Some cognitive and physical abilities decline pretty quickly, though in other areas we benefit from age. Taken from Very Well Mind:
18-19: Information-processing speed peaks early, then immediately begins to decline.
25: Short-term memory gets better until around age 25. It remains fairly steady until it begins to decline around age 35.
30: Memory for faces peaks and then starts to gradually decline.
35: Your short-term memory begins to weaken and decline.
40s-50s: Emotional understanding peaks in middle to later adulthood.
60s: Vocabulary abilities continue to increase.
60s and 70s: Crystallized intelligence, or accumulated knowledge and facts about the world, peaks late in life.
But I don’t think we should let studies tell us what we can try to do. Every brain is different! If you struggle with the races, keep practicing. You will probably not beat the world best times (and you’d not have beat them if you were 18 either - there is always someone who is better), but you’ll get better the more you practice. The brain never stops learning. It remains plastic throughout life even in old age. There is no “I can’t learn new things anymore”, unless someone suffers from a degenerative brain disease.
As probably one of the oldest people here, I have to disagree.
I do have trouble with the flying races, but that’s nothing to do with age, it’s because my brain can’t cope with 3D stuff (underwater is just as bad as dragonflying for me) and I’ve had problems with it since Wow was launched.
Yes, I forget stuff sometimes but that is an age thing and something I put up with because I want to continue playing and absolutely no reason why Blizzard should pander to it and spoil gameplay for the majority.
Everyone comes from a different place in life and nothing is going to suit everybody. I’m happy I’m still able to play achieve stuff and have fun.
There is an addon called ScaleFont / SFont and it makes the text a lot bigger for those blind like me.
There’s also UI overhauls that make things readable, and Immersion addon puts things in a black box with bigger, bolder text that is so much better to read.
Snapped this pic yesterday during a heroic dungeon. It’s not even that much of a big bull and that’s a lot of mechanics you have to keep track of at the same time, and this probably becomes more difficult with age.
what are you 99 years old? you sound like it
I’m 32 and i have no problem with reactions and all that
And i’m considered in gaming world to be a grandpa nowadays.
Granite Eruption is a knockback, which you most certainly want to prepare for as caster, maybe as melee as well because it might just push you into another mechanic.
Earth Burst totem certainly needs to be tracked because its damage will wipe your group if you don’t kill it fast enough in M+.
Granite has 2 mobs, totem has 4 mobs, meaning you have 6 separate abilities you’ll want to track. Then you also have to avoid the charge of the blue arrow at the same time.
No you don’t have to track the cooldown of everything, but it certainly highlights the amount of things going on at the same time in a relatively small pull.
Those two are positioning. If you are at the right place in the dungeon, you can ignore them.
For example : knock-backs. Stand with your back to a wall.
As a caster, knock-backs are not such an issue. You can either (A) loose 1/2 of a GCD cause you got interrupted and need to re-cast whatever you were doing… or (B) wait for 1/2 of a GCD for the mechanic to happen before casting.
Either way, you loose the cast. You loose that 1/2 of a GCD. And if you want to loose even less than that, stand with your back to a wall. The “flying” animation will last less time, and you can get back to casting ASAP.
As for “general colored arrows and swirlies on the ground” just move 2 steps. Nothing to track specifically. Its the basic “dont stand in fire” reflex.
You would need to track that mechanic if you needed to stand on the swirlie for some reason… But not if you simply need to dodge.
If it is hard to see from narnia as a caster, then stand on mid-range. Or melee.
This is the only thing you need to track on that pack. The rest is just VFX on the ground.
But I wont insist on the above comments because as I said : Lets see how all this rolls out in M+. I might be wrong and heroics are not representative enough of a dungeon.
I started gaming in the pubs with games like space invaders, galaxians even the tennis game with the 2 lines and a ball.
Didn’t start online games until 2004 ‘Saga of Ryzom’ because I thought I was too old. However, after playing online, I soon realised compared to some I wasn’t even close to being too old.
My first game was populous the begining in early 2000 with age of empire 1,2…and diablo 2 and expansion
and my first online game was Warcraft 3 on G-arena if you know what that is or what it was
custom maps like troll vs Elves or something like that
good times
The issue here isn’t “ageism”. It’s that you play an MMO, and not a fast paced racing/shooter.
So because Blizz added in an optional event that dips its toe into that, you can’t look at it with “non-MMO eyes”.
Dragon races aren’t meant to be “slow and chill”, like MMOs typically are… they are races…
If it’s too fast for you, then don’t play races. Just like how you shouldn’t play PvP, if you don’t like PvP. Or M+ if you don’t like pushing PvE content.
The issue here is that you expect the wrong thing from dragon races, and can’t see it for what it’s supposed to be.
WoW definitely leans into the twitch reactions these days, bundled with fast gameplay and short activities and instant gratification, almost to the point where it’s armtwisting its design to make it so.
Constant action, fast reactions, do this, do that, fly fast - really fast, spam buttons, keep track of cooldowns - wait, there’s a proc! Press it NOW! Queue popped - get in! Go go go go!
Most modern mainstream games lean into that. Most modern entertainment even. Younger generations and shorter attention spans and all that, I guess.
That’s good for you, but I’m not you. I won’t be on that level anymore when I’m your age simply because I already know that by then I will be a different person with different reaction times and priorities.
you sound like it