

Yes I'm only 32. But this is amusing to me because for the first time in my life, I'm feeling my age.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

At almost 42 years of age I can still play fps games on single player at Normal to Hard settings. Though multiplayer it moves so fast I can't even tell who is on what team and get my ass handed to me. My 2 friends at the same age as myself still OWN on many fps beating the hell out of teenagers/young adults. Guess just some people got game...I don't

 

[videogames101]

meth

but yeah, it's a young man's game

 

[alcoholbob]

When people play games, we are basically self-medicating, seeking to balance our dopamine levels. The stresses of work and adult life affect your brain chemicals significantly, life in comparison was stress-free as a student. So you basically will adjust to whatever types of games that will stimulate just enough activity to your dopamine levels back to normal, without the stress of hardcore gaming, which you are already overloaded on from work.

When you retire, you probably won't care anymore and be able to play hardcore fps again

 

[BSim500]

This was all good in my 20s all the way to even 30. I'm 32 now and I just cannot play at the level anymore. I can feel myself physically becoming old. I got married recently and also have been working a lot (making good $$).

LOL. At age 35, I'm a "gaming grandad" too (apparantly) :biggrin: . Actually I'm still fairly sharp at "twitch FPS". Last year I replayed the whole lot of Doom, Doom2, Final Doom, Heretic & Hexen through the Doomsday engine. Same with the first two "Serious Sam's". Most fun I've had in years.

A lot of it depends on your state of mind when playing. If you've been working a lot and are tired when you start playing, the game will probably make you feel more tired due to the concentration required. And to be fair - Doom was *HARD* on Nightmare. No "press x to win" BS of some modern "cinematic" based games.

As for different genres, your taste changes as you get older. When I was in my teens it was 90% FPS / 10% everything else. Today, it's far more of a balanced 25% FPS / 25% RTS / 25% RPG / 25% Indie, Adventure, etc. That's not a bad thing at all as gaming in general gets "stale" less quickly when you play a wide spread of games genres.

I wouldn't worry. Try again when your workload eases and you feel in a fresh state of mind before you start playing.

 

[biostud]

Get into World of Tanks, it's the pace suited for +30.

(I'm 34 btw)

 

[CPA]

44 and know what you mean to some extent. I can still hang in TF2, just finished Call of Juarez on Hard and DMC on Hard. Playing Castlevania on the second to highest difficulty, but I need a lot of patience. And like you, I can only play for an hour or two, tops, at a time. It's mental endurance. Just like physical endurance, your mental endurance erodes over time. It sucks and it's hard to accept.

The other thing that I rely on more and more are my boys watching me and telling me things I missed, can't see or giving me tips. It helps more than it annoys.

 

[shadow9d9]

I'll be 32 soon and luckily I have seen no change in my gaming abilities. On the contrary, I think that I am better than I have ever been. My BF4 k/d ratio(non vehicle player) is leagues better than all other BFs... I am a top player in TF2.

 

[TheSlamma]

lol, 32 isn't even close to old. I mean damn you were not even born till the 80's. By then dads stopped giving spankings, physical education was already on the decline and the "Latch Key Kid" was well on it's way to extinction.

Basically you might be getting up in miles but they are "highway miles" in comparison to guys like CPA,ShreddedWheat and I. I like them have no problems hanging in many online games.

 

[shadow9d9]

lol, 32 isn't even close to old. I mean damn you were not even born till the 80's. By then dads stopped giving spankings, physical education was already on the decline and the "Latch Key Kid" was well on it's way to extinction.

Basically you might be getting up in miles but they are "highway miles" in comparison to guys like CPA,ShreddedWheat and I. I like them have no problems hanging in many online games.

The OP is 32, hence my response.

 

[Grimbones]

Are you guys kidding? I swear at around age 24 i noticed an almost imperceptible, but noticeable difference in my gaming abilities. I was never the best, and still do pretty well at my age now, but i am much worse than i was before hand. But yeah, at 24, i noticed something was wrong, because instead of instinctively knowing which buttons to press i would slightly fumble when reaching for it...it wasn't much of a fumble, but enough to let me know that I was getting old in terms of gaming. Lazy synapses or something. I'm 27 right now, and i can still run off some really good games on BF4, and maybe clock a 3:1 ratio--which is good for me because i am usually a run and gun type of player (read: suicidal).

I'm still having fun, but i find that i have no patience for games that are too difficult without being rewarding to me personally (dark souls)...like i will just play through a game on normal now rather than deal with the frustration of playing through on max or hard levels. I'm 27, i have a job, and i no longer need to show off to my buddies...the only time that changes is when i am playing competitive games..like bf4. I'm supremely competitive, so there are still times when i will "lose myself" in the game, and just start running off kills, but it seems to be more and more rare.

Anyway, it's all good man...try not to worry about it too much. I used to love Warcraft/Starcraft, but i cannot really even look at Starcraft anymore--i would hope i would still love Warcraft 4 if it ever launched...i literally played that game for like a year (dota included--i hate dota 2...league of legends is more fun IMO).

That is all! The topic resonated with me a bit...so i replied, take it easy.

Edit: Also, more than ever before, if a game stresses me out, i just quit playing it and go onto a next game. No sense in stressing yourself out over your own hobby. When i start snapping at my GF and crap because I am not doing as well as i fell i should be--or just because the nature of the game is frustrating--i have started shutting it down. There are far too many games out there nowadays with Steam to let myself wallow in self pity over a single frustrating experience.

 

[BrightCandle]

Time to move away from the twitch shooters and into the teamwork/milsim ones. You don't need twitch skills in Arma 3, what you need is a brain and military tactical understanding to survive and keep your team mates alive. Leave the COD twitching to the kiddies

Although I think its not really age. If you test your reflexes you'll find you are as quick as you used to be, its just you aren't putting the hours in. You need to be putting in hundreds of hours into a game to get really good and you just aren't wanting to do that anymore.

 

[Stringjam]

The older I get (now 34) the more I have almost no interest in multiplayer games. I did buy BF4 and put about 100 hours into it, and did well enough...but it just doesn't really compel me anymore. I feel like it's just repeating the same actions over and over ad nauseum.

I think ArmA III would be fun ONLY if I knew a group of folks to play with, and with my schedule that simply isn't ever going to happen. Bohemia promised during development that there would be this awesome SP component to the game. The two episodes released thus far are anything but.


Then I go back and play an old SP game again (Shadow of Chernobyl) and realize why I love gaming so much. Story + environment is what gets me now.

Unfortunately, story-driven SP experiences don't seem to be released very often anymore. Developers no longer seem to be very interested in pushing AI further. Why would they? Just create a bunch of empty maps and throw a bunch of MP players on there. No story. No AI. No script work. Sit back and make a bunch of money off of it.

There are some games on the horizon I'm looking forward to, though.

 

[TheSlamma]

The OP is 32, hence my response.

Okay?? what is your point? I didn't reply to you or quote you.. what am I supposed to do with this? I know the OP is 32 years old that is why my post contained his age.

 

[Skott]

As I get older I find my reflexes slowing down. The mouse twitching games are harder to do well at. I have to wear glasses now too. Natural aging of the eyes and doc tells me. I wish I was 32 again. Wait till you hit your 50s. LOL

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm as good as I've ever been, probably better. I'm 31, almost 32 myself. If you were good before, I think you're just out of practice. Also, there's a big skill gap in pubs vs competitive play. If you want to improve, and be better than you were previously, watch videos of good players and play on a competitive ladder.

 

[DigDog]

im 42 and regularly humiliate people half my age

 

[NoSoup4You]

These things run in cycles, I wouldn't put much thought into it. Interests wane, sometimes you just want to relax with a mindless game but in a few months you may want to jump back into the competitive scene.

Not a lot of games really require crazy twitch reflexes anymore, either. MOBA's do, but for most modern shooters your character moves so slowly that for games like BF4 it's more about situational awareness than how quick your reflexes are.

 

[KlokWyze]

32 is not old. There are plenty of professional athletes who are well passed this age...

 

[Rinaun]

I've actually begun mentioning similar things to my friends (I'm 24). For example, I used to love playing certain games like Arma 2, CS, Battlefield, or WoW for hours without caring. I had the time to do that in high school and community college so being good was super easy and rewarding in that I'd be the top player. Recently though my gaming hours and desires to game have plummeted. I've gone from 40+ hours of game play a week to maybe at best 10. It has mostly to do with me growing up and a little to do with the time investment needed to be really good in multiplayer games. I think once you get older you start to prioritize things much more efficiently. Every time I boot a game up now I weigh the alternatives and for some reason even work at times sounds more enjoyable.

20 year old me would say playing a single-player game is the same thing as playing with yourself and MP is the only reason to buy a game. Now? I enjoy playing short, quick games whether they are multiplayer or single-player. I've also completely avoided MMOs and even most current shooters like Rising Storm, CS:GO, BF3/4, and COD. I'll play Arma only if a friend bothers me.

Titanfall beta was incredibly fun because I could be that teenage-noscope-360 player while everyone was still figuring things out like I was. It was really really fun not wasting tons of hours learning all the curves and secret tricks or having some dude wreck you via practice of the game mechanics. By the end of the beta it was obvious that some players were like my younger self; they were running around using only the smart pistol due to some balance issues and abusing it like crazy. I can't say I wouldn't of done the same thing in my earlier days!

 

[TidusZ]

I'm as good as I've ever been, probably better. I'm 31, almost 32 myself. If you were good before, I think you're just out of practice. Also, there's a big skill gap in pubs vs competitive play. If you want to improve, and be better than you were previously, watch videos of good players and play on a competitive ladder.

I'm almost 29 and this week I'm batching my work so that I can play path of exile for a week straight to try and get top 50 boss kill. I got inferno diablo down in 6 days just 2 years ago. It's gonna be harder to play long hours (and streamers get free gear) but I think I've still got a chance.

I also played WoW a lot at age ~20 and then at age 26-27 and if anything I was better the second time around.

I think my fingers will give out before my mind just cus I have to type a LOT for work, job mainly typing.

 

[futurefields]

32 is not old. There are plenty of professional athletes who are well passed this age...

It's 2014 bro. If you aren't rich and famous by your 20th birthday, you life is a failure.

Twitter society.

 

[futurefields]

I'm actually better at games than I used to be. Back when I was a teenager I couldn't really figure RPG's out very well. But now, I am much quicker at learning different systems of gameplay. The one thing I don't have as much patience for is repeatedly dying and attempting the same thing over. If I die 2 or 3 times on the same spot, I usually stop playing the game for a few days. Almost invariably, when I pick the game back up, I'm able to get past whatever choke point I was stuck on.

 

[sxr7171]

When people play games, we are basically self-medicating, seeking to balance our dopamine levels. The stresses of work and adult life affect your brain chemicals significantly, life in comparison was stress-free as a student. So you basically will adjust to whatever types of games that will stimulate just enough activity to your dopamine levels back to normal, without the stress of hardcore gaming, which you are already overloaded on from work.

When you retire, you probably won't care anymore and be able to play hardcore fps again

100%. It's an escape from reality. It's what we do until we accept real world responsibility like marriage, family, career etc. At this point it matters naught how good you were at video games.

 

[Tweak155]

I think it is all about how much you care. You'll be better at games that interest you more. You're just losing interest in certain types.