Too Old For Call of Duty

This morning, Keith Stuart - gaming correspondent for The Guardian - posted this cri de coeur lamenting that the fact that he no longer has the reflexes to play first person shooters. Within hours of posting, it had drawn dozens of sympathetic comments from other gaming greybeards.

I know this is a topic that has been discussed a number of times, but the launch of CoD: WWII - which promises to return the series to its roots, where many of us cut our FPS teeth - seems like a good opportunity for us to compare notes, chart our declines, and plan for our FPS multiplayer-less future.

I'll start.

I turned 45 last year, and decided to make Battlefield 1 my last excursion into the land of traditional FPS multiplayer. I was finding my results too inconsistent and my position on the final scoreboard too low to really enjoy playing anymore. Like many, I found myself blaming - variously - lag, low ping, poorly designed maps, the prevalence of camping snipers, the capriciousness of the Gods, when in fact the fault lay with me. The modern FPS is just too much for me.

At Xmas, I reloaded Star Wars Battlefront and played two rounds of Walker Assault in which I failed to get more than two kills, while simultaneously gifting at least 10 to other players. Particularly galling where the number of one-on-ones that I managed to lose, despite getting off the first shot or three. I was a virtual Muk Yan Jong for anyone with the good fortune to cross my path.

IMAGE(https://images.blitzsport.com/item/Wing-Chun-Tough-Plastic-Freestanding-Dummy.jpg?w=650?auto=compress)

In short, I am a gaming Benjamin Button. Constantly shedding XP. Steadily de-ranking myself. Marching backwards from (just about) Competent down to Harmless. Just like I am in real life.

I think I'm ready for RTS games now...

detroit20 wrote:

Particularly galling where the number of one-on-ones that I managed to lose, despite getting off the first shot or three. I was a virtual Muk Yan Jong for anyone with the good fortune to cross my path.

Ha, this perfectly describes my first attempts at pubg, which I bought yesterday. I'm 38, but already my reactions are declining apace. It's not just reactions though, it's the ability to remain calm in those one on ones, it's just beyond me.

I assume you've played Overwatch though? It's the one shooter I can play and not feel completely out of my depth.

Yes, I played Overwatch from launch until the end of first competitive season. I really enjoyed the experience, stopping only because I disliked the way competitive worked.

As I've said on another thread, one of the joys of Overwatch is the fact that - even without earning kills - one almost always making some contribution to the team. If you're playing the objective then its impossible to detract from the team's efforts. Most 'conventional' FPS make if very difficult to add value to the team's efforts if you're not earning kills.

Everything I've heard on various gaming podcasts makes PUBG sound fantastic... but - in making 'The Showdown' such a big feature of the game - I fear it would expose all of my FPS weaknesses. I've always been terrible at remembering to strafe at the best of times; the pressure of a one-on-one battle for a lofty 98th place will leave looking like a deer in the proverbial headlights!

I cannot in all conscience spend £60 on PUBG, certain in the knowledge that I will never, ever taste the sweetness of the chicken dinner.

I wouldn't be so certain. In my 3 games last night I never finished lower than 48th, and placed in the top 10 once. I've only ever killed one person, and only fired my gun a handful of times. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but it does a great job of ratcheting up tension and making you not feel completely worthless. However, as I said before I really struggled with the 1v1s. I did win one encounter because I happened to have found a shotgun and I'm pretty sure the other guy was unarmed

Is it really $60 over in americaland? I got it for about £25 here, which is pretty cheap for the zeitgeist thing of the year.

Hi, kegguz. I'm actually in the UK too, but I play shooters on console so I'm anticipating the price of PUBG for PS4 when/if it eventually arrives. At the moment, I simply cannot see this game not being full price.

From what I've heard, one of the joys of PUBG is the many different ways that a round can shake out for an individual player. Sometimes you see no one, but still end up top 10, as you say. A couple of episodes back, the Giant Bomb guys were saying that the best way to improve at the game is to go out and find trouble. That said, they also said that the critical encounter that players need to 'git gud' at is medium range assault rifle shots.

Ah, sorry, I was on mobile before and it doesn't display the location tag. (also - detroit20 kinda threw me )

detroit20 wrote:

...they also said that the critical encounter that players need to 'git gud' at is medium range assault rifle shots.

That sounds right. I mean I'm going to be pretty bad in most encounters but precise aiming over medium to long distances are particularly tricky for someone of my ability. Anyway, sorry to derail from the original idea of the thread. I actually went away from shooters for a long time, around the time WoW released as a matter of fact. For a long time after that I played MMO's, single player RPGs, grand strategy, basically all slow paced fare that contributed as much to my decline in FPS skills as the advancing of time. It's not just age for me, it's lack of practice. Then, the last couple of years I've gradually started to take an interest in them again. I'm not sure why, probably just hype I think, and I've played Overwatch, Star Wars Battlefront, and now PubG. I haven't been very good at any of them, but actually I've had rather a good time. I don't much care if I'm not troubling the top of the leaderboard, and yeah there's the occasional embarrassingly bad moment but usually there's something to make me feel like I'm not wasting my time.

My wife used to play Call of Duty with a group called "The Geezers" (clan tag: G3ZR) who were mostly retired military. They seemed to do alright for themselves. What they lacked in reflexes they made up for with communication and preparation. I think it helped that they always played Hardcore, which let them take their targets out before they could bunny-hop out of the line of fire.

You have to play these games for different reasons.

When I got into TF2 at age 42 nine years(!) ago, I found I could not shoot worth a damn, so things like sniper were right out. Luckily that game had different classes and I could find those that did not rely on shooting prowess to be decent enough. And the more I played, the more I played not to be the top of the board but because of the ridiculousness of it.

I play Rocket League not to score goals or make sweet epic aerials (because the replay feature shows just how bad my reflexes truly are) but because being a goon in that game is fun for me - it is satisfying to knock a car as it is trying to take off to make its own sweet aerial and have it fly off in some other direction. And exploding a car - so awesome!

PUBG - I will never taste chicken unless there is an insane confluence of events. That is fine, the game is so ridiculous that playing is its own reward.

You have to re-educate yourself - if you cannot find new ways to enjoy a game, and being sh*tty and dying all the time bothers you, then you probably should not play these sorts of games any more. These kinds of games where my reactions are not able to let me credibly compete any more, I just play a different game inside the game from everyone else. I look for other fun parts of a game. I have also taught myself to not play these games when stressed because that makes my futility feel worse and stresses me more. Never rage-quit: when I start to feel ragey, I just leave when I detect the warning signs, whereas in my 30s I would have kept banging my head against that wall. Nowadays I just know I suck, it is OK, and just enjoy playing. When playing a team game, I make sure my teammates know I am a bad; luckily Goodjers generally are OK with this (seem to be at least, maybe they are just too nice to say anything ).

That's great advice, tboon! I particularly like the idea finding a satisfying game within a main game. And I definitely need to take opportunities to play with Goodjers when they present themselves. Currently, my choice of gaming hardware, my location, and my choice of game make this a challenge.

One of the things I also need to do is to take more satisfaction in the fact that I'm still doin', and less in how well I'm doin'. For the last twenty years, I've weight-trained at least 5 days a week. In the last couple of years, I've seen both the weights themselves and the number of reps coming down. In response, I've stopped worrying about 1-rep maxes and the like, and found a little joy in simply moving the weights around (knowing that I've probably got few sessions ahead of me now than behind me).

I've always preferred mp shooters like Red Orchestra where it takes less hits to kill people. You can play a little more cautious, little more strategically. I love that those games emphasize cover and mimic suppression. Makes for a much more engaging battle, but especially because it de-emphasizes twitch.

I mean, sure, I can't hit a stationary baddie from 10 yards with a blunderbuss, but I will take you to the f***ing cleaners at Boggle, son.

Entertainment choices are like clothes. Plenty of them don't fit or are uncomfortable, and some of them feel you look like you're clinging to youth with a death-grip.

IMAGE(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/04/article-2518250-19D53E4E00000578-28_634x462.jpg)

I feel you brother. I can definitely see the difference in my reflexes and shooting as each year passes. I used to be a beast at Unreal, Battlefield, and CoD games but when I hit my mid-30's, I saw my success steadily decline. I could no longer jump off a roof and rotate 90 degrees in the air and headshot that guy I heard running below me. Hell, I'm lucky if I can even hear them anymore. No longer can I be running and see that spec in the distance and realize it's an opponent running between trees and stop and snipe him at 1,000m. But that hasn't stopped me from playing. If I stop playing I know I'll degrade even faster (yes we are just complex machines).

So I've just adapted. I've just changed my game. I've learned patience and learned how to anticipate and predict. There are certain FPS that I know I won't be successful at anymore. I stopped playing games such as Call of Duty as those games are less about strategy and more about reflex. I haven't played a CoD game since MW2. Battlefield, on the other hand, does take require more strategic thinking and skill and instead of just grabbing a gun and running in circles around the same circuit trying to get as many kills as possible for points, I can pick a med class or supply class and play support. I can be patient and watch the flow of battle and call out open areas and areas in which we have risk. I have found this type of play to be more rewarding than the 25 kill to 1 death ratios I used to get in CoD games (without quick fire macros or wall hacks even).

And don't think you'll never win again. There are better FPS games out that don't just require you to kill everyone in sight. PUBG for instance, is a great mix between CoD and BF type games. For one, it's not just about kills. You can get a chicken dinner without getting a single kill. You can play solo, duo, or squads. I don't have to be the run and gun guy in this game. I'm can be the guy that try's to think ahead and pick up attachments and extra meds while staying alive to keep my team up and healthy. I'm the guy that tries to watch the circle and gets a vehicle secured so his team won't be running for miles with the circle eating their lives. I'm the guy that tries to anticipate where the most strategic spot will be in the next circle by taking into account which direction the plane came from and where people would have navigated to after dropping in and where they might be coming from. I've gotten 10+ chicken dinners in duo and squads and a couple in solo, just playing smart and I'm 41.

My good friend Rocky Balboa told me this: "Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can
take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning’s done!"

Another good friend of mine by the name of William Wallace once said; "Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!!"

So what I'm saying is don't stop playing. Never give into old age! Never give up!

I'm going to have an opposite take here as I've noticed no degradation of my gaming reflexes at 44. I think an alternate theory is that as you get older, you simply have less time to dedicate to these games and thus your performance isn't what it was in your youth where you could play for marathon sessions and just generally had a lot more practice time.

AcidCat wrote:

I'm going to have an opposite take here as I've noticed no degradation of my gaming reflexes at 44. I think an alternate theory is that as you get older, you simply have less time to dedicate to these games and thus your performance isn't what it was in your youth where you could play for marathon sessions and just generally had a lot more practice time.

Just cos you haven't noticed it, don't mean it's not happening - your reaction time has been degrading for the last 20 years.

Maybe the fact that I've mostly been a console player all these years means it isn't quite as noticeable

Press Y to age gracefully.

I'm 46 with molasses for reflexes and I do better on PUBG than almost any other FPS, because it has a large part that's about putting yourself into a good positions. If I'm one-on-one with someone and we spot each other at the same time I'm probably going to lose that fight, but after a very slow start I'm still into double-figure chicken dinners now.

Frequently it's about sitting perfectly still and letting young people do something rash. A lot of them are good at that.

I'm 37 and I feel like I'm better at shooters than I've ever been. I also was better at SC2 than I've ever been at a RTS game. It sure what to make of that. Sometimes I do notice my reaction times feeling slower but it almost always seems to be a combination of fatigue and not focusing as much as I usually do.

Turned 43 this year and I'm DEFINITELY too old for reflex-focused shooters. However, I'll still play Star Wars Battlefront II in a couple of months with my son, and I'll still mostly suck and suffer far more deaths than victories. I renewed my enjoyment of these games once I fully accepted that I'm not able to compete at the same level as a teenager and there's literally nothing I can do about that. I still occasionally have an unusually good round, or manage to outsmart opponents rather than outgun them. Those occasional victories keep me coming back.

AcidCat wrote:

Maybe the fact that I've mostly been a console player all these years means it isn't quite as noticeable :D

Console I think does make it a bit easier as everyone is on the same hardware platform and most games have an aim assist mechanic. I never really got into console because I was already playing PC when the consoles went online and people started playing against eachother. The few times I played console online against others I thought it was too slow and hated using a joystick or pad to aim.

I also agree as you get older you get to spend less time playing online (pending your lifestyle and family situation) so that does factor in. My gaming time pre-family was like 30-50 hours a week at max and now I'm down to playing for a few hours a night after the kids go to bed if the wife feels like being nice.

I think most people jump back into FPS games and forget if they were good before it was probably due to practice and game time.

I'm sure most people would find they are almost as good if they play more. (except tboon but both he and us are fine with it )

Jonman wrote:
AcidCat wrote:

I'm going to have an opposite take here as I've noticed no degradation of my gaming reflexes at 44. I think an alternate theory is that as you get older, you simply have less time to dedicate to these games and thus your performance isn't what it was in your youth where you could play for marathon sessions and just generally had a lot more practice time.

Just cos you haven't noticed it, don't mean it's not happening - your reaction time has been degrading for the last 20 years.

Funny thing is I find myself getting better at action games than I was twenty years ago, and in some cases even shooters.

Then again, I suck at Crucible in Destiny.

Then again again, I'm pretty good at Splatoon.

All I know is Splatoon > Destiny's Crucible.

I mostly avoid FPS-style games anymore, except in single-player, because I've gotten so bad at them. In the late 90s, I was effing devastating in Counterstrike. In one of the earlier ranking systems, I peaked at about #150 of the, um, maybe 10,000 players they were accumulating stats for. (dunno how much that reflected real skill, as opposed to whatever they were measuring, but by almost any reasonable measure, I was dangerous as hell.)

Not anymore. I just don't react fast enough, and I get easily overwhelmed by too much input. Things that I'd have been instantly able to sort out and cope with at 25 are just impossible, on the high side of the 40s. Sometimes it takes actual conscious thought to understand what I just saw, and that takes freaking *forever*. I'm pretty much just an XP source for the other team, so I just don't play those games anymore. I miss them, and wish I was still young, but I'm just not.

I've been much more into strategy, where my relative slowness hasn't mattered as much. I was always better at reflex games, and reflex/thinking hybrids, rather than pure thinking ones, but strategy is what I've mostly got left. I'm replaying Shadow of Mordor now, and its relatively slow combat pace been okay, so I can still play semi-action games, just not the ones that require wired-for-sound reflexes.

Single-player FPSes are mostly okay, too. I went through System Shock 2 a couple months ago, and that was fine. Those are much, much slower-paced than competitive games. But they hardly make FPSes with strong single player content anymore. I suspect we probably won't see many more titles like it.

edit: also note, if you're early 40s, this is a lot different than late 40s. Just like the author of the linked article, I really started to feel it severely at 46 or 47. It felt like I ratcheted way the hell down around then.

If you are not enjoying yourself then it just isn't worth it to play - but there are ways around it. I loved playing Star Wars Battlefront because I like killing rebel scum and as a stormtrooper I'm expected to die - a lot. I used to play SOCOM back in the day even though I was the absolute worst - but I found a good group of guys to play with and that made the difference.

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

but I found a good group of guys to play with and that made the difference.

THIS RIGHT HERE! This is what makes the games fun for me still. I probably would not have bought PUBG and most certainly would have only played it for a short time if not for playing with the GWJ community.

I don't think that I am getting any worse at shooters with age, it's just I have always been useless!

I finished the campaign for Titanfall 2, and felt pretty good about my reflexes at age 44.

Then I tried multiplayer Titanfall 2 and got a lovely wake-up call on that regard.

So yeah, I feel y'all.

LondonLoo wrote:

I don't think that I am getting any worse at shooters with age, it's just I have always been useless!

That's the spirit!
I can't stay competitive with shooters any more unless everybody else is drunk or something. It really is a combination of both declining reflexes and willingness to practice.

If it's a game I really care about, like the recent Tomb Raiders, I'm fine with working at it til I get really good. Sad to say but for a game I just picked up on impulse during a super cheap sale, I care far less about trying, because I don't really have an investment in it. If games were still as pricey as they were 20 years ago I'd damn well put in more effort into mastering them.

Overwatch made me feel young again, at least for a while.

I'd love to try PUBG when it makes it to ps4. A shooter where you can do well by avoiding the act of shooting, sounds appealing.

LondonLoo wrote:

I don't think that I am getting any worse at shooters with age, it's just I have always been useless!

Hah. Yeah, me in a nutshell. I've never been inclined to practice at a game, so I've always sucked at multiplayer shooters.

I can definitely relate. After a few years hiatus from online play, I jumped back into Quake Champions and have been bottom-feeding for 13 hours now according to steam (granted, about 2-3 of those hours are probably looking for matches).

I tried to kid myself by saying it's because I'm out of practice (certainly a part of it), I don't know the maps well (that's no longer the case), and the game is primarily populated by the hardcore who have been playing q3a and live uninterrupted for years now (probably not entirely untrue). Sadly, the fact is that I don't think I'll get back to my Quake 1 / UT2k4 level of play ever again, especially since practice time is in short supply with the responsibilities one has at 39 with a fussy infant.

My recent foray into Rising Storm 2: Vietnam a few months ago didn't really yield significantly better results on the leaderboards than twitchy Quake Champions, so there's confirmation that it's a lack of practice and reflexes.

Still, in between all the frustrated cursing, I still manage to have some fun, and that's what matters.