Makes me feel good to watch this... Just turned 36 and man... I can't stop. I feel like my younger self couldn't hold a candle to my current state. The knowledge carries me far and so does my Neutral game. So.. I think Momochi is correct. I've been playing since 04'
A few things at play here: 1. Reactions aren't really fighting game bread and butter. Like, can you react to a street fighter jump? That's like more than half a second. If you can do that, you'll probably be okay. Twitch reactions aren't really the skill being measured in most cases, although they can help in some instances. 2. Reaction times are dramatically misunderstood by basically every video game player. Most reaction tests in fighting games aren't "red light/green light" click tests (well except Anji's Fuujin overhead/low mixup :/) but a combination of your expectations plus reaction time, and this is basically almost always true. If it weren't the case, I feel like no one would ever be able to perform any action without getting hit, lol. You perform actions, put yourself in spaces, etc. in anticipation of another player's action, and there's a commitment spectrum to those actions. If twitch reacting to most actions were possible, it would be virtually impossible to even like, walk. You'd just get clipped by a low by some yung god who reacted to you walking forward with his sick 135 ms reaction time and blow you up. In real life this only happens when the player is expecting you to move forward. 3. Finally, fighting games are a genre where experience and knowledge and a feeling for the flow of the game will virtually always be more important than your brain's like, raw processing power. Young players aren't coming up because they're reaction gods, they're coming up because they're good players generally, and I sort of think claiming they have some kind of massive leg up on older players discredits their achievements somewhat.
Honestly most of these old japanese fighting game players are the first generation of professional game players, so we dont actually know when age will be a factor for deterioration in play yet. I dont think the loss of reaction time from aging is significant enough to stop players from being able to whiff punish, anti-air, etc. and a lot of mix-ups in fighting games are true 50-50 anyway and unreactable.
Yep. Daigo was a competitive player in the mid 90s, which was the beginning of esports basically. So someone like him who has continued to play is an example of that generation's longevity. Personally, I think volatility in a player's winnings has more to do with which game you gel more with and that's due to fighting games having a new game being developed every 4-7 years. Like you'll still be great at whichever game you play if you continue to grind, it's just that the amount of times you're considered the best or a top 5 player will fluctuate.
Bringing up Faker was actually pretty relevant to this. He is only 25 now but he has been the most famous league plqyer by a logshot for like a decade at this point. Most games a simply not old enough for players who started young to become old by now... Fighting games are different because let's be honest, they are very similair to eachother so a pro fighting game player often competes in multiple games at any given time. Someone whp got good at sf2 can a lkt of that kowlage in guilty gear xrd or whatever.
@@bencegergohocz5988 Hmm, part of that is true (e sports is new so there hasn't been a lot of time for games to get old) but it is also objectively a fact that in FPS and RTS games the reaction times start to go mid to late 20s and you see people being forced to retire early in those games. They just can't compete at the top levels. Now, to be fair, in a lot of those games they are also team sports so they aren't given the opportunity to find a way to compensate (if it even is possible) for their slowing reflexes with other factors because its easier to find a younger player with intact reflexes.
I started playing fighting games more seriously 3 years ago when I turned 30 and I definitely do not feel disadvantaged physically or mentally against players much younger than me. Though the one area they absolutely destroy me in is the amount of free time to grind…
i remember reading a quote from a navy pilot a while back. he said something a long the lines of "if your reacting to a situation your already too late" and that fits well into the whole mental stack concept that the fgc likes to use. better reactions helps but it wont mean much if your mental loop is caved in on itself. also keep in mind that our games generally started in the 90s so we have one of the oldest competitive scenes in all of gaming. so i guess it would make some sense that our population tends to be older.
Yeah I feel the older you get/more exp you have in fighting games the better you get at the footsies/adaption side of the game. Personally feel like the reactions is a cop out cause if your dedicated enough you can train your reactions specifically for the game, I think it was in 2020 Daigo talked about this and went over the drills he did to try his reactions with checking dashes ect
Alex Valle said a similar thing, too, if I recall correctly. (This was probably about 5 years ago.) I’m paraphrasing from a loose memory here, but the gist was that his autopilot reactions aren’t quite as good as they were when he was young, but he’s still just as fast when he tries to be, like when he’s actually putting effort in. I’m actually not sure if he meant more in terms of in-the-moment focus or preparation training, but I have a convenient option select that covers both cases anyway: two of the biggest facets of being a strong play have always been 1) how you interact with the economy of attention during matches and 2) how you prepare for competitive play. Functionally speaking, his accumulated experience have made up for any loss in raw ability.
One common misconception is that you need insane reaction speed for fighting games. On the contrary, because moves have set frames and moves are designed to be reactable by devs, you only need enough reaction speed to react to those moves. Compared to FPS where you're basically directly comparing reaction speeds with other players (ie who shoots first), great reaction speed gives less of an advantage for fighting games.
I’m 46 and I’ve been wanting to get into fighting games in the last few years but the barrier to entry has been too demanding. I don’t have the time to grind and learn complex mechanics of a fighting game, that ship has sailed. The only reason I’m willing to even play street fighter 6 is because of modern controls and it’s been fun.
I feel like your 30s is when you're actually in your prime so you can't use the "my reaction time is falling off" OS. I honestly hope I get to see people in their 50s+ make it to a big event and school some youngins' live lol. I, for one, will be gaming until I hit dementia/Alzheimers.
These are the heroes I grew up watching man I hope they continue playing for the longest and have fun just the same way I do. The older they get the stronger they get honestly, fighting Neco arc, prime Arakune or Ram and shit unironically must help them more than entire weeks of playing Brain Age.
Grandpa Daigo is the reason why I started to love fighting game. Last year I watched EVO #37 and Stunfest Daigo vs Momochi, I was so amazed by those moments that it hook me up to fighting game and I've been playing Street Fighter nearly everyday since then. I hope Daigo and all these old gen players remain active for many many years ahead. On topic of Daigo, I recommend people here to watch Daigo play Elden Ring on his stream, it's very funny and interesting seeing Daigo play Souls game for a first time :D
Just turned 40 and I'm one of the better NA 3rd Strike players which I never thought would be possible when I was 17 and it was a brand new game, I could barely do supers or a standing 360. I played these all from the beginning, would skip school to play SF2 and CE when they dropped in my neighborhood spots but I was trash at fighting games through the 90s and onto the early 2000s. I became GM level in Brood War and SC2 and learned some better repetitive training ideas and what dropping bad habits means in competitive play, when SF4 came out I was able to get wins over legends like Alex Valle in weekly brackets.... Still a pretty incomplete player just learned more about what I was doing wrong. Well at this point I've played retro games instead of new stuff for the past 10 years and I feel like my fundamentals and ideas are better than ever, but the break through wasn't brute force training mode or tens of thousands of hours of playing. I just finally realized I was stubborn and learning the mechanics of the game, and then understanding situations where they matter separates the pros from the guys who don't crack top 16's in new games. I hated SF5 because I wanted it to play like other SF games, it is also a really bad not fun game but my losses are on me. Always be hungry to learn and set up training mode to test your ideas instead of doing an optimal combo 10 times in a row, talk to your peers and really listen when they say what you're doing doesn't work it isn't a failing of you as a person you just don't know what you're doing. Really enjoyed Momochi's take. But as far as 50 being an upper limit, the oldest Super Turbo players are around there and passing it up right now and don't look like htey have lost a step. the important thing is honing your craft. I'm pretty sure players will be able to react in under 200ms to things until their 60s at least
I'm 35 and putting in the work to take grinding seriously. It's really exciting to be able to do that now because as a kid, I didn't live where there was any kind of scene and netplay didn't exist.
thanks for this video. I played fighting games a lot when I was a kid and abruptly stop when I reached teen age. only 4-5 years ago did I start playing again and I actually feels good. I feel I'm able to look at games on different perspective. My friends asked me do I get the handicap because of my slower reaction, and I said no. I'll be 37 in few weeks and I'm looking forward to keep on playing fighting games with my kids.
People forget that young pros in these popular Korean esports games come and go like crazy. The games fluctuate in popularity and balance so much that it only makes sense that only younger players are pros.
Because the younger generations tend to not like fighting games and the genre will die out completely within ten to twenty years unless things change drastically.
@@TheNobleFive lol, don't be delusional. Yeah, in most recent years, they got bigger. But not as big as the revival event that was SF4 and certainly not the 90s.
i replied in short on twitter as well, but i believe this has a lot to do with the instutions that run the competitive scenes - i happen to also be an eSports coach and they overwhelmingly cater to younger audiences which inherently there is nothing wrong with. But since in fighting games it's 1v1 and you tend to buy your way into the tournament on your own there isn't much of an institution
I'm at my 30's now and yes I feel a lot stronger now and I can understand how many things work in playing fighting games. Hope I can teach the future generation how to play this amazing gaming genre.
Fighting games are the closest thing in gaming to actual combat sports. The difference is, while you get old in sports physically to the point where someone younger, faster and less experienced can beat you, in fighting games you use in game avatars and the physical advantages are character dependent instead of person dependent. So if an old person can pilot a young body, much in the same way musicians basically only improve with age, then fighting game players should be able to keep up with the next gen in any game. Reaction time and processing would be a factor but I think only at a really advanced age
I think a reason reactions don't matter as much is that moves are balanced to a set of certain frames and you just need to be faster than how much the developers expect an average player to confirm. Physically reacting isn't as important as being able to identify what's happening. I also heard you only lose a couple frames in reaction times anyway.
I got into the deep end of fighting games pretty late, I'm 34 now and I starting to think it I don't have it in me to clean up my problems as a player cause it's all execution issues and reading opponents.
You got athletes like Brady & Tyson still doing their thing in their "advanced age", so I think we supposed oldheads can keep playing in a less demanding competition such as, videogames...
I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I’m a WAY smarter player now than I was 15 years ago. Like, I’m not really any better, but you should hear how in-depth I can get when I’m explaining why that match I just lost was actually wayyyy closer than it looked from the outside. Trust me, I almost won that one. And he knew it too. He won’t say, but he knew.
Everytime this topic gets brought up I think it's actually a beautiful thing that you don't become irrelevant after 26 and we should embrace it. Barely any other competitive genre has such a huge range in age between competitors. I think it's neat.
I'd say starting at like 17 and now being (almost) 27 it's basically just a "real life responsibilities means my fighting game skills will not be as good." Been trying to accept over the past couple years that I'm moving on to the Spectator Pass life. I think it will make events more enjoyable for me now since I can focus on the things happening in and around the event like the artist alleys and stuff, now that I'm not sweating about competing.
The main problem is the fgc not getting any new players, it's just not popular or getting bigger. Street fighter 6 and tekken 7 is certainly going to change that. And the next younger online warrior generation are going to take over
the other thing about fighting games is you have access to everything the game has to offer you cant get hit by something that doesnt exsist, in games like league of legends and valorant for example, there are so many outside factors that you cannot account for you dont know if a bush is warded, you dont know where someone is pushing, you dont know if the jungler is ganking, these are things that you truly cannot account for which requires quick thinking and adaptability thats hard to keep up with aS you get older, in fighting games everything is right in front of you and straightforward and theres only so many options your opponent has access to while in other games theres hundreds, thousands of different plays, timings, moves, they could do in each second.
I remember being terrible at fighting games as a kid, losing to just about everyone and gave up thinking I just suck at the genre. I only started to get into FG right before the release of SFV with the purchase of USF4 while it was on sale (I was 29 by then). I couldn't even do a hadouken at first, but over time I've improved. I still suck but compared to back then I've improved a lot, so I think it's never too late to start. For me the best thing I got out of FGs was overcoming myself. FGs used to be the genre I feared the most, but it's no longer the case. The importance is that you get better, and once you get used to one game, you can learn another game much faster since the core mechanics of the genre pretty much remain the same as you said.
Momochi is def right about Smash. I used to play Smash hard many years ago and I always credited it for making me be able to think quickly and being able to predict things/people
Similar to weight classes, I think age classes could be a real change we see in certain esports as time moves on. Fighting games may not need this as badly, but those twitch reaction shooters like CS:GO probably need it to stay fair and competitive. However, viewership of those higher age groups may immediately disqualify them from being viable similar to how a lot of people don't watch anything aside from male sports.
I think is great, Daigo is 41 and still has a lot to offer and hearing from people who has won vs him his problem is being stubborn more than not being good enough. A competitive scene where you can do a lot even in your 40s? Yes please.
I find it easier to pick up and play a fighting game since I learn more efficiently, plus I have my own money and can buy/try games more often then when I was younger lol
31 goin on 32 i find the main thing is finding time to grind in a meaningful way with work and running a household. but thats the main thing ive only gotten better the old i got
Damn, this also is a reality in quake. I'm always the younger in the servers(i'm 21) and it sometimes feels weird or intimidating, since it's already a stablished meme about how most quake players aren't below 40, and all have kids and family. I remember entering a quake 1 server at 19 years old and talking to the dudes there and the average age was 35 - 45 and there was legends about players that were in their 60s. It's cool how "old values" are kept in a "old players" community like how it's sacred to be respectful to the other player before and after a match, and that the servers are always more populated in times were boomers are not working and stuff I feel that despite a lot of the legends of the FGC being old, the young people are the ones that dictate the meta and the culture of the community the most, like how even old people adopted zoomer expressions in the community like "bruh thats OD fr fr u got rizz no cap straight up bussin take the L" and etc...
Fighting games are more about knowledge than anything else. It doesn't matter how good your execution or reactions are if the other guy knows what you're going to do and has the answer. My reactions have always been trash but even I got better at anti-airing over time and I hardly play anymore.
Almost the entire DRX roster that won 2022 worlds left at the end of November for contract reasons. You had Kingen (Top), Pyosik/Juhan (Jungle), Zeka (Mid) with Deft/BeryL (bottom lane). Easily the best World Finals since SSG won in 2017 and TPA winning in 2012. I do agree with a lot that has been said here though.
I think part of it also is that these top players have been grinding the game since their initial height in the late 90s. Even on a casual level they just grew up with these fighting games in a way that the zoomers have not. We'll see with SF6 and Tekken 8
why are fighting game pro so old? they're not.. we have older gamers who can still hold their own but there's no lack of younger players who shine. Endingwalker is an easy example, young Nuckledu when he showed up. The main reason for the ability to keep relevant in fgc is the experience factor from playing the series over time. The top players are still all in their late teens and 20s these days, but the older players are very much still a threat that can't be slept on. on the topic of reaction times, they just matter more in moba/rts/fps games. those quarter seconds count for a lot when you're both aiming at each others heads, or flick shots, or games with a high actions per minute. in those scenarios you need to do a lot quickly, be precise, and in those scenarios older players will lose out since experience won't be as much of a factor. experience can keep players relevant longer, but it won't remain as long as it does in fighters where the milliseconds don't matter as much, it's the choices that matter. still requires timing, but i don't think it's quick reactions as much as being prepared and knowing what to do in advance when situations present themselves. and in that regard years of fg experience keeps them capable.
All this really means if age truly becomes a factor on whether you can remain competitive is that boomer leagues of all the old heads are going to form. I can picture me and my buddies in an old folks home still grinding it out.
I just keep getting better and better, the game doesn't matter. Valorant, Dota2, Strive, as long as you are able to detect patterns, identify problems and come up with solutions nothing should stop you. We are all human. You might be old but your opponent might be extremely nervous in top 8, sick that day, age is just another variable you must solve for.
I'm 35 and I feel like my reactions and thought processes are better than ever. I think that older folks who have more experience are just embarrassed when they lose to younger, newer players and conclude that their reactions are just worse. A game like SFV doesn't have the same footsies and zoning as previous street fighters, so there's also the adaptation required that the older players may be too stubborn to commit to. They also just might not like the newer fighting games, which is another barrier for wanting to get better.
Another reason why MOBAs are less boomer friendly is that the patches come hard and fast. If fighting games had the same frequency of drastic patches that make you have to re-learn the whole game, then most boomers like us have no chance.
Momochi is going to be the pai mei of fighting games lol On a more serious note, and I think i'm focusing strictly on Western players. I think there are a few folds to this: - OG Gen 1/2 players are from the arcade resurgence days (SF2, Art of fighting, etc) - Base fighting game knowledge is able to be carried to any other fighting game and makes it much easier to move onto and play different fighting games at a similar level -- unlike say an FPS where mechanics and everything else are vastly different and the team heavy nature of those games makes it more difficult to jump between games - That level of experience carries over for ages and compounds. -- As I believe you stated in another video, you needed to make the best of the few quarters you had during the arcade days. We played for keeps. That mentality rarely changes.
In my opinion, it's the contrary. To me, the boomers of a game are not necessarily the older competitors but the first iteration of competitors which is most likely true for all games you showed, Jiyuna. Most players that won have played their own games since they were released. Doubt the 17 year old didn't start playing when he was 12 or something and got really good at it.
I think that not only FPS and MOBAs require more adaptation and reflexes and stuff, they require it _for longer periods of time!_ Even a FT2 in something like DBFZ lasts a fraction of the time spent in an average LoL match. So them zoomers are out there running marathons doing like hundreds of calculation a second and then I play some tekken and my brain starts catching fire in like 10 minutes.
Fighting games aren't exclusive in this regard if we consider sports in general. Same goes for actual fighting, like boxing. And there are even older successful pilots competing in racing among the younger generation
You make great point on motivation, if you don't develop discipline when you are young its hard to keep going. Also valorant is not even a twitchy shooter, using tactical advantage (holding correct angles) and smokes/flashbangs, coordinating efforts with team plays bigger role than individual performance. There are exceptions but generally teams in those games only have 1 open fragger guy(basicly carry that has good reflexes), and honestly if you dont know what to expect your reaction times will be lower anyways. If you see game like its a matrix you will react faster than kid that never been in that situation before. It literally takes less effort to be good in league/valorant than to be good in fighting games, all you need to do is aim training maps/deathmatches for like 20 minutes a day, league is same thing practicing skillshots and map awareness is not rocket science, its basic af. Momochi says its less freedom but in reality in league/valorant you already see situations you are going to expect when you are on character select screen same way you do in fighting games. If anything fighting games captivate duels between players better than any of those team games and have more depth/situations for those. Speaking of effort, you ever wonder why starcraft player numbers are similiar to fighting games, there is a lot more shit going on to grasp than any zoomer game would ever have. Another thing is zoomers expect game to hold their hands and popular games usually have better teaching content, with fighting games/starcraft you need to dig a bit to find proper/good stuff (effort again???)
I forget where I heard it from but for league of legends in particular. The game is patched every 2 weeks, so getting older isn't the reactions for that game but the dedication to learn a new version of the game every 2 weeks as life starts to hit you is a lot. Especially with the money they're making at those young ages.
I can see this being true for some other genres too. Reaction time and other things do get worse past your 20s but its slow and can be even slower depending on lifestyle. I think other pro scenes just rely on cheap young kids who can afford to live in "gamer houses" or a similar lifestyle. The free time to grind is also a huge benefit. As I get older I actually find it easier to be good at games too. I think it's because as you get older you can develop a process to learn things. So you need less time to learn things than when you were young. Of course experience is also a huge benefit too especially for learning.
Very interesting what Momochi is saying Older players being weaker is something I feel I've heard a lot and something I've seen get proven wrong a lot too these guys are just amazing
The grind to get better will always be key young or old. We got old players like Daigo and Momochi still grinding it out in street fighter and killing it. We also got young players like Masoma grinding MBTL and Umisho grinding GGST.
The younger me was out for blood, and looking for answers to all the cryptic bullshit mechanics in every game. The older me plays drunk and on tilt. Sometimes I'll eat obvious punishes to witness the interaction. Other times I really want to spam DPs, and only DPs, so I inevitably lose. Occasionally I pull a sleek victory out of my ass, and I tell myself I channelled 20 year old me for a second, but the truth is I was sober, out for blood, had the answers to all the game's cryptic bullshit, I'd put my opponent on tilt, and he thought my obvious sandbagging in the first round was real. tl;dr better mental, ergo better lifestyle, is all you need to stay sharp, but it's so hard to pass on junkfood, booze, bad sleep schedules, and trash AAA games that rot my brain.
it’s like staying physically strong and some people just keep up what they’re doing. the difference is you can stay in your prime longer than certain athletes because of it being less physical and more mental.
Makes me feel good to watch this... Just turned 36 and man... I can't stop. I feel like my younger self couldn't hold a candle to my current state. The knowledge carries me far and so does my Neutral game. So.. I think Momochi is correct. I've been playing since 04'
I'll never stop.
@@ANIMEILLUMINATI @kenpunch12 let's go boys!
A few things at play here:
1. Reactions aren't really fighting game bread and butter. Like, can you react to a street fighter jump? That's like more than half a second. If you can do that, you'll probably be okay. Twitch reactions aren't really the skill being measured in most cases, although they can help in some instances.
2. Reaction times are dramatically misunderstood by basically every video game player. Most reaction tests in fighting games aren't "red light/green light" click tests (well except Anji's Fuujin overhead/low mixup :/) but a combination of your expectations plus reaction time, and this is basically almost always true. If it weren't the case, I feel like no one would ever be able to perform any action without getting hit, lol. You perform actions, put yourself in spaces, etc. in anticipation of another player's action, and there's a commitment spectrum to those actions. If twitch reacting to most actions were possible, it would be virtually impossible to even like, walk. You'd just get clipped by a low by some yung god who reacted to you walking forward with his sick 135 ms reaction time and blow you up. In real life this only happens when the player is expecting you to move forward.
3. Finally, fighting games are a genre where experience and knowledge and a feeling for the flow of the game will virtually always be more important than your brain's like, raw processing power. Young players aren't coming up because they're reaction gods, they're coming up because they're good players generally, and I sort of think claiming they have some kind of massive leg up on older players discredits their achievements somewhat.
Honestly most of these old japanese fighting game players are the first generation of professional game players, so we dont actually know when age will be a factor for deterioration in play yet. I dont think the loss of reaction time from aging is significant enough to stop players from being able to whiff punish, anti-air, etc. and a lot of mix-ups in fighting games are true 50-50 anyway and unreactable.
Yep. Daigo was a competitive player in the mid 90s, which was the beginning of esports basically. So someone like him who has continued to play is an example of that generation's longevity.
Personally, I think volatility in a player's winnings has more to do with which game you gel more with and that's due to fighting games having a new game being developed every 4-7 years. Like you'll still be great at whichever game you play if you continue to grind, it's just that the amount of times you're considered the best or a top 5 player will fluctuate.
Bringing up Faker was actually pretty relevant to this. He is only 25 now but he has been the most famous league plqyer by a logshot for like a decade at this point. Most games a simply not old enough for players who started young to become old by now...
Fighting games are different because let's be honest, they are very similair to eachother so a pro fighting game player often competes in multiple games at any given time. Someone whp got good at sf2 can a lkt of that kowlage in guilty gear xrd or whatever.
@@bencegergohocz5988 Hmm, part of that is true (e sports is new so there hasn't been a lot of time for games to get old) but it is also objectively a fact that in FPS and RTS games the reaction times start to go mid to late 20s and you see people being forced to retire early in those games. They just can't compete at the top levels.
Now, to be fair, in a lot of those games they are also team sports so they aren't given the opportunity to find a way to compensate (if it even is possible) for their slowing reflexes with other factors because its easier to find a younger player with intact reflexes.
These guys are like 5 years older than me
I agree. I'm 41 and my reactions are as good as always.
I started playing fighting games more seriously 3 years ago when I turned 30 and I definitely do not feel disadvantaged physically or mentally against players much younger than me. Though the one area they absolutely destroy me in is the amount of free time to grind…
Well said
Yup.
I feel your pain, brother.
i remember reading a quote from a navy pilot a while back. he said something a long the lines of "if your reacting to a situation your already too late" and that fits well into the whole mental stack concept that the fgc likes to use. better reactions helps but it wont mean much if your mental loop is caved in on itself. also keep in mind that our games generally started in the 90s so we have one of the oldest competitive scenes in all of gaming. so i guess it would make some sense that our population tends to be older.
Cool quote.
Sounds like a Boyd quote lol
@@kenjicampbell3180 you mean Col John Boyd? if we are talking about the same guy im shocked. but no.
@@thejunkmanlives yeah meant them lol
Yea , knowledge read and prediction close the reaction gap and improves everything else.
That thumbnail was hilarious
Yeah I feel the older you get/more exp you have in fighting games the better you get at the footsies/adaption side of the game. Personally feel like the reactions is a cop out cause if your dedicated enough you can train your reactions specifically for the game, I think it was in 2020 Daigo talked about this and went over the drills he did to try his reactions with checking dashes ect
Alex Valle said a similar thing, too, if I recall correctly. (This was probably about 5 years ago.)
I’m paraphrasing from a loose memory here, but the gist was that his autopilot reactions aren’t quite as good as they were when he was young, but he’s still just as fast when he tries to be, like when he’s actually putting effort in. I’m actually not sure if he meant more in terms of in-the-moment focus or preparation training, but I have a convenient option select that covers both cases anyway: two of the biggest facets of being a strong play have always been 1) how you interact with the economy of attention during matches and 2) how you prepare for competitive play.
Functionally speaking, his accumulated experience have made up for any loss in raw ability.
I just started playing fighting games a year ago and I'm almost 30 in a few months. Legends like Daigo and Momochi are inspirations for me.
Heck yeah! It’s never too late to get bodied.
I'm 30 finally sitting down and learning instead of button mashing. There is hope for us brother haha
I feel like they have been good since their 20s, though. All their skills and experience have just compounded over the years.
One common misconception is that you need insane reaction speed for fighting games. On the contrary, because moves have set frames and moves are designed to be reactable by devs, you only need enough reaction speed to react to those moves.
Compared to FPS where you're basically directly comparing reaction speeds with other players (ie who shoots first), great reaction speed gives less of an advantage for fighting games.
Yup.
I’m 46 and I’ve been wanting to get into fighting games in the last few years but the barrier to entry has been too demanding. I don’t have the time to grind and learn complex mechanics of a fighting game, that ship has sailed. The only reason I’m willing to even play street fighter 6 is because of modern controls and it’s been fun.
Modern, let’s go!
I'm 48 and free to charged dust, but my biggest roadblock is actually memory. Recall, especially at speed, is the hidden boss no one talks about.
Learn Snackbox, it helps with defense.
I feel like your 30s is when you're actually in your prime so you can't use the "my reaction time is falling off" OS.
I honestly hope I get to see people in their 50s+ make it to a big event and school some youngins' live lol. I, for one, will be gaming until I hit dementia/Alzheimers.
These are the heroes I grew up watching man I hope they continue playing for the longest and have fun just the same way I do.
The older they get the stronger they get honestly, fighting Neco arc, prime Arakune or Ram and shit unironically must help them more than entire weeks of playing Brain Age.
I’m in my mid 40’s and I will never stop playing fighting games even though I only play like two or three times a month.
Grandpa Daigo is the reason why I started to love fighting game. Last year I watched EVO #37 and Stunfest Daigo vs Momochi, I was so amazed by those moments that it hook me up to fighting game and I've been playing Street Fighter nearly everyday since then. I hope Daigo and all these old gen players remain active for many many years ahead.
On topic of Daigo, I recommend people here to watch Daigo play Elden Ring on his stream, it's very funny and interesting seeing Daigo play Souls game for a first time :D
Just turned 40 and I'm one of the better NA 3rd Strike players which I never thought would be possible when I was 17 and it was a brand new game, I could barely do supers or a standing 360. I played these all from the beginning, would skip school to play SF2 and CE when they dropped in my neighborhood spots but I was trash at fighting games through the 90s and onto the early 2000s. I became GM level in Brood War and SC2 and learned some better repetitive training ideas and what dropping bad habits means in competitive play, when SF4 came out I was able to get wins over legends like Alex Valle in weekly brackets.... Still a pretty incomplete player just learned more about what I was doing wrong. Well at this point I've played retro games instead of new stuff for the past 10 years and I feel like my fundamentals and ideas are better than ever, but the break through wasn't brute force training mode or tens of thousands of hours of playing. I just finally realized I was stubborn and learning the mechanics of the game, and then understanding situations where they matter separates the pros from the guys who don't crack top 16's in new games. I hated SF5 because I wanted it to play like other SF games, it is also a really bad not fun game but my losses are on me. Always be hungry to learn and set up training mode to test your ideas instead of doing an optimal combo 10 times in a row, talk to your peers and really listen when they say what you're doing doesn't work it isn't a failing of you as a person you just don't know what you're doing.
Really enjoyed Momochi's take. But as far as 50 being an upper limit, the oldest Super Turbo players are around there and passing it up right now and don't look like htey have lost a step. the important thing is honing your craft. I'm pretty sure players will be able to react in under 200ms to things until their 60s at least
Only time will tell!
I'm 35 and putting in the work to take grinding seriously. It's really exciting to be able to do that now because as a kid, I didn't live where there was any kind of scene and netplay didn't exist.
Can't wait to see people looking like Master Roshi showing up to tourneys decades down the road.
I was literally thinking about this question earlier today, and then this comes out. Jiyuna be psychic.
This is like martial arts. Don’t mess with anyone older than you that can fight.
thanks for this video. I played fighting games a lot when I was a kid and abruptly stop when I reached teen age. only 4-5 years ago did I start playing again and I actually feels good. I feel I'm able to look at games on different perspective. My friends asked me do I get the handicap because of my slower reaction, and I said no. I'll be 37 in few weeks and I'm looking forward to keep on playing fighting games with my kids.
People forget that young pros in these popular Korean esports games come and go like crazy. The games fluctuate in popularity and balance so much that it only makes sense that only younger players are pros.
Because the younger generations tend to not like fighting games and the genre will die out completely within ten to twenty years unless things change drastically.
FGs are larger than they've been in years.
Damn kids!
@@TheNobleFive so is the number of older people playing games.
@@ANIMEILLUMINATI they will be the death of us! I swear it! ;)
@@TheNobleFive lol, don't be delusional.
Yeah, in most recent years, they got bigger. But not as big as the revival event that was SF4 and certainly not the 90s.
i replied in short on twitter as well, but i believe this has a lot to do with the instutions that run the competitive scenes - i happen to also be an eSports coach and they overwhelmingly cater to younger audiences which inherently there is nothing wrong with.
But since in fighting games it's 1v1 and you tend to buy your way into the tournament on your own there isn't much of an institution
Knowledge checks , matchups, all that stuff only stacks with time, experience in FG is way more valuable than in a lot of other genres.
I'm at my 30's now and yes I feel a lot stronger now and I can understand how many things work in playing fighting games. Hope I can teach the future generation how to play this amazing gaming genre.
Your last comments on life getting in the way of grind just hit different dude... So accurate
You don't appreciate your freedom until it's gone.
Can't wait to see 80 year old Jiyuna walking around with his P4U shorts draped over his walker
Maybe I can fit back in them by then.
@@ANIMEILLUMINATI 🤣
Jiyuna coming at everybody lmao
Fighting games are the closest thing in gaming to actual combat sports. The difference is, while you get old in sports physically to the point where someone younger, faster and less experienced can beat you, in fighting games you use in game avatars and the physical advantages are character dependent instead of person dependent.
So if an old person can pilot a young body, much in the same way musicians basically only improve with age, then fighting game players should be able to keep up with the next gen in any game.
Reaction time and processing would be a factor but I think only at a really advanced age
That thumbnail, you did Daigo so dirty like that haha
Reminds me of the arcade shmup scene where there's plenty of 40+ players still getting new world records...
ahh the matchup knowledge accrues for the pitcher against all the batters they go up against
A motivational video for us Boomers! I’m 38 and still playing fighting games. I’ll still be grinding at 60 even if I suck
Same.
I think a reason reactions don't matter as much is that moves are balanced to a set of certain frames and you just need to be faster than how much the developers expect an average player to confirm. Physically reacting isn't as important as being able to identify what's happening. I also heard you only lose a couple frames in reaction times anyway.
I got into the deep end of fighting games pretty late, I'm 34 now and I starting to think it I don't have it in me to clean up my problems as a player cause it's all execution issues and reading opponents.
Just play. It's a marathon, not a race.
You got athletes like Brady & Tyson still doing their thing in their "advanced age", so I think we supposed oldheads can keep playing in a less demanding competition such as, videogames...
I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I’m a WAY smarter player now than I was 15 years ago. Like, I’m not really any better, but you should hear how in-depth I can get when I’m explaining why that match I just lost was actually wayyyy closer than it looked from the outside. Trust me, I almost won that one.
And he knew it too. He won’t say, but he knew.
Everytime this topic gets brought up I think it's actually a beautiful thing that you don't become irrelevant after 26 and we should embrace it. Barely any other competitive genre has such a huge range in age between competitors. I think it's neat.
I'm 40 and as I grew up I started gravitating towards execution heavy characters, also can't stay in practice mod as I used to when I was younger.
I'd say starting at like 17 and now being (almost) 27 it's basically just a "real life responsibilities means my fighting game skills will not be as good."
Been trying to accept over the past couple years that I'm moving on to the Spectator Pass life. I think it will make events more enjoyable for me now since I can focus on the things happening in and around the event like the artist alleys and stuff, now that I'm not sweating about competing.
this. it's a factor of ability to commit the time.
Like max says, legacy skill. Street fighter 2 and kof 95 taught me the basics, the basics never change.
The main problem is the fgc not getting any new players, it's just not popular or getting bigger. Street fighter 6 and tekken 7 is certainly going to change that. And the next younger online warrior generation are going to take over
I hope so.
the other thing about fighting games is you have access to everything the game has to offer you cant get hit by something that doesnt exsist, in games like league of legends and valorant for example, there are so many outside factors that you cannot account for you dont know if a bush is warded, you dont know where someone is pushing, you dont know if the jungler is ganking, these are things that you truly cannot account for which requires quick thinking and adaptability thats hard to keep up with aS you get older, in fighting games everything is right in front of you and straightforward and theres only so many options your opponent has access to while in other games theres hundreds, thousands of different plays, timings, moves, they could do in each second.
That thumbnail looks like Diago combined with Billy Dee Williams.
I remember being terrible at fighting games as a kid, losing to just about everyone and gave up thinking I just suck at the genre. I only started to get into FG right before the release of SFV with the purchase of USF4 while it was on sale (I was 29 by then). I couldn't even do a hadouken at first, but over time I've improved. I still suck but compared to back then I've improved a lot, so I think it's never too late to start.
For me the best thing I got out of FGs was overcoming myself. FGs used to be the genre I feared the most, but it's no longer the case. The importance is that you get better, and once you get used to one game, you can learn another game much faster since the core mechanics of the genre pretty much remain the same as you said.
Momochi is def right about Smash. I used to play Smash hard many years ago and I always credited it for making me be able to think quickly and being able to predict things/people
Similar to weight classes, I think age classes could be a real change we see in certain esports as time moves on. Fighting games may not need this as badly, but those twitch reaction shooters like CS:GO probably need it to stay fair and competitive. However, viewership of those higher age groups may immediately disqualify them from being viable similar to how a lot of people don't watch anything aside from male sports.
I’d love to watch 2 boomers trash talk each other.
I think is great, Daigo is 41 and still has a lot to offer and hearing from people who has won vs him his problem is being stubborn more than not being good enough. A competitive scene where you can do a lot even in your 40s? Yes please.
The beauty of Fighting Games.
i think another important factor is the "esports" market that fgs are is fundamentally different than the market that other games like mobas have
It's weird to see jiyuna videos without the sub button animation showing up right at the start
Panda... 😭
I didn't even start playing fighting games really until I was 26. I'm 33 now and stronger than I ever was, but I was never a "young" player.
I find it easier to pick up and play a fighting game since I learn more efficiently, plus I have my own money and can buy/try games more often then when I was younger lol
31 goin on 32 i find the main thing is finding time to grind in a meaningful way with work and running a household. but thats the main thing ive only gotten better the old i got
i love that because you mentioned Faker you can put " League of Legends" under the game tag in the video
Damn, this also is a reality in quake. I'm always the younger in the servers(i'm 21) and it sometimes feels weird or intimidating, since it's already a stablished meme about how most quake players aren't below 40, and all have kids and family.
I remember entering a quake 1 server at 19 years old and talking to the dudes there and the average age was 35 - 45 and there was legends about players that were in their 60s. It's cool how "old values" are kept in a "old players" community like how it's sacred to be respectful to the other player before and after a match, and that the servers are always more populated in times were boomers are not working and stuff
I feel that despite a lot of the legends of the FGC being old, the young people are the ones that dictate the meta and the culture of the community the most, like how even old people adopted zoomer expressions in the community like "bruh thats OD fr fr u got rizz no cap straight up bussin take the L" and etc...
Quake is sick.
I'll never stop playing fighting games.
I’ve felt it was more like the older you got the less time you had to be able to learn the tech you need to compete at a higher lvl
Fighting games are more about knowledge than anything else. It doesn't matter how good your execution or reactions are if the other guy knows what you're going to do and has the answer.
My reactions have always been trash but even I got better at anti-airing over time and I hardly play anymore.
I'll be playing till i'm 99 like the clock.
I'll keep playing for as long as I'm still breathing.
@@ANIMEILLUMINATI True.
I don't know if my reaction are slower but my hands hurt a lot more now xD
Almost the entire DRX roster that won 2022 worlds left at the end of November for contract reasons. You had Kingen (Top), Pyosik/Juhan (Jungle), Zeka (Mid) with Deft/BeryL (bottom lane). Easily the best World Finals since SSG won in 2017 and TPA winning in 2012. I do agree with a lot that has been said here though.
Dude 37 or 40 is nothing.
That's the best age for a Man to be even in the FGC.
25-30 was peak.
this honestly proves to me, old =\=worse reflexes at least as long as you're playing the game
I feel extremely called out by the Cheez-Its in the thumbnail
reaction time goes down, but the diference between mid 20's and 30's is almost negligible
I'm 42 and I'm still down for a good match
I think part of it also is that these top players have been grinding the game since their initial height in the late 90s. Even on a casual level they just grew up with these fighting games in a way that the zoomers have not. We'll see with SF6 and Tekken 8
why are fighting game pro so old? they're not.. we have older gamers who can still hold their own but there's no lack of younger players who shine. Endingwalker is an easy example, young Nuckledu when he showed up. The main reason for the ability to keep relevant in fgc is the experience factor from playing the series over time. The top players are still all in their late teens and 20s these days, but the older players are very much still a threat that can't be slept on.
on the topic of reaction times, they just matter more in moba/rts/fps games. those quarter seconds count for a lot when you're both aiming at each others heads, or flick shots, or games with a high actions per minute. in those scenarios you need to do a lot quickly, be precise, and in those scenarios older players will lose out since experience won't be as much of a factor. experience can keep players relevant longer, but it won't remain as long as it does in fighters where the milliseconds don't matter as much, it's the choices that matter. still requires timing, but i don't think it's quick reactions as much as being prepared and knowing what to do in advance when situations present themselves. and in that regard years of fg experience keeps them capable.
Time shall pass for all sadly.
All this really means if age truly becomes a factor on whether you can remain competitive is that boomer leagues of all the old heads are going to form. I can picture me and my buddies in an old folks home still grinding it out.
I just keep getting better and better, the game doesn't matter. Valorant, Dota2, Strive, as long as you are able to detect patterns, identify problems and come up with solutions nothing should stop you. We are all human. You might be old but your opponent might be extremely nervous in top 8, sick that day, age is just another variable you must solve for.
I'm 35 and I feel like my reactions and thought processes are better than ever. I think that older folks who have more experience are just embarrassed when they lose to younger, newer players and conclude that their reactions are just worse. A game like SFV doesn't have the same footsies and zoning as previous street fighters, so there's also the adaptation required that the older players may be too stubborn to commit to. They also just might not like the newer fighting games, which is another barrier for wanting to get better.
Dude... just look at other games and when people retire.
Watching this after Momochi got 4th at Evo 2024, he still got it.
Another reason why MOBAs are less boomer friendly is that the patches come hard and fast. If fighting games had the same frequency of drastic patches that make you have to re-learn the whole game, then most boomers like us have no chance.
Momochi is going to be the pai mei of fighting games lol
On a more serious note, and I think i'm focusing strictly on Western players. I think there are a few folds to this:
- OG Gen 1/2 players are from the arcade resurgence days (SF2, Art of fighting, etc)
- Base fighting game knowledge is able to be carried to any other fighting game and makes it much easier to move onto and play different fighting games at a similar level
-- unlike say an FPS where mechanics and everything else are vastly different and the team heavy nature of those games makes it more difficult to jump between games
- That level of experience carries over for ages and compounds.
-- As I believe you stated in another video, you needed to make the best of the few quarters you had during the arcade days. We played for keeps. That mentality rarely changes.
In my opinion, it's the contrary. To me, the boomers of a game are not necessarily the older competitors but the first iteration of competitors which is most likely true for all games you showed, Jiyuna. Most players that won have played their own games since they were released. Doubt the 17 year old didn't start playing when he was 12 or something and got really good at it.
I think that not only FPS and MOBAs require more adaptation and reflexes and stuff, they require it _for longer periods of time!_
Even a FT2 in something like DBFZ lasts a fraction of the time spent in an average LoL match.
So them zoomers are out there running marathons doing like hundreds of calculation a second and then I play some tekken and my brain starts catching fire in like 10 minutes.
Good point. I definitely can’t focus as long as I used to.
My Strive limit is three hours. Then the screen colors start to turn to soup.
Fighting games aren't exclusive in this regard if we consider sports in general. Same goes for actual fighting, like boxing. And there are even older successful pilots competing in racing among the younger generation
That thumbnail 😂
old?? i’ll have u kno that i’m 33 while achieving tower 7 in strive, super gold in sfV, AND a wish lister in mbtl 😤
33 aint old bruh
Fighting games became popular in the 90s, of course we are all old 😵
You make great point on motivation, if you don't develop discipline when you are young its hard to keep going. Also valorant is not even a twitchy shooter, using tactical advantage (holding correct angles) and smokes/flashbangs, coordinating efforts with team plays bigger role than individual performance. There are exceptions but generally teams in those games only have 1 open fragger guy(basicly carry that has good reflexes), and honestly if you dont know what to expect your reaction times will be lower anyways. If you see game like its a matrix you will react faster than kid that never been in that situation before.
It literally takes less effort to be good in league/valorant than to be good in fighting games, all you need to do is aim training maps/deathmatches for like 20 minutes a day, league is same thing practicing skillshots and map awareness is not rocket science, its basic af. Momochi says its less freedom but in reality in league/valorant you already see situations you are going to expect when you are on character select screen same way you do in fighting games. If anything fighting games captivate duels between players better than any of those team games and have more depth/situations for those. Speaking of effort, you ever wonder why starcraft player numbers are similiar to fighting games, there is a lot more shit going on to grasp than any zoomer game would ever have.
Another thing is zoomers expect game to hold their hands and popular games usually have better teaching content, with fighting games/starcraft you need to dig a bit to find proper/good stuff (effort again???)
i guess you won't need to be saving the "oji's" jiyuna
one less fight you gotta take on
I'm no pro but I will never quite I'm 45 . Love fighting games
Now that I am a boomer, I have back pains and can't play for too long.
I just turned 40 and I'm better than I've ever been
I forget where I heard it from but for league of legends in particular. The game is patched every 2 weeks, so getting older isn't the reactions for that game but the dedication to learn a new version of the game every 2 weeks as life starts to hit you is a lot. Especially with the money they're making at those young ages.
I can see this being true for some other genres too. Reaction time and other things do get worse past your 20s but its slow and can be even slower depending on lifestyle.
I think other pro scenes just rely on cheap young kids who can afford to live in "gamer houses" or a similar lifestyle. The free time to grind is also a huge benefit.
As I get older I actually find it easier to be good at games too. I think it's because as you get older you can develop a process to learn things. So you need less time to learn things than when you were young. Of course experience is also a huge benefit too especially for learning.
Very interesting what Momochi is saying
Older players being weaker is something I feel I've heard a lot and something I've seen get proven wrong a lot too
these guys are just amazing
Bruh said "why is time"
Your infamous tweet continues to age like fine wine.
Damn the discord zoomers are going to be absolute gods when they reach 40
Then they will be complaining about how old games were better, just like us.
Brought up League but didn't bring up starcraft. Breaking my RTS heart 😔
Never been a fan.
The grind to get better will always be key young or old. We got old players like Daigo and Momochi still grinding it out in street fighter and killing it. We also got young players like Masoma grinding MBTL and Umisho grinding GGST.
The younger me was out for blood, and looking for answers to all the cryptic bullshit mechanics in every game.
The older me plays drunk and on tilt. Sometimes I'll eat obvious punishes to witness the interaction. Other times I really want to spam DPs, and only DPs, so I inevitably lose. Occasionally I pull a sleek victory out of my ass, and I tell myself I channelled 20 year old me for a second, but the truth is I was sober, out for blood, had the answers to all the game's cryptic bullshit, I'd put my opponent on tilt, and he thought my obvious sandbagging in the first round was real.
tl;dr better mental, ergo better lifestyle, is all you need to stay sharp, but it's so hard to pass on junkfood, booze, bad sleep schedules, and trash AAA games that rot my brain.
it’s like staying physically strong and some people just keep up what they’re doing. the difference is you can stay in your prime longer than certain athletes because of it being less physical and more mental.
At 43 I am, right now, the best I've ever been.🧙♂
The kids still beat me.😭
Damn kids.
Uncle Valle is also constantly proving that you can still get better as you age in fighting games. Prolly up there age wise also 🤣
He's shifted over to production side though; don't consider him a dedicated pro.
Sako is My age? Well, damn.