A good FPS player will make almost all combat decisions using their subconscious mind. This is because decisions that would take several seconds to make using their conscious mind can be made in small fractions of a second by their subconscious mind.
Training the subconscious mind to make these combat decisions is often referred to as muscle memory. You initially make the decision consciously, but every time you make the same decision in response to similar circumstances, you are developing a subroutine in your mind and teaching your subconscious that GÇ£in these circumstances you do thisGÇ¥. Once these subroutines are in place, they will continue to operate until you consciously or subconsciously reprogram it. A subconscious subroutine that helps you in DUST may have been developed when you were playing DOOM 20 years ago.
The best players may not be good teachers because they literally donGÇÖt know what they are doing. To be more precise, they are good because most of their decisions are made by their subconscious mind, allowing them to react 10 times, or maybe even 100 times, faster than someone who has to consciously think about what they should do. But because the decisions are subconscious, they donGÇÖt know they are making them, so in a very real sense, they donGÇÖt know what they are doing. They just do it.
Of course some really good players are also good teachers. There are two ways for a good player to know what they do to be good, in order to teach their methods to others. The first is for them to remember what they did to train themselves. Basically just remembering the subroutines from a time when they still had to think of them consciously, before muscle memory took over. The second is to observe themselves as if they were someone else watching them play, so their conscious mind can see what they do in specific situations, and to observe what works and what does not. A lot of people are not good at this. That is why a lot of competitive gamers will record themselves play, and then watch the recording to see what they did right and what they did wrong. Then they can consciously work on reprogramming their subconscious subroutines to make them better. This is a method often used by sports couches as well.
I believe that I am effective in writing guides partly because I am a slow learner, and partly because I am very self-aware. It takes me a lot more practice to commit decisions to muscle memory, creating those subconscious subroutines, than it would for most people. Being conscious of my decision process longer, and having to practice it more, makes it easier to remember later what I learned and how I learned it. Being self-aware allows me to analyse what I am doing, even after the decision process becomes subconscious. Granted, watching video of myself works even better, and I have done that in other games, but even without video I am fairly good at seeing what I am doing.
Of course the other thing that makes me a good guide writer is an ability to figure out how things work, but that is beyond the topic of this discussion. Here is a
link to my Guides if anyone is interested.
So, for a good player to be a good instructor/teacher/coach they need to either remember their own learning process, or be able to analyse exactly what they are doing and why. Because young people learn so quickly, it is quite common for them not to remember their learning process, and to assume that anything they know is inherently obvious and everyone should know it. This is why it is common for young players to show great disdain for less skilled players. Thankfully not all young players show so little insight. Conversely, older players who have been playing video games for a long time may be performing subroutines they learned 10 or 20 years ago, and no longer remember what they did to learn to do what they do. They too can be very intolerant of inexperienced players, although it is less common in older players as wisdom often comes with experience.
There comes a point when a player reaches the limits of their natural talents. Most players stop improving at this point. Some get frustrated when they hit this wall, and quit. Others are quite satisfied to continue to play at that level, particularly if they are more interested in the social aspects of the game than the competitive side. But some are very competitive and realize that to get better they must push beyond their natural talent. These people are the ones who work on being more self-aware, asking themselves GÇ£what am I doing wrong?GÇ¥ and GÇ£how could I do this better?GÇ¥. These are the people who might watch recordings of their play, in order to spot the mistakes they were not aware of.
At the absolute panicle of game play, among the best of the best, you will find two types of people. The first are people with the greatest natural talent. They make terrible coaches. The second are people who got to the top by analyzing and improving everything they do. These people tend to be the best coaches in the game.