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I am 34 and recently found joy in this game again. Do you think I am too old to make GM?
I played WOL when it came out and 2 base muta until Diamond in 2010.
I got back last year after I randomly found out about Serral beating Koreans.
I did mutas again and only got to Plat3...then found Vibe''s Bronze to GM guide and made it to Plat1. Hitting a wall right now with A move but learned about Macro.
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are you hoping to compete in tournaments for money? if not, just play the game and have fun. GM isn't what it was 9 years ago. there are many veteran players, and the mechanics of the game are more widely understood, not to mention cross pollination from other esport games means a lot of skilled people are on ladder. you can definitely make masters at 34.
choose a simple, conservative playstyle that doesn't involve too much heavy micro and culminates in a timing attack, perfect a build for each matchup. you'll get far
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No tournament, just ladder for fun. I am hoping to follow this guide before it gets outdated. I never knew the right way to play before this guide.
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NaDa, the legend made it to ASL not long ago, he is 34 like you. Why wouldn't you? And I will say qualifying ASL is like 15x harder than hitting GM.
All you need to do is to play, not to win, but to learn. Thus you can be consistent and achieve your goal.
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Canada8747 Posts
Well like it was said, 34 isn't to old to get GM if you put the time (and have the liberty to put in the time), but even then it's not a sure thing, GM is hard, like really really hard and the climb only get slower the closer you get to the top,. Around a year back there was a thread where 2 "older" guys with full time jobs who almost never played SC2 started a race to get GM in a year with some prize for the winner, they both burn out after a few months far from getting to GM.
I would say trying to get into master is a more achievable goal and if you arrive there and want to continue there's nothing that stop you, but overall just take it slow and have fun.
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Bisutopia18992 Posts
If you aren't a pro, I think StarCraft gets easier as you get older.
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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094215
eventhough there might be a decline in reactiontime, doesnt mean you cannot compete on a high level. imo prioritising is what a great player separates form the good one.
only few players over 35 in GM/M1? maybe... but i guess this has more to do with how much time you can spent on practicing.
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You're good to play no problem! To be realistic though making gm is not likely unless you have a natural talent for the game, it has nothing to do with age and simply statistics, only .19% of the population is currently gm. ~750 out of ~390 thousand accounts.
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Absolutely you can. Just need to put in the time and practice intelligently.
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On April 04 2019 04:39 Jurassic1 wrote: I am 34 and recently found joy in this game again. Do you think I am too old to make GM?
I played WOL when it came out and 2 base muta until Diamond in 2010.
I got back last year after I randomly found out about Serral beating Koreans.
I did mutas again and only got to Plat3...then found Vibe''s Bronze to GM guide and made it to Plat1. Hitting a wall right now with A move but learned about Macro. been nearly black out drunk, or so high on acid im not sure im a person, and I can still casually, without watching or knowing any sc2 meta at all, make it to diamond. It is not a hard game. Your age is not a limiting factor---except obviously you cant dedicate your life to the game and go pro. If you are half way intelligent, and have the physical coordination to dress yourself without splitting your head open, you can make diamond too.
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Yes GM is definitely still possible. The question is are you willing to put in the effort that it takes to get there? Age is not a factor, GM is not the super godly league that people might imagine it is. Just very time consuming to be good enough.
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The biggest lie I told myself before I became relatively ok at sc2 was thinking that higher rank = more fun. 5k mmr or 2k mmr, the game is still the same. Units do the same, maps are same. Just have fun imo.
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After 5-6 games of 1v1 I am phyically exhausted and sweating these days. Something definitely changed for me these last years.
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On April 04 2019 05:27 outscar wrote: NaDa, the legend made it to ASL not long ago, he is 34 like you. Why wouldn't you? And I will say qualifying ASL is like 15x harder than hitting GM.
All you need to do is to play, not to win, but to learn. Thus you can be consistent and achieve your goal.
Such a good point, playing to learn! Great post.
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On April 05 2019 00:57 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2019 05:27 outscar wrote: NaDa, the legend made it to ASL not long ago, he is 34 like you. Why wouldn't you? And I will say qualifying ASL is like 15x harder than hitting GM.
All you need to do is to play, not to win, but to learn. Thus you can be consistent and achieve your goal. Such a good point, playing to learn! Great post.
PS. If money isn't a big deal, hire a coach.
In music, having a teacher is infinitely valuable. Mechanics are something you can learn online from forums and guides, but learning the way a better player sees the game is something you can only learn from that player.
Which is actually really valuable. I thinks that's why day9's old shows were so valuable, I learned so much about how to think about the game... I was sooo bad when I started, no natural talent what so ever.
Edit: Sorry double post I just woke up.
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Northern Ireland20509 Posts
I think it's absolutely doable, especially if you've played before to any standard. Keyboard familiarity and mouse accuracy are the sole real mechanical hurdles to play the game, I'd wager most of us older folks are actually tighter on these than subsequent generations as for me at least the PC and KBM was my sole communication device to the outside world for over a decade and the hub of my gaming and music listening experiences etc.
If you can type fast and navigate your desktop accurately, you can play Starcraft well, that's all you're essentially doing, the rest is knowledge and making good reads based off that knowledge.
Generalising a bit here, it's not always going to be the case but I would wager that older people are a bit more sanguine mentally and less prone to raging hard and tilting if they're laddering. At least I've found that to be the case for me anyway. I treat ladder at least initially as me just playing vs bots and with the sole goal of improving or executing a certain strat or style, at least until I get into some kind of shape after a hiatus and then maybe winning games starts to become a goal again.
I was a pretty decent guitar player, have just come back to it recently after a borderline 3 year hiatus for various reasons. I'm not quite what I was, but 99% of that muscle memory baseline is still there, to a surprising degree actually. I'm 29 myself, I think it'd be verydifficult now to get as good as I was if I had never played, I just don't have the time to put in the hours I did as a teenager and a younger man to grind the mechanics out. I'm filling in the theory gaps I had way more effectively though, not having all that free time means I've structured practice a lot better, so that side has actually improved with the time constraints forcing me to be more efficient in my practice.
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Northern Ireland20509 Posts
On April 05 2019 01:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2019 00:57 ShambhalaWar wrote:On April 04 2019 05:27 outscar wrote: NaDa, the legend made it to ASL not long ago, he is 34 like you. Why wouldn't you? And I will say qualifying ASL is like 15x harder than hitting GM.
All you need to do is to play, not to win, but to learn. Thus you can be consistent and achieve your goal. Such a good point, playing to learn! Great post. PS. If money isn't a big deal, hire a coach. In music, having a teacher is infinitely valuable. Mechanics are something you can learn online from forums and guides, but learning the way a better player sees the game is something you can only learn from that player. Which is actually really valuable. I thinks that's why day9's old shows were so valuable, I learned so much about how to think about the game... I was sooo bad when I started, no natural talent what so ever. Edit: Sorry double post I just woke up. Yeah, 100%. For me at least the internet is a double-edged sword, it has all the information you could need, but that's a lot of information and I don't necessarily know what is good or not, sifting through it takes time and I find it a bit overwhelming. For guitar especially, which I play, it's full of 'hacks' to improve etc when you go looking online, which usually suck because they're teaching you to skirt around having to learn theory properly, and for me theory isn't difficult to learn if you learn it all because it's all interlinked and the picture becomes clearer the more you know, so avoiding doing so is counter-productive in the long run
Hiring a coach/teacher is invaluable because you can cut through that really quickly. You also get feedback which is super useful to have, a tutorial can't talk back to you. You might have one small, weird question that you can't find an answer for online, but is cleared up in about a minute of talking to someone who is an expert in the area.
Anyway best of luck OP, do let us know how your quest is going!
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I feel that what can be attainable to some, it may be hard for others. I am about your age. I managed to reach diamond 7 years ago, and I am able to reach diamond now (thus - no progress!). I have been playing - albeit with some pauses - all this time. Often I hit a point in game where I feel that I know what I want to do, but my fingers are not fast enough. Like - there is an intense micro fight, and I think "I should now look at my base and warp in some units. But then this battle is lost". Early game PvP with adepts is where I melt consistently for example.
Probably I could train my fingers hard, but I feel I am at my limit assuming just casual play.
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I'm 39 this year, and I'm playing. The only issue is lack of time (wife and 2 kids) that's why I warmed my stay in diamond :-) But I have no ambition to be pro. Just playing for fun.
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