should i commit or flick back

[hallow kite]

whenever i play certain tasks that spawn other circles after i click one since i should be focusing on hitting the next target should i be flicking back towards a new target that spawned closer to my mouse or should i flick to the one that i planned to?

[empty root]

The harder you make the scenario for yourself while still being attainable, the better you will improve. You should flick to the target you planned to, but also, make sure you are playing target selection routines so that you won’t only be able to focus in on one target well, you’ll also be able to select which target you need to focus on quickly and then hone in on him alone well.

[solemn heron]

You want to use your peripheral vision to create a "path" for yourself and follow that path.

Committing to a freshly-spawned will in the end make you slower because you have to rely on your visual recognition time and reaction time more.

[waxen thistle]

(depends on the task but) world record runs focus on existing targets and click them as fast as possible with the path on their mind(without thinking about it) and stop very little to read screen and then rapidly click on targets with new path. on the brief stops the only thing you should see must be balls and solid background. you don't need to look at balls individually or focus on anything. try to get into flow state and see everything while looking at your crosshair.

[empty root]

Why would relying on your visual reaction time make you slower?

[solemn heron]

At first you have to recognize that the target has spawned there. Then you have to make the decision (by interrupting a previous decision) to flick to it. You are basically adding an extra step or 2 into the process which costs a certain amount of extra time (visual processing + reaction time)

That way it technically speaking will always be slower.

When playing scenarios where there are multiple targets available like 1w4t and what not there is not much point in flicking to targets that spawn next to you. Just follow a path. Much more optimal. You are otherwise disrupting your state of flow.

[empty root]

Well, it would be slower in the sense of getting a worse score, sure, but he himself will be getting faster because he’s reacting quickly to the target that has appeared since the shortest amount of time ago. Disrupting your state of flow if we are talking about the same “flow” terminology rather than the literal meaning of the word, is entirely dependent upon the activity of the user, not the action they are committing to, I would even argue that focusing so prominently on reacting the fastest to the shortest provided stimuli would increase that level within the state of flow that he may reach. Unless his goal is to obtain the highest score (I only assume it’s not since he is asking this question in the first place), I would say he should be following what gives him the best improvement rather than just what gets him the highest score in a specific scenario. Lemme know your thought on it, though.

[solemn heron]

is entirely dependent upon the activity of the user, not the action they are committing to,

Not entirely correct.

Depending on how "jarring" the action is, it can definitely disrupt flow/focus.

This is/can be one of those actions.

I notice quite often in VODs where people do react to "sudden appearing" targets that spawn close to their crosshair, their flow/pacing gets totally disrupted.

I am also not talking about score-chasing here. It is in general much easier to commit to an action you have mapped out in your head rather than disrupting that action and decide to commit to another one. It doesn't do anything for his "improvement" in that regard either and doesn't suit the task for sure.

That last paragraph also applies to others things. Not just aiming.

Although I do not have a example to share - one of the VOD examples I am referring to were a on the task "tamspeed 2bpes". There was a significant difference to note when said person just focused on going from target-to-target rather than reacting to a target that potentially spawned closer to him and flicking to that before moving on to the next target.

[empty root]

I believe that any action no matter how jarring can be done in a flow state as long as you are able to do it repetitively. Yes, differentiation from the pattern can interrupt flow, but what you are saying is that the pattern itself can interrupt flow, I don’t think that’s the case from what we’ve learned about flow so far.

Ok, good to know about the score thing, and it is easier, right, but are scenarios not to push the user so that they learn more advanced mouse control quicker? It would help develop speed and accuracy at the same time that he is improving reactivity and focus-switching.

[solemn heron]

But this goes further than "pushing advanced mouse control". It it about avoiding creating conflict. You always want to minimize choice-making to avoid conflict. No matter how often you train this, the conflict will always remain and take "precious" time away, hence why it is better to commit.

This type of conflict is something you see quite often in FPS VODs for instance, even with higher level players: 2 enemies appear on screen simultaneously and the user gets confused on which one to kill first, thus they shoot inbetween them and die. Or they are shooting 1 person, another person pops up before they killed them, and they sometimes target switch to the next person and end up being killed by the first person.

Yes, the argument can be made that commitment to target can be somewhat trained, but we never can truly 100% get rid of any doubt or processing conflicts that can occur on the brain.

Unless the scenario asks for it, the player is playing the scenario incorrectly. If you want to work on reactivity and/or focus switching then you should play scenarios that promote that. If you would apply this technique to any random 1-wall scenario for instance then you are just playing the scenario wrong. They are not meant for stuff like this.

[empty root]

The part that makes me confused about this is that I have struggled a lot with this “conflict” issue you’re speaking about in the past, it was something I had to deal with a bit in Deadzone and “Battlefield” when I was on Roblox but when Unturned came around I really had to iron it out in order to become good at CQB. All that to say, I did overcome those challenges and eventually got to the point where every time I peeked a corner would my brain not only choose one singular target at a time it would always select the most threatening target in that instance as I’m in front of up to like maybe 5 targets? About 6-7+ is where there are so many targets on screen I would’ve definitely gotten scrambled and shot the wrong place, but I can think of instances where there were at least 4-5 people on screen and I would make split second decisions to target lock on one person spray down till death, switch, spray till death, etc., while making those decisions based on most threatening target to least threatening. Ofc I’m not perfect, sometimes the most threatening target would be someone else because I didn’t pay attention to the gun they had or what action they had just done, but usually I would at least be targeting the most threatening target after that one I missed. That’s why I think it’s so important that someone would play to train to get rid of those inhibitions, because, yes! They can get rid of them, it just takes time and practice like anything else.

[empty root]

Ok, those last few sentences are different. As you can see I’ve said previously, I said that the player should be focusing on improvement over a higher score, but I also meant that towards the idea of playing the scenario “correctly” not just score-chasing. Should the player not do what helps them improve the most even if it’s not the way the scenario was meant to be played? I think it’s a matter of pure opinion and the answer would remain in the eye of the beholder.

[solemn heron]

The difference however lies in that your situation + the situation in the trainer are completely different.

Yours was threat assessment. The one that OP is referring to is pacing.

They aren't focusing on higher score. They are working on improving their pacing

There are much better scenarios (although i cannot name them) to train what you are referring to in the end

[empty root]

Well, somehow during the beginning of our conversation on this I swapped from my actual suggestion to him to speak on the idea of visual reaction time because you had brought up the target “spawning”, but regardless you will also see I suggested he also play target selection scenarios in addition to this, my intention was at no point for him to stop playing those in place for making this scenario harder just for the sake of being more difficult, it should only be as difficult as is attainable without causing over-stress. A link to my original suggestion: #1160024987168673792 message

[solemn heron]

And I don't disagree with the notion they should play appropriate scenarios for that.

My point is simply that following a path is better given the points I mentioned before. Most static scenarios ask for this, thus it is sub-optimal to divert from it, again, mentioned in the points before.

If a scenario does ask for this in one way or another, then of course divert from it.

But it doesn't help the user their mouse control in scenarios where it isn't applicable to.

If a scenario trains your pacing/speed in a multi-target scenario, then diverting from it obviously won't do much. That is my point.

[empty root]

Ok, then it seems at some point your point diverged from our original topic, I was originally only speaking on diverting from the original path as being applicable towards a continuation of flow by pattern, that it wouldn’t disallow flow altogether. It appears that your new basis of conversation is now about the optimal use for a scenario which wasn’t what I was planning on speaking about since I don’t use them in the first place :P

As I stated here: #1160024987168673792 message your tune of topic switched entirely and so I responded more “theoretically” than anything else stating that the “correctness” was up to the user in the end.

[solemn heron]

My original comment wasn't a direct reaction to yours by the way 😉 I was just reacting to OPs post alone

You then asked why relying on your reaction would be slower, which I answered with the same scope in mind.

All my answers are focussed on that specific topic still.

[empty root]

Our conversation is based on my original question tho lol
I’m just saying that we shifted from that original question into topics/questions that assumed I had certain opinions I haven’t held, which makes for a confusing convo that doesn’t really lead to anything more. I think we had a fair enough conclusion a little while ago tho, so, yeah.

[solemn heron]

I agree we shifted from the original convo a bit, but I didn't assume things. I just responded to your points after you asked me to elaborate on the original comment I left which then resulted into the current coversation.

The original point I tried to make still stands, though - the context I had in mind was that we are simply talking about scenarios with multiple-available targets (like 1-wall screnarios) and what would be considered the "better option" during such situation.

I responded to OP's post that you should use your peripheral vision to create and follow a path, which technically speaking better for said scenario given you otherwise add a few extra processes into the mix that slow you down.

By adding those extra processes, you aren't necessarily bettering your mouse control, given you are diverting from the task's original intention. You are just making the situation a bit more complicated than necessary, AKA you are adding unnecessary "conflict" into a situation where it doesn't need to be.

Me talking about optimally approaching the scenario just ties into that answer.

And here is then where your stuff ties in - OP should also play tasks that train what you have been advocating for. I obviously don't want to say that the thing I mentioned applies to every single task. It is just that the original question's context gave me the idea we are talking about scenarios similar to 1w4ts and similar, hence why I approached it in that manner.

You of course make a very solid point, but just know that my original comment wasn't meant to devalue your original comment or that it was a critique on your original comment. It was an isolated comment to OP's question, completely seperate from yours, where I just had a different context in mind.

I guess we just had slightly different contexts in mind which gave us both a different approach.

@empty root sorry forgot to tag you lol

[empty root]

I will respond per courtesy, but I do believe that our conversation reached a conclusion quite a bit ago in reality. I wasn't looking to speak on the question of what would be considered the "better option" for the reasons I just previously stated. My original question to your original comment didn't incite the first part of the comment and so I don't think mentioning it in this case would be applicable. I do agree that we had different approaches. Either way, good conversation :D