How to play FPS games if you’re over 30 | Hacker News Reader

How to play FPS games if you’re over 30

theguardian.com

53 pointsnigerian198189 comments

I play Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 4, Quake Champions, and Fortnite. I'm 47 years old.

I'm by no means the greatest aim, but I can hold my own against semi-pro players, players that typically compete for money in tournaments. I'm often accused of being a bot.

some tips:

1. Good equipment. I have 240fps monitor and wired gaming mouse. I thought I had it good with 60fps monitor but it makes a world of difference to have more.

2. Good settings. Your mouse sensitivity should be very low. I move my arm about 14 inches left/right to perform 180 rotation. It's a lot of movement and a bit of a workout, but it's the only way to make those flick headshots consistently. My mouse dps is set at 350, but really depends on your resolution also. My X resolution / mouse DPS = 4.8 (1680/350).

3. Good technique. Use your elbow and shoulder only for aiming. Do not use your wrist. Your wrist should always be straight.

4. Practice, of course! I play for about 20 minutes vs bots before I even go online.

This guy frags.

4. couldn't agree more warmup is key

> Your mouse sensitivity should be very low.

> Use your elbow and shoulder only for aiming.

What in the WHAT?!? As a fellow 40+ year old gamer, who's played more Q3A and UT4 AND Counter-Strike than I'd care to admit, I've never heard or scene this strategy. You must be very entertaining to watch with all the ...flailing about!

UPDATE: I watched some YT videos of competition and while there's no "flailing" there's definitely increased arm movement. TIL thanks guys!

You've never heard about using low sens and arm aiming? That's basically every counter strike player I've ever met or pro I know about (plus every other tactical shooter with low slow enough movement).

No, and I've been playing CS since Beta 3 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Arm aiming is the way.

It's also very handy if you want to draw a nice looking circle. Much more accurate.

it's the way to go, small keyboard, big mouse pad.

You can see something somewhat similar here, though I don't think many people use high acceleration anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEamcaYyoa0

In the handful of CS:GO/Apex competition videos I watched, none featured such extreme arm movements. I also asked my hardcore gaming teen nephew if he "arm aims" and he was not familiar at all. His exact reply was "you mean aim with your whole arm lol?"

That clip is definitely an extreme example, something like below as a hybrid example diving into arm aim and wrist aim is more typical. trouble is having your sensitivity low enough for fine motions, while still being able to do large movements like a 180 fairly easily/without having to lift and recenter, both of which depend on personal preference. Depends a bit on the game too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLO_y8CLOyU

I do a lot of work in pro level eSports, and while that video is a little extreme, full arm movement for aiming (especially for awpers/snipers) is normal.

I can confirm that this is common for players above a certain skill level (not me).

Having played online FPS since the 90s I agree with you. I'm old but reflexes is rarely where the game is won or lost.

Good equipment is a way more important aspect and good amount of recent gametime of course.

You're not much younger than I. Only ever had a modest rig (for the times) and a rotten ping, In those days playing on US or Scandinavian servers from London with a ping of 250 was normal, and we used dial-up modems. I hit my peak in FPS at about 30 and could stay top the board in any counterstrike or team fortress server for as long as I wanted. Always got accused of cheating of course.

I put my good playing skill down to knowing the maps. Most Unreal Tournament, TFC and CS servers ran the same old maps all day and night. I had every angle and line of sight worked out. Once you had a few killer moves worked out it became muscle memory and anticipation. What you see, in terms of great frames-per-second and resolution becomes less important.

By 40 my reaction time had dropped. I got humiliated on new games. It also took longer to learn new maps and find the good timing and sweet spots. That part of my brain gets very little exercise these days.

34yo here, got called a cheater constantly, even by "top" players. Despite using a slow sensitivity myself, i would say that slow/fast sensitivity or wrist/arm aiming doesn't matter; I have seen plenty of people being very efficient with each technique. Just use what you are the most comfortable with. Something specific that tremendously helped me is putting fingers on each side of the mouse to lift it a little, the mouse is no more touching the mousepad, only your fingers, that way i can stop moving much more precisely. You no more think about aiming with the mouse but with your hand. When i need a slower sensitivity, i just lift the mouse higher. In the past i was playing with a CRT monitor at 160hz, now i am playing with a IPS monitor at 144hz (LG 27gl850-b); i have seen no difference in performing at KovaaK aim trainer[1]. Something that actually made a difference is where the sensor is located under the mouse. More the sensor was toward the back of the mouse (toward the wrist), more my aim was degrading. I also once tried a vertical mouse (Trust GXT 144) and did my best score ever in tracking, it was like holding a pen.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/824270/KovaaKs/

> I'm 47 years old. > to make those flick headshots consistently.

I'd say that you are playing for strengths of your age. It is a motor coordination, teenagers are known to be bad at it. IIRC it peaks somewhere around 40 years old and then slowly declines. Can't think where to find a link, I believe I've read something about it in regard to pianists.

Good equipment... and here I am playing rust with 30 FPS (not exaggerating) and wondering why my KD barely hits 1.

Is this intended for people new to FPS? I've been playing since early teens, coming up on 32 now... still consistently in the top while playing the handful of shooters I play. Perhaps it's because I'm not playing the twitch shooters though? I mostly play Battlefield.

I agree, I am super suspect of this article being true. Most of it is about training time. And Teens have much much more of it, given summer vacation, or, just not having any responsibilities ever.

I would say any decline I've noticed is due to "training time," yeah. I will sometimes go a few months without playing... jumping back in will take me a few rounds to get back to "good," and I feel a similar slope when I start new games. I imagine if I played from end of work til sleep every night like when I had time as a kid, I would probably be as then-me, if not better.

Yeah it reads more like an intro to FPS play for anyone who is new rather than something age specific.

I'm 49 and have been playing multiplayer online FPS games since Quake. I currently play PvP in Destiny 2 which is one of the fastest movement FPS games currently played and I'm ranked pretty highly in Elo across most of the playlists in the game:

https://destinytracker.com/destiny-2/profile/bungie/46116860...

My reflexes haven't declined to any great degree. I'm sure if I measured them yearly since my early 20s there would be a measured decline, but it would be something on the order of handfuls of milliseconds, not a giant change despite the fact that I'll be half a century old next October.

Agreed, I was surprised that the "equipment" section talked about monitors with high refresh rates as opposed to ergonomic mice and such. It was somewhere around 30 when I started to worry more about getting RSI than losing.

IDK about pro-level and such, but for normies, it's been my experience that knowing levels really well is way more important than reflexes or any of that. Learning the right "flow" for movement through a level such that you are usually looking the right way to line up a quick shot on the next target, and that you're rarely blindsided, is the key to at least mid-level success, and can narrow the gap between fast, young players and older ones (though of course having faster and/or more precise reactions is still an advantage).

I feel like this was conceived of and written by people who don't play games.

There is a huge gap between progamers who practice against progamers with coaches pointing out where they are falling short vs playing against any random teen.

Having played games from childhood into adulthood I can confidently say I am a much better player now than at any point in my life whilst still playing less than I used to. If you were playing for the first time ever in your 30s then maybe the muscle memory and neural pathways aren't there, but that's just practice.

FPS games require skills along two primary axis. One is your physical skill. Can you click on heads very quickly and accurately? This skill has an age related peak. If you're good at this alone, you can be successful playing these games.

Another axis is "game sense" which is a combination of map, player and meta knowledge. What are the most common routes taken by the enemy on this map? If we secure this site, what are the most likely avenues of approach the enemy will take? What weapons are my opponents most likely to buy based on the current phase of the match, and how can we respond? A player with better game sense can be competitive with people who are better at those twitch reactions by setting up scenarios which favor tactical advantage over raw shooting skill. Communication is key here as well. You have to be able to get your team onboard with setting up these scenarios. These skill do not decrease with age except at the extreme end.

Obviously the best players are great at both of these. That's why many pro players have videos out there of them destroying people who are cheating with an aim bot. Their knowledge of the game and maps give them such an advantage they can overcome literally impossible reaction times from opponents. But being competent at either one will enable to you enjoy and be competitive in these games, especially if they use rank based match making to ensure you're not getting matched against those super players. At the lower to mid rank of these games, you can see examples all over the place where individuals are competent at one of these dimensions, but there is almost always a glaring gap in the other. Whether it's the person who can consistently get head shots but also runs themselves into unfavorable positions so they keep dying, to the people who are trying to coordinate and plan but lose almost every one on one engagement. As you get older you've got to rely more on that game sense than you can rely on your raw reactions and that puts a real upper age limit on pro level competition, but shouldn't in any way prevent people from being able to compete in the pleb arenas.

I was about to write up this exact post, almost verbatim. Excellent game sense can seem like you're able to predict the future. Someone who thinks they're "bad at FPS games" usually runs into a lack of game sense, but mistakenly blames it on bad reflexes.

Which seems easy to confuse. If you don't have good game sense, you'll get into situations where you feel like you need twitch sense, so you'll want to think that's your failing.

I mean it can be both. Some people really struggle with that level of hand eye coordination. That's one of the reasons I really appreciated Overwatch. It gave a lot more options to play well that didn't require the ability to click on heads at all. This doesn't just help uncoordinated or less experiences players, but also players with disabilities of various sorts. The character Mercy for instance has a beam which heals or boosts damage but it locks onto a player so tight aim is rarely ever a concern and game sense becomes almost everything.

All I want to know is where are the servers with the adults on them? I have enjoyed the more realistic FPS, but the kids running around everywhere just cussing at everyone or using aimbots kind of kills the fun.

This is why I don't play Call of Duty or other similar games.

Overwatch and its successor/patch Overwatch 2 have had less toxicity compared to other FPSes I've played. And I've almost never encountered a cheater.

> Overwatch and its successor/patch Overwatch 2 have had less toxicity compared to other FPSes I've played. And I've almost never encountered a cheater.

I've played OW off and on for years now, and have only seen two cheaters. One was using wallhacks (could see them tracking me back and forth behind a wall on the killcam) and one had incredibly blatant headsnapping (Genji with the worlds fastest sensitivity turning 180 degrees and landing a perfect headshot, repeatedly).

A pretty good track record. Unfortunately, the monetization in OW2 has put me off. Hopefully that gets fixed eventually.

The Modern Warfare and later Call of Duty games, in particular, made some really frustrating design choices that amplify the difference between players. The powerful rewards you get for success can turn a close-enough-that-everyone's-still-having-fun match into a not-even-close misery-fest for the losing side. It's a hell of a dopamine hit when you're winning (which is why people like it) but it really messes with the balance of the games.

My experience with Overwatch (1) is completely the opposite. In competitive queue there's blatant cheating about 1/20 games. Then there's the smurf problem where it might as well be considered cheating for about 1/10 games. Of course I report them and I see that thank you message about reporting but it feels like it hasn't done anything to curb reduce the numbers.

Toxicity is the the inverse where 1/10 games feels like it's a match filled with rational minimally behaved adults.

I pretty much stopped playing when Overwatch 2 came out.

That might be the difference between your experience and mine; I never play competitive, only open queue and arcade.

I am 100% resolute in my opinion that turning off comms in online games and treating your teammates as if they were really advanced bots improves every game. If I want to play a game with someone I will call my friends on Discord and ask if they want to play. nearly every game I play has a workable ping system so if I am playing with random players, that's how I communicate. Otherwise I don't want or need the validation or opinions of randoms.

The small funny moments of friendship you might get from that is drowned underneath a torrent of racism, sexism, spite, anger, and random nonsense that is draining and, maybe more importantly, seriously distracting. Nearly every serious player I know will full mute even their friends during intense moments requiring mechanical skill.

If you are 30+ and play competitive games to meet new people you are in the wrong place.

Yeah, I'm not looking for friends, just civil players.

When I've played I've turned off comms, but kind of hard to ignore the aim bots and chat if you're at least trying to work with your team.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but knowing that people are yelling at me but I just cant hear them feels weird.

The only game I play with any expectation of improving is League of Legends. In that community there's the concept of "mental," e.g. your ability to stay calm and think. Players will talk about "improving my mental" like they talk about practicing combos or learning more about game sense. As if they were Buddhist monks and not teenagers playing video games. I think this is because League is a uniquely frustrating game for the same reasons it can be uniquely rewarding: teamwork matters a lot. It is easy to get frustrated. It is very obvious that people who don't get frustrated easily perform better.

If you're upset at the idea of people yelling at you then you just have weak mental and need to improve. Alternatively, you just might not enjoy that kind of ultra-competitive game and should find another game to play. Either one is absolutely fine.

I'm sure the kids and the military thinks yelling at people improves outcomes, but I'm pretty sure we all learn that actually doesn't help anything.

I've watched competitive games and the teammates are in no way distracting and yelling at their teams. They are doing their most to work cooperatively and even minimize distractions by only speaking up when it contributes.

Absolutely correct, people are just thinking about themselves and not about winning. You have no idea how many times I see people with the attitude "You did something I don't like, now we both have to lose."

I definitely get the tilting aspect for League, I found it generally un-fun to play competitively without the right team. ARAMs however were generally more enjoyable for me as while people are still playing to win there's usually a more reasonable set of expectations. I suppose it does make the highs higher, but spending 30 minutes in a game with frustrated people isn't a very good time. Maybe that's part of the reason some people will /ff so early.

For me at least it stops being fun if people are legitimately upset about what's happening versus people enjoying playing the game together. In general esports seems to have really turned this dial for games in general towards competitive, with a shift in focus from moment to moment gameplay being fun to climbing ELO and completing battlepass tiers.

For what it's worth if this sounds like scrub salt I was GM in Overwatch for the first few seasons (back then people actually talked too) so I get the appeal, but long term it just feels like a second job after a while.

Now I feel silly, lecturing you about mental when you've obviously played the game. 100% agreed esp about it feeling like a second job.

No worries, I do think it's an interesting point that people talk about mental like it's reaching zen enlightenment. Though for what it's worth with roughly balanced teams, keeping your and your teams morale up and not getting mad seemed to be the biggest X factor a individual could bring, both in impact and because it seemed to be a fairly uncommon ability, which maybe ads a bit to the mystique.

I do this too and am 32. The only way I like to play games is auto muting everyone and pinging everything. I often used to have people get in chat just to yell or curse you out to vent frustration. Like, I couldn’t even mute these guys, almost always males, fast enough for them to not get in a quick little shitty jab if we were losing. No thanks. We may have run past each other and respectfully pinged some badguys. It would be different if people had anything interesting to say outside of they typical hey what’s up talk.

Play Squad or some similar game such as Arma. Games that are a bit more slow paced attract older and more patient players. I could never go back to playing Call of Duty or Battlefield after playing some of the more strategic slow paced shooters.

I second some of the recommendations here for "Hell Let Loose" or "Squad" as places with a more mature player base. People communicate and cooperate much better in those games. Slower more cerebral gameplay though with occasional chaos, but very rewarding.

For the more fast moving twitchy games these days I mostly don't care about my Kill/Death ratio that much. I like to just mess around and explore different tactics, try playing with only specific or unpopular weapons, outsmart other players, that kind of thing. It's easy to be a sniper and get head shots, much more fun to be a sniper and get sneaky headshots with a revolver. I'm much better at all that then twitch shooting. It's even more fun when some veteran pulls some clever tactic on you that you haven't thought of. Great opportunity to learn and pull it on some unsuspecting youngsters in turn. Much more fun then pure run-and-gun.

Big open world games like Battlefield are great for messing around like that because the environment is complex and varied, and frankly nobody cares if their team wins or looses. So most people experiment and laugh at their failures. As always though there's a minority that are just dicks but they're easy to ignore.

BTW, is it just me or is "Hell Let Loose" a direct descendent of the old Reality Mod in Battlefield 3? Some of the mechanics seem awfully similar.

Look for old school boards and websites ? I think there's a "dadgamer" reddit, maybe people ran into that problem.

Personally, I got lucky this year by randomly picking up a server named "old guys" and I have only been playing there for months now.

One thing as an old gamer (who played many tournaments 30 years ago), tactics is really the key for good players. Map awareness, spawn points, lines of sight, travel directions, common congestion points. Learning weapon recoil of the game, learn what weapons have advantages. I probably won't beat the younger reaction times, but I can still make the leaderboards, and still have fun.

The only thing that sucks, is most games are pay to win. I dont mind paying for simple xp boost and skins, but buying pay to win objects ruins the fun.

Second this about tactics over reactions. I play mainly Cs:go and it's far easier to win a fire fight when the other player isn't looking at you :)

The article misses probably the easiest way to level up: Join a team. A four-stack is almost always gonna have a leg up on a team of randoms. Playing a game consistently, with the same squad, form group dynamics and strategies that are much more difficult to execute with a first time squad.

In my experience, beyond just performing better, you'll tend to feel better. Soloing forever is not very enjoyable in team games, in my opinion.

I playing lots of FPS, started with Wolfenstein 3d, today mostly TF2, I'm 50+, mostly no problem.

Still playing TF2. It is currently as popular as it has ever been, even though you could have concluded that it was dying around 2018 or so. It's a little different from other FPS since you can play several roles that aren't just twitch-n-click.

I tried dipping back into TF2 a couple months ago. The first two servers I tried had a cheater join and aimbot the bejeezus out of everyone. Gave up and uninstalled after that.

I use it the same way I use Twitter: only against people I know.

This has been an ongoing issue, essentially people unusually dedicated to ruining the game run multiple Linux VMs with bots. Valve has recently done a bit to improve things after a community "save tf2" campaign, but it's a bit of a whack a mole situation. Practically joining a custom server with a moderator of some kind is the most effective option.

Sometimes it's bad and I join a deserted game full of bots, mostly today bots get kicked very fast. I think last year was worse.

I play like 3 tf2 payload matches before i start my work on most days. I'm 38

This article seems like pandering.

> Medical studies suggest that reaction times peak at 24 and go downhill from there

But if this peak is by a few percent, then why would a 35 year old be bad at video games? Also, if reaction times peak at 24, why would we be playing "superhuman teenagers", and not... superhuman early 20s?

Side note - I think in NHL hockey they see early 20s is the most athletic / fast / skilled time you'll ever have, not surprised to see this here

Because the explanation, of course, is very simple. Kids have a lot of free time, adults not so much, and practice time is the biggest factor in being good at almost any competitive activity.

Yeah, it's a whole lot harder to put 20+ hours a week into a game for several weeks on end, which is what it usually takes to get pretty-good-for-a-non-pro at a multiplayer FPS, when you're middle-aged with a job, a spouse, and (especially) kids. And still trying to have any kind of IRL social life whatsoever. Only really do-able if you're willing to give up most other interests for that period, and probably sacrifice some sleep, too.

I play hardcore FPS like From Hell or Insurgency because you die from a realistic amount of bullets, like one or two. You die more but you kill more too. I use a console because I think a controller is a great equalizer.

The thing I've noticed is that many games seem to depend on connection/host, even more than in the past.

Halo Infinite is pretty much the poster child for being shot through walls and otherwise being a several frames out of sync or behind. No amount of reaction will fix that.

Am I wrong for expecting games to get better instead of worse over time? Seems like its all about loot boxes, subscriptions, add-ons these days. Actual game play, content, and consistency seems lacking.

Caveat: I'm mostly talking about the big popular ones.

Only valorant and CSGO are running proper 120 tick servers nowadays. Everything else is like 20-50.

Fortnite is 120 too.

I don't need strategies, I've made my peace with the fact that I'll never be good at FPS games. I just play to socialize with friends and press buttons.

I enjoy more slower paced FPS' these days that don't require to maintain skill. Fini the Call of Duty and Battlefield days, these licenses have been milked long enough anyways. Even the newer licenses like PUBG or Overwatch require a regular time commitment to be any good at it (which make them enjoyable).

I find myself having a great time on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam[0], Insurgency: Sandstorm[1] or Hell Let Loose[2]. They tend to have more mature audiences and less skill grind, easier to just jump in a casual game once in a while without getting obliterated for a consecutive hour.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/418460/Rising_Storm_2_Vie... [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/581320/Insurgency_Sandsto... [2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/

For what it's worth, I actually found PUBG fairly enjoyable, given I only played two games. The first I dropped with a group who seemed to know what they were doing, but I spent about half the game in the menus trying to figure out some settings to switch.

The second I got dropped solo and ... won the game. That felt a bit silly, I'm not that good. I haven't been back since though.

I hate to break it to you, but PUBG throws you in with bots for 10 sessions until you can play on live servers. You can get out of this earlier by completing the 4 challenges listed [0]. Once you play on live servers, it gets really difficult. I tried for a while, got pretty decent, dropped the game for a few months, tried again when I got back and it felt like starting from bottom again. It's a fairly fun game with friends, especially if they are regular players and you get carried around by them, you just listen and do what they tell you, try to aim straight, and it works out.

[0] https://steamcommunity.com/app/578080/discussions/1/31801111...

I was born over 30 in terms of shooter skill, and my winning strategy has always been:

1. Play games where there are options that don't lean heavily on precision/twitch shooting. E.g. class-based/hero shooters, or battle royales where positioning is more important and enemies are usually spotted at a distance.

2. Play with friends.

I play a lot of Rust and I'm 51. I do ok! One of the interesting things I found when playing FPS games on Roblox with my 11 year old is that a lot of players don't know how to do the "Dance" so are always looking the wrong way in close encounters. Which just comes down to practice.

36 year old here, I've gotten Diamond in both Overwatch and Apex Legends and was an LEM CSGO player.

- I don't think reaction times matter as much as people think it does, positioning, movement, and general crosshair placement matter a lot more as does map knowledge and situational awareness.

- Having good equipment is pretty standard these days, a good GPU and gaming mouse + keyboard is almost a must have as well as a 144hz or higher refresh rate monitor.

- The biggest constraint on my ability to beat the best at an older age actually just comes down to how much time I can dedicate to the games. With a full time job, a wife, and 2 kids, gaming will always just be a side hobby and something I do with the little free time I have so I basically just don't practice as much as younger kids with more time. That's what 99% of it boils down to.

Hiya, 40s COD player here, you'll notice a lot of groupthink in shooters where players get very predictable. That is where your old head pattern recognition comes into play and you can exploit that play style. With proxy voice chat now, mind games get even crazier. I would use this very often in Rust to trick players into doing things, or faking them out with other tactics.

If you don't want to play with those kinds of players there are tons of other shooters, Hell Let Loose and Squad come to mind as slower more team oriented games.

Yeah, people using all kinds of fancy hardware is kind of bad for me, since I generally play with a gamepad, cheap LCD tv as a monitor, and the sound turned off since everyone else is in bed (which means I can't tell if someone is walking behind me). It's hard to win super often when it's just a test of who can aim quicker, I usually have a K/D of 1/3 or something like that. Which, I don't care too much, but sometimes you get people swearing at you which is so juvenile.

To see many real life examples of gaming after 30 check out qhlan(.org), a QuakeWorld lan party going on right now in Stockholm. People under 30 are a rarity here!

I don't trust any articles about how to play first-person shooters if they don't say "gibbed", "fragged", or "suck it down"

I just play DayZ where everyone is from across the world with high latency and winning is more about planning and ambushing than quick twitch.

I believe the old quote was... "Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance..."

Why would you even bother to compete with teenagers in multiplayer FPS games in your 30's?

Easy, play Doom eternal, get good, and then every other FPS feels slow as molasses.

Does it really? I've found that playing Doom Eternal normally increases the chances of getting my ass handed to me in Counter-Strike. Most mainstream shooters are extensively built around mechanics like cover shooting and burst firing that Doom tends to completely shun and even punish at times. Play too much Doom and you'll be accustomed to just breaking into the middle of the field and throw caution and covering into the wind, which is a great way of getting killed in seconds in games like CSGO, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Valorant and CoD.

tbh just play more reactive games like quake or csgo. Modern shooters don't sharpen your neural patterns the way classic gameplay does. More time trigger time less wandering around a map.

Who's in denial they're nearing 60?

I miss Planetside original

But can you out-cheat them?

your reflexes stay mostly the same for your whole life

tl;dr: Use good equipment and proper thoughtful strategy.

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