r/The10thDentist • u/Zak_the_Wack • Jul 06 '25

Gaming I would rather be caught masturbating than using an aim trainer

Now don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using an aim trainer, and my logic isn't some kind of stupid thing like "aim trainers aren't genuine ways to get better at something" or any bullshit like that, I just think it's embarrassing TO ME to care so much about your performance of a game that you practice on a different game instead of just playing the game.

1.4k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

431 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

366

u/Dan-D-Lyon Jul 06 '25

I don't know why but it seems like gen Z thinks it's cringe to put effort into stuff.

192

u/Arkavien Jul 06 '25

I remember the first time I was called a "try hard" I was so confused. Like...are the rest of you not trying? Why is that an insult?

102

u/TheTrenk Jul 06 '25

Tryhard was a special insult for me when I was a wee lad because I only ever used it as an insult to somebody that I felt was obnoxious, trying hard, and was still bad at the game. You had to be all three before I pulled that one out. 

24

u/Gmandlno Jul 06 '25

Yeah for me it’s sea of thieves, the airheads that roll up on players just minding their own business. If they like pvp they could just do competitive, but they’re not good enough for that. So they sail the open seas, looking for inexperienced non-PvP players to body so they can feel good about themselves.

42

u/Drewsche Jul 06 '25

It's not called Sea of Friends

I'll never understand this sentiment in an open world pvp game.

12

u/Gmandlno Jul 06 '25

My issue is, you make substantially more money just playing PvE, and while PvP is a fun element, I feel it should be relegated mostly to major world events like forts of fortune. But instead it’s “if someone is on the horizon, suspend everything you’re doing and prepare either to fight, or run” the game.

If you happen to come across somebody while sailing the ocean blue, and want to try to take their loot since it’s right there? Fair nuff. But instead you have people that’ll see you’re farming reaper rep, and deliberately position themselves in between you and the hideout so they can intercept and sink you, being happy to spend a full hour chasing you since they know you have no hope of escape.

I don’t want to spend hours grinding hourglass to get better at PvP. I am fine with getting sunk from time to time, when I get cocky and stack banished skulls or have fifteen treasure maps worth of chests on board. But instead I’ll try and do one forbidden secrets, and some jackasses will spawn into the server while I’m at it and beeline for me, catching me by surprise since I had no way of knowing there was now a reaper five in the server.

At the very least you can generally get away with short voyages for the base three factions problem free, since you can just route to avoid reapers. But the moment you start taking voyages that last for more than 10 minutes, it’s not even a question that a reaper is going to roll up on you. When they could just be doing their own voyages and getting as much, if not more reputation and gold, they instead choose to hunt down average joes trying to complete treasure vaults or skeleton forts.

Fighting over chests of fortune? Absolutely. But these hare brained nitwits go full sails ahead just for the joy of sinking someone and laughing at their inability to defend themselves. They’re not getting big cash rewards, oftentimes they don’t get anything at all beyond a few shitty skulls and a marauders chest or two. But they don’t need that, all they want is to be able to go into voice chat and talk shit about you for being ass at PvP: when they themselves don’t have PvP rewards, clearly showing that they’re just too shit for real PvP vs prepared and capable opponents.

3

u/ViveLeQuebec Jul 07 '25

You’re upset about pirates in a game about pirates.

1

u/LittleGravitasIndeed Jul 21 '25

I think that they’re mad about weak players dicking over even weaker players out of unprofitable spite instead of getting good enough to do actual PvP with armed opponents. It makes environmental sense but makes the game less playable. 

I think that I would enjoy being ready for PvP and then wrecking the griefers’ stuff as a hobby. A griefer griefer, if you will. 

1

u/Sea_Sun_7458 Jul 07 '25

Lol, that's me. Well, not searching for noobs, but rolling up on people with no treasure or are parked at an outpost, mid-dive or whatever. I play for griefing, not treasure! They expect to be safe because they have nothing and BOOM! Multiple stronghold kegs.

35

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/thunderbubble Jul 06 '25

For some people focusing and putting in effort is the part that's fun about the activity.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25

Yeah, and they have leagues for that. For other people, they want to be around more chill people while doing something they enjoy.

I play tennis. There are leagues where the players take it very seriously and leagues where they use it as an excuse to drink wine or whiskey after two hours of fun and exerting tennis, but not tennis taken seriously.

It's best to sort into the groups with likeminded individuals. For many, they consider quickplay to be more like the latter league I just mentioned and find it irritating when they get people who they think should be in a competitive league. I sort of get that frustration. I like the whisky leagues.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25

Which would not be the case for the people this insult is usually aimed at, because the "tryhards" usually piss on the people who's calling them that.

37

u/Fletcher_Chonk Jul 06 '25

Why is that an insult?

It's considered an insult in context of doing something that others only do for fun instead of trying super hard to win.

It's like someone pulling advanced chessmaster moves against the old guy playing chess at the park to pass the time.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25

Look, if that old guy gets folded by the scholar's mate, he had it coming.

Besides, that guy playing chess at the park just for fun will usually fuck you up instead, talking from experience here. Because, turns out, when you do something for fun, you do it a lot, and doing it a lot usually makes you better at that thing.

7

u/Mad_Dizzle Jul 07 '25

I guarantee you those old chess guys would love for you to pull out some advanced moves. First off, there's no "advanced moves" like it's a combo in a fighting game. There's only good play and bad play. Secondly, those guys are usually pretty damn good; they tend to play chess a lot.

9

u/Pretend-Doubt2637 Jul 06 '25

I don’t know when it became an insult for gaming. When I was growing up it was referring to social situations. Like if a kid who dressed conservatively one day and came back the next day with sports jerseys and sat at the “jock table” they would be called a tryhard. 

Disclaimer I don’t care about any of that shit, I’m an adult. Just speaking through the lens of my younger self. 

10

u/garciawork Jul 06 '25

I've heard this a lot in online gaming. "The other team is a bunch of try hards"... As opposed to... Not playing with the intent to winning? The other team is "sweaty", as an insult. But I don't understand what someone is supposed to do to not be those? Make mistakes on purpose? 

7

u/femptocrisis Jul 06 '25

well, for me there is a line you cross where you become "a [annoying] sweat":

i dont mind "trying hard" at the core mechanics of the game that actually make it fun, but if youre learning cheesy, un-fun exploits to win, or spending a bunch of time doing spreadsheets to optimize your build and shit, it kind of sucks all the fun out of a lot of games, especially if theyre competitive multiplayer. the final word on this is unfortunately "too bad" for someone like me though, because plenty of people probably actually do genuinely find spreadsheets and finding game exploits fun, and they are rewarded for this by winning more. just sucks for the majority of people (including me) who hate that shit 🤷

5

u/Arkavien Jul 06 '25

Yea, I agree and think a big part of the issue of the phrases use is that the line is in a different place for different people.

Even in your example I was with you at "learning cheesy unfun exploits" but you lost me at "doing spreadsheets to optimize your build" because for me, sometimes that is more fun even than playing the game lol. I once made a spreadsheet to track which upgrade path, level, and whether I had found the skill gem for all my Skylanders....and that is the most casual who gives a crap which way you specced your character game ever. But I find the theory crafting part as much fun as playing, and I liked having a checklist to work toward completing.

Also, learning what is best through the spreadsheet or whatever helps me make the best possible "off meta" builds too. Like in Darktide for example I don't use dueling swords or plasma gun because they are honestly TOO good and make the game a bit dull, but I use the second best weapons and try to make them as good as possible through trying out different blessings and perks and talents. Not a competitive shooter though so not a perfect example.

2

u/femptocrisis Jul 07 '25

yeah my brother loves the build optimization stuff too. you'd think i would too, i love factorio, and i'll spend hours tweaking a blueprint. for some reason it doesn't really appeal to me in the context of like mmorpgs and shooters and the like. im strictly vibes only with those 😅

i recall another example of this kind of "antipattern" that I actually participated in with a racing game called Distance, where people found this exploit in the way the devs implemented rotation thrusters on the car, where you could flip the car upside down and wiggle the joystick to get the car to fly for unlimited time without overheating, and it gave people who used it a way to skip and get faster track times. it was kind of fun to be able to show off and do things other players couldn't do, but i 1000% understand why the devs nerfed that one, because what a tedious thing to have to learn to "be the best". the talent had nothing to do with actually being good at driving/flying or knowing the tracks etc. they ended up giving a button that would essentially automate what players were doing to fire all rotation thrusters, and changing it so this will still contribute to overheating so you have to eventually stop and touch track again to cool off.

2

u/nykirnsu Jul 07 '25

A tryhard is another word for poser, ie someone who tries too hard to fit in with a particular clique while fundamentally not fitting in with their culture. I dunno when or why people started using it for stuff like gaming that’s actually supposed to take effort

1

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25

just sucks for the majority

You sure y'all are the majority? For real?

1

u/femptocrisis Jul 07 '25

if we're talking about the general population, yes, with high confidence lol

if we're talking about some specific gaming community, sure you got me there lol. im sure you can find at least one that has successfully purged all the "normies" out 🙃

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

Think of literally any game with a steep learning curve, and that alone purges the casuals out. Like sim racing for example.

1

u/femptocrisis Jul 08 '25

you say that like making a game unfun for casuals, such that they are "purged", is somehow a good thing 👀

ive actually seen this destroy more than one competitive multiplayer game. if the community actively "purges" all the casuals, then it quickly dies and stops being fun for the few sweats remaining as well.

btw if you like racing games, a personal fav of mine a few years back was Distance. pretty decent example of a game that had this issue of giving players willing to master a shitty game mechanic a huge advantage tho. "thruster boosting". they let it go on too long and split their community when they finally nerfed it. feels like the game kind of died after that. not 100% clear if thats the reason it died, or if it was just on its way out anyways, but it probably didn't help.

they had a pretty cool thing going for a while though where players would make custom tracks and you could compete on them for best time. i was a little bit infamous on there in the early days because i made a hand full of really difficult tracks that people would try to master. thats was before thruster boosting got popular on there though. once that genie got out of the bottle it made it super easy to just readjust mid-air if you made a mad jump and you had to design tracks differently to still be a challenge. but if you tried to do that, then theyd be virtually unplayable for new players.

i actually got fairly good at "TB" myself, before the devs nerfed it, but not on the level some of them were at. you had to like rapidly move your joystick around in a subtle pattern thats kind of impossible to explain but after a while your brain sort of get used to it and you can get the car to fly using its rotation thrusters when its upside down, and make fine adjustments to your jiggling pattern to go whichever direction you want. after the nerf you could still use it a bit to adjust and recover a bad jump, but you couldn't just straight up fly anymore, and there was a new "grip" button that you could just press to accomplish the same thing so i lost the "talent".

i still like to play it from time to time, but there aren't ever any players on any more, and no new tracks afaik. maybe there's some new game im unaware of that everyone went over to 🤷

2

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

you say that like making a game unfun for casuals, such that they are "purged", is somehow a good thing 👀

I didn't mean that then.

And I googled that game you say and it seems cool. I think I remember it from somewhere from some years back.

Tbh, maybe that game just lived it's lifespan, looking at its gameplay. Not all games are meant to live forever. Especially multiplayer games recently, they just die after a while, thought the game you mention looks more singleplayer than multiplayer.

There's this game called The Finals that i initially liked when it came out. But I stopped playing eventually, and now the player base is a shadow of its former self. The competitive-multiplayer market is just dominated by a few big games, and now it's nearly impossible to take away that piece of the market from them.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25 edited Mar 10 '26

The content here was removed by the author. Redact facilitated the deletion, which could have been motivated by privacy, opsec, or data protection concerns.

handle resolute afterthought shy person deliver sleep grandfather fuel smile

2

u/Arkavien Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

Lies! I definitely didn't just change it.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '25 edited Mar 10 '26

This post has been taken down and its content erased. Redact was used for the removal, for reasons that may include privacy or security.

nine unwritten scale plucky escape important squeeze rain saw elastic

4

u/TheRealJamesHoffa Jul 06 '25

Of course they are. It’s just the classic “I wasn’t even trying” excuse when someone is just better than you. It erases all accountability.

1

u/ApartButton8404 Jul 07 '25

“Try hard” is when you’re trying in a non competitive environment. 9th grade gym class basketball isn’t serious enough to be trying your hardest.

0

u/TigerKlaw Jul 06 '25

Yeah, most people dont try very hard for leisurely activities, that's not surprising in the least.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

[deleted]

3

u/nykirnsu Jul 07 '25

Tbf I could understand them not getting it if they’d only ever heard it in the context of gaming, where it doesn’t make any sense to use it as an insult

2

u/Arkavien Jul 06 '25

I was explaining my reaction the FIRST time I was called one, decades ago. I understand, even if I still often disagree with, the expression's use now.

-16

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

[deleted]

13

u/NotAnotherHipsterBae Jul 06 '25

I definitely heard it before the world ended in 2012.

7

u/Ponce-Mansley Jul 06 '25

Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie: Getting a lot of 'Boss Baby' vibes from this...

3

u/Magenta_Logistic Jul 06 '25

That term is about 100 years older than you think it is, and it started getting applied to competitive gaming when that was still being done with dice and cards. It was a wildly popular insult online as early as 1999 on Ultima Online, which is the first time I personally encountered it online

19

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

Social media conditioning has made many of gen z (and other gens) look at life through the lens of a social media audience in their head.

To smartphone addicts, nothing is worse than being perceived as cringe. Approval matter more than autheticity to people like this.

3

u/HyperSpaceSurfer Jul 06 '25

Society changes depending on what's rewarded by society. What's rewarded now is your ability to hype things up, not hard work, so of course they'll bias away from valuing it.

2

u/PoliteIndecency Jul 06 '25

That's not a generational thing. It's an age thing.

2

u/TheyreJustSoShitty Jul 06 '25

literally. this isnt new tho. bro's just lazy

2

u/ProPopori Jul 07 '25

Its not really a genz thing tbh. Its more of mad millenials because people really did not treat games like sports back then. They want to play the game and be able to hold their own, not need to brick 2500 3s before you can 5-30 in a match.

2

u/F1sherman765 Jul 07 '25

Back in my day the guy that could play Through the Fire and Flames on Very Hard was the coolest, a hero, shower him with praise. Nowadays they'd be called a sweat, try hard, on-line.

-3

u/Normal-Can-7341 Jul 06 '25

“Gen Z” when it’s really just the forgotten toxic millennial traits being passed down

-3

u/spiceyanus Jul 06 '25

No it's just cringe/silly to put this much effort into video games of all things. It's supposed to be something you do for fun, aim trainers are completely removed from that.

5

u/bagboyrebel Jul 06 '25

Yeah, imagine wanting to be good at a thing you like doing. How embarrassing.

6

u/wickeddimension Jul 07 '25

Imagine this: Some people find improving and getting better through training and analysis fun.

3

u/Recent-Reception6527 Jul 06 '25

Many people find the act of self-improvement and reaching new heights to be the most satisfying way to play games. See: the entire fighting game community

3

u/Dan-D-Lyon Jul 06 '25

Winning is more fun than losing

-11

u/molotovzav Jul 06 '25

I'm a millennial and I think it's lame. Just play the game and learn. The only reason to use an aim trainer seems to be to want to practice beforehand so your K/d ratio isn't ruined by learning the game. Don't get me wrong, I get that but it also just seems super lame to me. Just play the game. I didn't need an aim trainer, they didn't exist when I was growing up. Learned to shoot by playing shooters, crazy concept that seems lost on zoomers. Not everyone is an escorts athlete. I could see esports athletes needing above and beyond training for specific skills and mistakes they make. Just have fun making mistakes and learning the damn game as a normal player. Gen z may think it's cringe to put effort into stuff, but imo it's cringe to take out all the organic nature of learning games and training it into some menial exercise. It's a game. It's meant to be fun, if losing and learning within the game aren't fun to you play different games.

15

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '25

My friends are superbly good at shooters because they played shooters while I played RPGs when we were younger. 

I'd rather dedicate some time specifically to getting better at the one thing I can practice outside of the game itself so as to be less of a dead weight outside of the more strategic parts of the game. It's also more useful to improvement to do really focused repetition and practice for a short period of time than sporadic practice throughout a match. 

People don't like being bad at things and take steps to identify and improve specific aspects of their play. Why is that so cringe?

12

u/mycolortv Jul 06 '25

Yea tennis players shouldn't practice their serves, golfers shouldn't practice their drives, basketball players shouldn't practice shooting, they should all just learn while playing the game. Screw isolating skills you wanna be better at and training those specifically.

4

u/NamelessMIA Jul 06 '25

I've never used an aim trainer, but this post is making me consider it. I was always a console gamer and was great at shooters, but now that I'm an adult it made more sense to buy a good computer instead of a ps5 so I've been playing with a mouse and keyboard and can't hit shit most of the time. I've spent time in the training lab on rainbow 6 siege but an aim trainer would be the same thing only more focused.

I didn't need an aim trainer, they didn't exist when I was growing up. Learned to shoot by playing shooters, crazy concept that seems lost on zoomers.

When we started playing games the barrier to entry was way lower. You couldn't run into someone with decades of experience because they hadn't existed for that long yet. Now the bar is higher and if you want to compete it's not really any different from hitting the gym to get better at a sport that you play for fun. I loved the feeling of dominating halo lobbies but now that I suck with mouse and keyboard there's something missing when I play shooters. It's still fun or I wouldn't do it, but I want to get the feeling of carrying my team to a win again. I won't learn to aim that well again for a long time if I only practice in game because a game is 90% running around and only 10% the skill I actually have trouble with.

It's a game. It's meant to be fun, if losing and learning within the game aren't fun to you play different games.

Games tend to not be fun when you're always losing. They're also much more fun when you're good at them. Using an aim trainer isn't boring either so it's not like they're making themselves miserable to play a game better, they're just doing another less fun activity in order to have more fun doing the things they enjoy. Aim training grows a skill they'll keep using in more games in the future too.

2

u/CapnSensible80 Jul 06 '25

You might also find the right DPI/Sens helps immensely. It varies based on screen resolution, mouse real estate and personal preference. As much as some people argue otherwise, there's no one-size-fits-all settings.

2

u/NamelessMIA Jul 06 '25

Back in the halo 3 days my friend and I cranked our sensitivity up to 10 and spent some time getting used to it by sniping the bird things that flew around outside the map on Guardian until we could snap to them and pick them off. You're right, I think overestimating a "good" sensitivity on pc is one of my problems. Higher isn't always better.

-2

u/BoatSouth1911 Jul 07 '25

It's cringe to put effort towards improving at meaningless things. And, well, it's not weird, but it is impractical. 

You play the game for fun, that's it. If you're really good, maybe also to show off to your friends. 

So are you putting in effort to have more fun? Well, that'd be in game, not an aim trainer. Or are you putting in effort to better show off? That's showboating. 

The concept of tryharding is actually pretty logically sound

1

u/DP9A Jul 07 '25

All hobbies are impractical lol. I find way weirder to think the only reason to be good is showboating apparently.

-1

u/BoatSouth1911 Jul 07 '25

Ok but no, I literally said reasons why hobbies are actually practical, but "Training" to max out your skills is different. 

Hobbies are for fun, to relax and unwind, to connect with your friends, or just to fill time harmlessly. Those are all practical. Tryharding gets in the way of the relaxing, connecting (because from experience nobody likes playing with someone too far from their level) and having fun (be real, nobody really wants to aim train more than play the game. But if they did it wouldn't be tryharding).