EPTStudy: Players start slowing down at age 24 - Page 9
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CutTheEnemy
Canada373 Posts
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 11 2014 08:07 SirPinky wrote: Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution. PS. I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion. Pretty much what happened to me. Entered the work force, extremely more relaxed approach to the game. Losing has an absolute minimal affect on me in 1's, it used to tick me off. | ||
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Laserist
Turkey4269 Posts
Your are improving f'ing slower than you should when you get older. You are probably getting better because you are trying to improve. Any near 30's or 30's people can agree that after mid 20's you are missing the old days of being fast and ambitious  | ||
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Wuster
1974 Posts
On April 11 2014 08:07 SirPinky wrote: Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution. You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24). I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either. | ||
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Lonyo
United Kingdom3884 Posts
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2604484/Are-hill-24-Study-finds-cognitive-decline-begins-far-earlier-thought.html | ||
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EiBmoZ
Canada235 Posts
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exog
Norway279 Posts
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then. FFS the study wasnt about YOU or your MAN... It studied the average of thousands... You will understand what a study is when you grow up. | ||
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johnbongham
451 Posts
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SpunXtain20
Australia554 Posts
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stapla05
Australia64 Posts
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then. The study was done for an RTS game not a FPS results will vary from person to person, game to game. Being old does not make you a bad player. Older players are just slightly slower then young players. | ||
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MethixR1
United States12 Posts
On April 14 2014 16:54 CutTheEnemy wrote: Sorry, hard to read because of a head injury: can you summarize what the older successful players do in order to compensate for their slower reflexes? I'm in that group, I wonder what they do that I could try out. My hands are way slower these days than 5 years ago (29yrs). Personally, I use strategies that avoid really intense unit control. I'll be the first to admit I'm slower than I was in BW. For reference, I'm 34 and Diamond league (maybe I'll get back to Masters if I can ever fix my awful PvZ). It's not just that I'm slower (average ~115 APM, peak ~250), but my unit control is not nearly as good as it used to be. Even when I feel like I'm playing fast (for me), I have trouble being accurate. The first thing I do to compensate is not playing styles that I know I won't do well at. I don't do things like proxy gate since that's invariably a Zealot micro battle. I avoid the Phoenix heavy openings that often require higher APM to get value out of them. I also haven't been exploiting the Blink builds that have been so heavily in use recently because I know I can't execute them as well as most people. Another thing is to scout really diligently (especially early on). IMO, a safe style where you have as much info as possible is going to be better as you get older. A lot of contemporary builds have minimal early scouting and rely on really crisp mechanics to hold all-ins. Since I know I struggle with that, I'll send a Probe to check the obvious proxy locations. You'll invariably play from an economic disadvantage, but you're less likely to lose early games due to mechanics. In the mid-game, you just have to focus on strategic choices (tech switches, getting your opponent out of position) instead of winning battles through mechanics. Hope this helps and try to keep perspective. I'm sure there's plenty of players that are older than me, but I feel like I do pretty well for my age and I'm happy with that. I know I'll never make GM, so I just focus on goals that are at my level and smile when I can beat these young whippersnappers. I should start yelling at my opponents to get off my lawn whenever I activate Photon Overcharge. | ||
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cheekymonkey
France1387 Posts
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U_G_L_Y
United States516 Posts
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xsnac
Barbados1365 Posts
On April 15 2014 05:10 exog wrote: FFS the study wasnt about YOU or your MAN... It studied the average of thousands... You will understand what a study is when you grow up. so a lan is nto good enough to be a sample of "pro" gamers ? man those studies are totaly bs i tell you .You improve slower when you practice less . end of story . no matter what age you are | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
As with observational research of this kind you can make A LOT of remarks which may effect the results greatly. Maybe some age related variable was not corrected for (like older players playing less serious or having less time). Possibly there is some selection effect with self reporting etc. It's just the nature of this kind of research, making the conclusion very difficult if not possible to make so harsh. The statistics itself seem fine though I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other choices you can make which might have a decent impact on the value of K which basically leads to the conclusion of saying 24 is the tipping point. Interesting methodology though, don't have the time unfortunately to look too deep into it. | ||
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sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On April 15 2014 09:29 xsnac wrote: so a lan is nto good enough to be a sample of "pro" gamers ? man those studies are totaly bs i tell you .You improve slower when you practice less . end of story . no matter what age you are Although if you actually knew what the study was about you would realise it has nothing to do with improvement. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On April 15 2014 00:22 Wuster wrote: You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24). I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either. People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple. The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive. | ||
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Wuster
1974 Posts
On April 15 2014 11:58 FabledIntegral wrote: People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple. The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive. Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!). I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines. So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there. Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there. | ||
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Pursuit_
United States1330 Posts
On April 15 2014 07:46 MethixR1 wrote: Personally, I use strategies that avoid really intense unit control. I'll be the first to admit I'm slower than I was in BW. For reference, I'm 34 and Diamond league (maybe I'll get back to Masters if I can ever fix my awful PvZ). It's not just that I'm slower (average ~115 APM, peak ~250), but my unit control is not nearly as good as it used to be. Even when I feel like I'm playing fast (for me), I have trouble being accurate. The first thing I do to compensate is not playing styles that I know I won't do well at. I don't do things like proxy gate since that's invariably a Zealot micro battle. I avoid the Phoenix heavy openings that often require higher APM to get value out of them. I also haven't been exploiting the Blink builds that have been so heavily in use recently because I know I can't execute them as well as most people. Another thing is to scout really diligently (especially early on). IMO, a safe style where you have as much info as possible is going to be better as you get older. A lot of contemporary builds have minimal early scouting and rely on really crisp mechanics to hold all-ins. Since I know I struggle with that, I'll send a Probe to check the obvious proxy locations. You'll invariably play from an economic disadvantage, but you're less likely to lose early games due to mechanics. In the mid-game, you just have to focus on strategic choices (tech switches, getting your opponent out of position) instead of winning battles through mechanics. Hope this helps and try to keep perspective. I'm sure there's plenty of players that are older than me, but I feel like I do pretty well for my age and I'm happy with that. I know I'll never make GM, so I just focus on goals that are at my level and smile when I can beat these young whippersnappers. I should start yelling at my opponents to get off my lawn whenever I activate Photon Overcharge. Just a random question but what mouse DPI / screen resolution are you playing on? I thought I had a similar problem for awhile (being less accurate than I had been in WC3), and it annoyed me and made me think I had gotten worse / slower. But really I had been playing WC3 on a 400 DPI mouse on a 800x600p screen, while I was playing SC2 at 2000 DPI on a 1920x1080p screen. Going from 2000 DPI to 800 DPI on a 1080p screen increased my accuracy from 'can sometimes click on the zergling if I get lucky' to 'almost always hits the zergling spot on', and after I got used to the change if anything I'm playing faster despite having a lower DPI. It's basically the equivalent of playing Tennis with a racket that's strung too tight or trying to dribble with a basketball that's over inflated. Makes it harder to be accurate. Worth checking out at any rate. | ||
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MethixR1
United States12 Posts
On April 15 2014 13:24 Pursuit_ wrote: Just a random question but what mouse DPI / screen resolution are you playing on? I thought I had a similar problem for awhile (being less accurate than I had been in WC3), and it annoyed me and made me think I had gotten worse / slower. But really I had been playing WC3 on a 400 DPI mouse on a 800x600p screen, while I was playing SC2 at 2000 DPI on a 1920x1080p screen. Going from 2000 DPI to 800 DPI on a 1080p screen increased my accuracy from 'can sometimes click on the zergling if I get lucky' to 'almost always hits the zergling spot on', and after I got used to the change if anything I'm playing faster despite having a lower DPI. It's basically the equivalent of playing Tennis with a racket that's strung too tight or trying to dribble with a basketball that's over inflated. Makes it harder to be accurate. Worth checking out at any rate. I'm currently running 1600 DPI on a 1680x1050 screen (one of these days I'll break down and get a 1080p monitor...), and on the 4th speed tick in the Windows mouse control. I used to have it faster and found the same thing you did; it was too sensitive. This has felt like a good balance of speed and control, but it might be worth slowing it down a little more and see what happens... | ||
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