Support NeoGAF

[IbizaPocholo]

Pro And Amateur FPS Players See Differently, According To Comparison

Have you ever wondered why some people are better at first-person shooters than others? One important difference might be how people see while playing.

kotaku.com

Have you ever wondered why some people are better at first-person shooters than others? One important difference might be how people see while playing.

Nikkei recently posted a clip tracking a professional FPS player’s vision while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and compared the data to the vision of an amateur player.



Esports pro Leisia of Libalent Vertex, the most successful Japanese Call of Duty team, perceived the map differently than the amateur player.

In the clip, the red dot tracks the player’s sight. When Leisia’s focus became fixed, the red dot became larger.

His line of sight was stable throughout the map, and the location and size of the dot suggested he was aware of the sounds, sights, and necessary information on the map.
One field of vision expert compared this to how pro golfers focus before hitting the ball.

The amateur player’s eyes darted around quickly, never seeming to really focus until he’s killed. There isn’t the pinpoint focus of the pro.

While moving, his focus is even more frantic.

In comparison, when Leisia is on the move, he keeps his focused vision in the center of the screen. Notice how the pro keeps referencing the map to know where he is. According to Leisia, he tries to imagine where enemies will appear.

 

[TacosNSalsa]

I thought everyone did that while playing FPS games . Awwww sshheeeeiiit!!! I'm a pro player y'all! Where's my check?

 

[Murr]

Very interesting. I think the difference come from a lot of practice and experience of course.
It reminds me of studies done on the differences between world class chess grandmasters and strong amateur players (masters).
Grandmasters don't necessarily calculate faster, they just only calculate the correct moves. So they can perform deeper calculations.
One aspect of this is, that they don't see the individual chess pieces, but see them as chunks. Chunks are groups of pieces that function together.
So they percieve the board differently from normal players.

Seems that this is somewhat similar to the situation described here.
Very experienced players don't have to move their eyes that much, because their brain can easily fill in a lot of the information.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

This makes sense. The brain loses a lot of visual data to the break caused by eye saccades. If you relax your eyes instead of darting them around the screen, you will actually take in more visual information. Works a charm for shmups.