The Daily Grind: Is PvP a game for the young?

Buttons.

You push them. Stuff happens on-screen. Age doesn't factor into it unless you have rheumatoid arthritis or something.

What separates the good from the bad is the willingness to study and find ways to do things better. It helps to challenge other good players and maybe steal a move or a setup that they like. It's also important that people who pvp understand their opponents and what moves their opponents have at their disposal, in order to counter. As opposed to being carried by better players, which is what 75% of some people are doing.

The strength of youth or the wisdom of age?

Keep your lightning reflexes and aggressiveness. Older MMO players are generally nicer, more mature, cultivate better communities and can do more than just faceroll buttons.

I'll take the older crowd any day of the week.

Depends on the game you are playing. If it is a twitch game, like your average FPS, then youth will beat age every day of the week.

If we are talking PVP in EVE Online, then experience will beat everything except for dumb luck.

I dont think I can ever learn to PVP...but Im old. If I am playing my X class and I meet Y class...they kick my butt. SO then I will hop on Y class and run into an X....they kick my butt :)

Im a clicker - and will always be a clicker which equals never being good at PvP.

I think its less about youthful players having better reflexes than older players not giving a damn any more. Young people are generally more keen to 'prove' themselves, whereas older people are usually more comfortable with themselves and their skills.

I have to ask though: Is their a difference between MMOG PvP and any online FPS game? Is the difference not only in how one's reflexes are tested? i.e. in an FPS, it's more about instant hand-eye, see the thing, move the mouse, click. In an MMOG PvP game, it's more like, see the thing, decide which of ten buttons to press, move the mouse to the button, click it, yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda..... Does this make a difference then?

At 29, I don't think my age is quite advanced enough to affect my capacity for PvP. It certainly wasn't when I first got into MMOs at the tender age of 23. No, my problems are latency (insert pithy comment about Australian internet) and motivation. I'm not interested in pissing contests, and the games I've played that have PvP which is entertaining on a cerebral level haven't held me for other reasons.

I was pretty bad at pvp back in the day I played UO and 13 years later I'm still not very good, been playing DAoC and WAR.

Surround yourself by players that are good and you will become better, if you sit around all day crafting or just killing random mobs you will not get any better that's for sure.

I'm closing in on my 36th birthday.

I'm 44 and I often come out on top of the leaderboards for Quake Live. I think it's pretty much twitch-based. But I sucked at Darkfall. I don't know if it was stats or what, but Darkfall is a lot more complicated UI-wise than Quake. And I know a lot of competitive pvp-ers use game pads and stuff, which I don't. So I don't know.

It depends on the game. Team Fortress 2 and Warhammer Online seem to be more ... I dunno, balanced when it comes to PvP. Even the Wintergrasp PvP in Warcraft, they all have a large element of fun for me. If I enjoy the PvP then I'll be more likely to invest time and energy into it.

I'm 35. I tend to win in PvP a lot more than I loose in MMOs or FPSs. Maybe when I'm older my reaction time will suffer, right now I'm in great physical shape and still skateboard etc.

Clicking buttons with the mouse? That is not PvP, that is getting farmed. I wondered why I do so well in PvP, i'm fighting people with input challenges.

It all depends on the game. In heavily gear- and level-based games, most people own others simply by having more advanced characters. Those that have played the longest, or have done the most severe grinding, will always have the upper hand.

In twitch-based games, it's more about reflexes and environmental awareness. And of course, internet connection, hardware, the game's overall perfomance etc - the slightest lag in a such a game usually means you're dead meat.

For example, I play Mortal Online regularly, and the combat in that game is purely based on twitch, manual aim and positioning. However, since the game's mechanics are so faulty, and since I don't play on the nuclear reactor-driven computer required for the game, I usally get stuttering, lag and weird interpolation when PvPing. Which ofc means I don't perform as well in combat as those with top-notch computers, or those lucky enough to not suffer from server lag/interpolation issues, etc in that particular fight.

Of course, my eye-hand reaction time might be a bit slower than a 20 year old's (I'm 33), but I don't think that has more severe an impact than lag and fucked up mechanics.

Age has nothing to do with it, experience is the key to success (well that and actual born with talent). I've been gaming since the old amstrads / atari's etc., and I've only gotten better over the years. I'm not amazing for sure but if I go back to Unreal Tournament and the like for a blast, I'll suck for an hour or two, then I'll be dominating the scoreboards as well, if not better than I did 10 years ago.

True I'm only 27 which quite possibly isn't the sort of age you're referring to, but I have friends who are 10+ years older than me who would kick my arse in a heartbeat.

I suppose it's what you're brought up on. A 30+ year old for example who has never really gamed at all in his/her life, but has decided to give "this warcraft thing" a try is bound to suck at PvP... They'll most likely stand in the fire too.