Does that make the game go faster, players have itching fingers or is there some other reason?
can have multiple reasons
-Nothing else to do, so why not -Itchy fingers (like you said) -keeps fingers awake -keeps runner concentrated -prevents "cooling down"
Occasionally, I imagine button mashing can be useful if you are trying to buffer.
once you have a rhythm figured out and there's a window where the game does whatever and you don't need to do inputs, you can keep mashing to not drop your rhythm, so you immediatly start mashing optimally when you need to again. Or you mash while reading chat/notes and not actually looking at the game, if you know your run well enough to know how much downtime you have for reading chat/notes
If I'm doing it it's because I want to be mashing at full speed already as soon as the cutscene / loading screen is over.
Personnaly, i mostly do it because i'm bored. Also making musics with the game's sounds is pretty fun.
I typically tap along with the game's music on my buttons on downtime
I always feel bad about wearing down my controller when I mash, even though I still do. But if Helix_Snake is still on his first set of joycons (anybody know?) I probably don't have anything to worry about