How are you practicing? People seem to think that just doing something, no matter how or what thought goes into it, will make them better. But that’s not how improvement works. I could redraw the same cat every day and I might get a little better, but if I want to get a lot better, I have to thinking about what I need to improve, target specifically those things, etc. Just hearing someone say they “practiced” for 200 hours doesn’t tell me if it was meaningful practice. You could have just been retraining bad habits that hold you back or doing things that you’re already good at instead of the things you’re bad at. There’s no way for anyone but you to know that, but at the end of the day, just putting in time and nothing else isn’t necessarily going to get you anywhere; it’s just one part of getting better at a skill.
Your genes can certainly influence your ability to do things(Prodigies are good examples of this) and make you superior to others.
But saying that Genes are the only(or mostly) reason someone is good at something is just BS. I’m sorry.
Mozart may have been extremely gifted at making music from a very early age but that doesn’t mean that a person who studied and has spent 30 years making music is wasting his time because Mozart got the “genius gene”.
Same can be said about learning hand eye coordination. Yes you may never be able to achieve being the very best in the world like a naturally gifted person would be at it but that doesn’t mean that with a lot of practice and hard work you can’t become very good.
Of course physical disability has a say in this. I’m not saying that genes don’t matter but they aren’t the only possible reason you can’t achieve GM status.
I’d also like to point out that often “the gifted” GM players started playing OW after playing some other FPS game since they were kids. The thousands upon thousands of hours playing FPS games will give you an advantage over many that have barely touched one in comparison.
For example, I played the original Unreal Tournament religiously for years and years and because of this and most weapons in that game being projectile based, I am much better at shooting projectiles in OW than hitscan.
bruh soldier is my sub and hes much easier/comfy than zarya, even sym even
however what i find REALLY odd is that i cant mantain the soft lock on moira with my normal sens, as in, mantain it 100%. but i dont think playing all the other heroes with my moira sens would be a good idea, since moiras beam hitbox is massive and long, and allows a lot of mistakes. like winston, but less
Of course it is genetics.
Being a good Widowmaker requires fast reaction times, and that is 100% genetics.
I believe your ability to physically track and time your click at the right split-second is also a physical trait to some extent, although I believe it is easier to train this than the reaction time. Although training will only get you to a certain level, where people better predisposed will reach a level you will never be able to.
Also, I believe an overlooked trait is eye sight. I was born long sighted (which is different from growing into long sighted with age) making my sight worse in many ways. Even though Im also getting old (in my 40’s), I always had problems seeing well on distances, even with proper glasses. I remember being bad at long range fights in Battlefield 1942 when I was much younger, and recently I have been doing quite bad in Apex Legends at range, where I often fail to see the enemy well enough. Meet me up-close in Apex Legends and I will two-shot you very reliably with my trusted Peacekeeper, but at range you have a good chance of winning. Unfortunately, as you reach end game in Apex Legends the best players remain and you can’t avoid the longer range fights.
I have come to realize that it is simply the eye sight I was born with that is working against me. Luckily with the short distances in Overwatch, as well as the clear graphics and outlines, I have a much easier time. I really have to be careful what games I pick to do well.
Another factor is ability to focus, which is also genetic. It is no coincidence that the most popular doping drug in online games is Ritalin.
Someone’s ability to aim is not encoded in their dna and passed down between generations, that’s kind of absurd.
It’s got to do with being a product of your environment and development from a young age (e.g. if your society has a ton of pc cafes and you game from an early age (Korea) then you’ll probably be a lot better than the rest of the world)
Interesting and surprising if true. The study I had in mind is at least 10 years old, so it’s perhaps obsolete now, yeah. There wasn’t a lot of information on that subject last time I checked. Years ago for example I remember trying really hard to find if there is any truth regarding left handed people having slightly better reaction time than right handed ones but I couldn’t find anything, oddly.
Reaction time and calculating the movement of your target as well as telling your brain to move your arm in that direction is what causes this.
Your parents don’t have to play video games to give you strong reactionary timing and prediction. Those are things you’re born with or have to work at from a young age to hone.
The older you get, the slower learning curves come. Especially because habits are already formulated. You basically have to try to retrain your brain at that point, which is EXTREMELY difficult to do, especially the older you get. As the saying goes, “you can’t train old dogs a new trick.”
IT is sorta. Can’t expect a coakroach to aim real good or someone born without arms? There is a variance. How negligible/ big of a gap of it is needed to be studied imo.
You can tho… the genetics behind it are probably not so major as far as comparing people to other people. But to deny that genetics don’t factor in performance is a little niave. For example being born short sighted would affect your ability to aim without a prescription lense to boost your vision to be competitive to those that do not. If you did more studies I am sure you will find people have different baseline reaction times and all decreasing as they become more experienced with the activity ( the rate of decreased reaction times may change too).
I… was agreeing… I stated that these things are what you’re born with or have to work at at a young age to make easier…
I am 46 and my reaction time is 165-170 (using humanbenchmark[dot]com/tests/reactiontime).
I can’t imagine it being much faster when I was younger, as it is barely possible.
So I very much believe that study is true.
Gamers shouldn’t be afraid of getting older - or use age as an excuse. You will not age like pro athletes.
The thing is everybody is different. Some people learn slower, some people are born with natural reaction times, some people work theirs up. You may have had a fast reaction time all along, which explains why you’re able to learn better. Aim is very reactionary and prediction based. If you lack in either department, it can be difficult to master in later ages. Young minds learn faster, which is why they always say if you want something, so it while you’re young, such as working out (not relevant in this case, but you get what I mean).
I think you have a point, not everyone has the same hand-eye coordination or reaction times, but grinding absolutely will improve your aim immensely. I know you said you spent 200+ hours on Widowmaker, which is undoubtedly a lot of time, but you have to remember that some of these GM players put in that amount of time in just one or two seasons. In addition to their massive amounts of in-game time played, I would bet a good portion of the people who had to climb up to GM from a lower rank spent a fair amount of time reviewing their own gameplay and experimenting with different playstyles. It’s not enough to just grind, you have to actively seek out ways to improve as a player.
It sounds like you’re discouraged and a bit frustrated that your aim isn’t quite where you’d like it to be, but you should have more confidence in your own ability to improve and overcome.
Honestly, I feel like the “old gamer” stereotype is less about reaction time decreasing with age and more about free time decreasing with age. A lot of adults don’t have 6+ hours a day to play games, so it follows that their skill would naturally decrease because of that.
I agree with all of this. I climbed from diamond into GM in one season (S4) and have consistently stayed there since. People will call me boosted or braindead, but I did exactly what you said. Reviewed my own gameplay and learned what I was doing wrong. I was dying in a lot of essential situations and once I stopped, I climbed.
A lot of players like Fitzy rely mainly on their positioning and game senses over aim. Of course that’ll be different for each hero, but overall, you can climb to at least masters based on other skills alone. Aim is honestly one of the last ones you need (unless you really just can’t get any value or you’re playing Widow).
Went from plat to masters in about two seasons, myself. People love to belittle your accomplishments to bolster their own ego, unfortunately.
200 hours? Those are rookie numbers… you gotta pump those numbers up!
jk… it’s not Quantity but rather quality of the time spent IMO.
other things you can try to improve is your current setup (if you find it lacking… bigger screen? faster Hz refresh rate… better CPU specs)
i find it awkward you’re comparing yourself to GM players… what you should be doing is being better than the player you were yesterday.
This whole “worked harder than you” is a self-serving cognitive bias. Who knows how many hours they’ve spent clicking heads in their entire lifetime?
Can confirm, I am good at aiming and I never practice outside of playing. I JUST earned an infrared uptime card. I had no idea it existed. Paris…
People who blame genetics are people that don’t want to put in the work. If you have a disability you can say that. There is a corresponding number of people who are naturally born gifted… we call these “owl players”. Everyone else can get very good aim if they practice.
well my grandpa fought in the korean war. but now for widow, i say 20 shots one kill.
Edit: It depends on the games you have played. My friend played csgo ever since 4th grade, and he’s a gm widow who can’t miss even trying.
This is true of anything. I always cringe at the line “they’re a very talented artist”. No, they aren’t. They put in countless hours and effort to make it happen.