The only way to improve past a set point is to either be born better, or to pay for better peripherals and chemicals to improve your play, which is arguably the same as unlock grinding.
I would argue that grinding for an entirely useless skill is more akin to grinding for an item in an MMO - whereas paying for peripherals and chemicals to improve your play is more akin to the microtransactions in, say, farmville.
With FPS games, it doesn't matter. Fast twitch reflexes are capped by hereditary traits. Involuntary muscle tremors defeat attempts to aim at minute hitzones. The only way to improve past a set point is to either be born better, or to pay for better peripherals and chemicals to improve your play, which is arguably the same as unlock grinding.
Strategy and near-totally mechanistic games are the only games that offer improvement that someone can consider "unlimited" (though there is likely a cap to intellectual gaming ability), so why even bother playing a reflex-based game?
What you say is true, but still wrong.
If I start playing golf today, I will likely never be good enough to go pro, let alone actually win any professional tournament. By your logic, I should never try.
Even if your personal hereditary maximum is low, you can still improve yourself by practicing something that is difficult, no matter what it is. And while reflexes themselves may not be so useful, the quick thinking in your brain is extremely useful. That's the reason I am always trying to get people to read books and not listen to them. Reading books exercises a different portion of your brain.
It's really all about exercising and dieting for your brain. You do physical activities and eat food to keep your body in good shape. You consume media and such to keep your brain in shape. If you just play mindless games, like say Diablo clickclickclick, that's like having your brain eat McDonald's. You gotta get your brain on the healthy foods, though they may taste bad, and the gourmet foods, though they may be expensive.
Except that isn't my logic; it's yours, taken to the logical conclusion. You've spent roughly two pages talking out of both sides of your asshole. Protip: if you start a rebuttle with "what you say is true, but wrong," you've probably messed up your argument somewhere-- or you've been wrong from the beginning.
It's really all about exercising and dieting for your brain. You do physical activities and eat food to keep your body in good shape. You consume media and such to keep your brain in shape. If you just play mindless games, like say Diablo clickclickclick, that's like having your brain eat McDonald's. You gotta get your brain on the healthy foods, though they may taste bad, and the gourmet foods, though they may be expensive.
That is an interesting analogy, but deeply flawed - It is true, healthy food is better for you than junk food, eating properly is better for you than eating poorly.
However, the difference is that there is a clear benefit to eating well over eating poorly. Where is the Benefit in exchanging one entirely useless exercise for another entirely useless exercise, provided you enjoy both(or don't enjoy both, if that's the way you roll) equally? Your idea of "Oh, the quick thinking part of my brain is being trained" is ludicrous - So, say you're riding your bike, and a car comes speeding out of a side street, and without responding very quickly, you're going to get hit and injured - I'm sure your counterstrike quick thinking is going to really help you out when you take your hand from the handlebars and attempt to click on the driver's head. Having quick reactions or quickness of mind in counterstrike do not equal useful skills, they equal being good at counterstrike.
Stop pretending like this is any sort of useful endeavor, Scott - Practicing these things is only going to make you better at doing the things you're practicing. These are not skills with a wide application, and no, "Quick thinking" does not count, because it's only training you to think quickly in one particular context, it does not automatically enable you to think quickly all the time. In a reverse example, I think very quickly in making jokes, but that doesn't mean that I'm suddenly fantastic at FPS, or anything other than making jokes quickly. I think very, very fast behind the wheel of a car, or riding a motorbike - in fact, I'd argue it can involve making more complex decisions equally fast if not faster than an old-school twitch FPS - But that doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to catch arrows or play squash like a master.
I don't think hereditary twitch capability has as much of an impact on FPS gaming as people make it out to have. All other factors being equal it would, but all other factors aren't equal. Map control and knowledge makes a major impact. Understanding weapon spread and effective distance is another, as is choosing the correct loadout for the situation and correctly anticipating that situation. Experience and practice and teamwork should trump twitch every time, and that's good game design. It keeps players playing and striving to improve. If your game is solely based around genetic potential it isn't much of a game at all.
Personally I'm wondering what these FPS games are that derive merit from making you better or stronger, aside from ambiguous ways that can be said of any FPS.
I don't think hereditary twitch capability has as much of an impact on FPS gaming as people make it out to have. All other factors being equal it would, but all other factors aren't equal. Map control and knowledge makes a major impact. Understanding weapon spread and effective distance is another, as is choosing the correct loadout for the situation and correctly anticipating that situation. Experience and practice and teamwork should trump twitch every time, and that's good game design. It keeps players playing and striving to improve. If your game is solely based around genetic potential it isn't much of a game at all.
Ever played CS:S. I'd say that there the skill of headshots is the most important one, knowing maps and weapons and teamwork can help, but if you aren't good at headshots you are not good at CS:S.
It's really all about exercising and dieting for your brain. You do physical activities and eat food to keep your body in good shape. You consume media and such to keep your brain in shape. If you just play mindless games, like say Diablo clickclickclick, that's like having your brain eat McDonald's. You gotta get your brain on the healthy foods, though they may taste bad, and the gourmet foods, though they may be expensive.
If I eat only McDonald's food I die (sooner). If I only play Diablo I don't die any sooner than a person who spends his time playing "better" games. Thus I only play games that taste good.
Ever played CS:S. I'd say that there the skill of headshots is the most important one, knowing maps and weapons and teamwork can help, but if you aren't good at headshots you are not good at CS:S.
Yes, I actually used to play in a CAL:O league for CS 1.6 and naturally played a fair amount of source as well. Twitch gets a lot of attention in CS, but I think that's because map control skill and gun familiarity have leveled off amongst the player base. Imagine a 2v2 match between a team who has played de_aztec 10000 times and a team of master twitch gamers unfamiliar with the map. Can you really imagine the twitch team winning, or even breaking even? Now factor in knowledge about the gun spray, penetration damage, rush times, buy menu familiarity, etc etc etc and you can see what I mean about twitch not being the be-all-end-all of multiplayer, even in a game like CS. CS has just devolved to the point that the twitch gamers also know all that other stuff, so twitch is a larger determining factor.
Even with that being said, I think the threshold of twitch play you need to be able to do to remain competetive in pub CS isn't THAT high. It's just higher than a bad console FPS with recharging health, which has more short-term gratification.
Imagine a 2v2 match between a team who has played de_aztec 10000 times and a team of master twitch gamers unfamiliar with the map. Can you really imagine the twitch team winning, or even breaking even?
Well any team who has played any map 10 000 times is probably on high enough level on shooting other guys that it doesn't matter. I was talking more about from experience of new player, you learn the maps and get some handle on most used weapons well before being able to reliably kill other player in firefight. At least it felt like that for me.
Imagine a 2v2 match between a team who has played de_aztec 10000 times and a team of master twitch gamers unfamiliar with the map. Can you really imagine the twitch team winning, or even breaking even?
Well any team who has played any map 10 000 times is probably on high enough level on shooting other guys that it doesn't matter. I was talking more about from experience of new player, you learn the maps and get some handle on most used weapons well before being able to reliably kill other player in firefight. At least it felt like that for me.
Well yeah, that's what I'm saying and the reason I think that's true is because of where the player base stands at this point. There was a time where everyone played 1.6 and source; they were just the best games out there for pc multiplayer fps. After being so popular for so long the less twitchy players have been naturally culled and have moved on to alternatives that mitigate that more, and you're left with a population of players who all know all the maps and guns equally well and derive their fun from being a better twitch gamer than the next guy. Its harder to break into it now than it was then. The match up I was describing is an imaginary situation just to illustrate that in the end, twitch isn't the only factor in CS, its just that most CS players are on level ground when it comes to the others.
I dunno, I prefer the FPS amish analogy. Staying with only the oldest of old-school, sneering at how pampered the "English" are, with their electric lights and fancy little talking boxes.
All this talk of old school FPSes got me thinking about quake and all that crap. It's kinda weird to see the direct legacy of the Quake engine in action.
I'm getting in on this really late, but I've been on a bit of an old FPS kick lately. I've gotta say, I am absolutely hating Deus Ex's gameplay, although the setting and story seems to be great. The game is either way too hard, impossible to stealth through, or confusing as heck. I got to a level with an airplane and was told to get on said airplane, but when I get on it... nothing happens. So I quit. As I had done numerous times before, when someone convinced me that Deus Ex was an amazing, amazing game. I'm just not seeing it. System Shock 2 was SO much better.
Also: Urban Terror is STILL kicking ass. I wonder if Paintball 2, Action Quake, and Air Quake still have servers...
There wasn't anyone on the plane, although there was a locked door that I was in no way able to unlock (not enough lockpicks). Plus I didn't want to piss all the dudes around the plane off, and wanted to trust my brother. I wandered around the plane for a bit, didn't see anyone.
There wasn't anyone on the plane, although there was a locked door that I was in no way able to unlock (not enough lockpicks). Plus I didn't want to piss all the dudes around the plane off, and wanted to trust my brother. I wandered around the plane for a bit, didn't see anyone.
Are you sure you didn't miss the Nanokey to the private quarters on the upper level? Of course, failing that, you can blow the door without pissing off the dudes outside, they don't mind, I think.
I remember picking up some sort of nanokey, but the door was still locked. That surprised me a little. I might reload my game tonight and give it another shot. Either way, I wasn't particularly impressed by the game otherwise.
I remember picking up some sort of nanokey, but the door was still locked. That surprised me a little. I might reload my game tonight and give it another shot. Either way, I wasn't particularly impressed by the game otherwise.
That's okay - disliking the game is fine, if you don't like it, you don't like it. I just didn't like the idea that you were forced to give up because it either glitched, or you overlooked some small detail.
How masochistic would I have to be to set up a quake server? Considering the scene of the shaving and stuff from Pulp Fiction a five out of ten.
It's hard enough to get all the right software, let alone configure it properly. And then you have to troubleshoot each individual person trying to connect to it that will inevitably fuck up shit on their end.
Comments
If I start playing golf today, I will likely never be good enough to go pro, let alone actually win any professional tournament. By your logic, I should never try.
Even if your personal hereditary maximum is low, you can still improve yourself by practicing something that is difficult, no matter what it is. And while reflexes themselves may not be so useful, the quick thinking in your brain is extremely useful. That's the reason I am always trying to get people to read books and not listen to them. Reading books exercises a different portion of your brain.
It's really all about exercising and dieting for your brain. You do physical activities and eat food to keep your body in good shape. You consume media and such to keep your brain in shape. If you just play mindless games, like say Diablo clickclickclick, that's like having your brain eat McDonald's. You gotta get your brain on the healthy foods, though they may taste bad, and the gourmet foods, though they may be expensive.
However, the difference is that there is a clear benefit to eating well over eating poorly. Where is the Benefit in exchanging one entirely useless exercise for another entirely useless exercise, provided you enjoy both(or don't enjoy both, if that's the way you roll) equally?
Your idea of "Oh, the quick thinking part of my brain is being trained" is ludicrous - So, say you're riding your bike, and a car comes speeding out of a side street, and without responding very quickly, you're going to get hit and injured - I'm sure your counterstrike quick thinking is going to really help you out when you take your hand from the handlebars and attempt to click on the driver's head. Having quick reactions or quickness of mind in counterstrike do not equal useful skills, they equal being good at counterstrike.
Stop pretending like this is any sort of useful endeavor, Scott - Practicing these things is only going to make you better at doing the things you're practicing. These are not skills with a wide application, and no, "Quick thinking" does not count, because it's only training you to think quickly in one particular context, it does not automatically enable you to think quickly all the time. In a reverse example, I think very quickly in making jokes, but that doesn't mean that I'm suddenly fantastic at FPS, or anything other than making jokes quickly. I think very, very fast behind the wheel of a car, or riding a motorbike - in fact, I'd argue it can involve making more complex decisions equally fast if not faster than an old-school twitch FPS - But that doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to catch arrows or play squash like a master.
Personally I'm wondering what these FPS games are that derive merit from making you better or stronger, aside from ambiguous ways that can be said of any FPS.
Even with that being said, I think the threshold of twitch play you need to be able to do to remain competetive in pub CS isn't THAT high. It's just higher than a bad console FPS with recharging health, which has more short-term gratification.
Oh maybe I need glasses. Those are asterisks.
Also: Urban Terror is STILL kicking ass. I wonder if Paintball 2, Action Quake, and Air Quake still have servers...
No, not fun. The other thing. Tedious.