Are you a reactively adapting kind of player?

What I mean by the title, is that while playing a game that isn't turn based, and is played in a very involved fashion (fighting games, first person and third person shooters, anything that relies heavily on reflexes, essentially), do you overcome your opponent(s) by playing with them for a bit, then almost at the instinctive level, you learn the average patterns they use, and are able to counter them without thinking?

As a personal example, I'll be playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl against a friend, and I'll be using a familiar character. They choose a character that maybe I haven't faced them against often, or just haven't fought against a lot in general. Usually, I'll lose about 2-4 stock lives (I play survival stock instead of timed), then I'll suddenly rebound with a vengeance. Everything after that becomes an instinctive react, counter, and attack style of gameplay until they switch to another unfamiliar character; I don't even really think about it till the match is over.

Do any of you share a similar level of adeptness, or the exact same, perhaps?

[color=green]As a fighting gamer, I experience this with about 90% of the fighting games I play. It's funny this thread was made because it made me think of the time I first played the new Killer Instinct on my brother in laws Xbox One back in February. He kicked my ass for about the first hour then I caught on to his game and ended up beating him from there. To this day he's still amazed by how I managed to beat him after only playing it for a small amount of time.

But even before that I've been like that in other fighting games. My cousins would always be amazed by how somebody who only played the game for 20 minutes can straight up beat someone who's been playing for about 2-3 years. I guess I have a sharp mind? I don't know.

Very interesting thread. You get a rep from me.[/color]

Adapting to certain genres of games really helps in most aspects, be it a single player or a multiplayer game. It also gives me preparation for dealing with the game's hardest difficulty or challenges, so yeah, the reason I play more than a few games of different genres is to do just that for most games I've never played before and I need to be ready to act on instinct or muscle memory in a hairy situation.

I just play the way I always played. I don't think really anyone over the age of 13 doesn't adapt to the game they are playing....

[color=green]You would be surprised, my friend. I know quite a few people who're near their 20s who just flat out can't adapt. Their not retarded or anything. It's just impossible for them.[/color]

And then there's the players who are inept at both adapting, AND knowing that they are legitimately outclassed (hence the crying "kids" who think everyone else is cheating, hacking, glitching, etc, and they're the most "leet"). Even I know when I'm very much outclassed, but I usually grit my teeth and endure it regardless. Because I know that if I keep a cool head and make instinctive note of what tactics they're using that are beating me the most, I can adapt their own behaviours into my own, or modify existing ones.

Victory or loss, I'll still end up probably having gotten a bit better. And my opponent will probably have had to expend more effort to keep me at bay compared to before.

The only people I seen that do not adapt are players who are casual and really maybe play once a week at best. Even my dad has learned to a degree and watching him play CoD is still annoying. As I said most players learn as they play just not always the important things that will translate to learning how an enemy is moving. It is usually "hey if I turn here I get here" or "hey their character looks different than his". Maybe I am around to many people that play games regularly to say, but I haven't see anyone who has adapted to the game to some degree.

I seem to be able to for PvE, but I lose it in PvP because casul skrub (not really, I just don't like playing competitive against others).

Understandable really. Not all of us are cut out for PvP, :)

Everything I touch turns into gold =D

must be a bitch to masturbate, or even have sex in that case

On topic though

Hard to say honestly. I prefer shooters, and with my playstyle it's hard to reactively adapt. That or I've been gaming for so long, that i've already subconsciously have a reaction for scenarios.

I can generally adapt to most anything I play my main changes are from Action 3rd person RPG's (Dark Souls or Monster Hunter mostly) to Action Platformers (Mostly Cave Story in recent time).

Adaptation is something I find very simple really I just relearn the control scheme of what I am playing and I generally don't have issues of course I have some issues where I trip up but I find myself recovering pretty well. Of course I am not the best so there are times where I have to walk away due to no progress being made.

I'm generally very good at outwitting my opponents in TF2. Spies in particular. I'm pretty skilled at identifying Spies from a distance, especially as Sniper. Just move into where they're inevitably going to come out to attack you and lay an ambush involving piss and knife.
As for specific troublesome players, I can learn their patterns and punish them for being predictable. They often use the same paths, the better players on the obscure ones, to come round to attack from behind. So when I see one of those players leaving enemy spawn on say, koth_nucleus, I can again set an ambush and kill them before they can react.

I'm pretty much mediocre at all games I play. I usually win by luck.

I don't play regular fighting games but I do play Fight Night (boxing). It's pretty slow paced, and I find myself doing a lot of conscious thinking while playing it online. For instance if I notice my opponent is going for a lot of body shots at one time, I'll think "next time he tries that, I'll step back a bit and hit him with an uppercut". There's actually a lot of strategy to boxing given the various boxer styles and such, not that this game necessarily recreates that in a faithful fashion.

When it comes to FPS I don't think a lot, it's probably a lot of automated/instictive actions. I mostly play "realstic" shooters such as Red Orchestra, in which you have to be careful in every action you do to, but I still don't find myself thinking all that much.
Often times it's just down to luck. Like if you need to cross an open field while the enemy has machineguns set up 200m away (you can just barely make out their silhouette) you just hope that one of your teammates running beside you gets shot instead of you I guess. Mix in some grenades you need to dodge here and there, and there isn't much room for thinking.
Doesn't mean there isn't room for planning however, as most of these sort of games have officers such as squad and team leaders, who need to work together to strategise attacks and artillery etc.

Pretty much, and any thoughts are typically short-term improvised planning, which is a strong point of mine. Put me into ANY turn based game, and I'll either become bored, or suck badly at it. But drop me into a real-time game that rewards clever improvised behaviour, and I'll master it in less than a week.

I usually avoid playing turn based games online. Even if I do well most of the time, I still don't like the feeling of being outsmarted whenever I lose. Pretty immature, I know.

I wouldn't say disliking the feeling of losing in a turn-based game is "immature"; on the contrary, it's quite the understandable feeling. To me, it's more the "chess-like" turn-based games that really get to me (and I just don't enjoy a slow-paced game as much; I like to actually be DOING, because I HATE being still in any sense of the term). I prefer turn-based games like the Final Fantasy series (half-true; I've only played Final Fantasy 3/6, and I didn't even finish it, XD) or Paper Mario even; they play out fast enough that it doesn't usually feel too slow, but the pacing isn't usually too fast either.

I like Final Fantasy type combat systems as well, but I don't enjoy tactical RPGs.
In the same way I don't like chess, but I do like playing Backgammon. Backgammon is a lot faster, and there are dice so it's not purely based on thinking.