Skill Erosion

[brentsg]

I had a couple steroid shots in my hands/wrists and the doc told me to stop using my computer/mouse, etc. I couldn't man up and tell him I was playing arcade games.

Get one of these and use it regularly (I'm office bound so use it a few times a day at my desk): http://powerballs.com/

It's really helped me, more so than any change to special equipment - of which I've tried pretty much everything over the years.

That looks interesting, I'll check it out.

I started having the numbness and tingling thing and changed my behavior some, as well as started switching between a mouse and the largish apple trackpad. I can't use a mouse left handed but I can do the trackpad pretty well. Of course switching things like that up just moved my issue from carpel tunnel on one side to tendonitis on the other.

You're right though, a lot of it is being office-bound and using a PC and similar devices for both work and entertainment. What I really have to be careful with is to avoid bad habits that I can get away with after an anti-inflammatory shot. Once that stuff wears off it's bad news, and it's not treatment you can abuse.

[emphatic]

i do have ketsui claw/cramp from doing empty lock when i wasn't good enough for it to help my score anyway

They should put this on a t-shirt.

[RegalSin]

Well, my skillz kick arse, I can go through most shooters, like wildfire, only when I play too much in a row, is when we go back to grade school way of thinking. I remember playing games, and making my head get hot in one specific area. I would think so hard, or get angry over nothing, trying to do the smallest things.

Nowadays, I just do not even care at all, and realizing how the game was made for children.
So if I take breaks ( I mean like monthly breaks ) and then come back to a shooter or any game, it becomes a thrill to play.

Right now I need some PRK (the only kinda laser eye surgery ) for one of my eyes, because I am legally blind in one eye ( near sighted ). I can play games, but I think it would make it worst to wear an eye patch.

Otherwise I am okay playing games. Back then I would have nightmares, about enemies or areas I could not go thru. I would go insane, or even cry.

[Blinge]

I urge you to rethink that children comment unless you wanna go down in flames..

also, sigged

[nasty_wolverine]

What did i just read!!!

I have a funny feeling that "the dude" macro's are soon incoming.

[Plasmo]

Stop drinking for gods sake!

[trap15]

I think RegalSin is having a case of skull erosion

[Captain]

Well played.

[Ruldra]

I think it would make it worst to wear an eye patch.

Man up and wear that eye patch. Embrace your inner pirate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ju_10NkGY

[Shatterhand]

I think I got generally better as I got old, I see older games that I haven't played for many, many years and when I try to play them now, I play them a lot better. I've been playing games since.... ooh, since I can remember. 3 years old at least.

But I dunno.. I am 31 now, all my childhood friends who have the same age (or even younger) as me have aged a lot worse than I have. Most people don't believe I am 31, and I notice most stuff people begin to feel with my age, I don't feel them at all.

Maybe keeping a youth mind helps or something like that.

And for the 1st time in my life, I feel I've been playing a certain game at a very high level, but I've been playing it for like 3 years, I believe I have never played a game so much as this one, but it's not a shmup

[gray117]

Play time/training mostly for 'skill'. But yes physical 'ability' will start to decrease. However, when you're not dunking baskets or tackling people, effective (if not peak) performance is far more forgiving and could be maintained a lot longer.

At the extreme/unlucky ranges you will typically start to suffer from fatigue/rsi increasingly. This can be often offset with different lifestyle choices. However, leading into and beyond your forties all of this will become more difficult to maintain at those more extreme ranges; you tend to measurably lose bone density and [perhaps due to hormones - no idea why, perhaps simply prolonged use/damage?] muscle cell count will likely drop and general cell replacement slows throughout your body.

Reaction times tend to peak in the early to mid twenties, coordination tends to peak later on towards 30's. Helping to maintain coordination requires minimal exercise measures.

Of course, how best to do this is bit of a guesswork/gamble/individual luck, but your video game playing career should be much more extendable than your basketball one

...and apart from the very highest levels, reaction time can likely be much more satisfactory retained (not necessarily maintained as such) much later on into life through moderate practice than any other physical abilities (excluding possibility of nerve/bone damage, which, excluding more drastic environmental effects - such as clutching bad fitting pencils/pens all day long or drilling - is basically a bit of an individual affair).

[TLB]

Disappointed no one's mentioned LAOS OSADA SENNIN. Guys like TAC call him sensei and he's gotta be over 40. I think the biggest factors apart from preparedness (variety of factors, especially prior competitive gaming experience in e.g. fighters) are total time put into this type of game and the level of seriousness/engagement. Reflexes are a very small factor if the player is skilled at viewing the screen.


Also, DEL :)

[mastermx]

Reflexes go down as you age, but not to the extent of seriously affecting performance. Unless of course there's something wrong with your health, this is something no gamer should be thinking about until very old age.

[brentsg]

Reflexes go down as you age, but not to the extent of seriously affecting performance. Unless of course there's something wrong with your health, this is something no gamer should be thinking about until very old age.

Many gamers never have the hand eye coordination to excel at these games.

[theMot]

I haven't experienced this erosion of skill that you speak of.

Probably because I never had any to begin with.

[cicada88]

Takahashi Meijin disagrees

[zlk]

I think the biggest problem facing anyone older is that they simply don't have the time to practice like they used to when they were younger. I also think once people have different priorities, they just play for fun rather than try to 1cc a game or score as high as possible. I do not think declining reflexes play that much of a role. One advantage that older people might have is experience and the point of view they take when playing the game. One thing about the best players is that they are VERY SMART with respect to the game. They do things most players would not ever think about like finding a good route, discovering safe spots or techniques to maximize score. I feel that older players might spend more time thinking about how best to play the game and younger players might just wing it and rely on raw skill rather than strategy. One of Japan's top players once told me that high level shooting games are more like puzzles than dodging/aiming games and I tend to agree with this statement.

Personally my biggest issue is finding time to play. I try to pick games that are shorter so that I can try to 1cc them with the limited time I do have for gaming. Once I finish a game, I move on to the next one unless I really, really like it. Too many games I want to work on, not enough time.

[Despatche]

Many gamers never have the hand eye coordination to excel at these games.

hand-eye coordination is more learned than inherited

hell, "hand-eye coordination" is almost a misnomer

[DoomsDave]

I'm 32 and I've found that my patience and will to beat these harder games has increased.

[Monstermug]

At 30 something, playing games should already be hardwired to your brain.

I can drive a manual car and eat a whole mcdonalds meal at the same time while talking on the phone and having a cig. There was no way I could have done that at 16. I'm surprised I haven't been stopped yet. I guess growing older doesn't always make you wiser lol

[Krooze L-Roy]

A strange thing I've noticed about video game skill is that it seems to improve even without practice, and sometimes it doesn't improve with practice.

I can play a game religiously, really focused and dedicated to improving - musical montage, the works - when suddenly I realize I'm not making progress anymore. I've come up with various biological, psychological, and scatological explanations for this phenomenon (which I'll spare you), but it's just like hitting a wall. So I throw the controller, kick the dog, punch a hole in the wall next to my wife's crying face, and then stop playing games altogether for weeks, months, years. Then, when I finally pick the controller up again, it's as if I'd been practicing the whole time, or like the previous practice finally caught up.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of giving up on a difficult boss after a thousand tries late at night, getting a good night's sleep, and the next day you beat the boss easily, like "what was the problem?" What I'm talking about is basically the same thing, just on a broader scale.

[mastermx]

Krooze, that is the truest Shit ever spoken. I agree. Sometimes I leave a game that kicks my ass, only to come back in the future, with my brain ready and hardwired for it. It's almost as if my brain was subconsciously calculating and refining it's skill set without my awareness. But that feeling you get after the hiatus is pure bliss. This is something only arcade games can give you, it is the nerdiest of orgasms.

[Patashu]

related
https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/pos ... mally.html

[Erppo]

This all has nothing to do with arcade games in particular, it's simply how human learning works. It takes time to really commit things to memory and you can notice the same effect in all kinds of learning.

[mastermx]

This all has nothing to do with arcade games in particular, it's simply how human learning works. It takes time to really commit things to memory and you can notice the same effect in all kinds of learning.

I think you are right. I've actually experienced that same thing with language learning and other skills. Also learning a musical instrument is very similar too. In the gaming sphere however, it's rare to find non arcade games that give that same level of satisfaction. Most modern games hold your hand through everything.

[Patashu]

This all has nothing to do with arcade games in particular, it's simply how human learning works. It takes time to really commit things to memory and you can notice the same effect in all kinds of learning.

Yup! It's universal, so learning how to optimize your learning at speedrunning/arcade games/fighters/whatever is a skillset you can apply to other things, if you notice how.

[sojtrash]

I wouldn't necessarily say I'm worse, but I found it takes me longer to learn stuff now, things i would've snapped up quickly as a kid

must be like a developing brain kind of thing