EPTI can imagine that somewhere around 70 y/o you will lose so much reaction time/finger speed that it might acually matter at a GM level.
Does age matter in SC2 - Page 6
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Fus
Sweden1112 Posts
I can imagine that somewhere around 70 y/o you will lose so much reaction time/finger speed that it might acually matter at a GM level. | ||
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Veriol
Czech Republic502 Posts
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Blezza
United Kingdom191 Posts
On May 17 2013 19:54 Fus wrote: You don't have to be very fast to reach top GM in sc2, 30 is not old, in MMA 30 is the peak of peoples carrers. I can't imagine that you would be so slow that you cannot compete at pro level at age 30. There are other reasons to why there are not many 30 y/o competetive sc2 players. I can imagine that somewhere around 70 y/o you will lose so much reaction time/finger speed that it might acually matter at a GM level. I'm trying to work out if you're trolling at this point | ||
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deadRa
Sweden37 Posts
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ShatterZer0
United States1843 Posts
I guess that means you can play as well as Boxer did at his SC2 peak when you're 60  | ||
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rezzan
Sweden329 Posts
his answer to the question about " how much apm do you think require for diamond and up" so yeah.. i have about 195-250 apm(zerg), and a friend of mine that i practice with that plays protoss he has around 100-120 apm. and he still wins alot ,so i think that it wont matter what age you are, only restrictions i can think about would be if you got some bone/wrist pains due to age TL;DR Whitra's like 40 yo and win over ppl less than half his age :D | ||
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Skytt
Scotland333 Posts
The problem is when you've spent 10 years of your life training to play sc2 you start to get tired of it, especially when you are required to train 12 hours a day to be able to challenge for first place (in korea). If you've already won a Starleague, or have never won anything significant many pros struggle to motivate themselves to keep training at the level they used to Mechanics don't just drop off after you turn 30, think of the number of classical musicians who are over 30 who can play their instruments at lightning speed. As long as you look after your wrists and can find motavation to train you can keep going for many years | ||
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Longtimer
490 Posts
On May 17 2013 19:54 Fus wrote: I can imagine that somewhere around 70 y/o you will lose so much reaction time/finger speed that it might acually matter at a GM level. + Show Spoiler + This is played by a 81 year old woman, and the piece she's playing requires more dexterity, eye-to-hand coordination and precision than what many, many progamers play with. The same goes for all the (older) pianists that can improvise pieces with insane precision and speed. As long as you are healthy, the mechanical aspect of Starcraft 2 can be at the top level, I have no doubt in my mind about that. | ||
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robih
Austria1086 Posts
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
However, the way our brain works, how it grows, absorbs information, and how it decays is still largely unknown. Speed in SC2 is directly related to two things, how fast your brain can process information and how fast you can issue commands with the information received. Its obvious dexterity in the fingers doesn't deteriorate if they are well maintained, otherwise we wouldn't have cases with 80 year old musicians being able to outplay much younger musicians. I guess you could lose that dexterity if you stop exercising your fingers, just like with any other muscle, but if you maintain them well you probably shouldn't see any decay. That only leaves the information processing unit to analyze, the brain, while we don't know for sure how the brain operates, it is clear that it decays far, far slower then the rest of the body. It may be the case where, if you keep training your brain, at least in the areas critical to playing professional video games, then it won't decay in that sense either. Mechanical skill should technically not be lost once its gained, because the neural framework is there, it just needs some dusting from time to time. What should be affected though is your ability to gain new mechanics or improve mechanics, since learning new things after a certain ages is reported to be more difficult, however it is not impossible, the more you use a certain area of the brain, the more neural pasterns will form around that area. It might be you could, at some point reach a critical phase where the time and effort needed to improve is disproportionately large to the improvements you'll see, and in that case it probably would be better to stop. But exactly where that threshold lies and at what age, is not very well documented. At the end of the day, I think the answer could probably be a bit in between yes and no. Purely physically it shouldn't matter how old you are to perform well in a video game, I'm quite sure we will have another SC2 Starleague and GSL champion at 30+ years of age at some point, because dexterity doesn't decay and processing power shouldn't either. However once you grow older your priorities and your outlook on life change, you may not have the same time or motivation to maintain your level at the very top, even though physically you could probably do it. This is why I think we haven't had a Starleague champion past age 23 as someone has reported, I think after going trough mandatory military service a lot of the former pro gamers lost the motivation and drive to go on and reach their former peaks. What it means for you, as a non professional gamer, is that, you need to have a set of priorities, a goal in mind and good mindset. For example if your goal is to get to get into X league (can be Diamond, Master, GM etc), you first need to analyze what it is that you need to improve to get there. For example to get into Masters, the only think you need to focus on, purely is mechanics, not getting supply blocked, building the right things at the right time, hitting injects, chronoing, muleing, upgrading etc. And mechanics only really improve by playing a lot of games. Now once you have good mechanics, then its much, much more important to focus on strategy, because once at high master/GM an opponent's mechanics are so good that he can actually hit a 30 second timing window with certain builds/unit comps and kill you straight up. Until this level of play, focusing on strategy is meaningless, because you won't be able to hit that 30 second timing window to kill someone, if you get supply blocked for 10 seconds here, forget to put down a critical structure for 10 seconds, and then forget a critical upgrade for another 10 seconds, because over the course of the game those little mistakes here and there have added up to a good 30 seconds. In short, knowledge is meaningless at certain levels, because you don't have the skill to make use of it. Again, analyze your goals and make decisions and strategies tailored to your level of needs. Perhaps you have reached a point where, playing 25 games per week really isn't sufficient any more for you to develop your mechanics to the level of masters, or at least it isn't fast enough. In that case you need to maybe up it to 30 or 35 or 40 games per week (as time allows). Another factor, and this comes into play more at higher levels, at some point the amount of practice you put in stops becoming the only thing that matters, and, to get really good results you have to focus on quality of practice. That doesn't mean going from playing 40 games per week back to play only 25 games per week where you focus on quality, what it means is that during those 40 games you play per week, you focus on each and every one of them like its the most important game of your life, you push and you claw and you struggle and you get out of your comfort zone just to get to the next level, once that is done, you do it again the next game. My advice to you personally, don't worry too much about speed, not only does it not diminish as fast as you may think, but bellow pro gamer level, it doesn't even matter. EPM (not APM), actually matters the most at pro gamer level, because at that stage, with all things being equal, macro, micro, multi-tasking, awareness etc, EPM can be the defining factor that wins games because one player is simply able to execute more actions, and even if its just one more effective action per minute, over the course of a 15 to 30 minute game, those actions just add up. So, just don't worry about it, focus instead on what you can do to improve, focus on your macro, your micro, your map awareness, your multi-tasking etc. | ||
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
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Reborn8u
United States1761 Posts
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
On May 17 2013 09:09 Toons wrote:My Questions
I was once forever diamond, but when I stopped thinking about "ranking" up, that's when I managed to improve my play. Don't think of leagues as stiff divisions, instead, think of them as indicators when you reach a certain level. When you reach Master you play approximately at the level of a rank 50 master, so you'd already have to surpass very many master's players to actually break into the league. It's not the league that defines you, once you get into that mindset, you'll most likely be more exposed to tilting and becoming angry and stuff like that, stuff that will prevent your improvement. Your skill is what defines you, and your skill will put you into a league, when your skill improves, your ranking will follow, so improving your ranking as a goal is much weaker than improving your skill. By your skill I mean your general competency in the game, so everything, mechanics, fundamentals, understanding, defending against cheese, macro, micro, etc. So Improving all these aspects of your game is much more important than 'winning'. In fact, probably all master's players will say that you learn considerably more from losing a match than from winning. TL:DR losses are a source of skill, wins are a source of false confidence. If you're improving, you're not playing to become the best player in your skill-bracket (which winning will prove), you're playing to move onto the next skill-bracket, which is an achievement that must be preceeded by improving your general skill. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
I think to some degree, super high apm is overrated in sc2. I've seen plenty of replays where 100 apm players have the same smooth macro as a 340 apm player. They're just being more efficient is all. | ||
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winthrop
Hong Kong956 Posts
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EGLzGaMeR
United States1867 Posts
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Irre
United States646 Posts
I think its just as you get older there are a lot more things going on in your life, and you realize the importance of those things as well as being the best at a game. You have a job, wife/kids, you have responsibilities, you have to cook, etc etc. Even if you dedicated a few hours to play starcraft only, other things are creeping into your mind. You might have to stop in between games and throw your clothes in the dryer..You might have to grab the mail or answer a work email. As a college student or before that, not working not having any responsibility, you really are just thinking about the game and the competition and being great. And that is the difference. I think you see this at the pro level, and why when some of these guys get great contract deals or win GSLs and stuff, their results slack off a lot. Other responsibilties creep in, they get their own place, they have to manage their finances, etc. As an example, I don't think Nestea can't compete or be a top Code S player anymore.. I just think he now has a lot of other shit going on, and knows hes very well respected and still can put up good successful progamer results while enjoying the luxuries his successful career and life has afforded him. Just look at who is the best at starcraft and what they do to be the best, and then look at what they have afterwards. Its not that complicated to understand. Wanted to comment a bit on the musician comparisons (I don't really think it applies well to the sc2 discussion here): Musicians don't have the luxury of those breaks in between games or practice, or the beginning of the game lull where your concentration isn't completely required. When you play you are devoting 100% to the music 100% of the time, or its just not going to be very good. You also have to have complete technical mastery of your instrument before you even can be considered to be at a high level. 70 year old Horowitz technique was mastered in his 20s. Thats not to say you don't learn things along the way, but mostly everything is in place by the end of your training/shortly after that. Playing technically perfect is just a requirement to express the phrasing, expression, and colors of the piece. You also have the luxury of incorporating your other emotions into your performance, where that would hinder or get in the way of performing optimally in a video game. So you don't see age be a factor for either the physical reasons ( unless theres an actual medical condition) or for the growing up/maturing reasons for a professional musician. | ||
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Mongoose
United Kingdom190 Posts
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MrSilent
United States27 Posts
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NTTemplar
609 Posts
On May 17 2013 11:08 Kaitlin wrote: That video of the concert pianist is silly. He has probably been playing piano, developing that muscle memory for at least 50 years. I'd like to see him try to teach someone his age, who has never played piano before, to do that. Also, part of the effects of aging is slower reflexes and quick thinking in reaction to what happens in game. Neither of those are exhibited in a practiced piano piece, but are tested in every game of Starcraft. It's not just about the physical ability to move the fingers, which in itself also slows down, but the others I mentioned, all of which deteriorate with age. Its the exact opposite... You say the video is silly because someone in their 70's can play that fast due to PRACTICING, so through hard work he can perform better than the majority of pianists. Reflexes is a valid point, however not relevant due to how miniscule it is, quick thinking can be countered by knowledge, if you alleready know the answer to a situation you aren't required to figure it out, basicly what the pianist in that video does, he alleready knows the piece he plays so he isn't required to think about every keystroke (though he could play it by paper marvelously as well). A pianist suffers from the same things a Starcraft pro does apart from reflexes, however the importance of defending a drop within 1 sec or 1.2 sec isn't big enough to matter. In an FPS game it is relevant though, however still not an unbreakable wall. As for quick thinking in starcraft, the older players might be at an advantage even, as the older we get the better our tought patterns get, a younger person can calculate things faster, but his brain often spends time on a lot of unecessary things that an older person understands he can ignore, however this is getting a bit technical now so I will end it at this "bonus" point. | ||
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