Professional gamer Marcus Chen spends his days playing climbing ranked matches in League of Legends outside of competition to get better. But in one frame, he was completely knocked out of an attempt to make a League of Legends tournament qualifier match. Frantically clicking away with his mouse, the fabric of his standard gaming pad somehow managed to catch between the base of his high end gaming mouse and his gaming desk, causing his crosshair to uncontrollably and abruptly move in the wrong direction just as it was about to hit. This single frame changed the course of the match. A few days later, a longer dedicated mouse pad arrived in the mail.
Three weeks later, he qualified for regionals.
One of the common things that many gamers overlook and under appreciate is having a mouse pad that is too small until they switch to a bigger one. Having a larger mouse pad isn’t just an upgrade in texture and size, it can also change how you use your mouse and keyboard and bring about improvements you never thought possible.
The physics of precision movement
Many gamers are unaware of the problem they suffer from until it is too late, spending hard earned cash on products that promise the earth but deliver little more than a typical mousepad. The best mousepads smooth out your movements but don’t make you make stranger or less natural motions, and they don’t make you pick up your arm to move the mouse in small bursts before continuing on.
One of the benefits of the large playing surface is that you can be positioned in many different ways to allow for a variety of arm angles and motions. This means what used to be a short, jerky side motion to the 180 is now a large sweeping motion, easy for a low sensitivity player to perform. Rather than picking up and replacing the pad multiple times for short strobes, you can do the big sweeping motion and hit the 180 in one motion. It’s a very demoralizing thing to always be thinking about the pad.
While most mouse woes revolve around size, one must also consider the surface variation. Our eyes are trained to crave comfort in smooth surfaces, and a good mouse sensor can handle hard plastic surfaces with ease. However, even high-end gaming mice will dramatically lose accuracy when switching from a pad to a desk surface, varying greatly in texture, height, and friction. However, extended gaming mouse pad surfaces like those shown below can put an end to this problem.
Keyboard stability transforms everything
Most mousepads are judged on their effect on your precision and mouse travel. However, the appearance of a pad is nearly half of your overall experience.
I hate that I still have a vibration from my mechanical keyboard. Certain switches, like Cherry Reds and Browns, seem to vibrate quite a bit, and on most desktops, that vibration ends up moving the mouse around in a circle. Very frustrating for accuracy and precision. I use an extended mouse pad as my desktop base.
Having both the mouse tray and the keyboard platform positioned on the desk simultaneously seems to create a more unified solution for user input.
Competitive advantages that actually matter
Extended surfaces aren’t exactly new ground for PC PartPicker, but we got a better look at them when visiting a professional gaming setup.
You might think that the biggest challenge for casual recreational arcade players is dropping a level or running out of lives, but professional players have a host of their own unique challenges that arise from competing in a tournament setting. Between arcade machines of different sizes, unique surfaces, non-standard play positions, and overly dim lighting, every playing area is different. Using an extended footpad can solve some problems, but ultimately it will still need to be adjusted to suit the specific surface and playing feel. And with a multi day tournament, the odds are that you will encounter a number of different play spaces. SB aims to eliminate these variables so you only have to worry about playing great, not adapting to your playing space.
Another aspect that many regular gaming keyboard top cases neglect is what I refer to as “edge play”. In fast paced games such as first person shooters, gamers can make all sorts of wild movements with their mouse in order to respond as quickly as possible to a given situation. These quick movements can place a lot of stress on both the cable and the laser of a gaming mouse, particularly at the extremes of travel. Extended pads provide users with a little bit of extra travel time at the end of the pad, as well as ensure that you are interacting with plastic instead of the edge of a barepad and have your movements possibly chance off in an unintended direction.
There are small differences between successfully hitting a flick shot and missing a flick shot.
Long-term performance considerations
Extended pads have fundamentally changed the way most people think about allocating space on their floor for gaming. Instead of setting up separate areas with stacks of racing wheel setups, computer stations, gaming chairs and tangles of cables, we are now trying to fit everything into a dedicated playing area.
Extended surfaces improve heat management, and your hands hold gaming pieces and devices such as a mouse or controller for extended periods of time during a gaming marathon. Therefore a good extended gaming pad is essential not to generate more heat than a normal desk surface, retaining consistent tracking and transferring less heat to your hands. The surface remains cool to the touch and doesn’t become sticky over time.
Improving the visual clarity of your setups can also improve the mental clarity of them. It looks more professional. Here we have a black background and clearly defined grid lines to give clean lines and defined boundaries between all elements of your combat setup.
Making the transition
If you are used to playing on smaller surfaces, you may have to adjust to a slightly larger playing area. Your body knows the correct range of motion to use to play tennis after thousands of hours of practice. This will come naturally after a few sets, but you will experience a few less than quality shots in the first sets as your body readjusts to a larger playing area and increased arc of shot.
For the casual player, extra large pads make playing more comfortable and consistent. For the competitive player, they create measurable performance gains within a very short timeframe – within a few weeks. For the professional player, the extra large tennis ball cans are a required piece of equipment.
For the serious gamer the only question is not whether an extended surface is required for displaying their gaming rig, but rather what that surface should be. While having the latest and most powerful gaming hardware is crucial to delivering optimal gaming experiences, serious gamers also need to consider the critical interface between themselves and their hardware.
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